News

News ReleaseApril 7, 2014

Sex
abuse lawsuit filed against diocese, former bishopNew Hawaii predator priest exposed

Deadline
to come forward, use courts is April 24 

(Honolulu, HI) – Less than three weeks before a legal
deadline, a Honolulu man has come forward and filed a lawsuit charging that he
was sexually abused by Catholic priests and a former Catholic bishop.

The lawsuit, filed Friday, says that the victim, John Roe 27, was sexually
abused at St. Stephen’s Seminary and Damien Memorial School. The boy was a
14-year-old student at St. Stephen’s in 1968 when …

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Thursday that it has contacted nearly 50 law enforcement agencies in the past two weeks to provide files on priests accused of child sexual abuse. However, none of 12 metro law enforcement agencies contacted by MPR News confirmed that the archdiocese had offered files to review.

Newly released church documents involving clergy working in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis describe one priest allegedly sexually abusing a brain-injured woman and another abusing a teenage boy who killed himself and his wife years later in a murder-suicide. The new details were revealed in a statement by the archdiocese late Monday as part of a lawsuit that is also compelling Archbishop John Nienstedt to testify under oath Wednesday about decades’ worth of alleged abuse. The archdiocese was ordered by a judge to disclose tens of thousands of pages of documents…

 News ReleaseApril 1, 2014Judge Allows Unprecedented Legal Claims to Move Forward in Lawsuit Involving Father Curtis Wehmeyer Claims include nuisance and spoliation of evidence(St. Paul, MN) – Today, Ramsey County Judge John Van de North issued an Order allowing Doe 31, who was sexually abused by Father Curtis Wehmeyer, to move forward with legal claims for nuisance and spoliation and offered Doe 31 a chance to amend the complaint filed on January 30, 2014 to include additional details in support of false advertising and deceptive trade practices claims to demonstrate the Archdiocese…

Local Catholic church officials have released new details about a pair of abusive priests showing that one priest was accused of sexually abusing a brain-injured woman and another sexually abused a boy who did not want his community to know what happened. That victim later killed himself and his wife in a murder-suicide, the church said. The disclosures are part of a lawsuit in Ramsey County Court that is also compelling Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough to testify under oath about a wide range of cases over decades where the archdiocese learned of abuses by …

WINONA, Minn. — A Minnesota priest was taken into custody at his Monday sentencing and will be deported after admitting he fondled a girl while attending dinner at her grandmother’s home.The Rev. Leo Koppala will be held by the Department of Homeland Security until his deportation proceedings and likely sent back to his native India, according to a statement from the Diocese of Winona said.Koppala pleaded guilty March 17 to second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a victim younger than 13. He was sentenced to 25 years of supervised probation and ordered to register as a sex offender.The…

An eighth-grader reported last month that a teaching assistant at her St. Paul school sent her a nude photo of himself, made comments about her leggings and her butt, and asked her to meet to “find a secluded place where they could kiss,” according to a police report about the now-fired staffer.The girl said “she did not agree to … since it felt ‘weird’ or ‘wrong,’ ” the report said.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office has asked the St. Paul Police Department to reopen two cases related to its investigation into the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The Diocese of Winona must release all files it kept on priests accused of abuse, the latest update in a sprawling case against both the diocese and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that continues to grow.A Ramsey County district judge this week ordered both the Winona diocese, as well as the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, to disclose their documents on priests by March 31. The documents may never see the light of day, at least not at first — they will be sealed and available only to the attorneys.The documents will “really show what the bishops knew, when they knew it, an…

Years after allegations of sexual abuse in northern Minnesota, a French teacher has been convicted in France. Adrien Massy from Angers, France was in the Bemidji area back in 2010 when the assaults took place.A French court convicted Massy of sexually assaulting two metro area boys, a 10 and 11 year old while on a field trip. He was working as a foreign exchange teacher employed by the French Academy of Minnesota which is in St. Louis Park. The assaults took place while students were on a field trip at the Concordia Language Camp in Bemidji.”I continue to grieve for the children and their fami…