Pope ‘must hand over sex abuse files’ , LA archdiocese to pay out $10 mln to settle abuse cases, False allegations of rape and domestic violence are few and far between

- False allegations of rape and domestic violence are few and far between
- Pope ‘must hand over sex abuse files’
- LA archdiocese to pay out $10 mln to settle abuse cases

False allegations of rape and domestic violence are few and far between
Our new report shows that while false allegations must be taken seriously they are relatively rare and are often complex cases
Keir Starmer guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 March 2013

The Crown Prosecution Service has come a long way in dealing with cases involving violence against women and girls. In the last year (2011-12) we have seen the conviction rate rise to 73%, delivering the lowest attrition rates ever recorded. The CPS has now published a trailblazing report on so-called “false allegations” of rape or domestic violence….

This report outlines the key findings from the review of those cases and the steps that we plan to take. Importantly, what it shows is that charges brought for perverting the course of justice or wasting police time for such “false” allegations need to be considered in the context of the total number of prosecutions brought for those offences. In the period of the review, there were 5,651 prosecutions for rape and 111,891 for domestic violence. During the same period there were 35 prosecutions for making false allegations of rape, six for making false allegation of domestic violence and three for making false allegations of both rape and domestic violence.

Furthermore, the report shows that a significant number of these cases involved young, often vulnerable people. About half of the cases involved people aged 21 years old and under, and some involved people with mental health difficulties. In some cases, the person alleged to have made the false report had undoubtedly been the victim of some kind of offence, even if not the one that he or she had reported…. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/13/false-allegations-rape-domestic-violence-rare

Pope ‘must hand over sex abuse files’
From: AAP     March 14, 2013
POPE Francis must commit to handing over secret Vatican files about child sex abuse in Australia, an advocacy group for people abused by priests says.
Nicky Davis, of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), called on the new Pope on Thursday to show that the church is serious about tackling child sexual abuse.
She said the Catholic Church had never voluntarily handed over incriminating documents or cooperated with law enforcement or official inquiries into the issue.
“One of the first actions of the new Pope should be to open all the secret Vatican files relating to child sexual abuse in Australia and hand them to Australia’s royal commission.” http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/pope-must-hand-over-sex-abuse-files/story-e6frf7kf-1226596925070

LA archdiocese to pay out $10 mln to settle abuse cases
13/03/13  With all eyes on the Vatican’s new beginning – the past continues to dominate for the US archdiocese of Los Angeles and its former leader Cardinal Roger Mahony.
LA has agreed to pay out 10 million dollars (7.7 million euros) to settle four cases of sexual abuse by Father Michael Baker. Recently-released church files show Cardinal Roger Mahony knew that Baker, and others, had abused minors – but he allowed them to stay in the ministry. A Lawyer for the archdiocese, Michael Hennigan, denied a church cover-up, although he said Mahony admitted he made “serious mistakes” with Baker. Baker was convicted in 2007 and sent to prison on 12 criminal counts of felony oral copulation with a minor…. http://www.euronews.com/2013/03/13/la-archdiocese-to-pay-out-10-mln-to-settle-abuse-cases/

Satanic ritual murderers jailed for 17 years, Stuart Hall denies sexual abuse of three girls, In Roman Catholic Child Molestation Files, Judge Weighs How Many Priest Names Can Be Blacked Out

Satanic ritual murderers jailed for 17 years
The mother of a teen girl killed during a so-called satanic ritual hugged and kissed the mother of her daughter’s killer at the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
29 March 2012 PULENG MASHABANE

JOHANNESBURG – The mother of a teen girl killed during a so-called satanic ritual hugged and kissed the mother of her daughter’s killer at the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

Kirsty Theologo’s mother Sylvia and Myrtle Moody comforted each other after Lester Moody  and co-accused Jeremy King pleaded guilty to murdering Kirsty, 18.

They were sentenced to 17 years  imprisonment, with five years suspended.

“I’m glad they showed remorse, admitted and spoke out about it. But no sentence will bring her back,” Sylvia Theologo said….

In statements read to the court by their lawyer, Rod Montano, King and Moody admitted to planning to “sacrifice” Theologo three weeks ahead of the incident.

Two evening meetings were held, one at Wagner’s apartment and another at the minor’s home, to discuss the “sacrifice” which Wagner said he had seen in his dream….

http://www.citizen.co.za/citizen/content/en/citizen/local-news?oid=268878&sn=Detail&pid=146826&Satanic-ritual-murderers-jailed-for-17-years

Stuart Hall denies sexual abuse of three girls
Former It’s a Knockout presenter, 83, pleads not guilty to three charges of indecent assault in the 1970s and 80s

Helen Pidd and Tamsin Rutter
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 January 2013
The veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has appeared in court charged with indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl 30 years ago.

