Molester Pleads Guilty, Bishop Asked to Do More in Little Rock

By David Clohessy
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
September 10, 2013

http://www.snapnetwork.org/molester_pled_guilty_bishop_asked_to_do_more_in_little_rock

Victims Write Parents & Judge about Teachers

Both will be in court in Little Rock next week

 One of them pled guilty to molesting a student

Another didn’t report the crimes as required by law

Group wants families & school officials to help prosecutors 

And it tells Little Rock’s bishop “Do aggressive outreach now”

Parents should “ask their kids if they saw or suspected wrongdoing,” victims

say

WHAT

Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims will urge local school officials and church officials to “actively seek out” people who “saw, suspected or suffered” crimes by two teachers who will be in court next week.

They will also disclose that they are writing to 

--- nearly 400 parents of students at the school where both of the accused worked, and

---the judge in the cases, urging harsh sentences if/when the teachers are found guilty of child sex crimes and/or cover ups.

WHEN

Wednesday, Sept. 11 at 1:30 p.m.

WHERE

On the sidewalk outside the Pulaski County Court house, 401 W. Markham in downtown Little Rock (near S Spring Street)

WHO

Two members of a support group for clergy sex abuse victims called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Missouri woman who is the organization’s long time outreach director.

WHY

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging officials with a Little Rock school and the Little Rock Catholic diocese to “aggressively seek out” others who may have “seen, suspected or suffered crimes” by two former Catholic school teachers who will be in court next week on child sex charges. The group is also writing to families who attend the school prodding those with information or suspicions about the crimes to contact law enforcement.

One of the teachers, Kelly Ann O’Rourke, admitted molesting a student. The other, Kathy Gene Griffin, allegedly concealed O’Rourke’s crimes.

Leaders of SNAP are begging Little Rock Bishop Anthony Taylor to use his “vast resources” to persuade others “with potentially helpful details about the two teachers’ crimes” to call police and prosecutors immediately, “so the two might face or be convicted of more charges and be locked up so that kids will be safer.” SNAP also wants Taylor to give the accused teachers’ personnel files to the prosecutors if he hasn’t done so already.

The group sent a letter to Taylor last week about their concerns. He has not replied.

So now, SNAP is writing to some 400 parents whose children attend or attended the school, asking them to ask their youngsters if they witnesses or experienced anything suspicious or illegal by the teachers.

On Sept. 16, O’Rourke will appear in Pulaski County Circuit Court (Room 220) on charges of violating her parole by repeatedly calling the girl she molested, then a teenaged Mount St. Mary (MSM) School student. (The school is at 3224 Kavanaugh Blvd., Little Rock, 501-664-8006). O’Rourke is expected to enter a plea.

(See Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 08/13/2013)

https://caseinfo.aoc.arkansas.gov/cconnect/PROD/public/ck_public_qry_main.cp_main_idx

The following day, Griffin, who taught at the same school, is scheduled to appear before the same judge on charges that she failed to report the abuse.

SNAP charges that the bishop, “largely by his inaction,” is hurting both law enforcement and O’Rourke’s victim or victims. The group believes both teachers may well have committed more crimes than police know about.

SNAP believes Catholic officials have a moral and civic duty to actively help law enforcement prosecute and convict child molesting church staff through “aggressive outreach” using parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements.

This is especially crucial in Catholic institutions for three reasons, SNAP says. First, because bishops have long ignored and concealed child sex crimes by Catholic employees. Second, because bishops have repeatedly promised to change their ways in child sex cases. And third, because child sex cases are especially difficult for police and prosecutors to pursue, because predators and those who help them - are usually very shrewd, while their victims are often frightened or confused.”

Eleven years ago, SNAP notes, US bishops adopted their first-ever national child sex abuse policy. In it, they promised to be “open and transparent” in church child sex abuse cases. So SNAP maintains that bishops can’t keep quiet and merely suspend child predators and do little or nothing else to safeguard kids.

In the vast majority of child sex abuse cases, SNAP believes, offenders are charged with only a fraction of the crimes they actually commit. So a vigorous public awareness/outreach effort by church employees can make a major difference in how successful prosecutors are in keeping predators away from kids.

The prosecutor is Teresa Ball (501-340-8000) and O’Rourke’s defense lawyer is Jack Lassiter (501-374-9010). The judge is Barry Sims.

SNAP is also writing Judge Sims, urging him to give the teachers the maximum sentence for their crimes, if they are found guilty.

SNAP believes that O’Rourke attended the University of Minnesota. She is a graduate of MSM and now lives at 8 Beachfront Trail, Santa Rosa Beach, FL (in Walton County), according to the Florida sex offender registry.