News & Events

McKINNEY, Tex. — Kelley Currin, a divorced mother of four, started a romantic relationship in January with a middle-aged teacher in a supervisory position at the middle school that employed them. The district rules are clear on relationships between consenting adults when one has decision-making power over the other: they are not allowed. So in the fall, Currin, who teaches seventh-grade science, will transfer to a nearby school.  Currin, 43, laughed ruefully at the incongruity of her situation. She was sexually abused by her swim coach, Rick Curl, for five years in the 1980s beginning w…

 GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay says its investigation has cleared a retired priest of sexual abuse allegations. The diocese issued a statement Saturday saying an investigator it hired concluded the allegations were unsubstantiated. So Bishop David Ricken has lifted all restrictions on public ministry against the Rev. Justin Werner. Werner was accused in April of abusing a minor in the 1970s at St. Edward Parish in Mackville, near Appleton. Werner denied the allegation. Werner is in his 80s and has been a priest more than 50 years, according to a letter to mem…

  BANGOR, Maine — An Augusta man who claims he was abused in the 1980s by a Catholic priest has asked the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to consider what the bishop knew and when he knew it about the conduct of the Rev. Raymond Melville. Justices heard oral arguments in the case Tuesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center. It was the second time the court has considered the case, originally filed in February 2007 in Kennebec County Superior Court. The state’s high court four years ago affirmed 5-2 that under Maine law charitable groups such as churches, museums and sports organizations are …

WASHINGTON (AP) – Child prostitutes would be considered victims of abuse rather than juvenile offenders and be referred to child welfare officials under legislation in Congress aimed at extending care to them before they become ensnared in the criminal justice system. “In much of the country today if a girl is found in the custody of a so-called pimp she is not considered to be a victim of abuse, and that’s just wrong and defies common sense,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Tuesday, where lawmakers heard a 25-year-old woman recount how the child welfare…

A Robbinsdale Cooper High School hall monitor who also helped with the football program was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old student last week after the girl’s father walked in on the man and his daughter naked in her bedroom. Tajreed E. Rich, 41, of Minneapolis, was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and was in the Hennepin County jail. He was fired from the school Monday. Robbinsdale police Capt. Jim Franzen said police received a call Friday from the girl’s parents the day of the alleged assault, and later arrested Rich. Rich had been employed at Coop…

A Blue Earth priest who raises funds for orphans in his native India has been charged with second-degree criminal sexual conduct in a case involving an 11-year-old girl, according to the Faribault County attorney’s office. Leo Charles Koppala, 47, of the Catholic Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Blue Earth was taken into custody by Blue Earth city police about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, according to Faribault County jail records. Koppala had been invited to dinner at the home of a relative of the girl Friday evening, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Faribault County District Cour…

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Nick Stoneman arrived in 2003 determined to save Shattuck-St. Mary’s. His job was to turn this hockey powerhouse in the small southern Minnesota town of Faribault into an elite prep school. Shattuck-St. Mary’s was struggling. It had lost about $2 million a year for two years straight. Student enrollment was flat, and the boarding school had been without a permanent head of school for two years. Yet at the hockey rink, it was hard to imagine anything was wrong. Future superstar Sidney Crosby had just led the school to a national championship. And Shattuck athletes, includi…

 Clarification of News ReleaseJune 10, 2013 There is a correction to be made in the lawsuit filed today against Shattuck-St. Mary’s. At paragraphs 17 D and E, in the original complaint, the complaint reads “board members” and it should read “administrators.” We have no information at this time that a report was made to the board of directors, only that a report was made to school administrators. An amended complaint will be filed with this correction to replace the originally filed version.Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665Contact Sarah Odegaard: Office/651-227….

There is a correction to be made in the lawsuit filed today against Shattuck-St. Mary’s.  At paragraphs 17 D and E,  in the original complaint, the complaint reads “board members” and it should read “administrators.”     We have no information at this time that a report was made to the board of directors, only that a report was made to school administrators.  An amended complaint will be filed with this correction to replace the originally filed version. 

(Faribault, MN) – Even though three separate reports of inappropriate sexual conduct with boys were made to officials, including the headmaster and two board members, the elite private school Shattuck-St. Mary’s allowed teacher and dorm parent Lynn Seibel to continue his sexual exploitation of students at the school. Today, attorneys filed suit in Rice County District Court on behalf …

(St. Cloud, MN) – Thirty-six years later, 50 year-old Ed “Troy” Bramlage of Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, finally has a chance at justice. It took an act of the Minnesota Legislature and a lot of courage, but on Wednesday Bramlage stood in the office of his attorneys, and in front of reporters, told a secret he has harbored since he was 14 years old: “When I was a freshman at St. John’s Prep I was sexually molested by a priest.”

A Sauk Rapids man is suing the Order of St. Benedict, St. John’s Abbey, St. John’s Prep School and a monk who lives at the abbey for sexual abuse he said he suffered in 1977.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday by Troy Bramlage is the direct result of a law passed by the 2013 Legislature that lifted a six-year civil statute of limitations for victims of childhood sexual abuse. The new law gives victims older than 24 three years to sue for past abuse and anyone younger than 18 an unlimited time to file lawsuits regarding childhood sexual abuse. Previous lawsuits of this nature routinely have been dis…

  In a resounding display of bipartisanship, the Minnesota Legislature has allowed childhood sexual abuse victims a chance to seek justice that was once denied. The Child Victims Act, which passed the Senate unanimously and the House by an overwhelming 123-3 vote, lifts the civil statute of limitations that prevented anyone 24 or older from filing a lawsuit over sexual abuse that occurred while they were children. That gave childhood sexual abuse victims just a six-year window to file a civil lawsuit after becoming an adult. The six-year limit is the same time frame that applies to fra…

A 51-year-old Twin Cities man sued Wednesday alleging sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in the 1970s, the first such lawsuit since the Child Victims Act was signed into law last week by Gov. Mark Dayton. The act strips away the statute of limitations that previously gave child sex-abuse victims until the age of 24 to sue. Exactly what impact it will have is unclear, but St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, who is representing the man, said more litigation is inevitable. “He was suffering in the shadows,” Anderson said of his client, who is remaining anonymous. “There are going to be many more [s…