Hall, 83, who is best known for presenting It’s a Knockout, is accused of touching the girl in Cheshire in 1983. He is also accused of indecent assault involving a 16- or 17-year-old girl in the autumn of 1974 in Blackpool and a 13-year-old girl in 1984.

Standing in the dock at Preston magistrates court wearing a dark suit and striped tie, he said he was not guilty of all charges. He also confirmed his Cheshire address and his full name, James Stuart Hall….

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/07/stuart-hall-denies-sexual-abuse

In Roman Catholic Child Molestation Files, Judge Weighs How Many Priest Names Can Be Blacked Out
By GREG RISLING 01/07/13 LOS ANGELES — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles must release the names of church leaders and pedophile priests identified in thousands of pages of internal documents recounting sexual abuse allegations dating back decades, a judge ruled Monday.

The decision by Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias overturned much of a 2011 order by another judge that would have allowed the archdiocese to black out the names of church higher-ups. Victims, as well as The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, argued for the names to be public.

Elias said she weighed the privacy rights of priests and others – including those who are mentioned in the documents but were not accused of any wrongdoing – versus the public’s interest in learning details of the child abuse that prompted the archdiocese to agree to a record $660 million settlement with victims in 2007.

“Don’t they have the right to know what happened in their local church?” Elias said before ruling from the bench.

The documents include letters and memos between top church officials and their attorneys, medical and psychological records, complaints from parents and, in some cases, correspondence with the Vatican about abusive priests. There are approximately 30,000 pages and it wasn’t immediately clear how soon they would be released….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/roman-catholic-child-molestation-files_n_2425444.html

Teacher Charged with Taking Bondage Pics of Students

Teacher Charged with Taking Bondage Pics of Students
By COLLEEN CURRY Jan. 31, 2012

has graphic descriptions

A former third-grade teacher in Los Angeles has been arrested for allegedly molesting nearly two dozen children after photos of students posed in bondage positions were passed to the sheriff’s department.

Mark Berndt, 61, a teacher with more than 30 years experience at Miramonte Elementary School in south Los Angeles, is charged with molesting 23 children, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police began the investigation after a photo processing facility passed along suspicious images depicting students blindfolded with their mouths covered in tape….

In some photos, Berndt had his arm around the children or his hand over their mouths.

Police found the spoon, along with an empty container in the trash in Berndt’s classroom and, through DNA testing, determined that both contained Berndt’s semen….

The students were between the ages of 7 and 10 years old when the alleged crimes occurred, police said.

The photos were taken under the guise of a classroom game during school hours, according to the Los Angeles Times. Investigators believe the girls consumed the semen on the spoon as part of the game, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Authorities launched a widespread sex crime investigation, interviewing current and former students and school employees and searching Berndt’s home. They recovered a total of 390 photographs and an adult “sexual bondage” film that mirrored the photos of the children, according to a statement by the sheriff’s department today.

More than 26 children from the 390 photographs have been identified; an additional 10 children have not yet been identified, police said.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/teacher-arrested-bondage-photos-students/story?id=15480041#

Teacher Charged with Taking Bondage Pics of Students
ABC News By COLLEEN CURRY | ABC News

A former elementary school teacher in Los Angeles has been arrested for allegedly molesting nearly two dozen children after photos of students posed in bondage positions were passed to the Sheriff’s Department.

Mark Berndt, 61, a teacher with over 30 years experience at Miramonte Elementary School in south Los Angeles, is charged with molesting 23 children, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Police began the investigation after a photo processing facility passed along suspicious images depicting students blindfolded with their mouths covered in tape….In some photos, Berndt had his arm around the children or his hand over their mouths.

Police found the spoon, along with an empty container in the trash in Berndt’s classroom and, through DNA testing, determined that both contained Berndt’s semen.

The students were between the ages of 7 and 10 years old when the alleged crimes occurred, police said….

More than 26 children from the 390 photographs have been identified; an additional 10 children have not yet been identified, police said….

Berndt was arrested Monday and charged with 23 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child. He is being held at LA County jail in lieu of $2.3 million bail.
http://news.yahoo.com/teacher-charged-taking-bondage-pics-students-163621853–abc-news.html

Op-Ed Columnist – An Archbishop Burns While Rome Fiddles

Op-Ed Columnist An Archbishop Burns While Rome Fiddles By MAUREEN DOWD  June 4, 2011

THE archbishop of Dublin was beginning to sniffle.

He could not get through a story about “a really nasty man” — an Irish priest who sexually abused, physically tortured and emotionally threatened vulnerable boys — without pulling out his handkerchief and wiping his nose.

