Hastert Protected by Child Abuse Law, Truth about Thalidomide, Thailand-U.S. sex trafficking ring, Urban Legends of Those Attacking Ritual Abuse Theories

– Victim Says Hastert ‘A Monster’ Protected by Child Abuse Law
– Film explores Harold Evans’s work to expose the truth about thalidomide
– Arrests made in Thailand-U.S. sex trafficking ring

Victim Says Hastert ‘A Monster’ Protected by Child Abuse Law
By Ivan Moreno, Associated Press
CHICAGO — Oct 4, 2016
A man who said Dennis Hastert sexually abused him decades ago told Illinois lawmakers Tuesday the former U.S. House speaker was “a monster” who was protected by the statute of limitations and wasn’t appropriately punished.

The comments from 54-year-old Scott Cross came as lawmakers are considering joining 37 other states that don’t have a statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases. Hastert was sentenced in April to 15 months in prison for violating banking laws while trying to silence one of four victims identified by prosecutors, but Illinois’ statute of limitations meant he couldn’t be charged with sexual abuse, which could’ve sent Hastert to prison for decades.

“This topic, while difficult for me to discuss, is one that cannot be swept under the rug,” said Cross, his voice at times shaking as he urged a panel of lawmakers to change the limits of current law.

Lawmakers have four similar proposals pending that would eliminate Illinois’ statute of limitations for sexually abusing children….
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/hastert-illinois-pushes-change-child-abuse-law-42547014

Film explores Harold Evans’s work to expose the truth about thalidomide
Marsha Lederman
The Globe and Mail
Friday, Apr. 17, 2015

The film connects the dots between Hitler and thalidomide. One of the inventors of sarin gas was ordered by Hitler to develop an antidote to the nerve gas. Otto Ambros (the “A” in sarin), a Nazi official involved in Auschwitz, convicted at Nuremberg but later freed, went on to work at Chemie Gruenenthal – the German company that developed thalidomide. In the film, the Thalidomide Trust presents convincing (although still circumstantial) evidence that the drug may have been tested on concentration camp inmates. “My God, I never thought I’d see the likes of that again,” said the uncle of a thalidomide baby when he first met him. He was one of the soldiers who liberated Bergen-Belsen, where he saw small children who looked a lot like his new nephew….

Thalidomide, as the film documents, was developed by Chemie Gruenenthal, and marketed as a miracle drug for pregnant women suffering from morning sickness, beginning in 1957. The results were devastating: Thousands of babies were born with severe birth defects (one father recounts seeing his newborn daughter who could “only be described as a torso with sort of little flowers where the arms and legs should be,” he says in the film). Many babies were stillborn – or left to die, the film explains in one of its many heartbreaking details….

The children who did survive were often shunned by society (and sometimes by their abandoning fathers) and they presented terrific challenges for loving but desperate parents, including mothers who were also dealing with a tremendous (if completely unfounded) guilt. By 1962, widespread bans were implemented. In Britain, to Evans’s astonishment, no inquiry was called, no compensation offered. The families, frantic for help, were left to sue. But once the case was before the courts, newspapers were prevented from reporting on the issue until every case was settled.

At the Sunday Times, Evans sicced the paper’s investigative Insight team on the injustice. Risking jail time, Evans launched what he called a moral campaign in his paper, which eventually produced significant results: a debate over compensation in the House of Commons, which opened the door for other media to report on the story. The company manufacturing the drug in Britain, Distillers (which no longer exists), reeled – consumers boycotted its alcohol products; share prices plummeted. Distillers finally agreed to pay the £20-million in compensation Evans had been calling for….
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/film-explores-harold-evans-work-to-expose-the-truth-about-thalidomide/article24009573/

Watch the trailer for Attacking the Devil: Harold Evans and the Last Nazi War Crime
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/video/video-watch-the-trailer-for-attacking-the-devil/article24105902/

Arrests made in Thailand-U.S. sex trafficking ring
Amy Forliti, Associated Press · Minneapolis · Oct 4, 2016

About a dozen people were arrested in cities across the U.S. on Tuesday for running what authorities called a sophisticated sex trafficking operation in which hundreds of women were brought from Thailand to America under fraudulent visas and forced to work as prostitutes to pay off tens of thousands of dollars in bondage debts.

