SPOKANE (WA)
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SPOKANE, Wash. -- The Morning Star Boys' Ranch, a Catholic-run institution for troubled boys, is being sued by two former residents who claim they were sexually abused by counselors.
The lawsuit filed in Spokane County Superior Court on Wednesday contended that in one incident, two counselors forced several boys to pose for photographs with flowers protruding from their rectums.
The lawsuit, the latest in a string of abuse allegations against the ranch, said those photographs were circulated among the staff and residents at Morning Star, and were kept in the desk of the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, the ranch's revered director.
"It was a joke to them," the former resident, identified in court documents as W.K., said in a July interview with The Spokesman-Review newspaper.