Priest, teacher convicted in Philadelphia sex abuse case

Priest, teacher convicted in Philadelphia sex abuse case
Associated Press January 30, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — A jury convicted a priest and teacher today in a pivotal church-abuse case that rocked the Philadelphia archdiocese and sent a church official to prison for child endangerment.

The verdict upholds the stunning account from a troubled 24-year-old policeman’s son that he was sexually abused as a boy by two priests and his sixth-grade teacher. One priest took a plea deal before trial, while the jury convicted the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and former teacher Bernard Shero of all but one count.

The 2009 complaint describing the abuse led to the landmark conviction last year of Monsignor William Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy in Philadelphia. Lynn is serving three to six years in prison for his role transferring an admitted pedophile priest to the accuser’s northeast Philadelphia parish. A string of priest victims testified in Lynn’s case, but none said they had been passed around like the policeman’s son….

The jury convicted Shero, 49, of Levittown, of rape, indecent sexual assault and other charges. They convicted Engelhardt, 66, of Wyndmoor, of charges including indecent assault of a child under 13, corruption of a minor and conspiracy with Avery. The jury deadlocked on one count, an indecent sexual assault count against Engelhardt, after deliberating since late Friday.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/01/priest_teacher_convicted_in_ph.html

Convicted Serial Killer Anthony Sowell – child abuse victim

Sentencing day 6: Anthony Sowell trial
08/08/2011 by Jen Steer, newsnet5.com

A Cuyahoga County jury will continue to hear from witnesses in the sentencing phase for convicted killer of 11 Anthony Sowell.

Last month, that same jury found the 51-year-old guilty on 82 of 83 counts, including aggravated murder. Now, jurors must determine if Sowell gets life in prison or the death penalty.

“It’s not normal for an 11 year old to have sex with 10-year-old niece,” social worker Lori James-Townes said. “There were high levels of promiscuity that are also red flags.” She also indicated that Sowell grew up in a house full of drug use, sexual abuse, incest and physical abuse….

“Essentially, he has indications of brain dysfunction,” said Dr. Watson, a forensic neuropsychologist. Dr. Woods, who is a forensic psychiatrist, said Sowell suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and psychosis….

Sowell is on the witness stand, answering questions from his defense attorney John Parker. He will not be cross-examined by the prosecution.

“She sexually abused me,” Sowell said, after an much older relative. “No, I don’t want to talk about that… There was a lot of sexual activity going on there.”

…”And it’s because of this abuse and this miserable, sad life he murdered 11 women?” assistant prosecutor Pinkey Carr said.

“That’s not just the only reason… There are multiple reasons,” James Townes said. She continues to emphasis the need for context, saying that abuse was just one of the factors over the course of Anthony Sowell’s life that resulted in murder. She points to sexual abuse, a strained relationship with his mother and witnessing other children being abused among the cause. The sexual abuse in the home reportedly started when some of the children were just 10 or 11 years old.

“It’s extremely underreported, I can’t say that enough,” James-Townes said. “The children were afraid. The children, the ones who did tell were beaten.”

…”When children are growing up in this type of situation, it impacts them in a variety of ways,” Lori James-Townes said. “It makes him susceptible to violence later in life.”

“There should be an assessment made when you see certain risk factors,” she said, referring to Anthony Sowell’s school records….

“Childhood abuse is the biggest red flag for adult criminal behavior,” James-Townes said. “The sad thing about this is trauma is extremely treatable… The problem comes in when they don’t get treated.” She said that telling the story is one of the most helpful ways to treat someone who has suffered trauma.

“We know that most people in prison, men or women, has suffered some sort of abuse,” she said. According to James- Townes, there is no therapy in prison, but they focus on reprogramming the individuals….

According to James-Townes, research shows that child abuse is severely underreported and that it’s not uncommon for people to not talk about the abuse until they are adults. She said she used a genogram to help explain the risk factors in Sowell’s childhood. A genogram is a visual depiction and a snapshot of a person’s family.

While pointing to the chart, James-Townes explains that Sowell’s paternal side of the family had a history of substance abuse and heart disease. The genogram goes back four or five generations, which James-Townes said is very uncommon to find those kinds of records.

