ABUSE TRACKER

JERUSALEM (ISRAEL)
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

February 28, 2018

A lawsuit filed against a venerated haredi Orthodox elementary school in Jerusalem alleges physical and sexual abuse within the institution.

The lawsuit was filed last week in Jerusalem Magistrates Court against Talmud Torah Kaminetz by a former student who is now an adult. He was assisted in preparing and filing the lawsuit by Din Ve’Cheshbon, a haredi organization that is fighting against sexual abuse cases and institutional coverups within the haredi sector.

Talmud Torah Kaminetz is held up as a standard-bearer in the Lithuanian stream of the haredi education system.

The lawsuit names a teacher, the principal and the institution as defendants. The incidents began about 18 years ago when the alleged victim was 9 years old and in the third grade.

A teacher who tested the students privately in Torah and other religious subjects allegedly repeatedly pinched the student’s private areas during the testing sessions. When the student started to skip the sessions, the principal allegedly called him to his office, where he would hit the boy, sometimes with a stick. On one occasion, according to the documents, it was with such force that the stick snapped in two.

In sixth grade, the student told a rabbi at the school about the incidents. The following day his mother received a call from the school accusing the child of spreading lies about the rabbis in the school. The mother said she was also told that she should be grateful that her son was accepted to the prestigious institution, even though the family is of Sephardic descent, and that if they continued to complain the boy and his brothers would be expelled from the school.

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AUSTRALIA and ISRAEL
The Age

February 28, 2018

By Alex Lavelle

Natural justice demands that everyone deserves the presumption of innocence, and that it must be tested in a court. Natural justice also dictates that alleged victims of crime have the opportunity to be heard in court. In the extraordinary case of a former Melbourne school principal facing 74 charges of rape and other sexual abuse of young girls, natural justice has been unacceptably perverted for a decade.

Dual Australian-Israeli citizen Malka Leifer, who had been in charge of the Adass Israel School, fled to Israel with her husband and their eight children, and with the financial and logistic help of leaders of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community exclusively served by the school, within hours of the first allegations emerging. She lived with relative impunity until finally being arrested in 2014. She was released on bail after arguing she suffered anxiety and extreme panic attacks.

Thus began a legal strategy that many, including The Age, view with scepticism; every time she was scheduled to face extradition proceedings, her lawyers claimed she was too mentally ill to stand trial. Her case was frozen in 2016, after a judge said she was unfit to stand trial. But she was again arrested last month, with police arguing she was faking her mental illness, after undercover surveillance footage showed her living what appeared a normal daily life in an ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement.

However, hopes she will finally face justice have been frustrated yet again. Despite a comprehensive psychiatric report stating she is well enough to face trial, her lawyer has delayed extradition, for the moment, on a technicality – that Jerusalem’s chief psychiatrist did not sign the report, and that the defence team has had insufficient time to study it. The report was prepared by two psychiatrists who have been observing Ms Leifer since her latest arrest two weeks ago at the urging of Australian officials.

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CHILE
The Associated Press

March 1, 2018,

The Vatican’s sex crimes investigator has ended his mission in Chile, and Roman Catholic officials say he plans to deliver a report to the pope on a Chilean bishop who has been accused of ignoring sex abuse by a priest.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna closed his visit Wednesday with a message expressing gratitude for “the welcome of the Chilean people” and also thanking abuse victims for meeting with him.

The statement came a day after Scicluna interviewed several victims of sex abuse by members of the Marist Brothers religious order, a development that suggested his mandate had expanded beyond looking into allegations of a cover-up by Osorno Bishop Juan Barros.

Victims of pedophile priest Fernando Karadima have said that as a priest Barros witnessed and ignored the abuse. Barros denies that.

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LANSING (MI)
MLive

February 27, 2018

By Emily Lawler

Note: This story has been changed to reflect that the proposed changes to the criminal statute of limitations are not retroactive.

An employee and mandated reporter who fails to report suspected child abuse would be guilty of a felony punishable by up to two years in prison under a package of bills approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

The bills, announced on Monday, are a reaction to the case involving ex-MSU Dr. Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual assault. More than 250 women accused him of molesting them, and some told authority figures who failed to report their allegations.

As proposed, the package would have taken the punishment for an employee and mandatory reporter who failed to report child abuse or neglect from a 93-day misdemeanor to a 1-year misdemeanor.

