Catholic Whistleblowers Join Forces on Abuse, Ex-swim coach accused of abuse

Church Whistle-Blowers Join Forces on Abuse
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN May 20, 2013

They call themselves Catholic Whistleblowers, a newly formed cadre of priests and nuns who say the Roman Catholic Church is still protecting sexual predators.

Although they know they could face repercussions, they have banded together to push the new pope to clean house and the American bishops to enforce the zero-tolerance policies they adopted more than a decade ago.

The group began organizing quietly nine months ago without the knowledge of their superiors or their peers, and plan to make their campaign public this week. Most in the steering group of 12 have blown the whistle on abusers in the past, and three are canon lawyers who once handled abuse cases on the church’s behalf. Four say they were sexually abused as children.

Their aim, they say, is to support both victims and fellow whistle-blowers, and identify shortcomings in church policies….

But the whistle-blowers’ group contends that vigilance is necessary because some bishops are violating the zero-tolerance policies, and abusive clergy (who now number 6,275, according to the bishops’ count of those accusations that they deem credible) still have access to children. They point to the revelations in the last month that a priest in Newark who was a convicted sex offender restricted by a court order from working with children had been ministering in a Catholic parish in Trenton, taking confessions from children and going on weekend youth retreats….

The whistle-blowers’ group plans to hold its first news conference this week in New York, and some members are bracing for the reaction. They said they know priests who spoke up and were removed from their parishes, hustled into retirement or declared “unstable” and sent to treatment centers for clergy with substance-abuse problems or sexual addictions…..
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/us/catholic-church-whistle-blowers-join-forces-on-abuse.html

Ex-swim coach accused of abuse appears in court
By Peter Schworm    Globe Staff    May 20, 2013

MEDFORD — When the young boy joined the Arlington Boys & Girls Club swim team in the late 1970s, his coach was Paul Collins, who also dated his family’s neighbor and would sometimes fill in as baby sitter.

On those occasions, when the boy went to sleep, Collins would sit at his bedside and “begin rubbing his back and chest,” according to allegations detailed in court documents released Monday. ­Collins would then massage the boy below the waist and tell him he should not talk about it to anyone else.

It was, he told the boy, “our ­little secret.”

The boy, now a middle-aged man, is one of four adults who in recent weeks have accused Collins of sexual assault, part of an expand­ing investigation into child abuse at the youth club. The men came forward after club officials announced in February that another former employee, William Sullivan, had allegedly sexually abused children at the club ­between the 1970s and 1990s. ­Sullivan is deceased.

On Monday, two days after being arrested in his Long Island home, Collins, 62, was arraigned in Cambridge District Court on charges of sexually assaulting the boys and ordered held on $250,000 bail. Collins pleaded not guilty to the accusations, but prosecutors said he had admitted to sexual contact with two accusers and told investigators he may also have had contact with the other two….
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/05/20/new-york-man-charged-with-sexually-abusing-children-arlington-boys-girls-club-late/dQnWc6GwgfQDC1WtXq5iMI/story.html

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Beat Wife, Threatened Neighbors, Police Records Say

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Beat Wife, Threatened Neighbors, Police Records Say
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN and MATTHEW JAFFE CLEVELAND May 13, 2013

Cleveland cops were summoned six times to handle accusations that accused kidnapper Ariel Castro had assaulted or menaced people, including three alleged beatings of his wife, but he was only convicted once and was never sentenced to any prison time.

One of the accusations against Castro was that he battered his wife while she was recovering from brain surgery, according to newly released police records.

It is unclear whether any of the reported incidents could have led police to the three women allegedly held as sex slaves for a decade in his house, but the number of times his name pops up in the Cleveland police database is far more than the two incidents police originally reported.

There was no immediate response today from police or prosecutors….

Castro’s ex-wife, Grimilda Figueroa, who died last year, first accused Castro of assault in 1989, 1993 and again in 2005, three years after he allegedly abducted his first victim Michelle Knight in 2002.

Castro was “a monster,” according to Figueroa’s family members who spoke to ABC News last week on the condition of anonymity. He was “nice when he was outside but behind closed doors he was an animal. Two faced. He had done terrible things to her [Figueroa] and treated her like trash.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/accused-kidnapper-ariel-castro-beat-wife-threatened-neighbors/story?id=19169152

Ariel Castro, Cleveland suspect, has a dark past that foreshadowed crimes he’s now accused of
By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Jerry Markon and Luz Lazo, Published: May 11

Cleveland — Shorty needed a ride home.

She got confused sometimes, the result of some undefined mental condition, and wasn’t always sure where she’d wandered. Her family knew this about Michelle “Shorty” Knight, all 4 feet 7 inches of her, and that’s why they worried.

She got in a car.

It begins there, with that simple act, a 21-year-old — in many ways still very much a girl — got in a car. Aug. 22, 2002. If she’d looked up in that last moment of freedom, she would have seen a church steeple.

Eight months later, another girl. Same road. Two-tenths of a mile away.

Mandy had just finished her shift at Burger King, was still in her Burger King hat and shirt. Tomorrow would be Amanda “Mandy” Berry’s 17th birthday; a party was planned.

She got in a car.

The hunter of girls had found a rich hunting ground, a stretch of road clotted with used-automobile lots, discount jewelers, fast-food joints — and schoolgirls.

A year later, April 2, 2004, the hunter was back. Gina, just 14, was walking home with friends from Wilbur Wright Middle School, a stately brick building set on a shaded street two blocks from Burger King. Georgina “Gina” DeJesus broke off on her own, steps away from the spot where Knight was taken.

A car pulled up. The driver was the father of one of her best friends.

