One of the most effective tools in fighting child sexual abuse and protecting kids has been the internet. The internet has been a source of constant information about predators and those who protect predators. Tomorrow I will appear in court in St. Louis, Missouri to represent a website author who created a website to protect kids called http://protectkidsfromclergypredators.com/. This website contains mostly court records from a child sexual abuse lawsuit against Rev. James D. Manning . Manning settled the child sexual abuse suit out of court and then turned around and filed a lawsuit against…
News & Events
Five years ago, John Doe RG contacted our law firm seeking help. He had been sexually abused by Fr. Harry Monroe, at the time, an unknown Catholic priest/perpetrator in Indianapolis, Indiana. RG was the first to publicly expose Fr. Monroe’s abuse and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis’ concealment of that abuse. Fourteen more boys followed in bringing lawsuits. Last week, RG settled his lawsuit and one of the questions is whether this is the end of this chapter in his life, or just the beginning. One thing for sure is that RG cannot change the fact that he was sexually abused by his priest. He ca…
Five years ago, John Doe RG contacted our law firm seeking help. He had been sexually abused by Fr. Harry Monroe, at the time, an unknown Catholic priest/perpetrator in Indianapolis, Indiana. RG was the first to publicly expose Fr. Monroe’s abuse and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis’ concealment of that abuse. Fourteen more boys followed in bringing lawsuits. Last week, RG settled his lawsuit and one of the questions is whether this is the end of this chapter in his life, or just the beginning. One thing for sure is that RG cannot change the fact that he was sexually abused by his priest.
You can’t knock progress… right? Well, the German Catholic Church has made some this week and you can be the judge. Yesterday, the Church adopted stricter guidelines for leaders to follow when reporting and handling cases of clergy sex abuse. Since 2002, church leaders in Germany have been required to report “established” cases of child sex abuse to law enforcement, unless the victim has other wishes. You can imagine the wiggle room this allowed: not only could church leaders loosely define what constitutes an “established case” in order to suit themselves and their reputations, they cou
On August 22, 2010, I wrote about misconceptions about child pornographers. Here, I write about misconceptions about victims of child pornography. Today our law firm filed another case involving child pornography against former special education teacher Gregg Larsen. The Plaintiffs are two kids who were ages 5 and 7 when they were exploited. Some might be surprised to hear that children so young are being exploited for child pornography, but it is getting more and more common. The United States Department of Justice estimates that pornographers have recorded
Many people (including me before I began handling child pornography cases) have an image of who consumes child pornography. They picture a forty something year-old man in his mother’s basement at midnight. There is no question that child pornography is growing at an incredible rate and that the problem is far worse than most thought. Estimates that were made even two or three years ago have turned out to be fatally flawed as significant underestimates. This week’s news reveals that the image of the child pornography consumer is equally flawed. For example, an article in
It’s working. This is exactly what needs to happen when survivors find the courage to come forward — more must follow. This is the only path to achieving mass shifts in the way child sex abuse cases are handled and the way institutional corruption is punished. The emergence of seven new victims of serial rapist Father Stephen Kiesle is a tragic yet indicative example of how this process works and we applaud them all for their courage. We also applaud those who came before and inspired these new victims to speak up.If you’re unfamiliar with the Kiesle case, it is a hallmark of Vatican sex abus
It’s working. This is exactly what needs to happen when survivors find the courage to come forward — more must follow. This is the only path to achieving mass shifts in the way child sex abuse cases are handled and the way institutional corruption is punished. The emergence of seven new victims of serial rapist Father Stephen Kiesle is a tragic yet indicative example of how this process works and we applaud them all for their courage. We also applaud those who came before and inspired these new victims to speak up.If you’re unfamiliar with the Kiesle case, it is a hallmark of Vatican sex abus
It’s working. This is exactly what needs to happen when survivors find the courage to come forward — more must follow. This is the only path to achieving mass shifts in the way child sex abuse cases are handled and the way institutional corruption is punished. The emergence of seven new victims of serial rapist Father Stephen Kiesle is a tragic yet indicative example of how this process works and we applaud them all for their courage. We also applaud those who came before and inspired these new victims to speak up.If you’re unfamiliar with the Kiesle case, it is a hallmark of Vatican sex abus
It’s working. This is exactly what needs to happen when survivors find the courage to come forward — more must follow. This is the only path to achieving mass shifts in the way child sex abuse cases are handled and the way institutional corruption is punished. The emergence of seven new victims of serial rapist Father Stephen Kiesle is a tragic yet indicative example of how this process works and we applaud them all for their courage. We also applaud those who came before and inspired these new victims to speak up.If you’re unfamiliar with the Kiesle case, it is a hallmark of Vatican sex abus
Yesterday, in Indianapolis, Indiana, two men were convicted and sentenced for their roles in creating and maintaining the child pornography website called Cache. These arrests were a result of an international investigation that infiltrated this child pornography network . The Cache network had up to 1000 members who participated in a very sophisticated file sharing network of child pornography. Some of the pornography in Cache was created exclusively for the members. The two men received sentences of 30 years and 19 years in prison for their involvement with this website. Infiltrating and shu
Pope Benedict XVI has decided not to accept the resignations of auxiliary bishops Raymond Field and Eamonn Walsh of Dublin. Field and Walsh submitted letters of resignation last December in the wake of the Murphy Report , an investigative summary that revealed a culture of cover-up surrounding rampant clergy sex abuse in Ireland. Auxiliary bishops Field and Walsh resigned just 24 hours after having their competence directly and publicly questioned by their superior, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.Archbishop Martin says the two men are now to be assigned “revised responsibilities.” This sounds fami
This is a particularly sad story. A little over a year ago, Fr. Patrick Umberger of the Diocese of LaCrosse was kicked out of Noah’s Ark Water Park in Lake Delton, Wisconsin for following young boys to the bathroom. When water park personnel observed Fr. Umberger follow the boys into the bathroom, they called the police and revoked his season pass. Two days ago, it was revealed that the Diocese of LaCrosse knew about this incident, but never restricted Fr. Umberger’s involvement with kids. Instead, the Diocese allowed Fr. Umberger to continue as a pastor of a church, teach at the parish school
A recent case in Kansas City, Missouri exhibits just how important constant vigilance by everyone of the signs of child pornography is in combating this tragic problem. In the Kansas City case, two workers went to the house of Richard Volberding to fix his water heater. While in Volberding’s house, the workers noticed images of what appeared to be naked children on Volberding’s computer. The workers called the police who got a search warrant and seized multiple computers containing thousands of images of child pornography. Recently, Volberding pled guilty to multiple counts of possession of ch