The women — including one who was forced to have sex with strangers for 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week — were not allowed to move about freely and were “effectively modern day sex slaves,” according to a redacted indictment unsealed Tuesday.

The arrests, along with the recent arrest of the organization’s boss in Belgium, will effectively dismantle the operation, said Alex Khu, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Minneapolis….

Tuesday’s indictment charges 17 people with various counts, including conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit forced labor, conspiracy to engage in money laundering and conspiracy to commit visa fraud. About a dozen people were arrested in the Minneapolis area, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles.

Khu said his office began investigating a sex trafficking case in the Twin Cities in January 2014 and discovered it was part of an international ring and “a very sophisticated, complex network operating throughout the United States … where women are really placed on a circuit, traveling from one city to the next.”

According to the indictment, since 2009, hundreds of women were brought from Bangkok, Thailand, to several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Washington and Dallas. The women were from poor backgrounds, spoke little English and were lured with promises of a better life….
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/10/04/thailand-us-sex-trafficking-ring-arrests-made


Exposing Doug Mesner/Lucien Greaves – co-founder of the Satanic Temple and Grey Faction presenter
https://ritualabuse.us/ritualabuse/exposing-doug-mesnerlucien-greaves-co-founder-of-the-satanic-temple-and-grey-faction-presenter/

The Urban Legends of Those Attacking Ritual Abuse Theories
https://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/2016-conference/the-urban-legends-of-those-attacking-ritual-abuse-theories/  Satanic Temple, Grey Faction, Doug Mesner/Lucien Greaves

Petition to Stop Attacks Against Child Abuse and Ritual Abuse Survivors and Neil Brick
https://www.change.org/p/protect-child-abuse-survivors-petition-to-stop-attacks-against-child-abuse-and-ritual-abuse-survivors-and-neil-brick

Judge sentences ‘serial child molester’ Hastert to 15 months, Germany Expresses Regret Over Failure to Stop Child Abuse at Nazi Nurse’s Commune

Judge sentences ‘serial child molester’ Hastert to 15 months
Aamer Madhani and John Bacon, USA TODAY  April 27, 2016

CHICAGO — Former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who less than a decade ago stood second in line to the presidency, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison Wednesday for a bank fraud case linked to allegations he sexually abused teen boys more than 30 years ago.

Federal Judge Thomas Durkin called Hastert, 74, a “serial child molester” and rejected a prosecutor’s recommendation of six months in prison on a banking charge that carries a maximum five-year sentence. The court also fined Hastert $250,000 and sentenced him to two years of supervised release after leaving prison. Hastert must register as a sex offender.

“Nothing is more disturbing than having ‘serial child molester’ and ‘Speaker of the House’ in the same sentence,” Durkin said.

Hastert, who entered court in a wheelchair and needed help standing to address the judge, admitted for the first time mistreating some athletes when he was a high school wrestling coach in Illinois before he began his political career.

“I want to apologize to the boys I mistreated,” Hastert said. “They looked (up) at me and I took advantage of them.”…
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/04/27/ex-speaker-dennis-hastert-faces-sentencing-chicago/83584440/

Germany Expresses Regret Over Failure to Stop Child Abuse at Nazi Nurse’s Commune
by Andy Eckardt Apr 27 2016

MAINZ, Germany — Germany’s foreign ministry acknowledged Tuesday that its diplomats “looked away” and failed to prevent child abuse at a commune founded by a Nazi pedophile in Chile.

Paul Schaefer — a Nazi nurse who became a preacher — set up the secretive Colonia Dignidad commune in Chile after fleeing Germany for South America in 1961.

He died in a Chilean prison in 2010 at the age of 89 while serving a 20-year sentence for child abuse, arms possession and human-rights violations.

Children who lived at the Colonia Dignidad commune testified at trials of colony leaders about being sexually abused, enslaved and separated from their parents.