She got in the car.

For the next nine years, authorities say, Knight, Berry and De­Jesus together endured an excruciating ordeal as captives in a seemingly normal house on a seemingly normal street in a busy residential neighborhood less than four miles away. Until their remarkable rescue last week, authorities say, they were physically, sexually and psychologically abused by their captor, Ariel Castro, a school bus driver who played salsa music in nightclubs and harbored a dark past that foreshadowed the crimes he’s now accused of committing.

At Castro’s home on Seymour Avenue, he chained the young women in his basement, according to a police report. Eventually, investigators say, he moved them to the second floor of his house, a two-story place with a small back yard, a saggy porch, peeling paint and faded white siding. Most of the time, they were trapped inside, and on the rare occasions they were allowed to venture into the yard, Castro forced them to wear wigs and sunglasses, the report says. He told them to keep their heads down.

Castro, now 52, raped all his captives, authorities say….

In the beginning, the romance between the 20-something Ariel Castro and Grimilda Figueroa went fine. But it quickly deteriorated.

In the early 1990s, the unmarried couple lived on the second floor of the home of Figueroa’s parents. Once, Castro shoved Figueroa down a steep flight of stairs, family members recall. Her father, aided by a pack of neighbors and relatives, beat Castro in retaliation. He didn’t fight back. “He didn’t fight no man,” Figueroa Jr. says.

Things only got worse when the couple moved to their own place; Castro’s beatings of his common-law wife became more frequent and more severe, Figueroa’s relatives say.

He exhibited strange, domineering traits. Grimilda Figueroa became a near-prisoner in her home, a sister, Elida Caraballo, says. Castro padlocked doors from the outside when he left. One day, Caraballo went into their house and saw Castro shoving Figueroa into a cardboard box and closing the lid….

More recently, neighbors say police have been contacted at least twice in the past two years because of suspicious activity. The first time, neighbor Elsie Cintron says she called police after spotting a child’s face in an attic window and hearing banging. Officers responded, Cintron says, but left when no one answered the knocks at Castro’s door. The next time, her son Israel Lugo says, a group of elderly women who were exercising in the area called police. According to Lugo, the women and his sister had all seen a naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck in Castro’s back yard. Cleveland police say they have no record of the calls….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cleveland-suspect-ariel-castros-american-dream-darkened-by-allegations-of-violence/2013/05/11/61302bd8-ba44-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’, Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’, NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges

- Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’
- Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’
- Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case
- Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice
- NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges

Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’
DNA test shows Castro is the father of one of the victim’s 6-year-old daughter
Tom Meyer, WKYC-TV May 10, 2013

CLEVELAND — During interrogation with police, Ariel Castro, the man charged with kidnapping and raping three women over roughly 10 years, referred to himself as “coldblooded,” addicted to sex and unable to control his impulses, WKYC Channel 3 News has learned.

With exacting detail, Castro recalled the abductions of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, explaining how he met each victim and even what he was wearing that day, according to sources….

The 52-year-old unemployed school bus driver was “cocky” during the interview, showing remorse only over his capture, Channel 3 News was told.

Castro, who was arrested on Monday after Berry escaped from Castro’s house with the help of neighbors and called police, was ordered held on $8 million bond Thursday by a Cleveland Municipal Court judge.

Meanwhile, in a suicide note discovered in his house by police, Castro blamed the girls for their abductions, writing that they were the ones who got into his car in the first place, the sources said. Castro did write that he wanted to give his money and possessions to the women if he was caught, the sources said.

The note appears to have been written in 2004, about the time police were investigating him on an apparently unrelated matter involving a child left on his school bus. In the note, he also mentioned his sex addiction, as well as having previously endured physical abuse as a child.

None of the abductions seemed planned, the sources said. Rather, they appeared to be crimes of opportunity….
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-cleveland-abduction-cold-blood-kidnap/2149831/

Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’
AP  By MEGHAN BARR 05/10/2013
CLEVELAND — The man accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his home terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors in the years before their relationship disintegrated, her relatives say.

Several relatives of Grimilda Figueroa, who left Ariel Castro years ago and died last year after a long illness, painted a nightmarish portrait of Castro’s family life as authorities made public horrifying details of the abuse endured by the imprisoned women.

In interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday, the relatives described Castro as a “monster” who abused his wife and locked his family inside their own home. Their views were at odds with those of some of Castro’s family and a neighbor, who knew the former school bus driver only as a happy and respectful man.

Figueroa’s relatives said Castro savagely beat her, pushing her down a flight of stairs, breaking her nose and dislocating her shoulder, among other injuries. Her sister, Elida Caraballo, said Castro once shoved Figueroa into a cardboard box and closed the flaps over her head.

“He told her, `You stay there until I tell you to get out,’” said Caraballo, who cried as she recounted her late sister’s torment. “That’s when I got scared and I ran downstairs to get my parents.”

Castro, to frighten his wife, kept a mannequin wearing a dark wig propped up against a wall and sometimes drove around the neighborhood with it, relatives said.

“He threatened me lots of times with it,” said Angel Caraballo, Castro’s nephew, who used to play with his cousins at the house where the kidnapped women were found. “He would say, `Act up again, you’ll be in that back room with the mannequin.’”….

Some relatives of Castro have said they were shocked by the allegations against him. An uncle, Julio Castro, said it’s been difficult news to absorb.