“He built a swimming pool in his own garden, to which only boys of a certain age, of a certain appearance were allowed into it,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told me recently. “There were eight other priests in that parish, and not one of them seemed to think there was something strange about it.”

Two years after learning the extent of the depraved and Dickensian treatment of children in the care of the Irish Catholic Church 
— a fifth circle of hell hidden for decades by church and police officials — the Irish are still angry and appalled.

The only church leader who escapes their disgust is the no-nonsense, multilingual Martin. He was sent home to Dublin in 2003 after 27 years in the Vatican bureaucracy and diplomatic corps and found the Irish church in crisis, reeling from a cover-up that spanned the tenures of four past Dublin archbishops….

The frustrated Martin has criticized the Vatican’s glacial pace on reform and chided the church: “Denial will not generate confidence.”

He has mourned the lack of faith among young people in Ireland, where fewer than one in five Catholics go to Mass in Dublin on Sunday. (A victims’ support group is called One in Four, asserting that’s how many Irish have been affected by the sexual abuse scandal.)

In return for doing the right thing, he has been ostracized by fellow bishops in Ireland and snubbed by the Holy See.

Showing again that it prefers denial to remorse, the Vatican undermined Martin’s call for accountability. In 2009, after the Irish government’s 700-page Murphy report on sexual abuse came out, Pope Benedict XVI refused to accept the resignations of two Irish bishops who presided over dioceses where abuse cases were mishandled.

The following year, when Martin expected to be named cardinal, the pope passed him over.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/opinion/05dowd.html

Ritual child abuse in France: German documentary

Ritual child abuse in France: German documentary pt. 1/5 – German documentary that delves into three cases of child abuse in France. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUzQ7aqFyiU

Ritual child abuse in France: German documentary pt. 2/5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_qTWBZ_aRc

Ritual child abuse in France: German documentary pt. 3/5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TquVPkCTn6U

Ritual child abuse in France: German documentary pt. 4/5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxBeYH7qdVE

Ritual child abuse in France: German documentary pt. 5/5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUDAZLwRuCs

ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States

ACLU Urges UN to Take Action on Solitary Confinement in the United States February 21, 2011 by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway

The American Civil Liberties Union last week filed a statement with the United Nations’ Human Rights Council, urging it to to “address the widespread violations of the human rights of prisoners in the United States associated with solitary confinement and call for the adoption of appropriate measures to protect their human rights.

The ACLU calls on the Council to urge the United States to take concrete and appropriate measures to end the egregious violations stemming from solitary confinement of prisoners.”

After providing background on the widespread use of solitary confinement in the United States today, the statement includes a concise and well-documented section titled “Harmful Effects of Solitary Confinement.”…:

There is a broad consensus among mental health experts that long-term solitary confinement is psychologically harmful. Indeed, the damaging effects of solitary confinement, even on persons with no prior history of mental illness, have long been well known.  http://solitarywatch.com/2011/02/21/aclu-urges-un-to-take-action-on-solitary-confinement-in-the-united-states/

Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe

Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe
A WikiLeaks cable shows that when Spain considered a criminal case against ex-Bush officials, the Obama White House and Republicans got really bipartisan. By David Corn Wed Dec. 1, 2010 2:47 PM PST

In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A “confidential” April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.

The previous month, a Spanish human rights group called the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners had requested that Spain’s National Court indict six former Bush officials for, as the cable describes it, “creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture.” The six were former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney; William Haynes, the Pentagon’s former general counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel; and John Yoo, a former official in the Office of Legal Counsel. The human rights group contended that Spain had a duty to open an investigation under the nation’s “universal jurisdiction” law, which permits its legal system to prosecute overseas human rights crimes involving Spanish citizens and residents. Five Guantanamo detainees, the group maintained, fit that criteria.

Soon after the request was made, the US embassy in Madrid began tracking the matter. On April 1, embassy officials spoke with chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, who indicated that he was not pleased to have been handed this case, but he believed that the complaint appeared to be well-documented and he’d have to pursue it. Around that time, the acting deputy chief of the US embassy talked to the chief of staff for Spain’s foreign minister and a senior official in the Spanish Ministry of Justice to convey, as the cable says, “that this was a very serious matter for the USG.” The two Spaniards “expressed their concern at the case but stressed the independence of the Spanish judiciary.”….

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-obama-quashed-torture-investigation

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says

Nazis Were Given ‘Safe Haven’ in U.S., Report Says
By ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: November 13, 2010
WASHINGTON — A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.
The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades.