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier publicly expressed regret over any role his ministry had in the decades-long scandal.

“Over the course of many years, from the 60s to the 80s, German diplomats at best looked away,” Steinmeier said….

At its height in the 70s and 80s, Colonia Dignidad had some 300 Chilean and German residents. Most worked as farmers at the commune, which was guarded by barbed wire and watchtowers….
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/germany-expresses-regret-over-failure-stop-child-abuse-nazi-nurse-n563381

Dennis Hastert pleads not guilty on all counts, Facebook Frat Whistleblower: Penn State Did Nothing for Months After I Told Them About Abuse

Dennis Hastert pleads not guilty on all counts
By Chris Frates, Bill Kirkos and Tom LoBianco, CNN June 9, 2015

Washington (CNN) Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to lying to the FBI about $3.5 million he agreed to pay to an undisclosed subject to “cover up past misconduct.”

Hastert was arraigned in court in Chicago on Tuesday afternoon, amid reports he allegedly sexually abused former students.

The former House speaker has hired high-profile white collar crime lawyer Thomas Green to defend him in court. Green has defended clients involved in Watergate, Iran Contra and Whitewater.

Judge Thomas Durkin is allowing Hastert to be released on a pretrial release. Hastert had to sign and appearance bond of $4,500 which he forfeits if he fails to appear.

He was also barred from carrying firearms, had to surrender his passport and cooperate in giving a sample of DNA.

Hastert faces charges of lying to federal investigators and hiding bank transactions as part of a plan to pay $3.5 million in hush money to one of his victims, identified only as “Individual A”. Law enforcement sources confirmed a second alleged victim was interviewed by them and the sister of a third alleged victim told ABC that her brother had been molested by Hastert….
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/09/politics/dennis-hastert-arraignment-appearing-in-court/

Facebook Frat Whistleblower: Penn State Did Nothing for Months After I Told Them About Abuse

James Vivenzio filed a lawsuit against Penn State today in Philadelphia court. The school “strongly disputes” his allegations.

By Holly Otterbein   June 8, 2015

Did Penn State learn anything in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal?

Not if you believe a lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of James Vivenzio, the 21-year-old whistleblower who told authorities this January that the fraternity Kappa Delta Rho was running a secret Facebook page where members allegedly posted images of nude, unconscious women, drug sales and hazing.

At a Monday press conference about his lawsuit, Vivenzio, a former KDR brother, and his lawyer Aaron Freiwald made a number of stunning allegations about the frat and Penn State. Perhaps the most shocking among them is that Vivenzio said he told university officials about KDR’s alleged Facebook page months before he went to the police, but they did nothing.

Penn State spokeswoman Lisa Powers said in a statement that the university “strongly disputes the allegations in this complaint.”….

Vivenzio said that he initially told university officials about KDR’s alleged hazing by calling Penn State’s anonymous hazing hotline. Freiwald said that “was very quickly leaked, he found out, to all the members of the fraternity, and an effort was then made within the fraternity house to figure out who the ‘rat’ was.”

Then, in April 2014 — about eight months before Vivenzio went to the police — he said he met with Danny Shaha, a senior investigator in Penn State’s Office of Student Conduct, to discuss his experience at KDR. He said he told Shaha about the alleged hazing, drug sales and Facebook pages, and showed him reams of evidence, including text messages and screen shots. Since then, no one from Penn State has met with Vivenzio to discuss his allegations or to collect the evidence to this day, according to the lawsuit. Freiwald said the first time the university took action to address Vivenzio’s concerns, as far as he knows, was last month, when it announced it was shutting down the the KDR chapter for three years. PSU vehemently denied this.

Spokeswoman Powers said the school “offered [Vivenzio] extraordinary assistance on numerous occasions,” but “neither he nor his family were willing to file a complaint, provide documentation, speak with State College police or participate in pursuing the formal disciplinary process available to them, despite repeated encouragement from university staff.” She also said Vivenzio did not tell university officials about the alleged Facebook page.

