Files Show Church Missteps, Evasions With Priests, Josh Powell’s in-laws want law to protect kids, Abuse victims ‘trafficked abroad’

Files Show Church Missteps, Evasions With Priests
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 2, 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of personnel files on sexually abusive priests that Archbishop Jose Gomez described as “brutal and painful reading.” While many of the names of the abusers and accusations against them were known, the files reveal previously undisclosed details of how the church transferred priests out of state, sent them to therapists who wouldn’t report crimes and suppressed information from reaching the public. Lawyers for the archdiocese and priests who objected to the records being released did not return phone calls or an email seeking comment. Among the revelations in the trove of documents:

The church records show the archdiocese maneuvered behind the scenes to avoid a possible lawsuit against a priest over abuse allegations in Los Angeles. In 2007, five former altar boys from Tucson, Ariz., were awarded $1.5 million each as part of the archdiocese’s $660 million clergy-abuse settlement. The five said they were abused by the Rev. Kevin Barmasse, who was sent to Arizona during the 1980s after he’d been accused of child molestation in Los Angeles. The records show Monsignor Thomas Curry told Mahony in a Nov. 10, 1989, confidential memo that “the young boy involved is now about eighteen, so Kevin should certainly not return for another two years by which time the period for filing law suits will have passed.” Later that month, Mahony advised Barmasse to stay away from Los Angeles. “Your presence in this area … would greatly increase the possibility of a suit against you,” Mahony wrote. Barmasse was never criminally prosecuted.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/02/02/us/ap-us-california-church-abuse-glance.html

Josh Powell’s in-laws want law to protect kids
February 2, 2013 OLYMPIA — The parents of a missing Utah mother pushed Friday for changes in Washington state laws on custody cases, saying proposed legislation might have prevented the killing of their two grandchildren.

Chuck and Judy Cox testified before a state Senate committee considering a bill that would restrict or block visitation rights for someone who is the subject of a murder investigation.

They told lawmakers the legislation could have changed the course of the case involving their missing daughter, Susan Powell, whose husband, Josh Powell, killed himself and their young kids during a parental visit last year….

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/yhr/saturday/794502-8/josh-powells-in-laws-want-law-to-protect-kids

Abuse victims ‘trafficked abroad’
Seventies paedophile ring in Barnes extended to Amsterdam, say two men who claim they were abused in brothels
James Hanning , Paul Cahalan Sunday 03 February 2013

Two alleged victims of a sophisticated paedophile ring at the centre of a police investigation claim they were taken on trips to Amsterdam where they were sexually abused in brothels in the 1980s.

One male victim had been taken from the Grafton Close care home in Richmond, south-west London, it is claimed, and, as well as being trafficked in Amsterdam, was rented out to customers at the Elm Guest House, a bed and breakfast nearby. Another man has claimed he was taken to Amsterdam on a different trip.

Police are understood to be looking into the men’s claims as part of Operation Fernbridge, an investigation into historic child abuse set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. Detectives are building a picture of the reach of the network – which allegedly used the property – and have seized a number of files from local authorities.

The Elm Guest House in Rocks Lane, Barnes, said to have been frequented in the Seventies and Eighties by prominent peoples including former Tory politicians, is at the centre of the investigation….

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/abuse-victims-trafficked-abroad-8478607.html

The International Common Law Court of Justice

The International Common Law Court of Justice
Convened 15 September, 2012

Under the authority of that Tribunal as well as Common Law and the Natural Land Law Jurisdiction of Sovereign Nations, I declare that as of this day, Saturday, September 15, 2012, a Public International Court of Justice is hereby convened to consider evidence related to charges of crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy by institutions of church and state, and their fiduciary officers.

The crimes that will be documented and judged in our Court are abominable and almost unimaginable. They span centuries, and range from outright murder to systematic torture, rape, slave labor, germ warfare, medical experimentation, drug testing, involuntary sterilizations, child trafficking, genocide and wars of extermination against peaceful nations. These crimes are all the more heinous by the fact that they were often aimed at children and occurred not randomly by isolated individuals, but historically, systematically, deliberately, and officially, by express command of heads of church and state according to their laws and customs – and by the fact that many of these crimes carry on today against the innocent at the hands of the same authorizing institutions and heads of state.