But an amendment from Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, took the punishment up to a felony punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a fine of $1,000 to $5,000. For volunteers who are mandatory reporters and don’t report, it would be a one-year felony and/or fine of up to $1,000.

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ST. CLOUD (MN)
The Associated Press

February 28, 2018

The Diocese of St. Cloud plans to file for bankruptcy to help resolve lawsuits involving sexual abuse of minors.

A three-year window that lifted the statute of limitations on past allegations of clergy abuse in Minnesota ended in May 2016. The diocese received 74 civil claims during that time.

Bishop Donald Kettler says Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization is the best way to ensure that money will be distributed equitably to all victims and allow the diocese to continue normal operations. The St. Cloud Times reports he didn’t give a date for the filing.

St. Cloud is the fourth diocese in Minnesota to seek bankruptcy protection. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the dioceses of Duluth and New Ulm have also filed for bankruptcy amid abuse claims.

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JERUSALEM (ISRAEL)
The Guardian

March 1, 2018

By Oliver Holmes

Private investigator who collected more than 200 hours of footage following Malka Leifer says videos build case for extradition

An Israeli private investigator has shared videos with the Guardian he says show alleged child sex abuser Malka Leifer living a “normal, healthy” life despite being declared unfit to be extradited to Australia.

Tsafrir Tsahi collected more than 200 hours of footage of the former school principal who is living in Israel but wanted in Australia on 74 counts of suspected sexual assault and rape at a Jewish ultra-Orthodox girls school in Melbourne.

Tsahi’s material has now been handed over the police, who subsequently conducted their own investigation and have since rearrested Leifer on suspicion of “obstruction of justice”.

“I put a crew there who would watch her from morning to evening,” said Tsahi. Deploying a surveillance team in the occupied West Bank settlement where Leifer lives, Tsahi says he has built a case that proves she is “a normal, healthy person”.

“We learnt she was speaking on the phone all day long,” said Tsahi, whose investigators disguised themselves as construction workers to track the woman in December.

One day, they saw her take the bus for a one-hour journey to a suburb in Tel Aviv where her children live.

“We followed her there because it was very important to see that she can go to the post office, she can go to the butcher, she can go to buy clothes, she can meet her kids there. She buys them things. They come to visit her on the weekend.

“She has a problem now because the videos show she is a normal person. She can’t go back again to being someone who cannot function,” Tsahi said.

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CORPUS CHRISTI (TX)
Corpus Christi Caller-Times

March 1, 2018

By Eleanor Dearman

A former South Texas Catholic priest, convicted Wednesday of raping a 13-year-old girl less than a decade ago, will likely spend the rest of his days behind bars.

A Bee County jury sentenced Stephen Tarleton Dougherty to 60 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault Thursday, prosecutor Terry Breen confirmed. The trial began Feb. 20, he said.

He’s eligible for parole after half that sentence is served and must pay a $10,000 fine. The maximum punishment in the case was 99 years or life.

Dougherty, 61, was indicted in Bee County in June 2016.

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SANTIAGO (Chile)
The Associated Press

March 1, 2018

By Nicole Winfield and Eva Vergara

[Note: For the Spanish language version of this article, see El experto del Vaticano en abusos sexuales parte de Chile]

The Vatican’s leading expert on clerical sex abuse wrapped up his fact-finding mission to Chile on Thursday and headed to Rome to brief the pope, concluding one of the most extraordinary months in the Catholic Church’s long-running saga of coming to terms with priests who rape children and the church hierarchy that protects them.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna plans to present not only a report about Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused by victims of witnessing their abuse and ignoring it. Scicluna is also bringing back testimony from Chilean victims of other abusers in the Marist Brothers, Salesian and Franciscan religious orders and how their accusations were mishandled, confirmation that the Chilean Catholic Church has a very big problem on its hands, and to date hasn’t handled it very well.

“In those situations that seem pertinent, Monsignor Scicluna will provide the respective background to the Holy See,” said the spokesman for the Chilean bishops’ conference, Jaime Coiro.

Expectations in Chile are high that something has to change, and that the problem isn’t just about Barros and Francis’ 2015 decision to appoint him as bishop of Osorno, Chile over the objections of many Chilean bishops. Barros had been a top lieutenant to Chile’s most prominent predator priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, but he denies victims’ accusations that he witnessed and ignored their abuse.

