Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’, Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’, NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges

- Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’
- Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’
- Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case
- Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice
- NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges

Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’
DNA test shows Castro is the father of one of the victim’s 6-year-old daughter
Tom Meyer, WKYC-TV May 10, 2013

CLEVELAND — During interrogation with police, Ariel Castro, the man charged with kidnapping and raping three women over roughly 10 years, referred to himself as “coldblooded,” addicted to sex and unable to control his impulses, WKYC Channel 3 News has learned.

With exacting detail, Castro recalled the abductions of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, explaining how he met each victim and even what he was wearing that day, according to sources….

The 52-year-old unemployed school bus driver was “cocky” during the interview, showing remorse only over his capture, Channel 3 News was told.

Castro, who was arrested on Monday after Berry escaped from Castro’s house with the help of neighbors and called police, was ordered held on $8 million bond Thursday by a Cleveland Municipal Court judge.

Meanwhile, in a suicide note discovered in his house by police, Castro blamed the girls for their abductions, writing that they were the ones who got into his car in the first place, the sources said. Castro did write that he wanted to give his money and possessions to the women if he was caught, the sources said.

The note appears to have been written in 2004, about the time police were investigating him on an apparently unrelated matter involving a child left on his school bus. In the note, he also mentioned his sex addiction, as well as having previously endured physical abuse as a child.

None of the abductions seemed planned, the sources said. Rather, they appeared to be crimes of opportunity….
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-cleveland-abduction-cold-blood-kidnap/2149831/

Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’
AP  By MEGHAN BARR 05/10/2013
CLEVELAND — The man accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his home terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors in the years before their relationship disintegrated, her relatives say.

Several relatives of Grimilda Figueroa, who left Ariel Castro years ago and died last year after a long illness, painted a nightmarish portrait of Castro’s family life as authorities made public horrifying details of the abuse endured by the imprisoned women.

In interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday, the relatives described Castro as a “monster” who abused his wife and locked his family inside their own home. Their views were at odds with those of some of Castro’s family and a neighbor, who knew the former school bus driver only as a happy and respectful man.

Figueroa’s relatives said Castro savagely beat her, pushing her down a flight of stairs, breaking her nose and dislocating her shoulder, among other injuries. Her sister, Elida Caraballo, said Castro once shoved Figueroa into a cardboard box and closed the flaps over her head.

“He told her, `You stay there until I tell you to get out,’” said Caraballo, who cried as she recounted her late sister’s torment. “That’s when I got scared and I ran downstairs to get my parents.”

Castro, to frighten his wife, kept a mannequin wearing a dark wig propped up against a wall and sometimes drove around the neighborhood with it, relatives said.

“He threatened me lots of times with it,” said Angel Caraballo, Castro’s nephew, who used to play with his cousins at the house where the kidnapped women were found. “He would say, `Act up again, you’ll be in that back room with the mannequin.’”….

Some relatives of Castro have said they were shocked by the allegations against him. An uncle, Julio Castro, said it’s been difficult news to absorb.

“Of course we have taken it hard,” he said. “We only knew one Ariel, my sweet nephew. He was a sweet, happy person, a musician. We didn’t have the slightest idea of the second person in him.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-monster_n_3251920.html

Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case
Fernando Colon was accused by Ariel Castro in 2004 of sexually assaulting the latter’s daughters, Emily and Arlene, who also were his stepdaughters. He was initially charged with 28 counts, including rape and kidnapping, but was found guilty of five lesser offenses.  By Mark Schone  NBC News investigative editor

Nearly a decade before being charged with kidnapping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women, Ariel Castro was himself the accuser in a sexual assault case involving his daughters. The accusations, which resulted in the conviction of his ex-wife’s second husband, now offer a new window into Castro’s tangled family relationships.

The case against Fernando Colon also raises questions about whether FBI agents squandered an opportunity to question Castro about the disappearance of two of the women in the months after their abductions.

Castro made the accusations against Colon, 39, in July 2004, shortly after 14-year-old Georgina “Gina” DeJesus vanished on her way home from the west Cleveland middle school she attended.

Colon, the husband of Ariel Castro’s ex-common-law wife, Grimilda “Nilda” Figueroa, says he told two FBI agents nine years ago to investigate Castro in connection with the disappearances of Amanda Berry and DeJesus, but that the agents seemed uninterested in his tip….
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/09/18150055-long-before-he-was-charged-ariel-castro-was-accuser-in-sexual-assault-case

Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice
Catholic Church and others oppose change that would let them sue
May 07, 2013 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) ….