On his mother’s side, the chart shows that Anthony Sowell was 17 years younger than his sister, Patricia. She said there were pregnancies when female family members when they were 12 and 15. Other risk factors include epilepsy, sexual abuse and mental problems….

James-Townes said that they need to pay particular attention to the trauma and abuse he suffered growing up, and the the abuse that people around him went through. Based on interviews with family, she said that Sowell kept to himself as a child and was isolated, despite going to school nearly everyday.

“It’s not normal for an 11 year old to have sex with 10-year-old niece,” she said. “There were high levels of promiscuity that are also red flags.”

http://www.newsnet5.com/dpp/news/crime/bodies_found/Sentencing-day-6-Anthony-Sowell-trial

Warren Jeffs, Polygamist Leader, Convicted In Child Sexual Assault Case

Warren Jeffs, Polygamist Leader, Convicted In Child Sexual Assault Case
8/4/11

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — A Texas jury convicted polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs of child sexual assault Thursday in a case stemming from two young followers he took as brides in what his church calls “spiritual marriages.”

The 55-year-old head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stood stone-faced as the verdict was read.

Jeffs, who acted as his own attorney, faces up to life in prison. The jury went immediately into sentencing proceedings. They had deliberated on a verdict for more than three hours.

Prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. They also played audio recordings in which Jeffs was heard instructing young women on how to please him sexually.

Jeffs has claimed he was the victim of religious persecution. The FLDS, which has at least 10,000 members nationwide, is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. The church believes polygamy brings exaltation in heaven and that Jeffs is God’s spokesman on earth.

Police had raided the group’s remote West Texas ranch in April 2008, finding women dressed in frontier-style dresses and hairdos from the 19th century as well as seeing underage girls who were clearly pregnant. The call to an abuse hotline that spurred the raid turned out to be a hoax, and more than 400 children who had been placed in protective custody were eventually returned to their families.

But authorities brought charges against several men from the group, with Jeffs by far the highest-profile defendant…..
Jeffs represented himself after firing seven attorneys in the six months leading to the trial. He broke his courtroom silence with an objection marked by a nearly hourlong speech defending polygamy, and twice threatened the judge and the court with warnings of punishment from God.

….Eleven other FLDS men were charged with crimes including sexual assault and bigamy. All seven of those who have been prosecuted were convicted, receiving prison sentences of between six and 75 years.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/04/warren-jeffs-polygamist-leader-convicted_n_918915.html

Guilty: Paedo cult’s demon ‘Lord’ – paedophile crimes over 15 years

Guilty: Paedo cult’s demon ‘Lord’ By JOHN COLES
10 Mar 2011 THE self-styled “Lord” of a black magic sex cult was facing jail last night – after being convicted of sexually abusing young children.  Colin Batley, 48, ran a group whose members wore hooded robes for group sex and paedophile crimes over 15 years.

The scruffy Svengali surrounded himself with four “disciples” – wife Elaine, 47, and three other women – who helped him abuse youngsters.

All four women were tattooed on Batley’s orders with an Egyptian symbol, the Eye of Horus.  At meetings, Batley read from an occult “bible” and told youngsters they would go to Hell if they did not agree to his sexual demands.  Their “temple” was the Batleys’ semi-detached home on a sleepy cul-de-sac in Kidwelly, west Wales.

Jobless Batley, who charged members a quarter of their income, was exposed when a woman groomed for sex from age six went to cops. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3457120/Guilty-Paedophile-black-magic-cults-demon-Lord.html

My ‘cult sex’ at 15 By JOHN COLES 09 Feb 2011

A WOMAN yesterday told a court she was forced to have sex with the leader of a cult when she was just 15. The alleged victim said “evil” Colin Batley told her she would be killed if she didn’t take part in the sickening initiation ceremony.

She claimed she was then ordered to perform sex acts on Batley’s wife Elaine – and was taken to meetings where she had to have sex with men and women.  The alleged victim, now an adult, said: “I was told I’d be killed if I didn’t become part of the cult. Colin Batley had a gun and took it to meetings. I was so scared I just did what I was told. I was in the living room at his home and he told me there would be an initiation. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3400359/My-cult-sex-at-15.html

‘Tattooed child sex cult in cul-de-sac’ By JOHN COLES
03 Feb 2011 THREE couples and a woman pal moved from London to a cul-de-sac in rural Wales to set up a sick sex cult, a jury heard yesterday. They relocated over four years and were led by “evil and manipulative” Colin Batley, it was said.  He allegedly persuaded the women to get identical tattoos and find youngsters for three-in-a-bed sex. He raped boys and girls, forced children to have sex with each other and ordered the women to join in, it was claimed.

