The Mormon counselor had been a first counselor in the bishopric of a Spanish-speaking ward of the Geneva Height Stake in Orem.  According to the Salt Lake City Tribune, “the girl and her family were helping clean the church when Duran asked the girl to help him clean a chalkboard in a classroom, according to an arrest document. He lifted the girl up to reach a high place on the chalkboard, and after he put her down, told her she was cute and asked for a hug. During the embrace, Duran allegedly made pelvic contact, according to the document.  She left the room for another classroom and kept cleaning. But while her back was turned, Duran grabbed her hips and again allegedly made pelvic contact, the document adds.  She ran from the room crying, found her aunt and told her what happened. She also told her aunt that she was scared of Duran, police said.”

The boys reported Turley’s crimes to their parents, including one father who was the Scoutmaster of the troop.  This Scoutmaster confronted Turley, who immediately packed his bags and headed back to British Columbia, Canada, where he lived.

The Scoutmaster reported the incident to A. Buford Hill, Jr., head of the Orange County Council of the Boy Scouts of America.  Hill, a paid Scout employee, took the steps necessary to get Turley on the BSA’s Ineligible Volunteer list and have the BSA create a “Perversion File” on Turley.

That’s where the matter stopped, as far as the BSA was concerned.  There is no record that the BSA or the Orange County Council took any steps to learn whether Turley – who had volunteered at the California camp for at least three years – had molested other boys at the camp.  There is no record of meetings with troop parents, letters to Scout families, or any efforts to inform camp participants of Turley’s crimes or find out if he committed others.  As Hill wrote to the BSA:

As far as the other people in the camp were concerned, they thought that [Turley] had been called back home because of family problems.

There is no record that the BSA or the Orange County Council reported Turley’s crimes to the police.

Turley went on to volunteer for the Boy Scouts of Canada as a Scoutmaster in British Columbia.  In 1996, he was criminally convicted for sexually abusing four Scouts, starting when one boy was nine years old.  That boy, now an adult, filed a lawsuit in British Columbia last week against the Boy Scouts of Canada, alleging that Turley sodomized and otherwise abused him more than 100 times over the two and a half years Turley was his Scoutmaster.  The suit also alleges that Turley had a similar conviction in the 1980s.

So here we have the sickening story several other boys who were sexually abused because the BSA kept its secret “Perversion” files secret.

Back in 1979, BSA knew that Turley lived in British Columbia.  BSA also knew that Boy Scouts of Canada, while a separate organization, used the same kind of Ineligible Volunteer file system to keep track of bad guys.  Why didn’t BSA warn the Scouts in Canada that they had a child molester in their midst?  Why didn’t they share Turley’s “Perversion File” with their Canadian counterparts?  So many children would have been protected from this serial pedophile by a simple act of common sense.

If you were abused by Scoutmaster Richard John Turley — in America or Canada — I would like to talk to you. Please call me at 503-306-0224 or email me at giliond@oandc.com.

The editorial notes, “This is not the first time Myers has shown contempt for the safety of children in his flock. While many bishops are making a sincere efforts to rehabilitate the church, Myers has shown a pattern of leniency toward pedophiles, indifference to potential victims, and a haughty disdain for those who dare to question his judgment. Before this latest flare-up with Fugee, Myers had promoted him to an influential position in the church as co-director of the office that helps guide young priests, sending precisely the wrong message. Earlier this year, Fugee was found to be saying Mass and living at the rectory of a church in Rochelle Park. Parishioners had not been told of his criminal past, so again, children were exposed. In 2009, Myers appointed Fugee chaplain of St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, again without telling the hospital about Fugee’s restrictions.”

If Myers won’t voluntarily resign, newly-elected Pope Francis should strip him of his duties as archbishop if he is serious about reforming the church.  However, if past behavior is any indication of the future, this pope will do nothing and Fugee and Archbishop Myers will continue to flaunt the law and public safety.

