The Roman Catholic religious order that runs Brother Rice High School in Chicago and St. Laurence High School in Burbank didn’t want Brother Edward Chrysostom Courtney in Chicago any longer. So in the early 1970s, the Irish Christian Brothers shipped him to the West Coast and kept the troubling reasons to themselves. When he was finally ousted from the parochial system 10 years later, landed in a public school in rural Washington and sexually abused a boy there, those reasons came to light. Law enforcement finally got involved. The Christian Brothers dismissed Courtney from the order shortly …
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News ReleaseMay 23, 2013Settlement in excess of $16.5 Million Reached in Irish Christian Brothers Sexual Abuse Bankruptcy Offenders operated schools in 17 U.S. States and Canada (White Plains, NY) The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors for The Christian Brothers Institute and The Christian Brothers of Ireland, Inc. have approved the terms and conditions of a consensual reorganization plan in the Chapter 11 cases of The Christian Brothers Institute and The Christian Brothers of Ireland, Inc. Over 400 survivors of sexual abuse are included in the group of unsecured creditors that will …
May 21, 2013 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — Six men who say they were victims of former Jesuit priest Donald McGuire have settled their sex abuse lawsuit for nearly $20 million. McGuire is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence after being convicted in several sex abuse cases. “This is an exhortation for truth transparency and accountability,” Jeff Anderson, attorney, said. “It is our call today to action to this pope and to this order and all those like it to become transparent.” McGuire was tried and convicted for child sex abuse in Wisconsin and is currently serving time in federal prison …
A judge has ordered a New Jersey priest wait behind bars while a grand jury considers whether he violated a legal agreement to stay away from children. Bail for Michael Fugee remains at $25,000 following his brief court appearance Tuesday in Bergen County, where he’s charged with seven counts of judicial contempt. Fugee did not have an attorney with him at his appearance Tuesday. He resigned from the Archdiocese of Newark on May 2, saying in a letter that he did not inform the archdiocese that he had a youth ministry and was working with children. “My failure to request the required permissi…
Jesuit officials in Chicago will pay $19.6 million to settle a civil lawsuit brought by six men who claim they were molested by a former priest and onetime spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa, an attorney for the plaintiffs said Monday. Donald McGuire, formerly of Oak Lawn, is serving a 25-year prison term after being convicted in Chicago in 2008 of federal charges that he brought a minor across state lines to engage in sex. He also was convicted in 2006 of molesting two boys in Wisconsin during the 1960s. “The amount of the settlement is reflective of the magnitude of misconduct by the top J…
The Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese has settled a civil lawsuit involving a priest convicted last year of producing child pornography.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court against the diocese, Bishop Robert Finn and the Rev. Shawn Ratigan by the parents of a young northern Missouri girl, was settled Tuesday for $600,000, attorneys for the girl’s family said.
It is the diocese’s largest settlement in a single priest sex abuse case, they said.
“It was good for the family and I’m sure it was good for the diocese to get this resolved,” said Gregg Meyers of Jeff Anderson & Associates in…
LOS ANGELES – A judge refused Tuesday to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that a fugitive Mexican priest molested a boy 25 years ago in Los Angeles and instead combined claims by 11 alleged victims into one trial. Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias postponed trial in the lawsuit involving the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar Rivera and, for now, denied a request by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles for a change of venue. The lawsuit claims Aguilar Rivera molested the plaintiff in 1987 while in Los Angeles, where he was working for one year after being severely beaten in his home parish in the Dioce…
BENNINGTON — The Legislature agreed Tuesday to extend the statute of limitations on crimes committed against children after a local prosecutor sought changes following the trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. 40-year statute of limitations Sexual crimes committed against a child will now have a 40-year statute of limitations. Current law only allows for prosecution of sexual assault, lewd and lascivious conduct, sexual exploitation of a minor within 10 years after it is reported or until a child turns 24. Bennington County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Christ…
KAMPALA, Uganda — He is a celebrity across eastern and central Africa, a gospel-music star known to many as the “Dancing Priest.” But for years he also was a keeper of painful secrets — his own and many others’. In going public, Anthony Musaala has forced the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda to confront a problem it had insisted didn’t exist. And he may stir a debate far beyond Africa’s most Catholic of countries. The Ugandan priest has been suspended indefinitely by the archbishop of Kampala for exposing what he calls an open secret: that sex abuse in the Catholic Church is a problem…