Soap opera comparison in Sandusky trial and coaches showering with kids just isn’t normal, Jurors Report Split Over Church Abuse Charges

Soap opera comparison in Sandusky trial adds insult to tragedy
Alleged abuse victims weren’t characters on daytime drama — and coaches showering with kids just isn’t normal
John Kass June 20, 2012

….If you don’t think something’s wrong with an adult naked in a shower with kids, then you’re not a parent. But this week, Amendola put witnesses on the stand to say that it’s not unusual for grown men to take showers with children at Penn State. The witnesses said it was normal.

So we asked some experienced coaches if it was normal here, in Illinois.

“That type of thing is not part of any culture or system I’ve been in in high school or college or as a coach,” said Brett Detering, 1st vice president of the Illinois High School Football Coaches Association. “There are separate facilities for coaches and students.”

Detering is the head coach at Anna-Jonesboro High School in southern Illinois. He played football in high school and in college, and he’s been coaching for 17 years. And he doesn’t take showers with his players. He’s never taken showers with his players.

“I would say that’s just common sense,” Coach Detering said of not showering with his players. “How anyone could be confused about that is beyond me.”

John Elder, executive director of the Illinois Coaches Association, spent 40 years as a football coach at Alexis High School in western Illinois, and retired from coaching eight years ago. He played at Alexis as a boy.

“But it was not normal, even then, for coaches to shower with the team,” Elder said. “It wouldn’t have been done back in the day, and it definitely wouldn’t be done today.” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0620-20120620,0,4414967.column

Jurors Report Split Over Church Abuse Charges
By JON HURDLE and ERIK ECKHOLM June 20, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — In its 12th day of deliberations, the jury in the landmark trial of a Roman Catholic Church official accused of covering up sexual abuses by other priests said Wednesday that it was deadlocked on four of the five charges in the trial.

“We, the jury, are at a hung jury status on all charges except for one,” jurors said in a note that was read aloud by Judge M. Teresa Sarmina of the Court of Common Pleas.

The judge instructed the jury to keep trying to reach unanimous agreement on all five charges. The church official, Msgr. William J. Lynn, is accused of two counts of endangering the welfare of children and one of conspiracy. A priest, the Rev. James J. Brennan, faces charges of endangerment and attempted rape. Deliberations will resume on Friday.

Monsignor Lynn, 61, served as secretary for clergy for the 1.5 million-member Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, in charge of recommending jobs for priests and investigating charges of sexual abuse. He is the first church official in the United States to be tried on accusations of enabling the depredations of priests, rather than committing abuses himself. Prosecutors said he had repeatedly played down credible accusations of abuse, lied to inquiring parents and parish officials about predatory priests and reassigned them to unwary parishes.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/us/monsignor-lynn-jury-says-it-is-deadlocked.html

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

72 charged in online child pornography ring, Violence Against Women and effects

“the bulletin board distributed the equivalent of 16,000 DVDs of child pornography, adding that the department had recovered more than 1 million images in the U.S. alone.”

“In the United States, more than 20 percent of women have experienced intimate-partner violence, stalking or both. A full 17 percent have reported rape or attempted rape, according to background information in the study.”

72 charged in online child pornography ring

Fifty-two have been arrested in the U.S. and abroad and 13 have pleaded guilty in the case, the result of a crackdown by the Justice and Homeland Security departments. Twenty remain at large.
By Andrew Seidman, Washington Bureau
August 3, 2011

Reporting from Washington—
The Justice Department has charged 72 suspected members of an online child pornography ring that encouraged its members to engage in sexual acts with children 12 and under and submit gruesome, violent material to build a massive private database of images and videos on the Internet.

The crackdown is the result of a joint effort by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security launched in December 2009 to target about 500 people in 13 countries on five continents for their suspected participation in “Dreamboard,” a members-only online bulletin board that was created to encourage the sharing of graphic images and videos.

“The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the preeminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation,” Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement, “but for the children they victimized, this was nothing short of a nightmare.”

According to court documents filed in Louisiana, where the ring originated, administrators for Dreamboard set up strict barriers to entry and created a sophisticated membership system that offered incentives for further contributions to the website. Individuals had to post child pornography in order to join the site. To maintain membership, individuals were required to continue to upload images of sexual abuse….

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the bulletin board distributed the equivalent of 16,000 DVDs of child pornography, adding that the department had recovered more than 1 million images in the U.S. alone.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-child-porn-20110804,0,5337258.story

Violence Against Women Can Take Lifelong Toll: Study
Research shows how rates of mental and physical illness rise, quality of life falls

By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News)

Women who’ve suffered from gender-based violence are more likely to develop anxiety disorders or other mental woes, experience physical and mental disabilities, and have worse quality of life than other women, new research shows.

Gender-based violence includes rape and other forms of sexual assault, intimate-partner violence (such as spouse abuse) and stalking.

Risks for these long-term problems rose with the intensity of abuse. For example, women who’d experienced three or four types of gender-based violence had 10 times the odds of developing an anxiety disorder than women who haven’t experienced such violence, the study found. The odds of a woman who’d been subjected to such violence developing a substance abuse problem were almost six times higher than for a woman who hasn’t experienced gender-based violence….

Results of the study are published in the Aug. 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association….

In the United States, more than 20 percent of women have experienced intimate-partner violence, stalking or both. A full 17 percent have reported rape or attempted rape, according to background information in the study.