It describes the government’s posthumous pursuit of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death at Auschwitz, part of whose scalp was kept in a Justice Department official’s drawer; the vigilante killing of a former Waffen SS soldier in New Jersey; and the government’s mistaken identification of the Treblinka concentration camp guard known as Ivan the Terrible….
The full report disclosed that the Justice Department found “a smoking gun” in 1997 establishing with “definitive proof” that Switzerland had bought gold from the Nazis that had been taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. But these references are deleted, as are disputes between the Justice and State Departments over Switzerland’s culpability in the months leading up to a major report on the issue.

Another section describes as “a hideous failure” a series of meetings in 2000 that United States officials held with Latvian officials to pressure them to pursue suspected Nazis. That passage is also deleted.
So too are references to macabre but little-known bits of history, including how a director of the O.S.I. kept a piece of scalp that was thought to belong to Dr. Mengele in his desk in hopes that it would help establish whether he was dead.
The chapter on Dr. Mengele, one of the most notorious Nazis to escape prosecution, details the O.S.I.’s elaborate efforts in the mid-1980s to determine whether he had fled to the United States and might still be alive.
It describes how investigators used letters and diaries apparently written by Dr. Mengele in the 1970s, along with German dental records and Munich phone books, to follow his trail.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html

Report details U.S. role in hunting, hiding Nazis

Eric Lichtblau, New York Times
November 14, 2010 A secret history of the U.S. government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad.
The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades….The Justice Department report, describing what it calls “the government’s collaboration with persecutors,” says that OSI investigators learned that some of the Nazis “were indeed knowingly granted entry” to the United States, even though government officials were aware of their pasts….

The Justice Department has resisted making the report public since 2006. Under the threat of a lawsuit, it turned over a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group, the National Security Archive, but even then many of the most legally and diplomatically sensitive portions were omitted. A complete version was obtained by the New York Times.
The Justice Department said the report, the product of six years of work, was never formally completed and did not represent its official findings. It cited “numerous factual errors and omissions,” but declined to say what they were.

More than 300 Nazi persecutors have been deported, stripped of citizenship or blocked from entering the United States since the creation of the OSI, which was merged with another unit this year.
The Justice Department itself sometimes concealed what U.S. officials knew about Nazis in this country, the report found.
In 1980, prosecutors filed a motion that “misstated the facts” in asserting that checks of CIA and FBI records revealed no information on the Nazi past of Tscherim Soobzokov, a former Waffen SS soldier. In fact, the report said, the Justice Department “knew that Soobzokov had advised the CIA of his SS connection after he arrived in the United States.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/14/MNVI1GBPAN.DTL

The New York Times – Secret Justice Department Report Details How the U.S. Helped Former Nazis  – An internal history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation provides gripping new evidence about some of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades. The Justice Department kept the 600-page report secret for the last four years, releasing a heavily redacted version last month to a private research group that sued to force its release. A complete version was obtained by The New York Times.
http://documents.nytimes.com/confidential-report-provides-new-evidence-of-notorious-nazi-cases?ref=us#p=1

6 Ore. men settle Boy Scout sex abuse cases

6 Ore. men settle Boy Scout sex abuse cases – Tim Fought, AP – Sep 1, 2010 PORTLAND, Ore. – Six men who were sexually abused three decades ago by a leader of their Boy Scouts troop have settled lawsuits against the national organization dedicated to building character among youngsters. The settlement followed a trial in which the Scouts were accused of failing to act for decades on a growing trove of documents alleging sexual abuse — known in the organization as “the perversion files.”

In April, an Oregon jury awarded the first of the six victims to go to trial nearly $20 million from the century-old, congressionally chartered organization….
The jury found the Texas-based Boy Scouts of America negligent for allowing a former assistant scoutmaster, Timur Dykes, to associate with Scouts after he admitted to a Scouts official in 1983 that he had molested 17 boys….

The Boy Scouts have settled sex abuse lawsuits out of court before, although the exact number is not known because not all are announced.
But an expert on the subject, Patrick Boyle, has said the Scouts were sued at least 60 times in 1984-92 for alleged sex abuse, with settlements and judgments totaling more than $16 million.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers said they represent more than a dozen victims in similar sex abuse cases, mainly in the West and Florida. Given the evidence from two decades worth of Scouts documents, the number of instances of sexual abuse that go unreported and the number of victims that sexual predators typically have, the pending cases represent a sliver of what are likely tens of thousands of cases of abuse, said Paul Mones, another attorney for the six men.  “During the trial we heard from men in their 60s and 70s who were molested in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s,” he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100901/ap_on_re_us/us_boy_scouts_sex_abuse

Pentagon workers tied to child porn – Security agencies were left at risk

Pentagon workers tied to child porn – Security agencies were left at risk, investigators say By Bryan Bender  Globe Staff / July 23, 2010
WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports.
The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/07/23/pentagon_workers_tied_to_child_porn/?page=1