While the first criminal trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of covering up child sexual abuse has drawn national attention to Philadelphia, the church has been quietly engaged in equally consequential battles over abuse, not in courtrooms but in state legislatures around the country. The fights concern proposals to loosen statutes of limitations, which impose deadlines on when victims can bring civil suits or prosecutors can press charges. These time limits, set state by state, have held down the number of criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against all kinds of people accu…
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Nationally prominent clergy abuse law firm Jeff Anderson &
Associates, announced today the filing of a civil lawsuit on behalf of Los
Angeles man who says he was sexually abused in between 1973 and 1978 by two
different priests when he was a catechism student and altar boy at St. Anthony’s
Catholic Church in Kailua, Oahu Hawaii.
The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has been ordered into arbitration to determine if it violated the terms of a 2008 settlement with alleged priest abuse victims.Victims of abuse say it’s an important victory for them. They say it will make kids safer in the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. A Jackson County judge has ordered the Diocese into arbitration to determine whether church leaders violated a 2008 settlement with a group of people who say they were abused by priests.Robert Bates is one of 47 plaintiffs who sued the Diocese in Kansas City. Bates …
A Wisconsin man is suing the elite Breck School and William Jacobs, alleging he was sexually abused by Jacobs over a three year period, starting when he was 12 years old.Jacobs, a former Minneapolis Park Police chief and former Breck teacher, was given a maximum 18-year prison sentence earlier this year for the abuse of a 15-year-old boy over a period of three years, also beginning when that victim was 12.Prosecutors say there are other victims dating back to when Jacobs was a chemistry teacher at Breck School, but the cases are too old to press charges.
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An alleged sex assault involving a former Honolulu priest and a Damien Memorial School student has surfaced, nearly 30 years later.A new state law allows adults who claim they were molested as children to take legal action even after the statute of limitations has lapsed.The lawsuit that was filed yesterday claims the then 13-year-old boy was sexually assaulted by a former Damien chaplain. And it’s not the first time the former priest has been accused of a sex crime.
A jury finds the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay liable in a civil trial accusing it of fraud.
Todd and Troy Merryfield filed the civil suit against the Diocese after
evidence of other victims came out during John Patrick Feeney’s criminal
trial. An Outagamie County Judge awarded Todd Merryfield $225,000 and
Troy $475,000 in court on Monday.
The case was centered around former priest John Patric Feeney who was
convicted in 2004 of sexually assaulting the brothers in the 1970s.
Both sides issued passionate pleas to the jury.
Two brothers abused by a former priest with the Green Bay Diocese testified in their civil trial Wednesday. Todd and Troy Merryfield are suing the diocese for fraud. They claim the diocese knew, before they were abused, that former priest John Feeney had a history of inappropriate sexual contact with children. There was plenty of emotion shown by both brothers on the stand Wednesday as they told the jury about what happened to them at the hands of John Feeney in 1978 and how it has changed their lives still to this day. “He lifted up my pajama shirt, started rubbing m…