When the Rev. Joseph D. Ross was assigned to minister at St. Cronan Church, the other priest there already knew his secret.He heard the pastor coming to help him in 1991 had just returned from the St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., a mental health treatment center for Catholic clergy, according to court filings.The priest recognized that in all likelihood this was code for Ross having just undergone therapy for a sexual attraction to children. Although the priest worried about the well-being of the parishioners, according to court filings, the Archdiocese of St. Louis assured him that R…
News
The Rev. Timothy McCarthy was the “kids’ pastor” who wore sneakers under his vestments and dropped profanities into his sermons. Girls had crushes on him, and parents let their children go camping with him.When McCarthy abruptly resigned the priesthood in 1991, he told his flock at the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Maplewood that he had outgrown Catholic Church dogma. He was quitting, he said, to go down a new spiritual path.But newly released files reveal that the church ousted McCarthy after allegations that he sexually abused two boys early in his career and later engaged in an…
Archbishop Emeritus Harry Flynn’s sworn testimony, taken May 14, 2014, has been released publicly. Flynn’s deposition was taken in a civil lawsuit involving a man sexually abused in the 1970s by former priest Thomas Adamson. The entire deposition transcript and video clips are available at http://www.andersonadvocates.com. A DVD copy of the video deposition is also available at our office…
Click Here for Harry Flynn Deposition Transcript 05-14-2014 Clips from Flynn’s Deposition </iframe
Deposition of Fr. Peter Laird Deposition
(St. Paul, MN) – The sworn testimony of the Archdiocese’s former Vicar General Father Peter Laird has been publicly released by attorneys as a part of a civil lawsuit filed in 2013 in Ramsey County; Doe 1 vs. the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Father Thomas Adamson. “Father Laird’s deposition raises serious questions about Archbishop Nienstedt…
Doe 1 Depo of Peter Laird 05-12-2014
A Dorchester County jury awarded teacher and former Assistant Principal of Knightsville Elementary School, Mary Rita Watson a $1,000,000 verdict in a civil lawsuit filed on her behalf involving an incident that occurred at the school in 2009. Attorney Gregg Meyers of Jeff Anderson & Associates, a Minnesota-based law firm specializing in cases of child sexual abuse with an offic…
HASTINGS, Minn. (KMSP) – Former Rev. Francis Hoefgen was charged Wednesday in Dakota County with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with allegations he sexually abused a former altar boy.The alleged abuse occurred from the spring of 1989 to the fall of 1991 when the boy was 9 to 12 years old. The victim brought the allegations to Hastings police in November 2013, telling investigators he was sexually abused by Hoefgen multiple times as a student and altar boy at St. Boniface Church and school.Hoefgen, now 63, began serving as a priest in the St. Boniface Church in…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – A priest who was convicted of fondling a 12-year-old girl while he was working in the Diocese of Winona has been deported to his native India.Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement say 48-year-old Leo Charles Koppala was turned over to authorities in New Delhi on Wednesday.Koppola was charged last June with second-degree criminal sexual conduct. He pleaded guilty in March, admitting he fondled the girl while eating dinner at her grandmother’s house.