Carolee Horning is an inspirational and brave woman who broke decades of silence about how her Catholic priest seduced and sexually molested her when she was an immature teenager.  When she was 40, she came forward to bring a claim against the Portland Archdiocese and tell the world about her experience.

While victims of sexual abuse have the right to sue without disclosing their names, Horning wanted to use her own name to get her story out in the hopes it would help other victims have the strength to come forward and talk about what happened to them.

The Journal of My Broken Life is Horning’s first-person account of her abuse, her lawsuit, and her path from victim to survivor.  Particularly inspiring is how she never lost her personal faith and found a new church home that continues to support and encourage her. She drew on journal entries and her work with her counselor to write this book.  It is an honest, straight-from-the-heart story that deserves a wide audience.

I recommend this book for anyone who works with or supports child abuse victims, any victims working on their own healing, or anyone looking for greater understanding of how child sexual abuse affects adults even decades later.

Perhaps the most interesting and telling reaction of all came from Salt Lake City, where leaders of the Mormon Church—the single largest sponsor of Scout troops in the nation—simply issued a statement that the LDS Church would study the new policy over the next few weeks and months. I expect—predict, if you will—that as goes the LDS Church on this question, so will go the BSA.  I have no idea how the Mormons will ultimately respond to the new policy, but with half the troops in the nation, it seems unlikely that BSA can or will make its experiment permanent if the LDS Church were to come out in full force against it.

Beyond that, readers of this blog, certain press outlets and advocates for survivors of child sexual abuse have all inquired of me this last week about the implications of this policy change for the problem of abuse in Scouting, and for the accountability of BSA for decades of turning a blind eye to that problem.  I received calls, for example, from national groups, so-called “family values organizations,” wanting me to introduce them to clients or former clients who have “been abused by gay Scoutmasters,” as a way to show that allowing in more gays would increase the likelihood of abuse in Scouting, and thus that the historic BSA policy of excluding gays from Scouting is still the right way to go.  I did not return the calls: these groups have never indicated the slightest interest in the abuse problem before now, so I suspected their calls had nothing to do with abuse and everything to do with another agenda.  I also received inquiries from certain press outlets, wanting me to “confirm” that child abuse in Scouting has nothing to do with sexual orientation, and thus that the BSA was on the right track in opening itself up to gay boys, even if not yet to gay Scoutmasters.  Again, I returned none of these calls, for again I sensed an agenda at work.

Now I take no position on whether BSA’s new policy is good for the organization, or for the boys involved in Scouting, for that matter.  But the fact is, that the relationship of sexual orientation in the context of the BSA child abuse scandals is no more and no less complex than it is in any other institution that has struggled with child abuse scandals—the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, public schools, athletic leagues, etc.

I will explain my comment: but first, I should note that my comments come from my experience as an advocate and attorney for child sexual abuse victims in courts, legislative halls and public discussion for nearly twenty years now. Over those decades I have been honored to represent something over 300 abuse survivors, and have consulted with probably another several hundred as well.  I have heard their stories of grooming, seduction, abuse and devastated emotional and spiritual lives as a result of their abuse. I have seen the cover-ups of institutional child abuse problems within the “institutions of trust” that I mentioned above, as well as in others. I have taken depositions of dozens of perpetrators, priests, nuns and bishops (and one Cardinal) of the Catholic Church, as well as Mormon Church leaders, BSA Scoutmasters, leaders and executives. I have read thousands of pages of internal documents concerning child abuse: sub secreto, or “secrete archives,” of the Catholic Church, the confidential “Perversion Files” kept  by the BSA, and similar records in other organizations. I have argued dozens of legal cases before judges and juries.  And it is from those experiences, and not as a sociologist, psychologist, historian, politician or any of the other fields of expertise that we have seen weighing in on the social or public policy questions wrapped up in the gay issue within Scouting that I offer these thoughts.