But with the smiles expressed by six former Olympic-hopeful gymnasts were also tears.
“I was raped,” said Charmaine Carnes, a former gymnast who shared the same coach as the other women.

One by one, this reunited group shared a painful past.
“The rape that was happening was rampant. It was nonstop,” added Monica Lenches, another teammate.

The group of six met in Sacramento on Tuesday to lobby for a proposed change in the statute of limitations civil law involving past victims of child sexual abuse.

“This man was extremely, extremely good at controlling us and manipulating us into believing this is what we wanted,” said Anne Malver, another teammate.

Current California civil law limits the ability of child sex-abuse victims to seek damages — an action must be filed by the plaintiff’s 26th birthday, or within three years of the date that the plaintiff reasonably discovers the psychological trauma he/she is suffering (comes) from consequences of sexual abuse, read a news release from the sponsors of SB 131….

However, the California Catholic Conference, as well as a list of other private organizations, oppose the bill because it would virtually exempt all public employees and public schools from the proposed change in statute of limitations, said Kevin Eckery, a spokesperson for the Catholic Church….
http://www.kcra.com/news/sex-assault-survivors-former-gymnasts-reunite-for-justice/-/11797728/20052016/-/sjblpt/-/index.html

NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges AAP May 8, 2013
A former Catholic priest is accused of 124 child sex offences after scores of additional charges were laid against him.

The 59-year-old man faced Armidale Local Court, in the NSW New England region, on Wednesday, when prosecutors laid 64 fresh charges….

Police allege the offences relate to alleged assaults on a boy and two girls, aged from nine to 19, that took place in the early 1980s at Moree, Narrabri, Inverell and Armidale.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/17067429/nsw-priest-facing-124-child-sex-charges/

N.J. Catholics outraged over accused priest’s access to children, Catholics paid $36m to 600 abuse victims in Victoria, An ongoing battle against the porn connection

N.J. Catholics outraged over accused priest’s access to children
By Mark Mueller Religion News Service, April 30, 2013

NEWARK, N.J. — Amid calls for a Vatican investigation, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers is facing fierce criticism for his handling of a priest who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors in defiance of a court-ordered lifetime ban on ministry to children.

At St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Colts Neck, where the Rev. Michael Fugee had been spending time with a youth group, angry parishioners said they were never told about Fugee’s background, and they questioned Myers’ defense of the priest, the subject of a lengthy story in The Star-Ledger….

Fugee, 52, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark and under Myers’ supervision. His work at St. Mary’s, however, was in the neighboring Diocese of Trenton, where Bishop David O’Connell has ordered the pastor of St. Mary to bar Fugee from any church activities, a spokeswoman said in a statement….

Fugee was convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual contact for allegedly fondling a 14-year-old boy’s genitals on two occasions. Three years later, an appellate court vacated the verdict, ruling the trial judge should not have allowed jurors to hear the part of Fugee’s confession in which he described himself as homosexual or bisexual. The rest of the confession was not called into question.

Rather than retry Fugee, prosecutors allowed him to enter a rehabilitation program for first-time offenders, on the condition that he undergo counseling for sex offenders and sign an agreement barring him from any work in which children are involved. The archdiocese’s vicar general, on behalf of Myers, signed the agreement as well.

Yet The Star-Ledger found Fugee has apparently violated that pledge with impunity, attending retreats and hearing confessions and traveling with members of the St. Mary youth group to Canada….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/nj-catholics-outraged-over-accused-priests-access-to-children/2013/04/30/f222d2ca-b1c6-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html

Catholics paid $36m to 600 abuse victims in Victoria
By Greg Ansley Thursday May 2, 2013

Australia’s bid to prise open the secret world of endemic child sexual abuse in churches and other powerful institutions has stepped up a notch with revelations of the scale of perversion.

The Victorian inquiry resumed this week to admissions, contrition and apologies from the Catholic Church, which said it had paid A$30 million ($36 million) in compensation to about 600 victims of deviant priests in the state.

Next week the New South Wales special commission of inquiry will open its hearings in Newcastle, north of Sydney, in the diocese that triggered both the state inquiry and the federal royal commission into abuse of children in the care of religious, government and other institutions.

