From the row houses of Milwaukee through the bare ruined choirs of Ireland’s churches, all the way to the highest office of the Vatican, it was an international and systematic conspiracy to silence victims of sexual abuse. MEA MAXIMA CULPA: SILENCE IN THE HOUSE OF GOD, directed by Alex Gibney (HBO’s Oscar-winning “Taxi to the Dark Side”), shows the face of evil that lurks behind the smiles and denials of authority figures and institutions who believe that they can do no wrong, because they stand for good. The shocking documentary debuts MONDAY, FEB. 4 (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HB…
News & Events
Washington (CNN) — An international operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement aimed at child pornography and sexual abuse has resulted in the arrest of 245 suspects, officials announced Thursday. All but 23 of the suspects were apprehended in the United States. The agency said that during the course of Operation Sunflower, law enforcement officers identified 123 victims of child exploitation and removed 44 of those children from their alleged abusers with whom they were living. The other cases involved victims who were exploited by people outside their homes or children w…
JEFFERSON CITY — A Missouri task force focused on preventing child sex abuse released nearly two dozen recommendations Thursday that included training, awareness, mental health services and changes to state law. Joy Oesterly, executive director of Missouri KidsFirst and the task force’s leader, said it will take a combination of the ideas to make a significant difference. She said implementing the changes will require cooperation from lawmakers, organizations and others. “Child sexual abuse is a very complex issue, and to think that there is one thing that will solve this problem is unrealist…
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say a photo taken at a resort in west-central Minnesota helped them solve a child pornography case and rescue a girl from her abuser. Gene Paulauskas, assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations in Minneapolis, says agents in Oregon were investigating a case when they came across a photo labeled “Our Minnesota Trip.” The image was sent to agents in Minnesota, who had it distributed among resort owners. The former owner of a resort in Richville identified the property, and investigato…
New York state assemblywoman Margaret Markey has introduced legislation since 2006 that would permit victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits until their 28th birthday. But the Queens Democrat said the Poly Prep Country Day School lawsuit and other sex abuse scandals have pushed her to call for a complete end to the criminal and civil statute of limitations when she introduces the Child Victims Act later this month. “As this case demonstrates, adding a few extra years to current law is not enough,” Markey said of the Poly Prep scandal. As the Daily …
On December 13, the Forward published an explosive story by our Paul Berger detailing how Yeshiva University for years ignored students who claimed that they were sexually abused by two former staff members at Y.U.’s high school for boys in Manhattan. For that story, Berger spoke to four students who voluntarily offered their accounts. Since then, about 20 former students have called or written, and the number keeps growing. Most of the allegations occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, and the statute of limitations prevents these men from suing the school, so they aren’t looking for money or othe…
Twenty more names have been added to the list of Boy Scout leaders and volunteers accused of sexually assaulting children in Wisconsin over the last several decades. The newest additions, published by the Los Angeles Times last week, involve mostly cases from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Included in the group: a 6-foot 5-inch, 300-plus-pound man known as “Bigfoot,” accused of molesting boys at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis in the early 1970s. Thomas “Bigfoot” Tannehill, who himself was deaf, was never criminally charged in Wisconsin in the 1970s when he was a dorm supervis…
Oregon higher education employees and coaches are joining the list of people required by law to tell authorities when they believe a child has been abused. The mandate, partially an outgrowth of the sex-abuse scandal at Penn State University, is one of 14 new laws that hit the books in Oregon when the new year begins Tuesday. Teachers, health care workers, clergy, lawyers and people working in a variety of other professions already are required to tell police or the Department of Human Services when they suspect a child has been abused. Now, anyone who works for a community…
Not unlike the scandals and cover-ups recently revealed at Penn State and Poly Prep Country Day School, another prominent school, this one in New York City, has recently come under fire for its failures to report sexual abuse. Yeshiva University High School for Boys, despite being regarded as one of the most prominent Jewish high schools in the country, has its own dark secrets involving sexual abuse dating back decades. Two staff members at the school, former principal George Finkelstein and former teacher, Rabbi Macy Gordon, were both recently outed as having been accused of sexually abusi…
Los Angeles County Judge Emilie Elias ruled on Thursday that media organizations can intervene to oppose redactions in the personnel files of priests accused of sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The ruling allows the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times to argue against the redactions at a Jan. 7 hearing. The Los Angeles archdiocese plans to release the files by Jan. 14 under the terms of a previous judge’s order, which allows it to black out the names of some accused clerics and all church officials. The media attorneys argued that such broad redactions…
A tall, imposing rabbi with a black goatee who served as assistant principal and principal during his 27 years at Yeshiva University High School for Boys, George B. Finkelstein was the face of authority to Mordechai Twersky, who graduated in 1981. So when Rabbi Finkelstein asked Mr. Twersky to “hit him hard” during a meeting in his office in 1980, Mr. Twersky said in an interview on Thursday, he was mortified. When Mr. Twersky refused, the rabbi knocked him to the ground and sat on him, goading him to wrestle. He could feel the rabbi’s erection, Mr. Twersky, now 48, said.Mr. Twersky’s…
Poly Prep Country Day School, one of New York’s most prestigious private schools, has agreed to settle a landmark lawsuit claiming its longtime football coach sexually abused hundreds of boys over a 25-year period and that officials covered up the assaults for decades.The settlement ends a three-year legal and public relations battle that divided parents and alumni and turned the elite Brooklyn school into a symbol of institutional indifference to sexual abuse in youth sports. The explosive suit, filed in 2009, claimed officials at the Dyker Heights prep school knew that coach Phil…
The Times this week released about 1,200 previously unpublished files kept by the Boy Scouts of America on volunteers and employees expelled for suspected sexual abuse.Times investigative reporter Jason Felch will discuss the files on a Google+ Hangout at 2 p.m.The files, which have been redacted of victims’ names and other identifying information, were opened from 1985 through 1991. They can be found in a database along with two decades of files released by order of the Oregon Supreme Court in October. The database also contains summary information on about 3,200 additional files opened fro…
When hundreds of victims of sexual abuse agreed in 2007 to settle their claims against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles for $660 million, they did so with the understanding that confidential church files that contained the full story of what officials knew, and when they knew it, would become public.That agreement, however, is at risk of being undermined. A court-appointed referee has ruled that the names of church leaders who are not accused of abusing children should be redacted from the files before those documents are publicly released early next year. Why? The referee argues …
The Times on Tuesday released about 1,200 previously unpublished files kept by the Boy Scouts of America on volunteers and employees expelled for suspected sexual abuse. The files, which have been redacted of victims’ names and other identifying information, were opened from 1985 through 1991. They can be found in a database along with two decades of files released by order of the Oregon Supreme Court in October. The database also contains summary information on about 3,200 additional files opened from 1947 to 2005 that have not been released publicly. Together, the material in the database …