Victims say the Barros affair is merely emblematic of a culture in the Chilean church to cover-up for abusers, give them minimal sanctions or move them around rather than adopt the “one-strike-and-you’re-out” policy adopted by U.S. bishops after the sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Daily Mail

March 1, 2018

Amnesty International has called for a public inquiry into clerical sex abuse in Northern Ireland.

It follows revelations of abuse by Fr Malachy Finnegan, former president of St Colman’s College in Newry.

Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, was accused of sex abuse by 12 people.

Amnesty’s Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan said: “To date, clerical abuse victims here have been let down, not just by the church, but also by the authorities.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Amnesty International UK

March 1, 2018

Northern Ireland: Amnesty calls for clerical child abuse inquiry following latest revelations
Amnesty International has called for Secretary of State Karen Bradley to set up a public inquiry into clerical child sex abuse in Northern Ireland following revelations of abuse by Father Malachy Finnegan, former president of St Colman’s College in Newry.

Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, was accused of sex abuse by 12 people. Victims claim that police in Newry were alerted to the allegations in 1996 but failed to interview the priest. The police say that a formal complaint was never made, but they did receive a report of historical abuse.

Amnesty maintains that the Fr Finnegan abuse scandal is the latest in a litany of such cases, and have again called for a full public inquiry which the human rights organisation first made in November 2012.

Reviews by the Catholic Church’s own safeguarding body have revealed that more than 100 priests in Northern Ireland are alleged to have been responsible for child abuse since the mid-1970s.

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PARKER (CO)
KDVR

February 27, 2018

By Michael Konopasek

A former youth pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Parker was arrested Tuesday on complaints in Denver and Parker that he sexually assaulted three girls.

Crossroads leadership said the suspect, 35-year-old Joshua Clemons, was placed under arrest at Restoration Community Church in Denver where he was employed.

During a meeting with congregants on Tuesday night, Crossroads officials said the alleged abuse happened while Clemons was working as a youth pastor at the Parker campus.

Clemons was employed with Crossroads from 2006 to 2015. The alleged victims are high school-aged, according to Crossroads.

Church leaders admit they were told in December 2016 that Clemons had been in a relationship with an 18-year-old former youth group member after he left the church in 2015.

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OKLAHOMA CITY (OK)
The Christian Chronicle

March 1, 2018

By Bobby Ross Jr.

‘Survivors care for and support one another because they feel abandoned and betrayed by the church,’ Hinton says.

For Jimmy Hinton, there was no question: He had to do the right thing, even though it meant turning in his own father.

In 2011, a woman confided to Hinton that his father, John Hinton — who spent 27 years as the preacher at the Somerset Church of Christ in Pennsylvania — had sexually abused her when she was a young girl.

That report prompted an investigation that resulted in the pedophile preacher, now 69, pleading guilty to sexually assaulting and taking nude photographs of four young girls, ages 4 to 7.

While his father serves a 30- to 60-year sentence at a state prison, Jimmy Hinton works to create awareness far beyond Somerset.

In an interview with the The Christian Chronicle, Hinton discussed social media advocacy, the sexual abuse problem and steps churches can take to prevent abuse:

Question: How has social media changed the overall landscape for survivor recovery, advocacy and activism?

Hinton: Social media can make survivors visible and feel validated where they are otherwise emotionally invisible and silenced. In the past two years, I’ve seen more survivor support groups cropping up, which encourages me that they are finding alternative avenues for help.

Survivors care for and support one another because they feel abandoned and betrayed by the church. They understand each other because they all know the depth of wickedness that was perpetrated on other survivors.

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SEATTLE (WA)
The Huffington Post

February 28, 2018

By Carol Kuruvilla

Jennifer Roach wants to spark a conversation about how Protestant churches handle clergy sex abuse allegations.

A Washington woman is claiming she was molested by an evangelical youth pastor decades ago ― and that even though she told church leaders about the abuse, the man has enjoyed a long career in ministry ever since.

Jennifer Roach is a 47-year-old Anglican deacon and mental health therapist from Seattle. She said that in the mid-1980s, she was sexually abused by a pastor at the former First Baptist Church in Modesto, California. Roach said that when she brought up the accusations to the church community, she was first met with doubt and then pressured into forgiving her abuser.