“Of course we have taken it hard,” he said. “We only knew one Ariel, my sweet nephew. He was a sweet, happy person, a musician. We didn’t have the slightest idea of the second person in him.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-monster_n_3251920.html

Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case
Fernando Colon was accused by Ariel Castro in 2004 of sexually assaulting the latter’s daughters, Emily and Arlene, who also were his stepdaughters. He was initially charged with 28 counts, including rape and kidnapping, but was found guilty of five lesser offenses.  By Mark Schone  NBC News investigative editor

Nearly a decade before being charged with kidnapping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women, Ariel Castro was himself the accuser in a sexual assault case involving his daughters. The accusations, which resulted in the conviction of his ex-wife’s second husband, now offer a new window into Castro’s tangled family relationships.

The case against Fernando Colon also raises questions about whether FBI agents squandered an opportunity to question Castro about the disappearance of two of the women in the months after their abductions.

Castro made the accusations against Colon, 39, in July 2004, shortly after 14-year-old Georgina “Gina” DeJesus vanished on her way home from the west Cleveland middle school she attended.

Colon, the husband of Ariel Castro’s ex-common-law wife, Grimilda “Nilda” Figueroa, says he told two FBI agents nine years ago to investigate Castro in connection with the disappearances of Amanda Berry and DeJesus, but that the agents seemed uninterested in his tip….
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/09/18150055-long-before-he-was-charged-ariel-castro-was-accuser-in-sexual-assault-case

Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice
Catholic Church and others oppose change that would let them sue
May 07, 2013 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) ….

But with the smiles expressed by six former Olympic-hopeful gymnasts were also tears.
“I was raped,” said Charmaine Carnes, a former gymnast who shared the same coach as the other women.

One by one, this reunited group shared a painful past.
“The rape that was happening was rampant. It was nonstop,” added Monica Lenches, another teammate.

The group of six met in Sacramento on Tuesday to lobby for a proposed change in the statute of limitations civil law involving past victims of child sexual abuse.

“This man was extremely, extremely good at controlling us and manipulating us into believing this is what we wanted,” said Anne Malver, another teammate.

Current California civil law limits the ability of child sex-abuse victims to seek damages — an action must be filed by the plaintiff’s 26th birthday, or within three years of the date that the plaintiff reasonably discovers the psychological trauma he/she is suffering (comes) from consequences of sexual abuse, read a news release from the sponsors of SB 131….

However, the California Catholic Conference, as well as a list of other private organizations, oppose the bill because it would virtually exempt all public employees and public schools from the proposed change in statute of limitations, said Kevin Eckery, a spokesperson for the Catholic Church….
http://www.kcra.com/news/sex-assault-survivors-former-gymnasts-reunite-for-justice/-/11797728/20052016/-/sjblpt/-/index.html

NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges AAP May 8, 2013
A former Catholic priest is accused of 124 child sex offences after scores of additional charges were laid against him.

The 59-year-old man faced Armidale Local Court, in the NSW New England region, on Wednesday, when prosecutors laid 64 fresh charges….

Police allege the offences relate to alleged assaults on a boy and two girls, aged from nine to 19, that took place in the early 1980s at Moree, Narrabri, Inverell and Armidale.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/17067429/nsw-priest-facing-124-child-sex-charges/

Ariel Castro, Cleveland Kidnappings – History of Abuse, Pentagon estimates 26,000 sexual assaults

- Hints of a dark side in Cleveland abduction suspect’s life
- In note, Ariel Castro claimed he was sexually abused as a child
- Cleveland kidnapping suspect had history of abuse, former lover said
- Cleveland kidnappings: Suspect Ariel Castro had ‘no flaw,’ neighbor says
- Pentagon estimates 26,000 sexual assaults

Hints of a dark side in Cleveland abduction suspect’s life
By Daniel Trotta CLEVELAND  Wed May 8, 2013

(Reuters) – In hindsight, there were signs of a darker side to Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man suspected of abducting three girls and holding them captive for around a decade.

Divorced years ago and never seen in the company of women, Castro suddenly started showing up in the largely Latino, working-class neighborhood with a 6-year-old girl. It was his girlfriend’s child, he told neighbors.

Castro, 52, was believed to have lived alone, yet on his lunch break would bring home enough bags of fast food and beverages for several people.

He was a school bus driver given mostly “excellent” marks on his performance appraisals, but was repeatedly disciplined, including for one incident when he was accused of calling a young student a “bitch” and leaving the child alone on a bus. These incidents eventually caught up with him, and he was fired last November….

“Ariel was in my garage probably five or six years ago. We were recording a song, an idea we had – a little hard rock with some Latin,” said Joe Popow, 45, a father of six who said he has known the Castro brothers since childhood.

“And – you’re going to laugh – he said he was in the CIA. And I don’t know if he was joking or not, but it’s the way he said it, how serious he said it. I didn’t know what he was capable of. That just put me on defense, and I just started stepping away,” Popow said….
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/08/us-usa-missing-ohio-suspect-idUSBRE94704Z20130508

In note, Ariel Castro claimed he was sexually abused as a child
CBS News  May 9, 2013

A Cleveland man allegedly confessed years ago in writing to taking the three women he’s accused of raping and holding captive and said that he was abused as a child and raped by an uncle, CBS News senior investigative producer Pat Milton reports.

According to a law enforcement source, Ariel Castro apparently contemplated committing suicide in the lengthy, handwritten note discovered in his house from which the women – Amanda Berry, 27, Gina DeJesus, 23, and Michelle Knight, 32 – escaped Monday.

According to the source, Castro wrote about his whole life, saying that he was abused by his parents as a child and that he was raped by an uncle.

Castro also provided details about taking each of his alleged victims, who went missing in their teens and early 20s. The note was discovered by FBI agents searching his house this week.

CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports Castro called himself a “sexual predator” and blamed the women for their own kidnappings, but he asks for whatever money he has to be donated to his victims after his death.

