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	Prosecutor Won't File Charges against Former School President By Jim Salter Associated Press, carried in The Kanas City Star October 11, 2006 http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/15734215.htm St. Louis - Criminal charges will not be filed against the president of a suburban St. Louis high school operated by the Marianist religious order who was investigated for sexual wrongdoing, St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch said Wednesday. The Rev. Robert Osborne, 73, resigned in August from Vianney High School. He has not publicly commented but wrote in the school's September newsletter that he stepped down a year before he planned to retire due to "unresolved legal matters." Osborne was accused in a lawsuit of molesting a student at the all-boys school. A second Vianney student came forward after the suit to also allege inappropriate behavior by Osborne. Kirkwood police investigated the allegations, as did investigators for McCulloch's office. "There's just non-credible evidence of any sort of sexual misconduct," McCulloch said. A leader of a group that advocates for survivors of abuse by clergy and other religious leaders called the decision not to prosecute Osborne disappointing. "The bar for prosecution of child sex abuse cases is a high one," said Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. "It's hard to build a successful case when it may largely be the word of a couple of kids against a prominent priest. But it can be done, and we hope it will be done against Osborne soon." Following Osborne's resignation, a spokeswoman for the Marianists said its six-member provincial council removed Osborne because the lawsuit would be a distraction from his job of running the boys' high school. The council did not base its decision on whether it felt the accusations were true, spokeswoman Diane Guerra said. The lawsuit filed in February by the father of a former Vianney student said Osborne abused the boy "sexually, physically and emotionally." The lawsuit said Osborne made "overt and covert sexual contact with" the boy, and tried to watch and photograph him when he was undressed. Osborne denied the allegation.
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