Years later, Roach said she’s been inspired by the viral #MeToo movement and the related #ChurchToo movement, hashtags that people have used to demonstrate the prevalence of sexual assault and harassment.

“Seeing that anybody even understood or cared about this issue is incredible,” Roach told HuffPost about the #MeToo movement. “Those people were so few and far between for my entire adulthood, and it’s probably been that way forever.”

Roach hopes that speaking up about her experience now will contribute to the ongoing conversation about how allegations of sexual abuse are handled in American Protestant churches.

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ST. CLOUD (MN)
St. Cloud Times

March 1, 2018

By Stephanie Dickrell

The outcome for victims of clergy sexual abuse as minors is uncertain after an announcement Wednesday the Diocese of St. Cloud plans to file for bankruptcy.

The diocese received more than 70 new claims of abuse after a state law temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for civil claims of sexual abuse against minors.

Other dioceses across the country have filed for bankruptcy facing similar sexual abuse claims, and outcomes for victims have varied, said Jeff Anderson. His firm, Jeff Anderson and Associates, specializes in civil litigation for victims of child sexual abuse.

His firm and Michael Bryant, a Waite Park lawyer of Bradshaw & Bryant, represent the vast majority of people with claims against the diocese.

The diocese reported 74 additional claims in 2016. Previously, the diocese had seen less than a dozen cases. The claims named 31 clergy members who served in the diocese and 30 parishes.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Beast

February 28, 2018

By Olivia Messer

“Because I can.”

When one of Rick Butler’s young victims first asked why he was assaulting her, that was his answer, according to a new bombshell class-action lawsuit filed against the coach.

Butler was for years considered “most powerful coach in youth volleyball,” according to the 72-page complaint, which alleges that he used his position to rape at least six underage girls “hundreds” of times.

Butler, who had “the ability to place the teenage girls he coaches at top college volleyball programs,” even impregnated one of his alleged victims, the complaint claims.

“The victims were each at the top of their game; rising stars in need of a coach to propel them to the next level and help get them a scholarship to an elite college,” claims the lawsuit, which was first reported Tuesday by The Chicago Sun-Times. The complaint additionally notes that Butler used that “leverage” over the girls and their parents to manipulate them.

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TUSCALOOSA (AL)
ABC3340

February 28, 2018

By James Franklin, Emma Simmons, and Jennifer Gonsoulin

A 36-year-old youth pastor is charged with sex abuse of a child under the age of 12 and second degree sodomy, according to Tuscaloosa authorities.

Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit says a 14-year-old told deputies that Christopher Cody Stutts sexually assaulted her over the past 3 years. Investigators found probable cause on Monday and Stutts is now being held on $40,000 bond.

Stutts was a part-time youth minister at Westwood Baptist Church in Birmingham. Church leaders tell ABC 33/40 he was terminated from that position after they learned of his arrest.

Pastor Steve Potts says they are blindsided and are addressing the situation.

“The people you think would never do something like that — may be responsible for things that may be shocking…He was just a very pleasant person, Very friendly. Not over the top. Seemed to have a heart to care for the kids…We saw no hint of this,” said Potts.

Christopher Stutts also passed a criminal background check. He was hired August 2017 as a part-time youth minister. His part-time status came with limited duties. Pastor Steve says Stutts taught youth on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. He and his wife also provided activities for the children.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet

February 28, 2018

By Christopher Lamb

Pope Francis and his group of cardinal advisers are examining proposals over how to speed up the Church’s handling of priest sex abuse cases.

One option being considered by Francis’ cabinet – known as the C9 – is the creation of courts around the world to help deal with a huge backlog that has overwhelmed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body that deals with them.

The proposal for the new tribunals would see them work under the direct supervision of the Vatican and would help tackle the 1,800 cases still waiting to be processed.

C9 member Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Archbishop of Boston and the president of the Pope’s child protection commission, has now been tasked to work on the proposal.

During a lunchtime briefing with reporters on Wednesday, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke explained the creation of courts was one of the proposals being considered and that the prime objective is reducing the time that cases take.

Since 2001, the Vatican’s doctrine congregation has had responsibility for canonically assessing all cases of priests accused of abuse, examining claims for their credibility and then recommending courses of action against a priest including laicisation or removal from public ministry.