A key focus of the NSW hearings will be the late, defrocked priest Denis McAlinden, whose long-term abuse of dozens of children was known to the church but hidden as he was shuffled between Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, where he worked at Tokomaru Bay near Gisborne.

McAlinden – whose predecessor was later convicted of child sexual abuse – was central to investigations by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, the whistleblower policeman who sabotaged his career by making public alleged cover-ups by the Church….

In Ballarat, Church officials knew by 1975 that priest Gerald Ridsdale was a paedophile, but allowed him to continue working. Ridsdale was later twice convicted for child sexual abuse, and moved to different parishes.

The Catholic Order of Salesians of Don Bosco, which works with homeless and at-risk youths, and runs schools and boys’ clubs, said it had paid more than A$2 million in compensation to abuse victims and had 49 complaints against its priests in Victoria, three of whom will face courts this year. The Brothers of St John of God said it had received 31 cases of abuse by 15 members.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10880999

An ongoing battle against the porn connection
Bharat Dogra  The Statesman Asia News Network New Delhi May 2, 2013

Recent years have seen massive worldwide changes in cultural and social norms that are closely related to the spread of pornography and new forms of prostitution. These need to be studied and understood carefully, particularly in the context of their impact on violence and crime against women and children.

Researchers Rebecca Whisnant and Christine Stark describe the many-sided spread of this global industry: “Prostitution is a multi-billion dollar global industry that includes adult and child pornography, bartering sex for food and shelter, massage parlours, prostitution rings, stripping, saunas, live sex shows, street prostitution, escort services or outcall, ritual abuse, peep shows, phone sex, international and domestic trafficking, mail-order bride services and prostitution tourism. The prostitution industry is an enormously powerful and pervasive culture presence.”….

According to Forbes magazine, the contemporary legal pornography business is a $56-billion global industry, including a huge presence of some big multinational companies….

In a research paper titled “The Use of New Communication Technologies for Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children”, Donna Hughes…. This study quotes experiences of police officers who blame the Internet particularly for the spread of child porn. Raymond Smith of the US Postal Inspection Service, who has handled hundreds of cases of child pornography, found that the rise in Internet use by sexual predators has also increased their use of the US mail service. He said that from the time they first started investigating child pornography in the early 1980s until five years ago, they had almost eliminated the distribution of child pornography.

But since the Internet this has steadily increased. In 1998, 32 per cent of cases of distribution of child porn were related to the Internet. In 1999, 47 per cent were Internet-related, and in 2000 this had risen to 77 per cent. This paper concludes, “The use of new communication and information technologies for the sexual exploitation of women and children is creating a crisis for women’s and children’s status, and dignity all over the world.”
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/An-ongoing-battle-against-the-porn-connection-30205229.html

The Priest That Preyed

The Priest That Preyed
By DANIEL A. OLIVAS February 6, 2013  LOS ANGELES

….The title story of the book, called “Assumption,” describes a fictionalized priest, Father González, who served a parish in a neighborhood not unlike the one I grew up in. The priest in the story is known for being “cool” and spending time with some of the more troubled boys at the nearby grammar school. The boys talk about how he has invited them to visit his room, drink wine, listen to Sly Stone and look at dirty magazines. These visits, of course, lead to the boys’ molesting. In the story, the priest gets caught and, in disgrace, hangs himself.

In real life, shame did not bring an end to the abuse. The priest I based the story on, the priest the sister recognized, was the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos. My parish knew him as Father Al, the hip young priest who spoke out for immigrant and Chicano rights, railed against the Vietnam War, could drink with the best of them and dedicated his spare time to mentoring the most troubled boys at St. Thomas….

The allegations against Father Al, who became a priest in 1966 and was transferred from parish to parish 15 times, first came out in the ’90s, when the Orange Diocese was sued by two men. They accused Father Al of plying them with alcohol when they were children, showing them adult films and sexually abusing them. But by that point, he had already been suspended from priestly duties. In 2003, he admitted to the police that he had molested at least 25 boys. But because of the statute of limitations, he was never charged, and he died in 2004, a year after my conversation with the nun.

According to church records that became public last month after years of litigation brought by victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and brothers of religious orders, this story is sadly familiar. The documents include information on 124 priests over four decades, and demonstrate a pattern by the church of cover-up, denial and — I can’t help but think it — evil….