Investigators inferred from the 2004-dated note that Castro was going to commit suicide. He asked in the note that all of his money be provided to each of his victims….
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57583660/in-note-ariel-castro-claimed-he-was-sexually-abused-as-a-child/

Cleveland kidnapping suspect had history of abuse, former lover said
By Alana Semuels and Ari Bloomekatz
May 8, 2013

CLEVELAND — One of the men suspected of imprisoning and abusing three recently freed young women was earlier accused of a series of violent acts against the mother of four of his children and was ordered to complete domestic violence and substance abuse counseling.

Grimilda Figueroa, who in various court documents filed in 2005 said she had four children with Ariel Castro, told authorities that Castro broke her nose twice, knocked out her tooth and threatened to kill her and her daughters several times.

“Ariel Castro and I were never married. During our relationship, he was very abusive,” Figueroa said, according to an affidavit filed in Cuyahoga County in 2005.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ohio-women-cleveland-suspect-abuse-20130508,0,5534556.story

Cleveland kidnappings: Suspect Ariel Castro had ‘no flaw,’ neighbor says
By Michael Muskal and Alana Semuels
May 7, 2013
CLEVELAND – Ariel Castro, the former school bus driver who is a suspect in the kidnapping of three women who escaped years of incarceration, was a friendly man who befriended area children and gave no hint of what was happening behind the locked doors of his Seymour Avenue house, his neighbors say.

“If a kid didn’t have a father, they would look up to him. There was no flaw,” said Juan Perez, 27, who lives two doors down from the house from where the three abducted women escaped on Monday. “I guess he had a great mask to cover a monster.”

Castro was known for giving children rides in his four-wheeler. He attended neighborhood parties and would have a beer….

Hector Lugo, 31, who lives on the same street, said he still can’t believe the friendly guy who would give his nieces rides was allegedly the perpetrator behind kidnappings that have baffled this city for a decade.

“He used to drive my nieces on his four-wheeler. That’s what threw me off,” Lugo said. “They always thought of him as a cool person — a cool person to kick it with. He was an outgoing person, he never messed with anyone. He was always cool.”….
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-cleveland-kidnappings-ariel-castro-20130507,0,325028.story

Pentagon estimates 26,000 sexual assaults; Obama vows crackdown
By DAVID S. CLOUD Tribune Washington Bureau  Tuesday, May. 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon estimated that 26,000 members of the military were sexually assaulted in unreported incidents last year – 35 percent more than in 2010 – a severe trend that senior officials warned could threaten recruiting and retention of women in uniform….

police in Arlington, Va., arrested the chief of the Air Force sexual-assault prevention branch for allegedly groping a woman outside a bar near the Pentagon, the latest sexual scandal to hit the headlines. Officials said Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski was removed from his post after the arrest.

….An investigation that began in 2011 at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas has turned up 59 cases of sexual assault of military recruits by drill instructors….
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/05/07/5402972/pentagon-estimates-26000-sexual.html

Discovery of father’s Scout abuse file triggers memories, Rape Is Rape, Wrong Is Wrong

Discovery of father’s Scout abuse file triggers memories, what ifs for brother and sister
February 17, 2013 Associated Press

On opposite sides of the world, the brother and sister sat transfixed before their computers, reading a stranger’s account of long-ago secrets and deeply buried sins.

The memo was just four pages long, about an incident in 1963 at a Boy Scout camp in New Jersey. A Scout executive had gotten drunk during an overnight outing, then was discovered gambling with a group of boys. But there was more.

The brother and sister read on — about how this man “was observed molesting an Explorer Scout sitting at his side.” About how he was admitted, voluntarily, to a mental hospital. They read about an investigation that determined he had tried to molest another Scout. It found that this man’s “problem,” as the document called it, had apparently existed for decades.

They read, too, about a call from this local Boy Scouts council for “suppression of spread of incident beyond group with knowledge of it.” ”We know enough to advise that Brandon P. Gray should never again be registered in any capacity with the Boy Scouts of America,” the memo stated….

According to his file, Gray started drinking on Feb. 2, 1963, at the Scouts’ Mt. Allamuchy camp in Stanhope, N.J., during the annual Klondike Derby, an event in which Scouts pull sleds. That evening, he was discovered playing cards for cash in a cabin with several Explorer Scouts, in violation of camp policy.

Gray, the file said, “was observed molesting” one of those Scouts, whose age wasn’t mentioned. An adult in the room moved the boy away from Gray, but took no further action “in an effort to avoid a ‘scene,’” the record stated. Gray continued to drink, grew agitated and attempted to hit someone. Adult Scouts then subdued him and eventually he fell asleep.

By the next morning, Gray’s wife, Ruth, had been contacted and Gray admitted himself to a mental hospital. The Scouts then met with the Explorer, who confirmed “the violation.” Upon his release from the hospital, Gray was terminated. No records identified by The Associated Press show any charges or convictions for Gray in connection with the incident or any other charges for sex abuse….

After his dismissal on Feb. 7, 1963, Gray went home to his family. Carol was 12 years old. Jim was only 7.

Old memories can flicker and fade. But for Carol and Jim, some memories simply aren’t there, an abyss they say protects them from remembering some of the worst of their abuse.

Carol believes hers began when she was 5 years old. Years of psychiatric help and attempts to recover memories haven’t yielded much more. But a fact from her past lingers: “I believe that mine stopped when Dad started abusing my brother.”

Brandon Gray’s removal from Scouting was, his son said, the beginning of a decade of sexual abuse. It began soon after that February day in 1963 and continued until Jim graduated high school and joined the U.S. Marines Corps.