Now my observations about the relationship between sexual orientation and child abuse begin with the fact that child sexual abuse is almost always a relational crime. Very few victims of abuse are assaulted out of the blue by total strangers.  Sexual exploitation and abuse almost always arises out of a relationship of trust between the child and the perpetrator, whether the latter is a parent, step-parent, uncle or other relative, teacher, coach, religious minister or Scout leader.  Thus it is important in thinking about the relationship of sexual orientation to abuse to remember this relational element.  Of course, Scouting produces such relationships of trust, just as does the involvement of kids in churches, schools or sports.  To the extent of considering these relationships of trust—and to that extent only—does the question of the sexual orientation of adults around youth become of interest.  Perhaps a thought experiment might help show why.

If a common-sense parent, for example, wise in the ways of the world, was on the local PTA, supervising an upcoming overnight field trip for middle-school students, that parent would probably want to know that male teachers were not going to be sleeping in the same rooms as the girl students, or female teachers with boys. This is so, not because the parent would assume that the teachers are pedophiles, but simply because prudence and caution—and the recognition that these kids have relationships of trust with these teachers and thus might be more vulnerable to manipulation or seduction– would seem to dictate it.  Note also, however, that the policy of separating out these teachers and these kids assumes that the teachers are heterosexual.  But what, then, to do about a lesbian teacher and the girls, or a gay teacher and the boys?  Ah, well, that is an interesting question.  Contemporary, pop-culture correctness would not even consider restricting a gay or lesbian teacher from bunking together with students of the same sex.  But what about the common-sense parent?  I dare say that he or she might think more carefully about it.   And again, not because our hypothetical parent would assume that the gay or lesbian teacher is a pedophile, any more than he or she would in separating out the male teachers from the girl students. But because the parent would recognize that the teachers have relationships of trust with the students. This, to me, seems to epitomize the problem with which the national BSA board has been struggling.

Now I want to anticipate an objection. I am not saying that the percentage of pedophiles is any greater amongst gay adults than it is amongst heterosexuals.  My own observation in the hundreds of abuse cases I have seen is just the opposite: a pedophile is a pedophile, whether or not his or her habit of abuse is towards girls or boys. I have seen as many “heterosexual pedophiles” as “homosexual pedophiles.” I have heard testimony about men preying on boys and on girls, about women abusing boys and girls.  And, to repeat, I am no social scientist, yet I would wager that the sociological studies would bear out the idea that gays and lesbians have no greater tendencies or percentages of abusing children than do heterosexuals.

The problem inherent in the BSA context (and that of the churches, schools, athletic leagues as well) is this: organizations that promote trust relationships between mentors and children—generally a good idea, of course, provided we have the right kinds of mentors—by definition have a significant risk of child abuse within those organizations.  So these organizations must anticipate that problem, understand it in their own context, and take aggressive action to prevent it. This, for decades, the Boy Scouts of America badly failed to do.  One of the historic problems with Scouting, as traditionally practiced in this country, is that of lax screening and oversight of these would-be mentors, as the Perversion Files make clear, and as we proved in the 2010 trial of Kerry Lewis v Boy Scouts in Portland.  This, and not the sexual orientation of the Scout leaders per se, is why so many boys were abused in Scouting.

I mean, we can talk all we like about the problem of abuse in the Catholic Church, for example, but it is unlikely that very many, if any, men went into the priesthood for the purpose of molesting children. Many no doubt entered the seminaries as a way to avoid—so they thought—having to deal with their own sexual confusion or sexual struggles: such has been well-documented in the mental health literature.  But I have never encountered any priest who joined the Catholic clergy specifically to abuse kids. Simply put, there are easier ways to gain access to kids than undergoing eight years of philosophical and theological training and taking lifetime vows of obedience, poverty and celibacy.  None of that can be said of the BSA context.  For in Scouting, as is apparent to anyone who has ever spent any significant time reading the Perversion Files, practiced and serial pedophiles for decades specifically targeted Scouting as an organization with easy access to boys, a built in system for cultivating relationships of trust, and a lax oversight.

