News & Events

ST. PAUL — Two women who say a Catholic priest abused them as girls in Willmar said Monday that they are suing to prevent others from living through what they have endured most of their lives. “I just felt so dirty all of those years,” Lori Stoltz said as she and Kim Schmit went public with allegations that the Rev. David Roney sexually abused them in the late 1960s and early 1970s when he was a priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Willmar. “It was the church that was hiding him,” said Jan Hazen, Schmit’s mother. “It is a seed that grows and grows…” Schmit said of the problems abuse c…

Jerry Sandusky’s challenge to his child molestation conviction is going before a state appeals court Tuesday. The former Penn State assistant football coach is seeking to overturn a sentence that could keep him behind bars for life. He’s also asking for a new trial. Pennsylvania’s Superior Court will decide whether prosecutors made an improper reference to the fact that Sandusky did not testify, whether jury instructions were mishandled and whether the defense should have been given more time before trial to digest a large volume of investigative material. Oral arguments will be held in Wil…

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and its insurance companies may be poised to reach a settlement that could fast track a resolution of its nearly 3-year-old bankruptcy, but lawyers for sex abuse victims with claims against the church are objecting, saying any settlement talks must include victim-survivors. The archdiocese has asked U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa to stay its lawsuit against Stonewall Insurance Co. and others carriers for 60 days so the parties can enter mediation, a move that would presumably also put on hold Randa’s pending decision on whether the insurers are liable for se…

 A Rochester man is suing the Boy Scouts of America, alleging that a former scoutmaster sexually abused him from the age of 11 to 16. In a lawsuit filed in Olmsted County District Court, Scott Hart, 48, contends that Scoutmaster Richard Hokanson molested him at least 200 times over a six-year period beginning in 1975. Hokanson pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct in the early 1980s and was forced to go through psychiatric treatment. Hart said he’s been through a lot over the last three decades. “A lot of therapy, a lot of counseling, a lot of psychiatry, a lot of anti depressants…

The Diocese of Gallup, which owns parishes and employs priests in both New Mexico and Arizona, has said that it will declare bankruptcy to avoid embarrassing civil child sex abuse and cover-up trials. Published in The Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Sept. 3, 2013 (the paper does not publish stories online): Diocese of Gallup to file bankruptcy Mounting clergy sex abuse legal claims spark Chapter 11 reorganization By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola Independent correspondent GALLUP — Catholics across western New Mexico and northern Arizona received bombshell news while attending Mass over the Lab…

 Confidential files turned over for a lawsuit set to go to trial in Minnesota may shed new light on the problem of sexual abuse within the Boy Scouts of America.    The documents were produced in litigation brought against the Boy Scouts and a former scoutmaster, Peter Stibal II, who is serving 21 years in prison for molesting four Scouts. Attorneys for one former Scout won a court order for the nationwide internal files, commonly known as “ineligible volunteer” or “perversion files.” They cover the years 1999-2008, much more recent than similar files forced into the open …

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. – A Benilde-St. Margaret’s School teacher has been fired after the school says he had “inappropriate communications” with students. School President Bob Tift named Jon Hickman in the email as a senior high engineering teacher and that he had been “dismissed” from his employment effective Tuesday. “Mr. Hickman has had inappropriate communications with BSM students,” wrote Tift. “We understand that Mr. Hickman has had interactions with BSM students through non teaching activities. Any such activities including senior photographs or artistic modeling are not connected …

  Two additional lawsuits have been filed against former Eau Claire pediatrician David Van de Loo. The civil suits, filed in Eau Claire County, are the sixth and seventh against the 60-year-old Van de Loo, who also is facing criminal charges accusing him of inappropriate contact with 16 former male patients while employed as a pediatrician and sports medicine physician for Mayo Clinic Health System. Van de Loo has pleaded not guilty to 17 felony charges. A three-week trial is scheduled to begin in January. In the latest civil suits, Van de Loo is accused of sexually abusing two former…

Lawyers for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s $50 million-plus cemetery trust say efforts to force a federal judge to set aside his recent decision in favor of the church and recuse himself from the case border on frivolous and amount to judge shopping, according to a new brief filed in the lawsuit. The brief, filed this week by attorneys for Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, the trust’s sole trustee, says U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa has no financial interest in the cemeteries — contrary to claims by the archdiocese’s bankruptcy creditors — and the issue is moot because the case is …