Batley, 48, preached from a text known as The Book of The Law – while living off the earnings of women he forced into prostitution in Bristol, Swansea Crown Court was told.
Prosecutor Peter Murphy described Batley as a sexual predator who corrupted others to do his bidding through coercion and control. He added: “He is the principal.
“The four families became closely intertwined. It became much more than that – a cult. The usual restraints went out of the window.” http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3387753/Court-hears-of-child-sex-cult-in-cul-de-sac-led-by-Colin-Batley.html

Paedophile cult leader convicted for ‘satanic’ rape campaign

Colin Batley was self-styled high priest of group that handed children around for sex in Kidwelly, west Wales 9 March 2011

describes crimes

A man has been found guilty of leading a “satanic” sex cult from his home in a small Welsh town. Colin Batley, 48, of Kidwelly, west Wales, presided over a group that preyed on young children and held occult rites. He was found guilty at Swansea crown court of rape and carrying out perverted sexual acts on children and adults. Batley was the self-styled high priest of the group, which operated from a series of homes in a cul-de-sac in the seaside town. He and five other alleged members insisted throughout the five-week trial that no cult had ever existed.

But the jury dismissed that, finding him guilty of more than two dozen acts of sexual perversion linked to his activities in the cult. They included 11 separate rapes, three indecent assaults, causing prostitution for personal gain, causing a child to have sex and inciting a child to have sex. The jury also found him guilty of six counts of buggery and four counts of possessing indecent images of a child.

His wife, Elaine Batley, 47, was convicted of sex-related charges after the trial, as were Jacqueline Marling, 42, and Shelly Millar, 35. All lived in Kidwelly. …Colin Batley is said to have forced a number of his victims into prostitution and claimed 25% of their earnings. In one instance, the trial heard, Batley tried to force a pregnant schoolgirl to give birth. The girl, who had been raped by a cult member, was told all children conceived within the cult belonged to it.

New cult members, often deeply troubled children, were forced to go through an elaborate initiation ceremony. At its heart would be sex with an adult, with anyone unwilling to take part warned they risked being killed by a cult assassin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/mar/09/paedophile-satanic-cult-batley-kidwelly

pope refused defrocking of convicted priest, church is still fighting claims

also Sex abuse victims say church is still tenaciously fighting claims

Shanley recovered memory case

Future pope refused defrocking of convicted priest MATT SEDENSKY AP 5/30/10
The future Pope Benedict XVI refused to defrock an American priest who confessed to molesting numerous children and even served prison time for it, simply because the cleric wouldn’t agree to the discipline. The case provides the latest evidence of how changes in church law under Pope John Paul II frustrated and hamstrung U.S. bishops struggling with an abuse crisis that would eventually explode.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press from court filings in the case of the late Rev. Alvin Campbell of Illinois show Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, following church law at the time, turned down a bishop’s plea to remove the priest for no other reason than the abuser’s refusal to go along with it.
“The petition in question cannot be admitted in as much as it lacks the request of Father Campbell himself,” Ratzinger wrote in a July 3, 1989, letter to Bishop Daniel Ryan of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill….

Campbell’s misdeeds date back at least 15 years before his defrocking.
As an Army chaplain, he was reprimanded and ultimately left the service after abusing at least one boy, according to military and church correspondence. An Army letter in his file said he had exploited his rank and position as a chaplain “by engaging in indecent homosexual acts” with a child under 16 who had been under his supervision….
Campbell became a pastor upon his return to the diocese. In at least three instances after returning to diocesan work, he was forced to depart jobs as parish pastor or administrator “for reasons of health,” a euphemism for sexual abuse used within the church that Ryan himself put in quotes.

After workers at a rape crisis center alerted authorities that they were treating one of Campbell’s victims, police found he had been plying boys with video games, bicycles, watches and other gifts to get them to the waterbed in his second-floor rectory bedroom. Ryan sent Campbell to a New Mexico treatment facility after the arrest.