So are these pedophiles “gay” because they abuse boys?  No. They abuse boys because they are pedophiles, and they choose boys because that is their pedophilic preference—just like a heterosexual teacher who abuses girls is a pedophile who happens to be heterosexual.

So the concern I have about BSA’s new policy is the same as the concern I have had about their old policy: BSA fosters relationships of trust, and that is the context in which child abuse happens.  And the fact is, that even with some policy changes and increased vigilance in the last few years, BSA still has a long way to go to make its organization as safe as it could be for children, and to assure America that its current policies are working. I have written repeatedly wondering why, if BSA is so safe now, they will not release the modern Perversion Files (1985-date), why they will not show us the abuse statistics from the 1990s and 2000s, why we don’t know—but are only asked to take BSA’s word for it—that BSA is a substantially safer place now than in decades past.  I don’t know if allowing in gay boys will increase the likelihood of Scout on Scout abuse; or, for that matter, if allowing gay Scoutmasters would increase the likelihood of adult-child abuse.  But, like the streetwise parent in the hypothetical above, I would choose to assume so: NOT because I believe gays more likely than anyone else to abuse others, but because Scouting is inherently a relational program and child sexual abuse is inherently a relational crime.

So if I were in the executive leadership of BSA, I would worry about the impact of the revised policies on the abuse problem. I would study current policies and their effectiveness.  And then I would plan as if the problem were going to get worse.  I would assume the worst, plan for it, and put all the best policies in place for it.  Now, it may be that BSA has done all that and is doing all that and plans to continue doing all that in the future.  But they have not told us that, they have not explained it to America, they have not been fully forthcoming about the existing problem of abuse in Scouting—adult on child, Scout on Scout, and any other kind of abuse that occurs in Scouting; nor have they told us that they have put into place even stronger abuse prevention practices in light of the revision of their approach to gays in Scouting.  And until they do that, I—and anyone else who understands child sexual abuse—should be uncomfortable about the new policies, just as we are uncomfortable about the old policies.

According to court testimony, “The prosecution alleges that when Dimmick stopped molesting him, he then turned to the witness’ brother, who’s two years younger, and two of their pals.  In her opening statement to Justice Mary Lou Benotto, Crown attorney Kelly Simpson said Dimmick committed sexual crimes after winning the trust of the siblings’ parents.

Dimmick, now 75, has pleaded not guilty to the 14 sexual offences involving four boys aged six to 14 years old between Sept. 1, 1968 and Dec. 31, 1978.”

Tragically, many of those injured yesterday were children-spectators who were participating in what should have been a joyful day.  In the midst of such tragedy and evil, we need to recognize the importance of speaking to all of our children thoughtfully and sensitively about these events.

The pervasive influence of news websites and social media make it more difficult for parents to monitor what their children are viewing.  This is especially important in the wake of the Boston Marathon tragedy as well as the Newtown shootings.  While it’s important to tell your children the truth, it must be done in such a way that your child feels safe and loved.  That’s why it’s important to know and monitor how your child receives such news.  Here’s a helpful link on some tips you may want to consider in helping your kids cope with such horrific acts of violence.

It is time Oregon joins the 33 other states who’ve abolished such statutes that serve only to protect criminals who have preyed on innocent children.

The legislature is holding its first public hearing on SB 3284.  If you care about protecting children and stopping abuse, please contact your legislator and urge passage of this proposal.  Our children are counting on us!

Oregonians – please contact your state representative and urge them to support HB 3284. Click here to find your representative: http://www.leg.state.or.us/findlegsltr/

The plaintiffs, known only in the lawsuits as M.O. and D.D. as permitted by court rules, allege they were abused by Scout leaders who the Boy Scouts knew or should have known had a history of abusing children.  The names of both alleged perpetrators appear in the BSA’s “Perversion Files” files that were recently released to the public.