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MASCOUTAH (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

March 1, 2018

By Kaley Johnson

Almost two months after a Mascoutah priest was accused of possessing child pornography and drugs, parents and church members say they’re frustrated they haven’t received answers from the Belleville Catholic Diocese.

Specifically, they want to know whether any local children were abused — and to what extent the diocese knew about the Rev. Gerald Hechenberger’s troubled past when they assigned him to Mascoutah.

The community also asks why the diocese won’t provide answers.

“I’m going to raise some difficult points which I’m certain I’ll be chastised for within this small community,” former Holy Childhood member Kevin Kraljev said. “Hechenberger is a meth addict busted with 16 counts regarding child pornography — and he worked about 200 feet away from Holy Childhood School where my sons attended years ago.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

February 28, 2018

By Aaron Besecker

The Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits isn’t the only priest in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo who’s been publicly accused of inappropriate sexual conduct.

At least 19 priests who worked in the Buffalo area have been publicly accused in recent decades, according to a search of The News archives.

Some were arrested. Some were named in lawsuits. Some were accused of wrongdoing outside of Western New York.

They represent a fraction of the priests who have been the targets of complaints privately filed with the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

In 2004, the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo said 93 complaints alleging sexual abuse had been lodged against 53 clerics in the diocese since 1950. The diocese has refused to identify most of those men. At the time, those about whom complaints had been filed represented 2.6 percent of all clerics who served between 1950 and 2002.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

February 28, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis is studying how to speed up the handling of allegations of sexual abuse by clergy, the Vatican said on Wednesday, after a high-profile case in Chile put a new spotlight on the scandal.

The topic was a main point of discussion in three days of meetings between the pope and a group of nine cardinals from the around the world who gather four times a year at the Vatican to discuss reform, Church finances and other issues.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said they had discussed “various options” to shorten procedures in cases of abuse.

They are currently handled by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the Vatican’s doctrinal department.

Burke said that among the options discussed was to decentralize procedures by setting up regional tribunals that would hear cases under the auspices and guidance of the CDF.

The CDF hears canonical cases, applying Church laws that could lead to the defrocking of accused priests if found guilty. The Church procedures are distinct from criminal procedures in civilian courts in places where the crime is committed.

Cardinal Sean O‘Malley of Boston, the city where the worldwide crisis of sexual abuse first exploded, and a key adviser of the pope, is studying the decentralization proposal.

The proposal followed intense criticism of the pope for defending a bishop in Chile accused of covering up sexual abuse.

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SEOUL (SOUTH KOREA)
Reuters

February 28, 2018

By Heekyong Yang

One of South Korea’s top Roman Catholic clerics made a public apology on Wednesday after a woman parishioner complained that a senior priest had attempted to rape her, as criticism over the incident grows.

The global anti-harassment movement, #MeToo, has only slowly taken off in South Korea, where discussion of sexual misconduct has long been taboo, and gender equality was ranked 118th among 144 nations by the World Economic Forum last year.

Archbishop Kim Hee-joong is the most senior church official to comment after Suwon diocese, 40 km (25 miles) south of Seoul, the capital, suspended the priest last week over the alleged rape attempt during a religious mission to South Sudan in 2011.

“The Catholic Bishop’s Conference of Korea somberly offers apologies to the victim and her family as well as those whom we have disappointed over the clerical sex abuse,” Kim, the head of the body, told a news conference.

The priest could not immediately be reached for comment. Reuters could not ascertain contact details for the woman.

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FREELAND (MI)
MLive

February 28, 2018

By Michael Kransz

Investigators say nearly half a dozen people have come forward with stories of alleged sexual abuse, attempted or otherwise, at the hands of a Mid-Michigan priest charged this week with sexual assault.

Some of the new allegations against the Rev. Robert DeLand Jr., 71, date back nearly three decades, and all of them involve people who were minors at the time and accessed through DeLand’s role as a priest, said Tittabawassee Township Detective Brian Berg.

Apart from one female, most of the alleged victims are male, Berg said.

“We want to encourage these victims to know that we’re going to hear them, we’re going to listen and we’re going to leave no stone unturned,” Berg said. “No one is going to stand alone in this anymore.”

