(CBS/AP) PHILADELPHIA – coveMonsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. Roman Catholic church official convicted of covering up child abuse claims, was sentenced Tuesday to three to six years behind bars.Lynn, 61, had faced a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for his felony child endangerment conviction. He was cleared of three related charges at trial.Lynn , the former secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, handled priest assignments and child sexual assault complaints from 1992 to 2004.Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said that Lynn enabled “monsters in clerical garb … …
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A lawsuit filed today against St. John’s Abbey accuses the religious order of knowing about sexual abuse allegations against a member of the order as far back as 1958, yet letting him teach at St. John’s until 1990.The lawsuit alleges fraud by intentional non-disclosure and fraud by intentional misrepresentation and accuses the abbey of keeping what it knew about the Rev. Allen Tarlton quiet.The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a former student at St. John’s Prep, where Tarlton taught English. Identified in the lawsuit only as John Doe LP, the student was sexually abused by Tarlton in the early …
A judge on Wednesday ordered a new trial for the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay in a civil fraud lawsuit brought by two childhood victims of clergy abuse.In an 11-page decision, Outagamie County Judge Nancy Krueger threw out a $700,000 verdict awarded to two brothers, now adults, by a jury in May. Krueger outlined information a juror should have expressed to the court before the fraud trial, WLUK-TV reported.An attorney for the diocese had argued a retrial is necessary because jurors who made the award had expressed concerns about possible bias by one of the jury members.
A former student who attended the prominent St. John’s Preparatory in
Collegeville, Minnesota, has filed a lawsuit alleging he was sexually
abused by a mentoring priest in the early 1980’s and that the school and
it’s superiors were negligent and could have prevented the sexual
abuse.
GALLUP, N.M. (AP) — Three men who filed the first sexual abuse lawsuits in the Navajo Nation court system against the Catholic Church have recently settled their cases.The Gallup Independent reports (http://bit.ly/4FPz5i) that the men will receive money as part of the settlement from the priest who is accused of sexually abusing them, the Diocese of Gallup, the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Albuquerque and another church entity.Patrick Noaker, an attorney who represented the men, said his clients have asked that the settlement amounts not be publicly disclosed.The lawsuits al…
HARRISBURG — Legal experts say emails and other evidence from the
Penn State sex abuse case suggest that Joe Paterno and other university
officials put boys in danger with their failure to report sexual abuse
allegations against Jerry Sandusky more than a decade ago.The
allegations are similar to those made against a top Philadelphia
archdiocese official who was convicted on child endangerment charges
last month.Duquesne University law professor Wes Oliver
said former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s investigative report on the Penn
State scandal reads like a prosecution case for a…
July 12, 2012Freeh Report: A step towards transparency, but far from the whole storySerious concerns about the limitation of scope remain Broader and deeper investigation neededStatements of Jeff Anderson and Marci Hamilton:Jeff Anderson: The release of the investigation by Louis Freeh, hired by the Board of Trustees, is a major step in the direction of transparency. It reveals in sorted and candid detail what has happened and gives us a glimpse of why it happened and the institutional failures at the top on down from 1998 to the present. What is most notable it not only the …
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The first Catholic bishop criminally charged in the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis will have to grant prosecutors access to a range of files regarding his diocese’s response to previous accusations of clergy abuse, a county judge ordered Thursday.According to the decision, Bishop Robert Finn and his Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese will have to turn over notes and other documents from a diocesan investigation into their handling of the case of diocesan priest Fr. Shawn Ratigan, who was arrested last year for possession of child pornography.They will also have to g…
Jerry Sandusky’s lawyers say they will appeal several issues in the wake of the former Penn State football coach’s conviction on 45 of 48 counts of child sex abuse Friday. But no matter how the appeals process plays out, Sandusky’s legal troubles are far from over, experts say.By the time Sandusky is transferred to a state penitentiary in the next months, a mountain of civil claims against him are sure to be underway, and he could face new criminal charges as well, according to Jeff Anderson and Benjamin Cardozo law school professor Marci Hamilton. Anderson and Hamilton jointly represent Travi…
Updated at 11:37 p.m. ET: BELLEFONTE, Pa. — Jerry Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse Friday night and faces spending the rest of his life in state prison. His attorney said he would appeal the verdict.Sandusky’s attorney, Joseph Amendola, asked Judge John Cleland to allow Sandusky to be released on house arrest, but Cleland summarily rejected the request, saying: “Bail is revoked. Mr. Sandusky is remanded to the custody of the sheriff.” Sandusky was immediately led out of the courthouse in handcuffs as a large crowd of onlookers cheered. Sentencing was set for late Septe…
The jury’s decision is not a full reckoning but the truth is now
revealed. This trial is unprecedented; it has set a pathway and a
standard for prosecutors across the United States and made it less
likely for the secrets, patterns and practices of the past to be
repeated.
A Philadelphia jury made history today when it found Msgr. William Lynn guilty of endangering the welfare of a child. The jury’s decision is historic and unprecedented. Until now no top Catholic official has been criminally convicted for child endangerment. The result of this difficult and arduous trial presents the first true day of reckoning in the criminal justice system against any top official in the Catholic church hierarchy.For decades the top officials of the Catholic Church, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and elsewhere, have operated above the law and with impunity, believing that th…
We applaud Travis Weaver for his courage and desire to speak out in
order to help others. Travis came to us expressing great sorrow and
guilt over the kids that followed him and experienced sexual abuse by
Jerry Sandusky.
A 30-year-old Ohio man is the first accuser of former Penn State football Coach Jerry Sandusky to speak publicly about the sexual abuse he says he endured.Travis Weaver, in an exclusive interview to be broadcast Thursday, June 21 at 10pm/9c on NBC’s Rock Center, said Sandusky performed oral sex on him in the upstairs bedroom of the Sandusky home, right across the hall from Sandusky’s wife, Dottie.Weaver said Dottie Sandusky never witnessed firsthand any of the abuse but he suspects she had an idea of what was going on.“How could you not know?” asked Weaver in the interview.The trial has grabbe…
Two Philadelphia lawmakers are making an end run around the legislative process to try to get their stalled child-abuse protection bills to a House floor vote.State Reps. Michael McGeehan and Louise Williams Bishop, both Democrats, say the overlapping trials of two Philadelphia Archdiocese priests and former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky are reason enough to consider their bills, which seek to expand the statutes of limitations for civil and criminal liability in claims of past assaults on children.”Sexual abuse of children is at the forefro…