$10 million Los Angeles settlement first since document release, Prominent Australian entertainer arrested in relation to Jimmy Savile child sex investigation

$10 million Los Angeles settlement first since document release
by  Brian Roewe  Mar. 28, 2013

As Cardinal Roger Mahony entered the Sistine Chapel in Rome March 12 to begin the process of electing the next pope, his name made headlines in his home diocese for other reasons.

The cardinal, the Los Angeles archdiocese and an ex-priest agreed to settlements in four clergy abuse-related cases, totaling $9.9 million. The settlements are the first since the late January court-ordered release of 12,000 pages of abuse-related documents, and Mahony’s ban from public and administrative duties in the archdiocese.

On the same day another case, at the northern end of the state, also made headlines when a visiting priest was arrested on suspicion of child abuse.

The former priest at the center of the Los Angeles settlements was Michael Baker, who was removed from the priesthood in 2000 and convicted in 2007 of molesting two children. He was paroled in 2011 after initially receiving a 10-year prison sentence.

The release of the files factored into the settlements, an attorney for the alleged victims told the Los Angeles Times.

“Once we got the files, it confirmed everything we had argued for years and years. Cardinal Mahony’s fingerprints were all over the case,” Vince Finaldi told the Times.

The documents pertaining to Baker reveal that in December 1986 Mahony sent him for psychological evaluation in New Mexico after Baker confessed to the then-archbishop his sexual relationships with two boys, beginning in the early 1980s. The psychological evaluation expressed concern with Baker’s attitude toward the relationships, saying they were “quite disturbing to listen to.”

“At no point did he indicate any awareness at all that his sexual involvement with these two boys may have consequences for them nor did he seem the least bit concerned about any consequences for him except that he may now have to go through a treatment program which he feels would be extraneous,” read the evaluations, which did recommend immediate treatment.

Therapy continued for Baker as he re-entered ministry in the archdiocese. He initially worked with the elderly and retired priests before serving numerous parishes as an administrator or associate pastor. Ultimately, the archdiocese placed him on inactive leave in April 2000 after allegations came forward that he had continued to molest the same boys.

….Dominican Fr. Tom Doyle told NCR.
He also speculated Mahony himself could eventually face charges.

“I would not be at all surprised if Mahony were, if another grand jury were convened and Mahony were indicted. Not at all surprised,” he said.

Farther north in the state, new abuse allegations involving a foreign visiting priest emerged March 12. Fr. Julio Guarin-Sosa, a visiting priest to the Stockton, Calif., diocese, was arrested on suspicion of sexual battery and molestation of a minor. The alleged incident occurred in Yuba City, Calif., part of the Sacramento diocese, and approximately 80 miles north of his assignment at St. Anne Parish in Lodi, Calif.

Guarin-Sosa was arraigned March 12 in Sutter County Superior Court and is being held in the county jail. The Colombian priest had been assisting at St. Anne for almost a month, while his brother, Fr. Mario Guarin, a parochial vicar at the parish, was on vacation.

The Stockton diocese released a brief statement shortly after Guarin-Sosa’s arrest.
“As a result of the charges, Father Guarin’s permission to exercise ministry in the Diocese of Stockton has been revoked. His diocese in Colombia has been informed,” the diocese stated….. http://ncronline.org/node/48296

Prominent Australian entertainer arrested in relation to Jimmy Savile child sex investigation

Jon Kaila News Limited Network March 29, 2013

A PROMINENT Australian entertainer has been arrested by Scotland Yard detectives in London on suspicion of sexual offences. Metropolitan Police confirmed officers have arrested an 82-year-old man living in Berkshire.

He was arrested by detectives involved in Operation Yewtree – which is investigating the Jimmy Savile child sex abuse scandal that has rocked the UK. He was released about 11.30pm UK time after being questioned by detectives. His present whereabouts are unknown. A Scotland Yard spokesman said he was bailed to a date in May, pending further inquiries.

Operation Yewtree was former in the wake of revelations the now deceased television host and radio DJ Savile,  sexually abused and assaulted more than 400 people, mostly children, over five decades in hospitals, schools and BBC’s London studios…. http://www.news.com.au/world-news/prominent-australian-entertainer-arrested-in-relation-to-jimmy-savile-child-sex-investigation/story-fndir2ev-1226608965017

Catholic cardinal stripped of duties as LA diocese child abuse files released, America Has an Incest Problem

Catholic cardinal stripped of duties as LA diocese child abuse files released

Retired Roger Mahony is said to have shielded priests accused of child abuse in Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles
Reuters in Los Angeles     guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 February 2013

The Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has removed a top clergyman linked to efforts to conceal abuse as it released thousands on files of priests accused of molesting children.

Archbishop Jose Gomez said he had stripped his predecessor, the retired cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public and administrative duties. “I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behaviour described in these files is terribly sad and evil,” Gomez said in a statement released by the US’s largest Catholic archdiocese.