In addition to victim statements, Berg said police are receiving “dozens and dozens” of tips about the Freeland pastor since his arrest Sunday night, Feb. 25, at his Saginaw Township condominium on Mallard Cove.

“We’re trying to get our hands around the enormity of it and put it into some kind of logical order,” the detective said.

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FREELAND (MI)
MLive

February 28, 2018

By Michael Kransz

A counselor will be present for each Mass this weekend at the Freeland church whose priest was recently accused of sexually assaulting a man and a teen.

“She’s just there to listen, and if she can offer any help she will,” said Chris Pham, a spokesperson with the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw.

The counselor, Sister Janet Fulgenzi, is a clinical psychologist and the diocese’s victim assistance and safe environment coordinator. Masses this weekend are at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Fulgenzi and other counselors heard concerns and offered support to parishioners Tuesday evening, Feb. 27, at St. Agnes Church.

The meeting Tuesday came a day after the church’s priest, 71-year-old Rev. Robert DeLand Jr., was charged with three felonies related his alleged sexual assault of a 21-year-old man and a 17-year-old male in his Saginaw Township condominium.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Examiner

February 27, 2018

By Emily Jashinsky

Roughly one month after the start of the #MeToo movement last fall, an unspecified allegation of sexual harassment surfaced against Ryan Seacrest, leveled by a former personal stylist. In publicly announcing the allegations, Seacrest denied any misconduct, referring to her complaint as “reckless,” but pledged to cooperate with an investigation.

On February 1, E! News announced the end of its outside counsel’s investigation into Seacrest. The Associated Press reported the network’s inquiry found “insufficient evidence” to support the accuser’s claims. Four days later, Seacrest published an op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter headlined, “What Happened After I Was Wrongly Accused of Harassment,” calling the ordeal “gut-wrenching.”

But then on Monday, Variety published a detailed report about the allegations based on interviews with Seacrest’s accuser, Suzie Hardy, who claims the popular television host harassed her from 2007 to 2013. Hardy’s allegations are specific, often tied to dates and events, and corroborated in some cases by others with knowledge of their working relationship.

Hardy, who was interviewed thrice by E!’s investigators, believes the probe was rigged, saying, “I felt like by the third interview, it was obvious the investigator was whitewashing it for Seacrest’s side.” She also claims four witnesses who would corroborate the claims were not interviewed and disputes asking for any money.

This story is strange, but instructive.

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SEOUL
AFP via The Straits Times

February 28, 2018

South Korea’s Catholic hierarchy on Tuesday (Feb 27) said it was “devastated” by allegations that a priest had tried to rape a woman, after she came forward to join the country’s burgeoning #MeToo movement.

The Catholic Church has been rocked around the globe by years of damaging clerical sex abuse cases as well as cover-ups by senior church officials who often ignored victims and protected predators.

Until now the church in South Korea had largely avoided such scandals.

But earlier this month, a female congregant took the rare step of appearing on television to accuse a priest of sexually abusing her in 2011, sparking widespread fury.

Announcing she was inspired by the global #MeToo movement to go public, Ms Kim Min Kyung said the unnamed priest sexually abused and tried to rape her during a volunteer mission in South Sudan.

On Tuesday, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK) issued an apology – the second from church leaders in the last three days – while a top archbishop said the priest had been removed from his parish pending an investigation.

“All bishops leading the South’s Catholic church, myself included, have been left shocked, baffled and devastated by this incident,” Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee Joong, the president of the CBCK, told reporters, bowing deeply and apologising to the victim, her family and those left angry by the case.

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LANSING (MI)
Dearborn Patch

February 27, 2018

By Beth Dalbey

Education Department launches new Title IX probe on university’s handling of Nassar scandal as gymnasts say Michigan goes easy on predators.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is launching a Title IX investigation into Michigan State University’s handling of sexual abuse complaints against former sports medicine doctor Larry Nassar. DeVos announced the investigation Monday, the same day some Nassar abuse survivors — including 2012 Olympic gymnast and gold medalist Jordyn Wieber and Rachael Denhollander, the first gymnast to publicly accuse him — asked lawmakers in Michigan to pass sweeping reform of laws they say do little to stop child sex predators.

