By Judy L. Thomas
Kansas City Star
September 22, 2011
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/09/22/3160210/new-lawsuit-claims-priest-photographed.html
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| The Rev. Shawn F. Ratigan |
The parents of a Missouri girl filed a lawsuit today alleging that a Kansas City priest who faces state and federal child pornography charges took sexually explicit pictures of their daughter.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by a girl identified as Jane Doe 186 and her parents, Mother Doe 186 and Father Doe 186, alleges that the Rev. Shawn Ratigan used the child to produce pornographic pictures, then distributed them over the Internet. The lawsuit claims officials with the Kansas City-St. Joseph Diocese spent five months trying to hide the evidence and protect Ratigan.
The civil suit names Ratigan, the diocese and Bishop Robert Finn as defendants and is the third lawsuit to be filed against the priest. It seeks unspecified damages, including expenses incurred for the girl's medical treatment.
"As we see so often, this case appears to be one of top officials concerned about reputation over safety of children," said Jeff Anderson, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit. "We applaud the courage of this family for taking action to make this problem known in order to protect children in the future."
The diocese issued a statement in response to the lawsuit:
"While the diocese has noted many inaccurate statements in the civil complaint, it intends to place these false statements into the hands of the court. The fundamental concern of the diocese is for the child and her family. The actions attributed to Shawn Ratigan betrayed their trust and violated the dignity of their daughter."
Ratigan's attorney, John P. O'Connor, did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the lawsuit, the family met Ratigan when he officiated at the funeral Mass of the girl's great-grandfather at St. Mary's Catholic Church in St. Joseph in 2006. After that, Ratigan appeared at Cathedral School of St. Joseph, where the girl was a student, and often visited the family at their home. The visits occurred from 2006 to 2011, the lawsuit says.
In 2008, the lawsuit alleges, Ratigan took photographs and visual images of the girl in her bathing suit, focusing on her vaginal area and buttocks. Around 2009, Ratigan photographed the girl while she was sleeping and fully clothed, the lawsuit says. Those photos indicate Ratigan moved the girl in order to pose her in a sexually suggestive manner, the lawsuit alleges.
Ratigan then uploaded the sexually explict photos to his computer and sent them out over the Internet, according to the lawsuit.
Authorities found the pictures of Jane Doe 186 and those of numerous other girls on a computer at St. Mary parish in St. Joseph and on compact discs found during a search of Ratigan family members' homes after his arrest in May, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit alleges that instead of notifying police about disturbing photographs found on Ratigan's laptop computer in December, the diocese "aided and abetted" Ratigan by covering up his behavior, copying and distributing the photos he created and collaborating to destroy the evidence.
The lawsuit cites a federal child pornography statute known as Masha's Law, which was enacted in 2006 and gives child-pornography victims the right to sue anyone who produces, downloads, distributes or possesses sexually explicit images of them.
The law was named after a girl from Russia who was adopted at age 5 by a man who sexually abused her and made recordings of it. Victims can recover damages of no less than $150,000.
Contact: jthomas@kcstar.com
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