Minneapolis Church Turns Blind Eye on Child Abuse

Press TV
June 5, 2015

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/06/06/414545/US-Church-Child-Abuse

Cathedral of St. Paul (file photo)

The Catholic Church in the US city of Minneapolis faces criminal charges for turning a blind eye to reports of child abuse by a priest for years.

Prosecutors accused the church authorities of failure to protect children and act on repeated reports of the troubling conduct by Priest Curtis Wehmeyer.

The priest was convicted in 2013 of molesting two brothers and was defrocked and is currently in prison.

John Choi, a Minneapolis attorney, filed the criminal charges against the archdiocese, accusing it for failing “to protect children” from the abusive priest.

“Today we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” said Choi on Friday.

The criminal complaint filed by prosecutors includes six misdemeanor counts against the archdiocese, alleging that it failed to protect children from being raped by Wehmeyer.

Choi said that the archdiocese “turned a blind eye” on the matter, as they waited much too long to report the case to the police, thus giving an opportunity to the priest to destroy evidence.

As stated in the file, it took more than 2 years for the archdiocese to finally confront Wehmeyer in 2012 and inform the police of his molestations.

Choi also added that his office would not stop at criminal charges and will also hit the archdiocese with a civil action case because it ignored “numerous and repeated reports of troubling conduct by Curtis Wehmeyer,” something that he said is “appalling.”

Wehmeyer committed the crimes while serving the Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul as a priest, admitting to manipulating the children by offering them alcoholic drinks and showing them pornography.

The former priest’s rap sheet includes one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, punishable by up to 25 years in prison and a possible $35,000 fine, as well as two counts of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct and 17 counts of possessing child pornography.

He pleaded guilty to all the criminal counts, and was sentenced to a five-year prison term in 2013.