During Nassar’s recent sentencing hearings, many of the more than 265 girls and women who have accused him said Michigan State officials ignored repeated complaints that he was molesting them under the guise of medically necessary treatments. Repercussions have reverberated not only across Michigan State, but also USA Gymnastics, where Nassar was a team doctor for elite gymnasts, and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Public outcry also led to the resignation of Michigan State’s longtime president, Lou Anna K. Simon, in January. The NCAA, Michigan attorney general’s office and Congress also are investigating.

DeVos said the new investigation led by the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights will look at systemic issues in the university’s handling of the Nassar complaints and whether it was in compliance with Title IX federal requirements on the reporting of sexual crimes committed on college campuses. The Education Department already had open inquiries into MSU’s compliance with Title IX rules.

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LANSING (MI)
Detroit Free Press

February 27, 2018

By Kathleen Gray

A Senate panel unanimously passed a package of 10 bills Tuesday geared toward protecting children from sexual assault, but the vote belied some concerns about the bills from both the Michigan Catholic Conference and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Included in the bills is an extension of the statute of limitations for both civil and criminal cases of sexual assault against children to 30 years beyond a person’s 18th birthday. And the sticking point for the two groups is that the bill makes that extension retroactive for civil cases back to 1993.

“There are constitutional implications on the retroactivity on the statute of limitations,” said Kimberly Buddin, an attorney with the ACLU of Michigan. “This makes illegal an act which was legal when it was committed. … And the Supreme Court has held that increasing statute of limitations retroactively is a violation.”

While the Michigan Catholic Conference supported the bulk of the bills, David Maluchnik, spokesman for the conference, said it still has concerns about the retroactivity.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
ABC News

February 28, 2018

By Bill Hutchinson and Jennifer Harrison

An arrest made in a series of sexual assaults in Southern California allegedly by a man posing as a rideshare driver prompted authorities today to warn people to be on alert and double check the car they hailed.

The warning came a day after the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed a 27-count complaint against Nicholas Morales, 44, stemming from the sexual assaults of at least seven women he allegedly lured into his car by masquerading as rideshare driver.

Morales, who is married and lives in Santa Clarita, California, is being held on $10.3 million bail, prosecutors said.

“There may be people out there who are potentially seeking victims who use these agencies. People just need to be alert about the cars they get into, especially when they’ve been to a club and they’ve been drinking,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Guillermina Saldana told ABC News.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Engadget

February 28, 2018

By Daniel Cooper

Loretta Lee, a former rising star at the company, recounts tales of serial sexual harassment.

Google’s allegedly hypermasculine internal culture enabled serial sexual harassment of a female engineer, according to a new lawsuit. Loretta Lee, a developer at the search engine between 2008 and 2016 asserts that she was the subject of constant groping, touching and inappropriate conduct. Worse, is that Google, intentionally or negligently, allegedly failed to tackle her complaints, which left her feeling isolated and unprotected. Her performance suffered and she was fired at the start of 2016, even though the documents say that she was considered an excellent performer and a rising star in the company.

Lee claims that she was subject to harassment on a near-daily basis, including her colleagues making lewd comments about her. In addition, she asserts that her drinks were spiked with whiskey, her desk was regularly pelted with balls and she was sent messages by male colleagues asking if she wanted a “horizontal hug.” Another reportedly showed up at her home, unannounced, with a bottle of liquor and then refused to leave when asked.

Just before her dismissal, a male employee is said to have hid underneath her desk and, when she approached, jumped out. The desk-lurker then exclaimed “you’ll never know what I was doing,” leading Lee to believe that they may have installed surveillance equipment. A day later, and another co-worker is alleged to have toyed with her breasts in public, which led to a prolonged discussion with HR, although officials found the claims “unsubstantiated.”

The document then explains how Lee’s fear of being cast out was coming true, as colleagues would no longer approve her work. That, in turn, led to her being labeled as a poor performer and her eventual dismissal. Lee alleges that Google has a problem with identifying and properly tackling sexual harassment in the workplace. She is looking for in excess of $25,000 in damages for wrongful termination and discrimination,

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Gizmodo

February 28, 2018

By Kate Conger

Loretta Lee, a software engineer who worked at Google for seven years before being fired in February 2016, is suing Google for sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination she says she experienced at the company. Lee says in her lawsuit that the company’s “bro-culture” led to continuous harassment and that Google did nothing to intervene.