Campbell was sentenced to 14 years in prison in 1985, after admitting to molesting seven boys during his time as pastor of St. Maurice Parish in Morrisonville, Ill. He was released in 1992 after serving about seven years for sexual assault and sexual abuse.
Ryan apparently waited four years after Campbell went to prison, according to church files, before asking for the priest’s defrocking. It’s unclear what accounted for the delay.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/REL_POPE_CHURCH_ABUSE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

describes allegations of abuse
Sex abuse victims say church is still tenaciously fighting claims – Even after convictions, some lawsuits have dragged on for more than a decade; church official blames complexities of judicial system
May 30 2010 …. The pressure Caruso experienced in battling the Catholic Church is not unusual, say those suing Catholic dioceses, priests and nuns over abuse. Despite the church’s pledge to handle victims with compassion — a position repeated this month by Pope Benedict — it too often plays a game of courtroom chicken with stall tactics, hostile discovery sessions and intrusive psychological probes that unnerve vulnerable clients, say victims and their lawyers.

“They don’t want to pay out the money,’’ said Jack Lavers, a Newfoundland lawyer who has worked both sides of the liturgical legal landscape. “There are (cases) that do start and never seem to finish.”
Seemingly relentless legal campaigns — especially against victims like Caruso, whose abuser had been convicted — appear to clash with church reforms adopted two decades ago after the Mount Cashel orphanage sex scandal. Pastoral outreach for victims of clergy abuse was among the recommendations in the 1992 “From Pain to Hope” report commissioned by the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops. Counselling and empathy for the abused were again recommended in a 2007 CCCB task force….

Sharp said each victim’s circumstances are unique and claims of harsh treatment “may very well be” in some cases. But London-area victims are “immediately” offered counselling with a professional of their choice as soon as they report abuse. “In our diocese we are committed to keep these things moving as quickly and fully as we possibly can,” said Sharp, who estimates he still has 20 active Sylvestre cases….
Lavers said courtroom reality is that plaintiffs often get worn down and agree to accept smaller sums or drop their cases completely….

The 65-year-old native of St. John’s, Nfld., is among a group claiming physical and emotional abuse at the Belvedere Orphanage — a female counterpart of Mount Cashel. More than 30 women are suing the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy and the province of Newfoundland. Her case is now 13 years old….
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/816223–sex-abuse-victims-say-church-is-still-tenaciously-fighting-claims?bn=1

followers of accused cult leader convicted child abuse, Priest scandals Belgium

describes abuse
Four followers of accused cult leader convicted of child abuse
Ultra-Orthodox cult leader Elior Chen and his followers allegedly used knives and hammers to abuse children as young as 3 and 4 years old. By Nir Hasson 5-12-10

The Jerusalem District Court convicted four disciples of accused cult leader Elior Chen of child abuse on Wednesday. Elior Chen was the spiritual leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem sect suspected of severe child abuse.

Chen and several of his followers allegedly used knives, hammers and other instruments to abuse children as young as 3 and 4 years old in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit in February and March 2008. The four convicted followers were accused of 22 charges stemming from 40 instances of child abuse. http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/four-followers-of-accused-cult-leader-convicted-of-child-abuse-1.289898

Priest sex scandals on rise in Belgium 12 May 2010
In Belgium complaints of sexual abuse continue to pile up as the Roman Catholic Church struggles to mend its severely tainted reputation. An investigative committee probing allegations of priestly pedophilia says it has received 270 separate letters in this regard since April 23rd. The commission’s president Peter Adriaenssens revealed on Tuesday that 90 percent of the reports involve boys. 95 percent of the reports come from the northern Belgian region of Flanders, the diocese where pedophile Bishop Roger Vangheluwe served. Vangheluwe, after his April 23 resignation, admitted sexually abusing a boy when in office in the Flemish city of Bruges.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=126227&sectionid=3510212

Wikipedia’s Parent Company Starts Purging Porn From Its Websites
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/07/wikipedia-purges-porn/

Wikipedia – Bomis and online pornography
http://www.childlaw.us/2010/04/congress-reacts-to-wikipedia-f.html