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/opinion/the-catholic-church-abuse-cancer-spreads.html

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

Former priest alleges ‘system of abuse cover-ups’

Former priest alleges ‘system of abuse cover-ups’

A former New South Wales priest claims to have witnessed a “system of cover-ups” within the Catholic Church to hide child sexual abuse.

Kevin Lee was ordained as a priest 20 years ago and worked as a police chaplain for some of that time, but was relieved of his parish responsibilities in Western Sydney this year when he admitted to marrying a woman in secret.

His comments follow those of Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox who told Lateline on Thursday night that the Catholic Church is involved in cover-ups and paedophile priests have destroyed evidence to avoid prosecution.

Mr Lee told Lateline on Friday that abuse is widely covered up in the church and that he first became aware of it as soon as he was in the seminary.

“People used to tell me and people in the first parish I was in started to confess their frustration with the authorities and the church for not dealing with the abuse that happened to their sons,” he said.

“I became aware that some of the other priests were actually paedophiles and were not necessarily becoming priests because they wanted to help people, but because they were paedophiles who wanted the opportunity,” he said.

Mr Lee says a church protocol was in place for dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, but it was not actually used.

“I saw a system of cover-ups, a system of blind-eye turning and just ignorance of the fact that it was happening,” he said.

He says he took his concerns to superiors within the church but was knocked back.

“In my earlier years as a priest, I was having these people coming to me in confession or just sharing in counselling sessions their experience of frustration and anger with the church that had ignored their pleas of justice when their children had been abused and I started writing the notes down,” he said.

“I was speaking to a barrister at one point and I thought he was going to help my case by putting it forward in some legal process.

“He said ‘document everything you have’, and everything I had I took to authorities within the church and I was told I needed more evidence.”

Mr Lee says church authorities told him the allegation he brought them were hearsay.

“In the end I got frustrated with the fact that it was like the hierarchy in the Church was saying we don’t believe you, you’re a liar, you’re making it up,” he said….

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-10/former-priest-claims-to-have-seen-child-sex-abuse-cover-ups/4364572

Priest charged with hiding sex crimes – Australia

Priest charged with hiding sex crimes
August 31, 2012  Joanne McCarthy

HE was the ”right-hand man” of a bishop, and a one-time acting bishop himself, but priest Tom Brennan has become the first Australian Catholic priest charged with concealing the alleged child sex crimes of another.

Father Brennan, 74, was arrested and charged yesterday with two counts of misprision of a felony – failing to disclose a serious crime – relating to alleged child sex offences by defrocked priest John Denham against two boys in the late 1970s.

The offences allegedly occurred at St Pius X, in the Newcastle suburb of Adamstown, where Father Denham was a teacher and Father Brennan was school principal.

Strike Force Georgiana’s Detective Sergeant Kristi Faber also charged Father Brennan with eight counts of sexually assaulting a boy, 8, at a Waratah church in 1984 and 1985, and two counts of assault.

In addition Father Brennan, of Toronto, south of Newcastle, was charged with assaulting the two boys by caning them after they allegedly reported being sexually assaulted by Father Denham, 70….

One of the men from the Hunter Valley, who alleged Father Brennan caned him in 1978 after he alleged Father Denham had repeatedly sexually assaulted him at the school, thanked police for a determined investigation.

”If this makes one person stand up and say, ‘This is what happened to me’, then I’ll feel better,” he said….

Father Denham has not entered pleas to 47 charges including indecent assault and buggery involving 14 boys in the 1970s. He will return to court next month.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/priest-charged-with-hiding-sex-crimes-20120830-253bn.html

Closing arguments made in Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case

Closing arguments made in Philadelphia clergy sex abuse case

May 31, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — As the official in charge of investigating clergy sex abuse for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Monsignor William J. Lynn bravely “put a spotlight” on the shame of the Catholic Church, one of his lawyers told jurors Thursday.

A prosecutor called Lynn’s actions something else: just shameful.

“He and everyone else who protected pedophile priests were murdering the souls of children,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said.

The conflicting portraits emerged during a day of closing arguments in the landmark prosecution of Lynn and the Rev. James J. Brennan. The jury of six men and six women is scheduled to begin deliberations today.