The data for Rees’ study came from a national survey done in Australia on mental health and well-being. The survey included over 4,400 women between the ages of 16 and 85 years old.

In that group, 1,218 women (27 percent) reported experiencing at least one form of gender-based violence, while 139 had been exposed to three or more forms of gender-based violence.

The average age that women were first raped was 13 years old and 12 years old for sexual assault. The average age that women were beaten by a partner or stalked was 22 years old.

The more violence a woman was exposed to, the greater her risk of developing mental illnesses, according to the study.

http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=655484

 

‘Caylee’s Law’ Petition Goes Viral, Bishop who knew but did not tell

also: Jailed teacher’s abuse of primary pupils prompts serious case review
Probe ordered into how crimes went undiscovered after teacher Nigel Leat jailed indefinitely for years of sexual abuse

Jake Ormerod sentenced to 10 years in jail for sexually abusing girls -
Gang member used Facebook as part of a campaign to sexually abuse more than 100 schoolgirls in the Torbay area

‘Caylee’s Law’ Petition Goes Viral, Aims To Make Not Reporting A Missing Child A Crime The Huffington Post  Dean Praetorius  7/7/11

“Caylee’s Law” has already gained over 330,000 signatures on Change.org.
The petition, which was created by Michelle Crowder of Oklahoma, aims to make not notifying police of a missing child a crime. According to USA Today, it also calls for strict penalties when parents do not quickly report the death of a child.

The call for the law comes in the wake of Tuesday’s verdict in the Casey Anthony trial, in which the young mother did not report her child missing for some time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/caylees-law-petition-casey-anthony_n_892317.html

In the dock: bishop who knew but did not tell – French abuse case stirs controversy over secrecy in Catholic Church
Special report: religion in the UK
Jon Henley in Paris
The Guardian, Thursday 14 June 2001 01.27 BST
A Roman Catholic bishop will appear in the dock today for the first time in modern French history, accused of knowingly covering up the crimes of a paedophile priest who had been telling his Church superiors of his sexual relations with young boys for more than 25 years.

Monsignor Pierre Pican, the bishop of Bayeux in Normandy, faces up to three years in jail in a landmark case that pits one of the essential tenets of Catholicism, the secrecy of the confessional, against the moral requirements of a secular justice system.

Mgr Pican will be asked to explain why he failed to report to the police the activities of Father René Bissey, sentenced to 18 years in jail last year for repeatedly raping one boy and sexually abusing 10 others between 1989 and 1996. A long list of similar offences dating back to 1970 had exceeded the statute of limitations.

Despite issuing an official condemnation of paedophilia, the Catholic church remains bitterly divided over the case, with some senior figures continuing to defend the vital importance of secrecy to their profession and the “curative role” of the confessional in their faith.

Mgr Pican was formally notified of Bissey’s activities in 1996 by the vicar general of Normandy, Michel Marcel, who had received a letter from the mother of a young victim. He is alleged to have known of the priest’s behaviour for far longer.

During his trial last October, Bissey – described by a police psychiatrist as an “authentic paedophile” who “felt no guilt whatsoever towards his victims” – said he had repeatedly admitted his activities with young boys to his confessors within the Church.
He had carried on, he told the court, because he was always pardoned….

The case eventually came to court only after one of the principal victims, Yann, then 25, filed a complaint against Bissey in mid-1999. Mgr Pican, 66, now faces charges of “failing to disclose the sexual abuse and maltreatment of minors below the age of 15 by a figure in authority”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/jun/14/religion.uk

Jailed teacher’s abuse of primary pupils prompts serious case review
Probe ordered into how crimes went undiscovered after teacher Nigel Leat jailed indefinitely for years of sexual abuse
Steven Morris
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 June 2011
A review has been launched to establish if authorities could have acted sooner to prevent a primary school teacher sexually assaulting pupils as young as six, allegedly for more than a decade.

Nigel Leat was jailed indefinitely for abusing children he taught, often when other pupils were present, and secretly filming his attacks.
He groomed at least one girl a year at Hillside first school in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and showered her with gifts, afforded her privileges and organised one-on-one teaching sessions.
Leat, 51, would swear his victims to secrecy and even write letters to them in which he would describe what he wanted to do to them and ask them to reply.

After the sentencing, North Somerset council revealed that the headteacher of Hillside, Chris Hood, had been suspended and an independent serious case review was being held….
Married father of two Leat, from Bristol, admitted 36 offences involving five pupils aged between six and eight over five years. The offences included sexual assault, attempted rape, voyeurism and possessing extreme pornography.

But police say they could have charged him with as many as 500 offences and believe he had been abusing children for 12 years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/14/teacher-jailed-indefinitely-sexual-abuse

Jake Ormerod sentenced to 10 years in jail for sexually abusing girls -
Gang member used Facebook as part of a campaign to sexually abuse more than 100 schoolgirls in the Torbay area Steven Morris and Sandra Laville

guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 July 2011 A member of a gang believed to have sexually abused more than 100 schoolgirls in a seaside resort has been sentenced to 10 years in custody.

Jake Ormerod, 20, used Facebook as part of his “campaign to groom naive and immature girls” and then “mercilessly corrupted” them to satisfy his “insatiable need for sex”. He admitted 13 charges of sexual activity with eight girls.
He plied victims with drink and drugs in the Devon resort of Torquay, before having unprotected sex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/08/jake-ormerod-10-years-jail-torbay