Unlike Carol, Jim has little trouble remembering. His father would stalk up the stairs and push his way into Jim’s room. Once, when Jim was about 11 years old, his mother walked in to find him and his father engaged in a sexual act. She turned and walked out. A day later, she moved Jim’s entire bedroom upstairs, the posters in the same place they had been in his old room, the bed in the same spot.

It was, he said, his mother’s attempt at physically shunting off the problem she could no longer deny….

“The worst thing about the sexual abuse, mental health problems, alcoholism and all that … are the losses,” said Jim, 58. “The loss of being able to maintain healthy relationships, intimacy, having children. These things that most people take for granted, I won’t have those.

“By the time I recovered, it was too late to do those things.”….

Jim contacted The Associated Press after the files were released in mid-October. He did so because he said he wants to show that victims of sex abuse can, with a lot of work, live full lives. He believes that he and his sister are proof of that.

He also wants to show the real consequences of the Scouts’ inaction….

He still struggles with the memories of his abuse.

“Am I healed? I wish that were possible,” he said. “Like a person who has lost an arm or a leg, I have learned to adapt. I do not think I will ever be healed. I can say that I am happy more than I am sad.”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/02/17/discovery-father-scout-abuse-file-triggers-memories-what-ifs-for-brother-and/

Rape Is Rape, Wrong Is Wrong, Where Is Decency?
02/19/2013  Stuart Muszynski

From the public outrage over the oxymoronic statements of this past election cycle about “legitimate rape” and “violent rape,” we learned, thankfully, that most Americans agree that rape of any kind is wrong. However, if you’re following the sordid story of the Steubenville High School “Big Red” football players who were charged with raping a 16-year-old girl from West Virginia, you see how the cruelty, immorality and true violent nature of rape is defended, diminished and deflected.

The allegations are that last August, two high school football players raped the girl, then dragged her unconscious from party to party while many people looked on and did nothing. Multiple cell phones recorded the events, and later onlookers posted the videos on the Internet. The video footage showed a naked girl, out cold, along with other football players laughingly boasting that “She’s dead” and “I’m going to join the rape crew.”

Clearly they knew what was happening, but they were caught up in the moment with their buddies. Some team members and their friends stood by and did nothing while others encouraged the rape or actively took part in it.

That’s bad enough, but what occurred next, after the girl’s parents reported the rape to the police, is just as shocking.

Big Red Football Coach Reno Saccoccia suspended the two players who allegedly raped the victim, but didn’t suspend any of the players who live-tweeted the attack while it was happening or joked about it afterward. The coach’s reason was that the boys said that that they didn’t think they had done anything wrong….

Consider the following statistics:….One third of high school girls will be involved in dating violence. Twenty percent of teens will be sexually assaulted.

While schools are trying to address bullying, they are not addressing decency, goodness, kindness or respect. Ultimately, not doing so has a cultural impact on both community and country.

Almost fifty years ago, in March, 1964, 38 people watched from their New York City apartments as Kitty Genovese was raped and then killed. Thirty years later, dozens of motorists on a Detroit bridge watched as a woman who, beaten during a road rage incident, jumped off the bridge to her death to avoid her assailant. Bystanders just sat in their cars.

When addressing rape, gun violence, bullying and other types of violent behavior, our country must depend on good people who recognize evil and do the right thing by standing up to help. To ensure decency, we have no choice but to rely on our schools because some parents just are not doing their jobs.

Anna Sewell, a British novelist who wrote Black Beauty, said, “If we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop and do nothing, we make ourselves share in the guilt.”….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-muszynski/steubenville-rape-case_b_2718805.html

Sexual violence is not a cultural phenomenon in India – it is endemic everywhere

Sexual violence is not a cultural phenomenon in India – it is endemic everywhere
Cases are not discussed nearly enough for how prevalent the crimes are
Owen Jones
Sunday 30 December 2012

….Rape and sexual violence against women are endemic everywhere. Shocked by what happened in India? Take a look at France, that prosperous bastion of European civilisation. In 1999, two then-teenagers – named only as Nina and Stephanie – were raped almost every day for six months. Young men would queue up to rape them, patiently waiting for their friends to finish in secluded basements. After a three-week trial this year, 10 of the 14 accused left the courtroom as free men; the other four were granted lenient sentences of one year at most.

Shocked? Again, let us Brits not get all high and mighty, either. Amnesty International conducted a poll in the United Kingdom a few years ago. Only four per cent of respondents thought that the number of women raped each year exceeded 10,000. But according to the Government’s Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls, 80,000 women are raped a year, and 400,000 women are sexually assaulted. It is a pandemic of violence against women that – given its scale – is not discussed nearly enough….

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/sexual-violence-is-not-a-cultural-phenomenon-in-india–it-is-endemic-everywhere-8433445.html

Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse by sexual predators

Report: Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse
Associated Press – Sun, Aug 5, 2012

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Internal documents from the Boy Scouts of America reveal more than 125 cases in which men suspected of molestation allegedly continued to abuse Scouts, despite a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators.

A Los Angeles Times review….of more than 1,200 files from 1970 to 1991 found suspected abusers regularly remained in the organization after officials were first presented with sexual misconduct allegations.

Predators moved from troop to troop because of clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts’ failure to check the blacklist, known as the “perversion files,” the newspaper said.

In at least 50 cases, the Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover they had re-entered the organization and were accused of molesting again.

In other cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the program until new allegations came to light, the Times reported.