“There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed,” he said.

Mahony’s former top aide, Thomas Curry, also stepped down as bishop of Santa Barbara.

The 12,000 pages of files were made public more than a week after church records relating to 14 priests were unsealed as part of a separate civil suit, showing that church officials plotted to conceal the abuse from law enforcement agencies as late as 1987.

The documents showed that Mahony, 76, and Curry, 70, both worked to send priests accused of abuse out of the state to shield them from scrutiny….

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/01/cardinal-duties-child-abuse-files

America Has an Incest Problem
By Mia Fontaine Jan 24 2013

People are rightly horrified by abuse scandals at Penn State and in the Catholic church. But what about children who are molested by their own family members?

Last year offered plenty of moments to have a sustained national conversation about child sexual abuse: the Jerry Sandusky verdict, the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, Horace Mann’s faculty members, and a slew of slightly less publicized incidents. President Obama missed the opportunity to put this issue on his second-term agenda in his inaugural speech.

Child sexual abuse impacts more Americans annually than cancer, AIDS, gun violence, LGBT inequality, and the mortgage crisis combined—subjects that Obama did cover.

Had he mentioned this issue, he would have been the first president to acknowledge the abuse that occurs in the institution that predates all others: the family. Incest was the first form of institutional abuse, and it remains by far the most widespread.

Here are some statistics that should be familiar to us all, but aren’t, either because they’re too mind-boggling to be absorbed easily, or because they’re not publicized enough. One in three-to-four girls, and one in five-to-seven boys are sexually abused before they turn 18, an overwhelming incidence of which happens within the family. These statistics are well known among industry professionals, who are often quick to add, “and this is a notoriously underreported crime.”

Incest is a subject that makes people recoil. The word alone causes many to squirm, and it’s telling that of all of the individual and groups of perpetrators who’ve made national headlines to date, virtually none have been related to their victims. They’ve been trusted or fatherly figures (some in a more literal sense than others) from institutions close to home, but not actual fathers, step-fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, or cousins (or mothers and female relatives, for that matter). While all abuse is traumatizing, people outside of a child’s home and family—the Sanduskys, the teachers and the priests—account for far fewer cases of child sexual abuse.

To answer the questions always following such scandals—why did the victims remain silent for so long, how and why were the offending adults protected, why weren’t the police involved, how could a whole community be in such denial?—one need only realize that these institutions are mirroring the long-established patterns and responses to sexual abuse within the family. Which are: Deal with it internally instead of seeking legal justice and protection; keep kids quiet while adults remain protected and free to abuse again….

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/america-has-an-incest-problem/272459/

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

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

Abusive priests live unmonitored

Abusive priests live unmonitored By GILLIAN FLACCUS and JOHN MONE – ASSOCIATED PRESS March 7, 2011

VENTURA — Carl Sutphin was a problem priest who left ministry in the Roman Catholic church just before being charged nearly a decade ago with 14 counts of molestation for sexually abusing six children.

He was never convicted of the charges, and he now lives in a doublewide mobile home in a quiet neighborhood within two miles of a youth sports complex, a library, two day care centers and at least two elementary schools. Sutphin admits he molested children as a priest, but his name doesn’t show up in a sex offender database because the charges were dismissed because too much time had elapsed….

Plaintiffs’ attorneys have worked with private investigators since October to compile a list of the priests’ addresses, the most comprehensive accounting of the whereabouts of the 233 clergy accused of abuse in civil lawsuits in the Los Angeles archdiocese. They hope to use it Thursday to persuade a judge to recommend the release of all church files for every priest or religious brother ever accused of sexual abuse in the sweeping litigation.

Those confidential files are at the center of a heated dispute between the church and plaintiffs’ lawyers since the nation’s largest archdiocese reached a record-breaking $660 million settlement nearly four years ago. Plaintiffs want the files — which could include internal correspondence, previous complaints and therapy records — released, saying it’s a matter of public safety. The church is pushing for a more limited release of information.

The list of addresses, obtained by The Associated Press, contains nearly 50 former priests who live unmonitored in California, and another 15 in cities and towns from Maryland to Texas to Montana. More than 80 more cannot be located despite an exhaustive search by plaintiffs’ attorneys. Four are believed to have fled to Mexico or South America. About 80 are dead.

Lead plaintiff lawyer Raymond Boucher says it’s the only time anyone has put together a list of priest addresses in any other diocese or archdiocese nationwide. Lawyers hope to eventually make the names and locations of abusive priests available to the public, similar to Megan’s Law databases that exist nationwide….

The church is willing to release a significant number of documents from priest files and has already made public the names of priests who were credibly accused or whose names were listed in civil lawsuits, Hennigan said. The archdiocese believes, however, that many of the priests whose addresses appear on the list were wrongfully accused. The archdiocese included those clergy in the $660 million payout without admitting wrongdoing, simply to settle the claims, Hennigan said.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110307/wire/110309624