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It’s fairly clear the federal investigation into Penn State University won’t be a duplication of the grand jury probe that led to charges of more than 50 counts of child sex abuse against Jerry Sandusky. Instead, federal authorities seem to be stepping into areas where the state attorney general’s office hasn’t gone.

When Bud Spillane was a school superintendent in New Rochelle, N.Y., he had to deal with removing an elementary school teacher suspected of sex abuse. “It was pretty evident he had done something,” Spillane recalls. The biggest obstacle to removing him from the classroom? “Parents came out of the woodwork…against me,” he says. They loved the teacher, the afterschool time he put in, and the weekend trips he liked to take students on, so they fought to keep him in school.

A teacher’s aide at a highly regarded public elementary school in Manhattan was arrested on Friday after an accusation that he had sexually abused a student at the school, the authorities said.The aide, Gregory Atkins, 56, had worked at Public School 87, on the Upper West Side, since November 2008, the Education Department said. A law enforcement official said a male student had accused Mr. Atkins of having him strip in the school’s bathroom and, at another point, offering money to fondle the boy. But many of the specifics of the case were not available. It is not the first time Mr. Atkins has…

Sealed documents filed in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy identify at least 8,000 instances of child sexual abuse and 100 alleged offenders – 75 of them priests – who have not previously been named by the archdiocese, a victims’ attorney said Thursday. Archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf said she did not have enough information to respond to the assertion, made by attorney Jeffrey Anderson during a pivotal hearing before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley. Anderson represents about 350 of the 570 victim-survivors who have filed claims in the case. But Peter Isely of the Survivors N…

Milwaukee’s Roman Catholic archdiocese will ask a judge on Thursday to throw out hundreds of sexual abuse claims that have thrust it into bankruptcy, triggering a court battle and rekindling anger at the church’s mishandling of abusive clergy. The aggressive stance taken by the archdiocese reminds victims’ advocates how leaders of the U.S. church long resisted pleas to deal harshly with offenders…

A group of parents gathered across the street from an elementary school in a largely Latino neighborhood in South Los Angeles on Friday and took turns assailing its directors. Clutching a press release that had just been handed out by the school board, they were trying to process the news that a second teacher at their children’s school had been arrested on charges of sexual misconduct.

For at least the last 10 years, Catholic dioceses across the country have created lists of priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct.The lists have long been kept private by church officials. But over the last decade, dioceses in San Diego, Chicago, Boston and other cities have released such lists, largely under pressure.None of the six dioceses in Minnesota have yet published the names of the priests credibly accused. But some want that to change.Among them is St. Paul Attorney Jeff Anderson, who is well-known for representing victims and alleged victims of sexual abuse…

“We, and the many families and victims in the Diocese of Stockton, California, who have been wounded by the defrocked pedophile priest Oliver O’Grady are deeply gratified with the news today that an Ireland court has sentenced him to three years in prison for the possession of over 65,000 pornographic images of children on his laptop.    Those feelings, however, are mixed with fear that upon his release, he …

Advocates and therapists for survivors of male sex abuse say the recent scandals at Penn State and elsewhere may help men who were abused as children, and boys being abused today, step out of the shadows and get the support they deserve. They also hope society can become better educated about the issue. “The allegations have kick-started a public dialogue about sexual violence and the community’s responsibility,” says Jennifer Marsh, who directs hotlines at RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. “It’s a conversation we have to have and can’t shy away from.

With just weeks to go before a Feb. 1 deadline in its bankruptcy, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is casting a wide net in search of clergy sex abuse victims who might seek to file claims, publishing ads in state and national newspapers and asking its parishes and schools to spread the word. At the same time, victims advocates say, the archdiocese is embarking on a legal strategy that could result in the vast majority of the nearly 200 sex abuse claims filed to date being thrown out of court, leaving those victims ineligible for a financial settlement from the church – and perhaps changing the…