One scoutmaster was expelled in 1970 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Indiana. After being convicted of the crime, he went on to join two troops in Illinois between 1971 and 1988. He later admitted to molesting more than 100 boys, was convicted of the sexual assault of a Scout in 1989 and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, according to his file and court records.

In 1991, a Scout leader convicted of abusing a boy in Minnesota returned to his old troop shortly after getting out of jail.

http://news.yahoo.com/report-boy-scout-files-reveal-repeat-child-abuse-181201518.html

Boy Scout files reveal repeat child abuse by sexual predators

Los Angeles Times review of Boy Scout documents shows that a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators too often failed in its mission.

By Jason Felch and Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times

August 5, 2012
For nearly a century, the Boy Scouts of America has relied on a confidential blacklist known as the “perversion files” as a crucial line of defense against sexual predators.

Scouting officials say they’ve used the files to prevent hundreds of men who had been expelled for alleged sexual abuse from returning to the ranks. They’ve fought hard in court to keep the records from public view, saying confidentiality was needed to protect victims, witnesses and anyone falsely accused….

A Los Angeles Times review of more than 1,200 files dating from 1970 to 1991 found more than 125 cases across the country in which men allegedly continued to molest Scouts after the organization was first presented with detailed allegations of abusive behavior.

Predators slipped back into the program by falsifying personal information or skirting the registration process. Others were able to jump from troop to troop around the country thanks to clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts’ failure to check the blacklist.

In some cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the organization until new allegations surfaced. In others, officials documented abuse but merely suspended the accused leader or allowed him to continue working with boys while on “probation.”

In at least 50 cases, the Boy Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover later that they had reentered the program and were accused of molesting again.

One scoutmaster was expelled in 1970 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Indiana. Even after being convicted of the crime, he went on to join two troops in Illinois between 1971 and 1988. He later admitted to molesting more than 100 boys, was convicted of the sexual assault of a Scout in 1989 and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, according to his file and court records.

In 1991, a Scout leader convicted of abusing a boy in Minnesota returned to his old troop — right after getting out of jail….

Richard Stenger, the head of a unit of the Sea Scouts — part of the Boy Scouts — was charged in 1971 with tying up and fondling three boys. Police found bondage equipment and books on pedophilia in his house.

He was convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and a judge sentenced him to four years’ probation, his file shows. The Scouts decided to suspend him during that period. But when the court-ordered probation ended, a local Scout executive and several parents successfully requested that the national office lift the suspension.

“I feel quite confident that no further problems will arise,” wrote the local Scout executive, whose name is blacked out in the heavily redacted file.

Fourteen years later, in 1989, a parent notified the Boy Scouts that the 320-pound Stenger had padlocked her 11-year-old Scout in a harness and watched him dangle for 15 minutes during a boating trip, according to Stenger’s file. Scouts notified police, who recovered from Stenger’s home dozens of restraints and hundreds of images of children in bondage, including one of a blindfolded 6-year-old tied to a bed.

Two dozen former and current Scouts came forward to say they had been abused by Stenger as long ago as 1958.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-boyscouts-20120805-m,0,5822319.story

Accuser unleashes fury at Catholic Church, priest admitted to sleepover

Pa. accuser unleashes fury at Catholic Church
By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press – 4/30/12

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 47-year-old man unleashed his fury Monday at the Roman Catholic Church, staring down a church official in a Philadelphia courtroom as he described being forced as a child to engage in sex acts with a priest.

The man glared Monday at Monsignor William Lynn at the defense table and complained that only one church representative, a priest friend, had ever apologized.

“It always felt wrong. A man should not touch a child,” said the man, the ninth of 10 children in his Levittown family.

Testifying in the sixth week of a clergy abuse trial focusing on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the man broke down when he recalled telling his mother in 1998 about being abused by defrocked priest David Sicoli in the late 1970s….

The 61-year-old Lynn is charged with endangering children by keeping accused priests in ministry after reviewing abuse complaints kept in secret archives when he served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. His lawyers argue that he took orders from the cardinal.

Lynn is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, who is charged with the attempted rape of a 14-year-old in 1996, when Brennan was on voluntary leave and the boy slept over at his West Chester apartment.http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iXSVeSETzVINRai6wU34yvHjy9Ww?docId=97b8c0852a9944e3a5c89dba3a673266

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Pa-accuser-unleashes-fury-at-Catholic-Church-3521684.php

Testimony: In 2008, priest admitted to sleepover, letting teen look at porn
By Sarah Hoye, CNN  Mon April 30, 2012

Philadelphia (CNN) — One of the two Philadelphia priests on trial in a landmark child sexual abuse and conspiracy case admitted in 2008 that he allowed a 14-year-old to view pornography and sleep in the same bed with him during an overnight visit in 1996, according to testimony given to church investigators.

Monsignor Kevin Quirk, the presiding priest over the 2008 canonical trial of Rev. James Brennan, read Brennan’s testimony into the court record on Monday. Brennan is accused of attempted rape in the 1996 incident and is currently standing trial in criminal court.

“Did I allow it happen? Yes. I take full responsibility for it,” Brennan testified in 2008, adding that the behavior was “borderline” inappropriate. Brennan denied touching the 14-year-old or exposing himself, according to the 2008 testimony that Quirk recounted for the court on Monday….

Also on trial is Monsignor William Lynn, the first high-ranking church figure charged with child endangerment. He’s accused of knowingly transferring priests from parish to parish despite allegations of sexual abuse of minors, including Brennan.

Both have pleaded not guilty….

Two grand jury reports accused the archdiocese of failing to investigate claims of sexual abuse of children by priests.

The 2011 report led to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office criminally charging four Philadelphia priests and a parochial school teacher with raping and assaulting boys in their care, while Lynn was accused of allowing the abusive priests to have access to children.