Finally, Vivenzio decided to tell the police about his concerns in January of this year. His allegations prompted an investigation into KDR, which is ongoing. Still, according to Freiwald, police only contacted him for a follow-up meeting as recently as a couple weeks ago. Due to scheduling conflicts, he said, they still have not met.
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/06/08/penn-state-kappa-delta-rho-facebook-frat/

Woman Says Dennis Hastert Abused Her Brother, Paying to Hide ‘Misconduct’, Catholic Archdiocese in Minnesota Charged Over Sex Abuse by Priest, Ex-PSU student sues school over fraternity allegations

– Woman Says Dennis Hastert Abused Her Brother in High School
– Hastert Case Is Said to Be Linked to Decades-Old Sexual Abuse
– U.S. Accuses Ex-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Paying to Hide ‘Misconduct’
– Catholic Archdiocese in Minnesota Charged Over Sex Abuse by Priest
– Ex-PSU student sues school over fraternity allegations

Woman Says Dennis Hastert Abused Her Brother in High School
By JULIE BOSMAN and DAVE PHILIPPS JUNE 5, 2015
YORKVILLE, Ill. — As an enthusiastic young teacher and wrestling coach at the high school here, former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert reliably had one student at his side, former classmates say. Stephen Reinboldt, a smart, slender, likable student who rose to become class president, was the wrestling team’s equipment manager. For four years, he arrived at practice early and stayed late, traveled with Mr. Hastert to overnight tournaments, even when only one wrestler was competing, and went for long rides in the coach’s sports car, sometimes driving it.

On Friday, Mr. Reinboldt’s younger sister, Jolene Burdge, said her brother, who died in 1995, was also sexually abused by Mr. Hastert, but hid the fact for years because he thought no one would believe him.

“Mr. Hastert had plenty of opportunities to be alone with Steve because he was there before the meets,” Ms. Burdge said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “He was there after everything because he did the laundry, the uniforms.”

The allegation comes a week after Mr. Hastert, who served for eight years as House speaker, was indicted on charges of making cash withdrawals, totaling $1.7 million, to evade detection by the authorities and lying to investigators.

Two people briefed on the F.B.I. investigation told The New York Times that Mr. Hastert was using the money to pay a former student hundreds of thousands of dollars to hide the fact that Mr. Hastert sexually abused him decades ago….

Ms. Burdge said she tried for years to get news organizations, including ABC News, and advocacy groups to pursue the story. She began in 2006 after it was revealed that Mr. Hastert had covered up claims that Representative Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, had sent sexually explicit emails to congressional pages.

She said she had given up on exposing Mr. Hastert. Then, two weeks ago, just before Mr. Hastert was indicted, she was contacted by the F.B.I….
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/sister-says-her-brother-was-a-victim-of-ex-speaker-hastert.html

Hastert Case Is Said to Be Linked to Decades-Old Sexual Abuse
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT MAY 29, 2015
WASHINGTON — J. Dennis Hastert, who served for eight years as speaker of the House of Representatives, was paying a former student hundreds of thousands of dollars to not say publicly that Mr. Hastert had sexually abused him decades ago, according to two people briefed on the evidence uncovered in an F.B.I. investigation.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday announced the indictment of Mr. Hastert, 73, on allegations that he made cash withdrawals, totaling $1.7 million, to evade detection by banks. The federal authorities also charged him with lying to them about the purpose of the withdrawals.

The former student — who was not identified in court papers — told the F.B.I. that he had been inappropriately touched by Mr. Hastert when the former speaker was a high school teacher and wrestling coach, the two people said Friday. The people briefed on the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a federal investigation.

It was not clear when the suspected behavior, which was first reported by The Los Angeles Times, occurred. Mr. Hastert was a high school teacher and coach in Yorkville, Ill., from 1965 to 1981, and the indictment said the recipient of the payments was from Yorkville and had known Mr. Hastert for decades….
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/us/politics/hastert-indictment.html

U.S. Accuses Ex-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Paying to Hide ‘Misconduct’
By MONICA DAVEY MAY 28, 2015

CHICAGO — J. Dennis Hastert, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, has been charged with lying to the F.B.I. and making cash withdrawals from banks in a way that was designed to hide that he was paying $3.5 million to someone for his “misconduct” from years ago, a federal indictment released on Thursday said.

