News & Events

Using a little known federal child pornography statute known as Masha’s Law, attorneys for a child porn victim of Father Shawn Ratigan filed a lawsuit today in United States District Court – Western District of Missouri, against the priest, Bishop Robert Finn, and the Diocese of Kansas City.

A Navajo man who alleges that he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest more than 25 years ago will get his day in tribal court. The Navajo Nation Supreme Court this week overturned a decision by the Shiprock District Court that dismissed the suit on grounds it was filed too late. The suit was filed in May 2007, more than 20 years after the alleged abuse occurred.

Attorneys for the creditors in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy are attacking the validity of its $50 million cemetery trust, saying it was created in 2007 to defraud victims of clergy sex abuse. The creditors committee, composed of victim-survivors, filed a counterclaim Tuesday against the trust and its sole trustee, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, asking the bankruptcy court to void the 2008 transfer of $55 million into the account, and to declare the trust invalid. If the trust is declared valid, it argues, the court should require the archdiocese to trace all deposits to ensure that as…

News Release September 13, 2011   Navajo Nation Supreme Court:   Tribal court must hear case of priest who sexually abused Navajo child on reservation   Ruling reverses lower court that dismissed case based on a 20-year delay of reporting   Allows lawsuit against Franciscan priest, his order and the Diocese of Gallup to move forward   (St. Paul, MN) A prominent Minnesota law firm, known throughout the county for pioneering the use of civil litigation against clergy who sexually abuse children, achieved a major victory last week when the Navajo Na…

A Connecticut judge’s ruling today will allow a high-profile child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit to move forward.  It involves a prominent cleric who was close to Pope John Paul II and the controversial religious order he founded and led for decades. In a 15 page Memorandum of Decision issued today… 

A woman who says she was sexually abused by a former priest in northern Minnesota when she was 14 has reached a $750,000 settlement that requires the Diocese of Crookston to warn parishioners about the abuse and take steps to protect kids in the future. Megan Peterson, now 21, of Thief River Falls, appeared at a news conference Tuesday in St. Paul to announce the settlement. She chose to come forward “to let people know they are not alone.” “I’m here today to speak my truth, and to protect kids,” she said. Peterson says she was a teenager with aspirations of becoming a nun when she was rape…

  Prominent Victims’ Attorney Jeff Anderson Reacts to Release of Graves’ Report   The report made public today by the law firm hired by Bishop Finn is both misleading and self-serving.  We stood with and sued the Diocese and the Bishop for the failure to act when they had sufficient information to remove Ratigan and didn’t.  We stand by the allegations of the Complaint that Diocese officials had sufficient information in 2006 to both act and react; and if Bishop Finn had acted in accord with the law and protocol for child protection, some children may not have been har…

The Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph failed to follow its own
procedures and polices when reporting allegations of child sex abuse
against the Rev. Shawn F. Ratigan, an independent investigation found.Conducted
by former United States Attorney Todd Graves and his team, the 141-page
review concluded Msgr. Robert Murphy, vicar general of the diocese,
waited too long to advise the Independent Review Board of allegations
against Rev. Ratigan, which allowed him to continue to abuse children
and defy child protective boundaries set forth by Bishop Robert Finn.Those
allegations inclu…

For months after finding troubling images on a computer, the Catholic
diocese tried on its own to deal with Father Shawn Ratigan.As a
result, a report released Thursday said, the Diocese of Kansas City-St.
Joseph went off track, bungling its own investigation and failing to
even follow its own policies.An investigation by a former federal
prosecutor found that “individuals in positions of authority reacted to
events in ways that could have jeopardized the safety of children in
diocesan parishes, schools and families.

Clergy
Abuse Attorney Jeff Anderson: Graves report just words–it is the actions that
matter

Prominent Victims’ Attorney Jeff
Anderson Reacts to Release of Graves’ Report

The report made public today by
the law firm hired by Bishop Finn is both misleading and self-serving.  We stood with and sued the Diocese and the
Bishop for the failure to act when they had sufficient information to remove
Ratigan and didn’t.  We stand by the allegations
of the Complaint that Diocese officials had sufficient information in 2006 to
both act and react…

For more than a quarter of a century, Angel Santiago has suffered from a recurring nightmare. “Father [Joseph] Fitzharris chasing me in my dreams,” the 44-year-old Bensenville man said. On Monday, Santiago joined his attorneys to announce that a settlement has been reached with the Archdiocese of Chicago for sexual abuse Santiago suffered as a boy at the hands of his family’s priest, Fitzharris. Attorneys with the case declined to specify the monetary amount of the settlement. The archdiocese confirmed the settlement. “The settlements announced [Monday] confirm that this process works, and…