Days before the trial began March 26, defrocked priest Edward Avery of the Philadelphia Archdiocese pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of child after admitting that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy during the 1998-1999 school year.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/justice/pennsylvania-church-abuse-trial/index.html

Legacy of Native American Schools, Abuse as child linked to longer term homeless

Abuse as a child linked to longer term homeless

ADELE HORIN 19 Apr, 2012

TWO-THIRDS of people in a national study of homelessness suffered physical or sexual violence as children or had been neglected or emotionally abused. About one-third had been sexually assaulted. The study by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research was commissioned by the federal government….

The research is based on interviews with 1682 people flagged by Centrelink and another group that had not been flagged as homeless but identified by the researchers as having characteristics that also made them highly vulnerable. It found those exposed to violence or abuse as children were much more likely to experience longer periods of homelessness over their lifetime. This was also true for people who had been in foster or residential care as children. ”It’s clear the experience of trauma as children affects the length of time they are homeless,” a researcher, Rosanna Scutella, said. Contrary to expectations, the study found homelessness was not usually a short, one-off experience. Rather most of the people in the study had long, if broken, histories of homelessness, and found it difficult to make a permanent escape. They cycled between homelessness, marginal housing and stable housing. http://www.bellingencourier.com.au/news/national/national/general/abuse-as-a-child-linked-to-longer-term-homeless/2526979.aspx

Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools

U.S. and Canadian authorities took Native children from their homes and tried to school, and sometimes beat, the Indian out them. Now Native Americans are fighting the theft of language, of culture, and of childhood itself.  By Andrea Smith March 26, 2007

….Dolphus is one of more than 100,000 Native Americans forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant’s 1869 “Peace Policy,” continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations….

“Native America knows all too well the reality of the boarding schools,” writes Native American Bar Association President Richard Monette, who attended a North Dakota boarding school, “where recent generations learned the fine art of standing in line single-file for hours without moving a hair, as a lesson in discipline; where our best and brightest earned graduation certificates for homemaking and masonry; where the sharp rules of immaculate living were instilled through blistered hands and knees on the floor with scouring toothbrushes; where mouths were scrubbed with lye and chlorine solutions for uttering Native words.”….

The schools were part of Euro-America’s drive to solve the “Indian problem” and end Native control of their lands. While some colonizers advocated outright physical extermination, Captain Richard H. Pratt thought it wiser to “Kill the Indian and save the man.” In 1879 Pratt, an army veteran of the Indian wars, opened the first federally sanctioned boarding school: the Carlisle Industrial Training School, in Carlisle, Penn.

“Transfer the savage-born infant to the surroundings of civilization, and he will grow to possess a civilized language and habit,” said Pratt. He modeled Carlisle on a prison school he had developed for a group of 72 Indian prisoners of war at Florida’s Fort Marion prison. His philosophy was to “elevate” American Indians to white standards through a process of forced acculturation that stripped them of their language, culture, and customs.

Government officials found the Carlisle model an appealing alternative to the costly military campaigns against Indians in the West. Within three decades of Carlisle’s opening, nearly 500 schools extended all the way to California. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) controlled 25 off-reservation boarding schools while churches ran 460 boarding and day schools on reservations with government funds.

Both BIA and church schools ran on bare-bones budgets, and large numbers of students died from starvation and disease because of inadequate food and medical care. School officials routinely forced children to do arduous work to raise money for staff salaries and “leased out” students during the summers to farm or work as domestics for white families. In addition to bringing in income, the hard labor prepared children to take their place in white society — the only one open to them — on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder….

Rampant sexual abuse at reservation schools continued until the end of the 1980s, in part because of pre-1990 loopholes in state and federal law mandating the reporting of allegations of child sexual abuse. In 1987 the FBI found evidence that John Boone, a teacher at the BIA-run Hopi day school in Arizona, had sexually abused as many as 142 boys from 1979 until his arrest in 1987. The principal failed to investigate a single abuse allegation. Boone, one of several BIA schoolteachers caught molesting children on reservations in the late 1980s, was convicted of child abuse, and he received a life sentence. Acting BIA chief William Ragsdale admitted that the agency had not been sufficiently responsive to allegations of sexual abuse, and he apologized to the Hopi tribe and others whose children BIA employees had abused….

Dolphus, now director of the South Dakota Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, sees boarding school policies as the central route through which sexual abuse became entrenched in Native communities, as many victims became molesters themselves. Hopi tribe members testified at a 1989 Senate hearing that some of Boone’s victims had become sex abusers; others had become suicidal or alcoholic….

A 2001 report by the Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada documents the responsibility of the Roman Catholic Church, the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the federal government in the deaths of more than 50,000 Native children in the Canadian residential school system.

The report says church officials killed children by beating, poisoning, electric shock, starvation, prolonged exposure to sub-zero cold while naked, and medical experimentation, including the removal of organs and radiation exposure. In 1928 Alberta passed legislation allowing school officials to forcibly sterilize Native girls; British Columbia followed suit in 1933. There is no accurate toll of forced sterilizations because hospital staff destroyed records in 1995 after police launched an investigation. But according to the testimony of a nurse in Alberta, doctors sterilized entire groups of Native children when they reached puberty. The report also says that Canadian clergy, police, and business and government officials “rented out” children from residential schools to pedophile rings….

While some Canadian churches have launched reconciliation programs, U.S. churches have been largely silent. Natives of this country have also been less aggressive in pursuing lawsuits. Attorney Tonya Gonnella-Frichner (Onondaga) says that the combination of statutes of limitations, lack of documentation, and the conservative makeup of the current U.S. Supreme Court make lawsuits a difficult and risky strategy.