The enormity of these crimes requires a new approach. For this Court is a unique experiment, in that under existing international law, institutions cannot be brought to trial or account for genocidal or criminal actions, despite the fact that these crimes arise from and are caused by such institutions. There has consequently been no legal recourse for millions of people whose cultures and lives have been destroyed by the deliberate plans and actions of institutions of church and state, such as in the case of the conquest of entire continents of non-Christian people by European kingdoms operating under the sanction of so-called papal laws.
http://itccs.org/2012/09/14/the-international-common-law-court-of-justice/

Kevin Annett 15 September 2012 Announcement
Recorded at Freedom Central HQ in Holland, this is an announcement to be released on September 15, 2012, to all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl0GCZQ2ThE

Hidden No Longer: Genocide in Canada, Past and Present – by Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
http://hiddennolonger.com/

http://www.scribd.com/doc/86619003/Hidden-No-Longer-Genocide-in-Canada-Past-and-Present-by-Kevin-D-Annett-M-A-M-Div

Historic Lawsuit to be Filed in Federal Court Against Church and Crown

Historic Lawsuit to be Filed in Federal Court Against Church and Crown June 29, 2012 Toronto, Canada:

A joint media release by The Association of Citizen Prosecutors (ACP) and The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) is to be released on “Canada Day”, July 1, 2012.

It announces the first class action lawsuit in Canadian history to name as co-defendants the Vatican, the Crown of England, Canada and its churches, and big pharmaceutical companies, all of which are accused of crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy.

The lawsuit is brought by Jason Bowman of the ACP and Rev. Kevin Annett of the ITCCS, on behalf of a group of many others.

The lawsuit will be explained in detail at a press conference held on the date of filing at the Federal Court Building, on Wednesday, July 4 at 1 pm EST at 180 Queen Street West in Toronto….

Toronto, CANADA

ACP / ITCCS Joint Press Release Statement: Citizen victims’ group to commence proceedings at the Federal Court of Canada against the Vatican, the United Church of Canada, the Queen, the Harper Government & Big Pharma for their alleged involvement in wide-spread conspiracies pertaining to crimes against humanity, genocide & institutional corruption. The first ex-parte motion in the matter of Kevin Annett et al. v. The State of the Vatican Pope Benedict XVI et al., is set to be argued at the Federal Court in Toronto on Monday July 9th. A press conference has been scheduled for July 4th at the Federal Court Building on Queen St. in Toronto at 1:00 p.m.)
http://itccs.org/2012/06/29/1043/

http://federalclassactions.wordpress.com/

Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust
The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples
http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Allegedly Paid Suspected Pedophile Priests To Leave Ministry While Head Of Archdiocese Of Milwaukee

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Allegedly Paid Suspected Pedophile Priests To Leave Ministry While Head Of Archdiocese Of Milwaukee AP   05/31/2012

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee confirmed Wednesday that it had a policy to pay suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry.

The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims’ advocates from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/cardinal-timothy-dolan-archdiocese-milwaukee-payoff-abusive-priests_n_1559298.html

Suspected pedophile priests given ‘bonuses’ to leave church http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=47635422&#47640029

Church’s Lawyers Have SNAP in Their Sights, global online pedophile network

Church’s Lawyers Have SNAP in Their Sights – Victims’ advocacy group’s national director speaks to RD about a flurry of subpoenas, and fears of ongoing harassment
By Kathryn Joyce     March 16, 2012

In October, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the oldest, largest, and most visible peer counseling group for victims of clergy sex abuse in any denomination, received a subpoena from a Kansas City, Missouri, priest being prosecuted for sexually abusing an older male victim SNAP has never met. The subpoena demanded a sweeping range of documents and correspondence concerning thousands of the estimated 100,000-plus people SNAP has counseled over two decades.

In December, the group received a second subpoena from the other side of the state, from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, facing its own charges concerning the alleged abuse of a 19-year-old woman. SNAP has fought the requests, citing Missouri laws protecting the privacy of rape survivors, and describing the records-request as a coordinated Church effort to bully sex abuse victims into silence and harass a longtime opponent into bankruptcy.

While the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has denied that there is a national strategy for the Church to fight sex abuse cases more aggressively, even the Church’s staunchest defenders see the pattern. As William Donohue, the pugilistic president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, told the New York Times this week, bishops are going after SNAP because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”….

Why do you think they are doing this?