Lee’s lawsuit follows more than six months of Google grappling with the fallout from a memo written by a former employee, James Damore, in which he argued that women were biologically less fit for careers in tech than men. Damore’s memo, which was published by Gizmodo in August, received both support and condemnation from other Google employees and spurred internal debate about sexism, racism, and diversity within the company.

Throughout her time at Google, Lee was routinely sexually harassed, according to her lawsuit. She says her male coworkers spiked her drinks with alcohol and shot nerf guns at her regularly, and she says one male coworker messaged her to ask for a “horizontal hug.” At a holiday party, Lee’s lawsuit says, a male coworker slapped her across the face while he was intoxicated.

In one particularly alarming incident detailed in Lee’s lawsuit, she says she found a male coworker hiding under her desk when she returned after a short break. He refused to say what he was doing, the lawsuit says. “The incident with the co-worker under her desk unnerved her. Plaintiff [Lee] had never spoken to that co-worker before. She was frightened by his comment and believed he may have installed some type of camera or similar device under her desk,” the lawsuit says.

Google’s human resources department pressured Lee during a series of meetings to make a formal complaint about the incident, she says. But she was frightened that a complaint would only generate retaliation from her coworkers, she says—and video had emerged of the incident, her lawsuit states, so she didn’t think that she should be required to make a complaint. When she refused, HR cited her for “failing to cooperate,” her lawsuit states. Lee says she finally relented and made a complaint, which Google then failed to investigate, the lawsuit states.

Lee’s male coworkers retaliated against her after the complaint, her lawsuit says. They refused to approve her code and stalled her projects, she says, making it more difficult for her to succeed at work.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Guardian

February 28, 2018

By Julia Carrie Wong

Former employee alleges she was subject to ‘lewd comments, pranks and even physical violence’ on daily basis

Google has a “bro-culture” that allowed the daily sexual harassment of a female software engineer, a new lawsuit from a former employee alleges.

Loretta Lee, who worked for Google from 2008 to 2016, filed suit this month against the Silicon Valley giant for sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and wrongful termination in California state court.

In the complaint, which was first published by Gizmodo, Lee alleges that she was subject to “lewd comments, pranks and even physical violence” on a daily basis, including having male colleagues spike her drinks with alcohol, shoot Nerf balls at her, send her sexually suggestive messages and, in one case, slap her in the face.

Lee was especially disturbed by an incident when she found a male co-worker on all fours beneath her desk and “believed he may have installed some type of camera or similar device under her desk”, the complaint states. The suit alleges that Google’s treatment of Lee was “consistent with a pattern and practice of ignoring sexual harassment in the workplace, making no significant efforts to take corrective action, and punishing the victim”.

“We have strong policies against harassment in the workplace and review every complaint we receive,” said Ty Sheppard, a Google spokesman, in a statement. “We take action when we find violations – including termination of employment.”

Lee’s is the latest in a string of lawsuits that have targeted the company over workplace issues involving harassment, speech and diversity over the past year, and especially since an internal controversy over James Damore’s controversial memo about gender burst into the open in August.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

February 28, 2018

By Sean Kirst

What Michael Whalen remembers, when he thinks back on it, is the orange jacket.

He wore it almost 40 years ago, along with a pair of children’s snowpants, when the Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits, a priest at St. John Vianney in Orchard Park, took Whalen and two other boys on what was supposed to be a weekend ski trip to the Bluemont Ski Area in Yorkshire, south of Buffalo.

Whalen’s family, at the time, didn’t have a lot of money. When you had a coat, you kept it until you outgrew it. At Bluemont, the staff attached one of those tickets for a ski lift to the zipper.

Whalen, now 52, said he was wearing the orange jacket when Orsolits began sexually abusing him in a cottage not far from the ski area, a cottage where Orsolits still lives. Whalen saw no choice except to keep using the jacket in the months afterward, despite the memories it unleashed.

He could not bring himself to explain to his mother what it meant.

“I thought about it every time I saw that ski tag,” Whalen said.

Tuesday, Whalen went public in Buffalo with his account of being abused by the priest when Whalen was “13 or 14 years old.” He was accompanied at his news conference by Robert Hoatson, a former priest who advocates for abuse survivors. Whalen immediately braced himself for cynics, for people who would remember some of his struggles in life and insist he was lying.

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