Mr. Hastert, 73, the longest-serving Republican speaker, had worked as a lobbyist since leaving office. The indictment, announced by the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said Mr. Hastert, who was once a high school teacher and wrestling coach in Yorkville, Ill., had so far paid $1.7 million to the person, who had lived in Yorkville and had known Mr. Hastert for most of his or her life. Mr. Hastert worked in Yorkville from 1965 to 1981.

In 2010, during meetings between Mr. Hastert and the unnamed individual, the two discussed “past misconduct” by Mr. Hastert against the person, according to the indictment….
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/us/ex-house-speaker-j-dennis-hastert-indicted-on-federal-charges.html

Catholic Archdiocese in Minnesota Charged Over Sex Abuse by Priest
By MITCH SMITH JUNE 5, 2015

CHICAGO — Prosecutors in Minnesota filed criminal charges on Friday against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accusing church leaders of mishandling repeated complaints of sexual misconduct against a priest and failing to follow through on pledges to protect children and root out pedophile clergymen.

The charges and accompanying civil petition, announced by the Ramsey County prosecutor, John J. Choi, stem from accusations by three male victims who say that from 2008 to 2010, when they were under age, a local priest, Curtis Wehmeyer, gave them alcohol and drugs before sexually assaulting them.

The criminal case amounts to a sweeping condemnation of the archdiocese and how its leaders have handled the abuse allegations — even after reforms were put in place by church leaders to increase accountability — and the charges are among the most severe actions taken by American authorities against a Catholic diocese.

“Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” Mr. Choi said in a statement….

The charging documents also say that archdiocese officials knew that Mr. Wehmeyer used a boys’ bathroom at a parish elementary school instead of the staff restroom; tried to give an elementary-age boy a tour of the rectory in violation of policy; and took camping trips with boys where some of the sexual abuse was said to have occurred.

The archdiocese placed Mr. Wehmeyer in a monitoring program for priests facing complaints of abuse or other problems, but prosecutors said in court documents that the supervision and follow-through was “lax or nonexistent.”….

An Ohio judge in 2003 convicted the Archdiocese of Cincinnati of failing to report sexually abusive priests in the 1970s and ’80s. The judge fined the archdiocese $10,000, the maximum allowed, after the archbishop entered a no-contest plea….
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/catholic-archdiocese-in-minnesota-charged-over-sex-abuse-by-priest.html

describes graphic situations

 

 

 

 

Ex-PSU student sues school over fraternity allegations
Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writer Monday, June 8, 2015

James Vivenzio says he thought pledging a fraternity at Pennsylvania State University would mean brotherhood and honor.

Instead, the 21-year-old from Great Falls, Va., says, he was force-fed buckets of liquor mixed with urine, vomit, and hot sauce; made to guzzle hard alcohol until he vomited; burned on the chest with a cigarette; and once was beaten by a member of Kappa Delta Rho after he failed to participate in a ritual.

And the university, he contends in a lawsuit filed Monday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, failed to act after he reported the abuse more than a year ago, including his telling the school about the existence of private Facebook pages fraternity members allegedly used to post revealing photos of females who may have been aware they were being photographed.

“It is not an understatement to say that I was afraid somebody could die unless the abuse, the Facebook . . . and all that was going on, were shut down permanently,” Vivenzio said Monday, reading from a statement at a news conference in his lawyer’s office in Center City. “I’m no hero and I’m certainly no martyr.”

The filing came the same day that Kappa Delta Rho’s national office announced it had expelled 38 of the 100 or so members of its Penn State chapter and put the rest on alumni status. Penn State last month suspended the chapter for three years after a university investigation found evidence of hazing, underage drinking, and sexual harassment.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and names the university, the fraternity, and the fraternity’s national office as defendants….
http://www.philly.com/philly/education/20150609_Frat_whistle-blower_sues_Penn_State.html