What they’re trying to do is to discredit, derail, bankrupt, and silence SNAP. And to scare anyone—police, prosecutors, victims, concerned Catholics—from contacting us and reporting crimes and exposing corruption.

What they have said in court filings is we’re trying to get to the truth of this case. But if you think about it, the easiest way to get to the truth of John Doe BP v. Fr. Michael Tierney and the Kansas City Diocese and Jane Doe v. Fr. Joseph D. Ross and the St. Louis Archdiocese is to depose the parties, the people involved, John Doe and Jane Doe. And they haven’t even tried. In both cases, they haven’t even sought the records. In essence they’re using these two court cases as a ruse and a weapon.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/5803/church%E2%80%99s_lawyers_have_snap_in_their_sightschurch%E2%80%99s_lawyers_have_snap_in_their_sights.hm

Italy police break up global online pedophile network
By Catherine Hornby, Reuters March 8, 2012
ROME – Italian police have broken up a pedophile network spanning at least 28 countries that used social media websites to swap pornographic images and videos of child abuse.

Ten people have been arrested in Italy, the United States, France and Portugal, and another 112 are being investigated on suspicion of child pornography, Italy’s computer crime police bureau NIT said in a statement….

The data revealed an Italian-founded criminal group with more than 700 followers around the world, exchanging thousands of images and videos, NIT said. http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Italy+police+break+global+online+pedophile+network/6270037/story.html

Pastor Guilty Of Raping Teen, victim forced to confess her sin, the pregnancy

Ernest Willis, New Hampshire Man, Found Guilty Of Raping 15-Year-Old Tina Anderson; Pastor Sent Teen Off To Colorado (UPDATE) 9/6/11

Ernest Willis, a 52-year-old New Hampshire man, was found guilty of raping and impregnating a 15-year-old girl from his church who was shipped to Colorado by church leaders to give birth to his baby. Willis faces up to 54 years in prison for the sexual assault, The Denver Post reports. Willis will be sentenced Tuesday in Merrimack Superior Court.

UPDATE:

The Associated Press reports that Ernest Willis was sentenced Tuesday to 15 to 30 years in prison for raping Tina Anderson twice in 1997. Judge Larry Smukler said that Willis “robbed the girl of her childhood.” But Willis was stoic and although he said he was “sorry and ashamed for this thoughtless act of sexual misconduct,” he never admitted to forcible rape or to a second rape. Willis’ lawyers said they are planning to appeal those convictions.

EARLIER:

Tina Anderson, who was 15 at the time of the rape, knew Willis from babysitting his children and from attending the same fundamentalist Baptist church in Concord, N.H.. The church pastor made young Anderson apologize to the congregation when she discovered that she was pregnant, but she was not allowed to tell the church goers that the pregnancy occurred because she was raped. With the consent of Anderson’s mother, the pastor then shipped the teenager to the home of a Colorado couple that she didn’t know and arranged for her baby to be adopted, according to ABC News.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/06/ernest-willis-new-hampshi_n_950332.html

New Hampshire Man Found Guilty of Rape of Tina Anderson
By SEAN DOOLEY and ALICE GOMSTYN
May 27, 2011

Ernest Willis, a New Hampshire man accused of raping and fathering a child with a 15-year-old girl from his church in 1997, was found guilty today of three counts of forcible rape and a count of felonious sexual assault.

Willis’ case drew national headlines because his victim, Tina Anderson, who gave an exclusive interview to “20/20″ last month, said she was forced to confess her “sin” — the pregnancy — in front of their congregation at Trinity Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB) in Concord, N.H. The church’s then-pastor, Chuck Phelps, helped arrange for Anderson to move thousands of miles away from home to live with an IFB family and give her child up for adoption….

In an April interview with “20/20,” Anderson said that after being sexually assaulted twice by Willis, she was forced to stand before her Baptist congregation and confess her “sin” — that she had become pregnant. She said she wasn’t allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy happened because she was raped by Willis, a man twice her age.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/new-hampshire-man-ernest-willis-found-guilty-rape-tina-anderson/story?id=13702833

Lawsuit claims Vatican withheld papers in abuse case

Lawsuit claims Vatican withheld papers in abuse case
Attorney asserts Church acted as priest’s employer
August 23, 2011 By Steve Karnowski, Associated Press
ST. PAUL

An attorney for a man who claims he was sexually abused by an Oregon priest in the 1960s said yesterday that the Vatican failed to produce all court-ordered documents in the case, and that papers it did turn over show how the Vatican exercises firm control over the placement and removal of offending priests.