Nonetheless, six members of the Sioux Nation who say they were physically and sexually abused in government-run boarding schools filed a class-action lawsuit this April against the United States for $25 billion on behalf of hundreds of thousands of mistreated Native Americans. Sherwyn Zephier was a student at a school run from 1948 to 1975 by St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Marty, S.D.: “I was tortured in the middle of the night. They would whip us with boards and sometimes with straps,” he recalled in Los Angeles at an April press conference to launch the suit. http://www.amnestyusa.org/node/87342

Repressed Memories/Priest Liable for Abuse, Bill Protects Child Actors, Breivik

Articles
- Ex-Modesto priest found liable for abuse, removed from clergy   “hearings centered on…sexual abuse memories of which he said he had repressed over the decades”
- Stockton Diocese accused of cover-up in Michael Kelly case
- Two former teen idols back bill to protect child actors
- Breivik: How I met ‘Richard the Lionheart’ in London cafe to plot ‘how to seize power in Western Europe’

Ex-Modesto priest found liable for abuse, removed from clergy
By Jordan Guinn  The Record (Stockton) Apr. 06, 2012

The jury in a civil trial found that Father Michael Kelly should be held liable for three counts related to child molestation, according to the lawyer for his accuser.

Attorney John Manly said Friday a civil jury unanimously agreed that his client, a 37-year-old man identified in court papers as John TZ Doe, was molested by Kelly while he was a priest at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton. The plaintiff was a student at Annunciation School in the 1980s….

Now that Kelly’s verdict has been delivered, the same jury will start a second phase of the trial Wednesday to determine the diocese’s role in the alleged abuse and liability. Manly said removing Kelly from the diocese is a substantial victory….

Friday’s verdict is the culmination of four years of litigation and a seven-week trial, Manly said. The hearings centered on the plaintiff’s allegations of sexual abuse, memories of which he said he had repressed over the decades. The defense challenged the legitimacy of those memories.

The plaintiff’s attorneys also argued Kelly had victimized multiple children, but testimony from an alleged second victim was not allowed at the trial….

When the trial resumes Wednesday, the diocese’s previous handlings of child molestation cases will be the focus. That includes the case of defrocked and criminally convicted priest Oliver O’Grady.

O’Grady, a native of Ireland, recently was convicted of pornography charges in that country. Before that, the former Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Stockton served time for child molestation in San Joaquin County.

Before his 1993 arrest, O’Grady had been a priest at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Lodi, the Church of the Presentation in Stockton, St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in San Andreas and others.

Allegations against O’Grady have cost the Diocese of Stockton millions of dollars in settlements in more than 20 lawsuits brought by alleged victims. http://www.modbee.com/2012/04/06/v-print/2147587/ex-modesto-priest-found-liable.html

Stockton Diocese accused of cover-up in Michael Kelly case

Fri Apr 13, 2012

By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Now that Father Michael Kelly has been held liable for sexual assault and removed as pastor of a Lockeford parish, his civil trial will focus on the Stockton Diocese’s role in handling Kelly and other priests accused of childhood sexual abuse.

“The diocese made a concerted effort to cover up for Father Kelly,” attorney John Manly told the jury in his opening statement on Thursday morning. “They value money, power and their reputation more than they do children. Ladies and gentlemen, that has got to stop.”

The 10-woman, two-man jury found Kelly, 62, liable on Friday of sexually assaulting an altar boy in the mid-1980s. http://www.lodinews.com/news/article_2cc84273-73fd-5ac3-9452-f1d6fe4902da.html

Two former teen idols back bill to protect child actors
Todd Bridges and Corey Feldman, both of whom were molested by men with Hollywood connections, support legislation to require fingerprinting and background checks for those with unsupervised access to child performers.

By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times

April 18, 2012

Three decades ago, they were teen idols. Todd Bridges played Willis on the popular sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes.” Corey Feldman starred in “Gremlins,”"The Goonies” and “The Lost Boys.”

The two men held the same dark secret: Each had been molested in his adolescence by men with Hollywood connections, experiences that would lead to downward spirals and years of drug addiction.

Today, they are making a highly public case for California legislation they hope will protect child actors from sexual predators, a problem they say continues to bedevil the entertainment industry.

“We’re not doing enough to protect children, period,” Bridges said.

The bill that the two actors support would require talent managers, photographers and others whose jobs involve unsupervised access to child performers to provide fingerprints and submit to criminal background checks. It also would prohibit registered sex offenders from representing artists who are minors.

“If this bill can help save one child from the pain and consequences of being made a victim, then it is worth every effort,” said the bill’s author, Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose). http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-molest-survivors-20120418,0,7018231.story

Breivik: How I met ‘Richard the Lionheart’ in London cafe to plot ‘how to seize power in Western Europe’

Mass killer draws inspiration from Islamist terror network’s methods
Claims to have met three people in London to create Knights Templar in 2002
Said he met a Serbian ‘war hero’ in Liberia in 2002 by posing as a member of Unicef
Prosecutors said Breivik was not part of a sophisticated anti-Muslim group

By Daily Mail Reporter

18 April 2012

A meeting between Anders Breivik and an English anti-Islamic militant calling himself ‘Richard the Lionheart’ was outlined in court yesterday.

Nine years before his killing spree left 77 dead, the Norwegian said he was sitting in a London cafe with members of an extremist group called Knights Templar, to plot ‘how to seize power in Western Europe’.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131468/Anders-Behring-Breivik-trial-Norway-killer-says-I-dont-fear-death-execute-let-go.html