Child abuse is a topic many find challenging to discuss or even think about, but it’s necessary, especially with the alarming statistics reported annually in this country. According to the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 3.4 million reports of child abuse were filed in 2011 in the United States, which actually affects nearly 6 million children. However, it is estimated the actual number of incidents of abuse and neglect could be three times more than what is actually reported by professionals (police officers, social workers, attorneys, etc….
News & Events
We are once again saddened and alarmed to learn of the news of the arrest of a visiting priest from Colombia working in the Diocese of Stockton for child sexual abuse. Time will tell what was known of Rev. Guarin-Sosa’s history and safety in working with children. What is known to us already is that numerous priests have been transferred globally with the aid of the catholic hierarchy after being credibly accused of abusing children. Fr. Nicolas Aguilar is just one example. Aguilar abused kids in Mexico and then was shipped to Los Angeles, where he abused at least 26 other kids, before being sent ba…
Watching survivors sign their stories in Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God left me hanging in anticipation on their every word. As I watched the Premiere of I was at once deeply saddened, moved, angered, and inspired.
Much like the layers of an onion which make you cry more with each successive layer, the convictions of Father Charles Englehardt, an Oblate of St. Francis DeSales priest, and Bernard Shero, a lay teacher, expose a painful and tangled conspiracy of abuse and silence that was previously covered by a thin veneer. Independent orders of priests like the Oblates of St. Francis DeSales often operate in multiple jurisdictions and multiple dioceses allowing their perpetrators increased access to children and increased mobility to thwart public detection. With multiple assignments working w…
While better late than never as the saying goes, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles today continued to preserve its own reputation at all costs. Simultaneous to releasing 12,000 damning documents that illustrate decades of concealment, cover up and deliberate, reckless disregard for the safety of children in the Archdiocese, the Archdiocese made public the resignation of Bishop Curry and Cardinal Mahony from any public ministry. After fighting in court against the release of these documents for over six years, it is incredibly disingenuous of the Archdiocese to now make news of the…
Yesterday stands as another great moment in the child protection movement and the search for justice for survivors of clergy sexual abuse. A Philadelphia jury convicted Rev. Charles Engelhardt, a priest, and Bernard Shero, a teacher, on several counts arising from the childhood sexual abuse of a 24-year old man. Both men now face more than a decade in prison. This important moment comes on the heels of the June conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, former Secretary for Clergy in the Archdiocese, for felony child endangerment, stemming from his role in moving predator priests …
Once again, our most trusted and most powerful religious and social institutions are fighting to keep their secrets and their sins safe from disclosure. Luckily, courts continue to recognize how important the exposure of secrets is to accountability and child protection. On Monday, California Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias ordered the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to release the names of priests and church officials contained in the Archdiocese’s internal records on the sexual abuse of children. The records were originally ordered to be released as part of a groundbreaking…
On a Saturday night in the summer of 1998, an undercover officer logged in to a child-pornography chat room using the screen name Indy-Girl. Within minutes, a user named John introduced himself and asked her, “Are you into real life or just fantasy?” Indy-Girl said that because of the “legality of it” she had never acted on her fantasies. But she soon revealed an adventurous spirit. She was a bisexual college sophomore, she said, and had learned about sex at an early age. “My mother is very European,” she explained. John, a thirty-one-year-old soldier stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky,…
On December 13, the Forward published an explosive story by our Paul Berger detailing how Yeshiva University for years ignored students who claimed that they were sexually abused by two former staff members at Y.U.’s high school for boys in Manhattan. For that story, Berger spoke to four students who voluntarily offered their accounts. Since then, about 20 former students have called or written, and the number keeps growing. Most of the allegations occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, and the statute of limitations prevents these men from suing the school, so they aren’t looking for money or othe…
Not unlike the scandals and cover-ups recently revealed at Penn State and Poly Prep Country Day School, another prominent school, this one in New York City, has recently come under fire for its failures to report sexual abuse. Yeshiva University High School for Boys, despite being regarded as one of the most prominent Jewish high schools in the country, has its own dark secrets involving sexual abuse dating back decades. Two staff members at the school, former principal George Finkelstein and former teacher, Rabbi Macy Gordon, were both recently outed as having been accused of sexually abusi…
This week, Joseph Ostrowski, the former head football coach at Holy Redeemer High School in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, pled guilty to producing child pornography. The U.S. Attorney charged with prosecuting the case said that Ostrowski engaged in “sextortion” of his victims by tricking them into sexual acts that he viewed over video chat. Ostrowski then shared the sexual conduct and pictures via Facebook. “Sextortion” is loosely defined as “a form of sexual exploitation that employs non-physical forms of coercion to extort sexual favors from the victim.” Like extortion, sextortion is the…
A lawsuit filed last week sued William Airey and accused the CEO of Moose International of grooming and sexually abusing Jason Peck when he was 12 years old. News about allegations of abuse by Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky inspired Peck to come forward and disclose his own abuse by Airey, which took place more than 30 years ago.Moose International is a fraternity organization, describing itself on its website as “an international organization of men and women, dedicated to caring for young and old, bringing communities closer together and celebrating life.” Jason Peck met William Airey…
On Tuesday, December 4, my office filed our fourth civil lawsuit for a fifth Plaintiff under Hawaii’s new window law allowing victims of childhood sexual abuse to file claims without regard to a statute of limitations until April 24, 2014. This latest case, on behalf of a man who was abused by a Christian Brother when he was 15 years-old, is a very good example of why it is important to allow adults who were abused as children to finally have a chance at justice for themselves and accountability for those who abused them and covered it up. As is the generally the case in these laws…
We are saddened and disheartened to hear news of yet anothersituation of a failure of a school to protect its children. The news todaythat John Wangberg, a longtime teacher and coach at Central Elementary School in Bemidji, is being investigated by police for sexual abuse of children, and that the abuse was reported to police two years ago but that Central Elementary School continued to employ Wangberg, is a sadly familiar tragedy. School districts and their employees need to be better trained in child protection and prevention of abuse to ensure the safety of our kids at sch…
Just when some might think that we have heard the last of shocking news reports concerning the sexual abuse of children at Shattuck-St.Mary’s, it was reported yesterday that Joseph Machlitt, arrested and charged last week with criminal sexual conduct involving a student at the Faribault school in the early 1980’s, was recently employed as a substitute teacher at the St. Paul Academy and Summit School (SPA). This recent revelation is the latest in a chain of events that began in early October with former Shattuck-St. Mary’s teacher, Lynn Seibel, being charged with 15 counts of criminal sexual c…