Both claims were quickly disputed by a church lawyer who said the Vatican gave Minnesota-based attorney Jeffrey Anderson all its documents pertaining to the late Rev. Andrew Ronan. Anderson has sued on behalf of a man who alleges Ronan abused him during the time the priest was assigned to Portland, Ore.

The Vatican gave Anderson more than 1,800 pages of documents last Friday, marking the first time the Vatican provided documents in response to a sex abuse lawsuit. But Anderson contends that relevant documents written by Vatican officials were left out because local dioceses have produced their own copies of such paperwork in this and other cases.

Anderson, who has filed numerous lawsuits nationwide on behalf of alleged victims of priest abuse, is trying to hold the Vatican responsible under US and Oregon law for the abuse alleged by a Washington state man identified only as John V. Doe. He argues that the Vatican was effectively Ronan’s employer when the alleged abuse occurred in the mid-1960s. Ronan died in 1992.

An employment relationship could trigger an exception to a federal law that usually bars lawsuits against foreign sovereign entities such as the Vatican.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-23/news/29919301_1_jeffrey-lena-vatican-abuse-lawsuit

Caylee’s Law: Closing the Loopholes, Archbishop Martin – church failures

Caylee’s Law: Closing the Loopholes in Florida Law

Senator Mike Fasano (R), New Port Richey, has draft legislation for the 2012 legislative session after the Casey Anthony verdict came down.
By Analyn Megison  7/21/11

….“Over and over, from the beginning of this, Sen. Fasano kept asking about the 31 days: why is it that this child was missing for 31 days and no one reported it?” said Greg Giordano, Fasano’s chief legislative aide.

“As we know now, there is no law in Florida that requires that missing children be reported to law enforcement within a certain time-frame.  If there had been such a law on the books this case may have turned out quite differently.”

Fasano hopes to close this loophole in Florida law, and I think it would get law enforcement involved in a timely fashion when there is a missing child. Also, it is another tool that could be used in a prosecutor’s arsenal whenever someone is eventually charged by the state for this type of crime….

“Senator Fasano is proposing legislation that will require a caretaker (someone in a custodial role, i.e. parent, grandparent, babysitter, guardian, etc) who willfully or by culpable negligence fails to make contact or verify the whereabouts of a child 12 years of age or younger for a period of 48 hours will be guilty of a third degree felony if he/she fails to report the child’s absence to law enforcement at the end of said 48 hours.

“If the child suffers great harm, disability or permanent disfigurement while missing the charge will be raised to a second degree felony.

http://clearwater.patch.com/articles/caylees-law-closing-the-loopholes-in-florida-law-2

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin ‘ashamed’ at church failures -
The Archbishop of Dublin said there are groups in the Vatican and the Irish hierarchy trying to undermine child protection measures. 21 July 2011
Speaking on RTE on Wednesday, Dr Diarmuid Martin said there were systems in place that were ignored.

His comments come after Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny launched an attack in parliament on the Catholic Church.

Mr Kenny said the recent Cloyne Report into allegations of priest sex abuse showed change was needed.

In an unprecedented attack, the taoiseach said the historic relationship between church and state in Ireland could not be the same again and the report exposed the “elitism, dysfunction, disconnection, and narcissism that dominated the Vatican”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14230086

Irish PM in unprecedented attack on Vatican 20 July 2011
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has launched an unprecedented attack in parliament on the Catholic Church.

He said the recent Cloyne Report into how allegations of sex abuse by priests in Cork had been covered up showed change was urgently needed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14224199

Dublin Archbishop ‘ashamed’ of church

21 July 2011  The Archbishop of Dublin said there are groups in the Vatican and the Irish hierarchy trying to undermine child protection measures.

Speaking on RTE on Wednesday, Dr Diarmuid Martin said there were systems in place that were ignored.

His comments come after Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny launched an attack in parliament on the Catholic Church. Mr Kenny said the recent Cloyne Report into allegations of priest sex abuse showed change was needed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14234488

Pa. mother sentenced in NJ for religious ritual

Pa. mother sentenced in NJ for religious ritual Jun 25, 2011
HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) — A Pennsylvania woman who made her daughter observe a bloody religious ritual in New Jersey has been sentenced to 18 months probation. Yenitza Colichon of Jamesburg pleaded guilty last month to child neglect and cruelty charges stemming from the May 2007 incident, in which she made her 7-year-old daughter watch an initiation rite in Paterson….