The summations capped an 11-week trial in which more than 60 witnesses, including Lynn and almost two dozen alleged abuse victims, testified. Jurors also saw nearly 2,000 documents, most from secret church archives, that showed accused clerics being shuffled among parishes. Many were records Lynn drafted or reviewed during a 12-year tenure as the late Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua’s adviser on clergy sex abuse….

Lynn, 61, is accused of one count of conspiracy and two of endangering children for allegedly recommending that his codefendant, Brennan, 48, and another priest, Edward Avery, be allowed to live or work in parishes despite suspecting they would abuse children.

Now defrocked, Avery pleaded guilty before trial to sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy in 1999, seven years after Lynn first fielded an abuse allegation about him.
http://articles.mcall.com/2012-05-31/news/mc-philly-priest-trial-closing-arguments-20120531_1_abusive-priests-abuse-case-altar-boy

On final day of testimony, Philadelphia monsignor apologizes for priest’s sex assault

On final day of testimony, Philadelphia monsignor apologizes for priest’s sex assault

By Associated Press Tuesday, May 29, 2012

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official apologized to a priest sex-abuse victim on the final day of testimony in his groundbreaking child-endangerment trial….

Lynn, 61, who served as the Philadelphia archdiocese secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, is the first U.S. church official charged over his handling of priest-abuse complaints. He and the Rev. James Brennan have been on trial for 10 weeks.

Brennan has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a teen in 1996. Defrocked priest Edward Avery pleaded guilty to a 1999 sexual assault days before trial and is in prison.

Lynn testified that he tried to get accused priests out of parishes and into treatment, but said his power was limited because Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua had the final say….

Lynn said that Bevilacqua would not permanently remove a priest unless he was a diagnosed pedophile. That was rare among the dozens of priests accused of raping or molesting children in Philadelphia.

Defense lawyers call the mild-mannered Lynn a scapegoat for the alleged failings of the archdiocese. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/on-final-day-of-testimony-philadelphia-monsignor-apologizes-for-priests-sex-assault/2012/05/29/gJQAHsmL0U_story.html

Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-up

Jury awards brothers $700K in Wis. diocese lawsuit
Monday, May 21, 2012

APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — An Outagamie County jury on Monday awarded two brothers $700,000 in a fraud trial against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.

The civil jury found the diocese responsible Monday for concealing a former priest’s history of child molestation.

Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield sued the diocese in 2008, alleging the diocese was aware the Rev. John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978, when it assigned him to Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church. Feeney was convicted in 2004 for the sexual assaults of the Merryfields and has already served his prison sentence.

The jury awarded Troy Merryfield $475,000 and Todd $225,000 in damages, The Post-Crescent reported….

Over the past week, Jeffrey Anderson and John Peterson, the Merryfields’ attorneys, called several priests as witnesses. The priests testified there were allegations of inappropriate behavior by Feeney — that he swam naked with boys and showered with them after basketball games — long before he assaulted the Merryfields in 1978.

But the bishop, who died in 2005, said in a previous deposition testimony that if there was merit to complaints of sexual abuse by Feeney, he would have immediately suspended the priest.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Jury-awards-brothers-700K-in-Wis-diocese-lawsuit-3575027.php

Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-up
May. 21, 2012

APPLETON — When an Outagamie County jury decided the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay covered up a priest’s history of child molestation, it sent a message to the rest of Wisconsin, an advocate for sexual abuse victims said….

Rev. John Feeney molested the Merryfields in 1978, when they were 12 and 14 years old. In 2004, Feeney was convicted of sexual assault of the brothers. After the criminal trial, the brothers said they learned the priest had a history of similar assaults in the 1960s and 1970s that the diocese knew about and hid from parishioners at St. Nicholas Church in Freedom, which the Merryfields attended.

So in 2008, they sued the diocese and now-deceased Bishop Aloysius Wycislo, who was in charge of ensuring priests were fit to serve, for fraudulent misrepresentation and sought unspecified damages….

Feeney was attending mental health counseling in 1974 after he touched girls inappropriately at a church retreat, Rev. Lawrence Canavera testified. Anderson and Peterson presented a letter forwarded from psychologist Thomas Kelley to the bishop stating under stress Feeney’s “usual controls over sexual impulses may fail and cause some indiscretions.”
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120521/APC0101/305210146/Green-Bay-diocese-held-liable-molestation-cover-up-story-photo-video-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

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