News ReleaseMarch 6, 2013 Accused Priest remains in ministry despite charges that he abused boys while at Damien Memorial in Honolulu Honolulu men file lawsuit – say Fr. George DeCosta sexually abused them at Damien High School in 1960’s (Honolulu, Hawaii) Working with the Oahu-based law firm of Mark Gallagher, nationally prominent clergy abuse law firm Jeff Anderson& Associates, announced today the filing of a civil lawsuit on behalf of two Honolulu men who say they were sexually abused in the 1960’s by Christian Brother priest Father George DeCosta at Damien Memorial High School in …
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ST. PAUL, Minn. — It was the sound of teenage boys screaming that jolted teacher Seth Hedderick out of his apartment one night in a dormitory at Shattuck-St. Mary’s. What he uncovered would remain a secret for years until it surfaced in criminal charges against one of the Faribault boarding school’s most beloved teachers. On that night in the fall of 2000, Hedderick said, he went downstairs to investigate. He passed several boys on the stairs. “What’s going on down there?” he asked. “N-D-P,” one boy said. The term meant nothing to Hedderick, who had worked at the school for just a fe…
In Rome, where 115 cardinals are gathering to elect a new pope, the conclave will include these luminaries: Cardinal Roger Mahony, former archbishop of Los Angeles, who in the 1980s plotted with an adviser to conceal child molesting priests from law enforcement. Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s church, who failed in the 1970s to follow up on incriminating evidence against a priest, who went on to become a notorious serial molester. Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former head of the Belgian church, who once advised an adult victim of 13 years of childhood abuse against making “…
Working with the Oahu-based Law Office of Mark Gallagher, the nationally prominent child sex abuse law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates, announced today the filing of a civil lawsuit on behalf of a Honolulu man who says he was repeatedly sexually abused in the 1980’s by a Hakalau farmer who was his adoptive father. The plaintiff, who is identified in the complaint as John Roe No. 8 to protect his privacy, claims that in approximately 1983 Jay …
U.S. Speedskating began an investigation Friday into the report of a female skater accusing former Olympian and organization president Andy Gabel of sexual abuse in the 1990s.
You can’t get more red-blooded American macho than Al Chesley. Now 55, he is still — at 6 feet 3 inches and at least 250 pounds — a bear of a man, a former NFL middle linebacker nicknamed “Mad Dog” who played on a Philadelphia Eagles team that went to the Super Bowl.
But at age 13, he was but a child — putty in the hands of a larger-than-life and revered neighborhood police officer who loosened him up with booze, showed him porn flicks, then molested and raped him for nearly five years.
“He told me that he wanted to teach me how to become a man — how ironic,” Chesley said this week about…
Rabbi George Finkelstein was quietly forced out of Yeshiva University High School for Boys in 1995 because of inappropriate wrestling with students that some of them considered abusive. But the Forward has learned that the wrestling did not stop after his departure from Y.U. It continued during Finkelstein’s next two posts, as dean of a Jewish school in Florida and as director general of the Jerusalem Great Synagogue in Israel, where he worked until abruptly resigning this past December. The most recent wrestling incidents documented by the Forward were in 2009. Finkelstein, 67, has been a …
Scandal-plagued Cardinal Mahony heading to select next Pope causes outrage among some Catholics. Casey Wian reports.
Minnesota is an outlier, compared with other states, when it comes to giving victims of child sexual abuse only until they reach age 24 — six years after becoming an adult — to file a civil lawsuit.
But under a proposal before the Legislature, they could file a lawsuit at any time, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. Under the Minnesota Child Victims Act, Minnesota would remain an outlier — but 180 degrees the other way, as the only state to give victims the right to pursue civil lawsuits without a time restriction.
Measures seeking to give victims more time to bring civil suits ha…
Editor’s note: Jeff Anderson is an attorney and the founder of Jeff Anderson and Associates in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has represented survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and other authority figures for 28 years.
(CNN) — As Pope Benedict XVI steps down, the moral authority and future of the Roman Catholic Church depends on the next pope forcefully dealing with child sex abuse in its ranks.
Benedict had the power to effect fundamental, institutional change from the top that would have protected children of future generations. Benedict failed on child protection and the sexual abuse of child…
Editor’s note: Jeff Anderson is an attorney and the founder of Jeff Anderson and Associates in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has represented survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and other authority figures for 28 years. (CNN) — As Pope Benedict XVI steps down, the moral authority and future of the Roman Catholic Church depends on the next pope forcefully dealing with child sex abuse in its ranks. Benedict had the power to effect fundamental, institutional change from the top that would have protected children of future generations. Benedict failed on child protection and the sexual abuse of child…
New York assemblywoman Margaret Markey is taking her sexual abuse legislation on the road. Markey, a Democrat from Queens, will hold a hearing on her Child Victims Act, which would eliminate criminal and civil statute of limitations in sex abuse cases in Manhattan on March 8. The bill was inspired in part by scandals at Poly Prep, Penn State and Syracuse. Markey will hold the hearing with the New York State Assembly Codes Committee. The lawmakers have invited will hear from law enforcement officials, mental health experts and sexual abuse victims testify about why the statute of limitations …
Former monk and priest, and now advocate for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, Patrick J Wall, says sexual abuse of children has been part of the culture of the Catholic Church as far back as 60 AD and despite constant attempts by the Popes to curtain the problem, it has never been snuffed out.
KMSP-TV FARIBAULT, Minn. (KMSP) – Former Shattuck-St Mary’s drama teacher Lynn Seibel appeared in a Rice County, Minnesota courtroom Tuesday to face 17 felony counts of sexual misconduct for allegedly molesting six boys between 1996 and 2003 at the Faribault, Minn., school. Seibel, 71, was booked in the Rice County jail overnight. He was released from the Los Angeles County Jail on Monday after waiving extradition and was placed in the custody of a deputy who flew in after Californian prosecutors dropped a child pornography charge so the case in Minnesota could proceed. Bail was set at $20…