Passaic County prosecutors say Colichon was about to start Army basic training and wanted to protect her daughter in the Palo Mayombe religion before she left. The religion originated in central Africa.

The girl later told a teacher that she was having nightmares and child welfare officials were contacted.
http://www.necn.com/06/25/11/Pa-mother-sentenced-in-NJ-for-religious-/landing_nation.html?&blockID=3&apID=2af86dbdd8864f2ca0ffce1723d90e9b

Mother pleads guilty over Paterson bloody religious ritual
Monday, May 23, 2011  BY JOHN PETRICK STAFF WRITER The Record

A mother who exposed her 7-year-old daughter to bloody religious initiation rituals in Paterson that included making her watch a chicken being sacrificed and feeding the girl its heart pleaded guilty in state court Monday to cruelty and neglect of a child. A Paterson couple who were practitioners of the Palo Mayombe religion and who the mother asked to perform the ritual also were accepted into pre-trial intervention Monday for one year.

….Dolls, a shrine, religious statues, bones, machetes and bundles of sticks bearing numbers and names were among artifacts found at the home. The items, some of which had blood and animal hair on them, matched a description the girl gave about what she saw at the home.

….In addition to being fed the chicken’s heart, the rituals included making the girl witness the decapitation of a goat, and the scratching of a religious symbol into her skin.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/052311_Mother_pleads_guilty_over_bloody_religious_ritual.html

describes rituals
What Price Religious “Freedom”? May 28, 2011 By Janet Heimlich

The state of Oregon stands poised to end a dangerous practice. If a bill that has passed both the House and Senate becomes law, parents who allow their sick children to die after refusing them medical care on religious grounds would no longer be granted prosecutorial immunity. Passing this bill sends an important message: Parents who harm their children for religious reasons should be punished just as severely as parents who harm their children when religion is not a factor.

Unfortunately, however, legislators and the courts still frequently maintain a double standard when it comes to deciding the fates of abusive and neglectful parents, depending on whether harm is perpetrated in the name of faith. For example, if a woman neglects to feed her child because she is strung out on drugs, she will likely be prosecuted. But if that denial happens as part of a religious fast, the law usually has no problem with it….
http://religiouschildmaltreatment.com/2011/05/what-price-religious-freedom/

Oregon Senate against spiritual defense for murder
TAMI ABDOLLAH, Associated Press  May 23, 2011
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Senate voted Monday to drop faith healing as a legal defense to murder after repeated deaths of children in a local church community.
The Senate voted 25-5 to approve the measure. It was drafted largely in response to the 2008 deaths of children among members of the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, who rely on spiritual treatments instead of medical care.

“The bottom line is that children in Oregon ought to be seeing the kind of health care they need to live, thrive and survive,” said Republican Sen. Bruce Starr of Hillsboro, who sponsored the bill.

Under the measure, prosecutors can seek first-degree manslaughter or murder charges against parents whose children died because they were treated solely with faith.
http://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Ore-Senate-against-spiritual-defense-for-murder-1391974.php

New Evidence in the Catholic Priest Sex Abuse Scandal – BBC and Los Angeles

Dan Rather Reports – All Is Not Forgiven – An investigation of shocking new evidence in the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in Los Angeles.
http://www.hd.net/programs/danrather/

He was my priest and my friend. Then I found out he was a paedophile

- How the scandal of Father Kit Cunningham has made Peter Stanford question his church and his faith
Peter Stanford The Observer, Sunday 19 June 2011

….In Abused: Breaking the Silence, a documentary to be shown on BBC1 on Tuesday, reporter Olenka Frenkiel hears from other former pupils at Soni about how they were subjected to a regime of sexual abuse from which they were powerless to escape.

….There have also been repeated public expressions of regret by the Catholic authorities as these scandals have emerged all round the globe, revealing this as an endemic problem in the church rather than, as Pope John Paul II originally suggested in 2002, a case of a few bad apples.

….Abused: Breaking The Silence is on BBC1 on Tuesday at 21 June, 10.35pm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/19/kit-cunningham-child-abuse