The first plaintiff alleges that in 1980 he was a member of Boy Scout Troop 46 in Camano Island, Washington when he was sexually abused by Allen Clarence Ewalt.  We believe that Ewalt was the camp’s health officer at the Fire Mountain Boy Scout Camp in Skagit County, Washington.  According to the Complaint we filed, M.O. went to the camp infirmary for care and was told by Ewalt that he needed to stay the night:  “That night, Ewalt forced Plaintiff to sleep naked in the bed next to him.  Approximately five or six times throughout the night, Ewalt masturbated Plaintiff while asking him questions about sex.”

According to internal Boy Scout records, the Boy Scouts had previously removed Ewalt from a position as a Scout leader because of allegations of sexual abuse as early as 1965.  We allege that, despite this knowledge, the Boy Scouts allowed Ewalt to serve as a Scout leader at Fire Mountain.

The other plaintiff alleges that in approximately 1987 he was a member of Boy Scout Troop 35 in Bothell, Washington when former Scout leader Charles S. Grewe sexually abused him.  D.D. claims the abuse occurred in a variety of locations, including the swim tower at Fire Mountain where Grewe served as the camp’s swim instructor.  According to the Boy Scouts’ internal files, Grewe also molested children in his capacity as a school bus driver for the Everett School District.

We allege that the Boy Scouts failed to warn them or their parents that thousands of sexual predators had been caught sexually abusing children in Scouts.  We allege that the Boy Scouts held out Ewalt and Grewe as trustworthy members of the community who could be trusted with children.  Our claim on behalf of these men is that the Boy Scouts failed to warn them or the public about the danger of sexual abuse in Scouting because the Boy Scouts wanted to protect its reputation and avoid civil liability.

It is likely that there are more abuse survivors from Fire Mountain. Given their positions as the camp medic and the camp swim instructor, Ewalt and Grewe had access to hundreds or even thousands of young boys.  We may never know the total number of boys who were sexually abused at Fire Mountain Camp, but we know that our clients were not alone.

Last October, many of the Boy Scouts’ internal “ineligible volunteer” or “perversion” files were released to the public by order of the Oregon Supreme Court.  The files document decades of allegations of abuse in Scouting and had been admitted as evidence in our 2010 jury trial in Oregon that resulted in a nearly $20 million verdict against the Boy Scouts. Ewalt and Grewe are among the hundreds of adult Scout leaders identified in the released files.

We applaud the bravery of our two clients in coming forward with their stories.  We hope that their actions will inspire others to come forward and seek the counseling and legal support they need. Breaking the silence about being sexually abused is the first step on the journey from victim to survivor.

If you were a victim of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts, or have any information about Allen Clarence Ewalt or Charles S. Grewe, please contact me at giliond@oandc.com or 503-274-1173.

Priest accused of abuse in 1980s

A 37-year-old man filed a lawsuit in Second Judicial District Court in Albuquerque on Tuesday alleging that a Roman Catholic priest in Questa sexually molested him over a 1 1/2-year period in the 1980s.

The lawsuit alleges that the Rev. Michael O’Brien abused the plaintiff, identified only as “John Doe” in the complaint, beginning when he was about 10 or 11 years old and while he was in training to become an altar boy at St. Anthony Parish in Questa, north of Taos.

According to the complaint, the alleged abuse began with what the now-deceased O’Brien, known as “Father Mike,” called “massage time” and “escalated to the point that Fr. O’Brien committed many counts of criminal sexual contact and penetration against Plaintiff.”

The lawsuit states that the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, which oversees parishes in northern New Mexico, and St. Anthony Parish knew or should have known that O’Brien was a pedophile priest and had “unbridled access to children.” It further alleges that the archdiocese placed O’Brien and other pedophile priests into New Mexico parishes and “deliberately chose to conceal the fact of the priest’s problems.”

The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for the plaintiff, who is married, has a family, owns a business and lives in Taos County, according to his attorney.

The archdiocese responded to a Journal request for comment with a brief statement attributed to Father John Cannon, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe:

“This alleged incident occurred 30 years ago. The Archdiocese has had a zero-tolerance policy in place for over 20 years. We do not comment on pending litigation.”

According to the complaint, the alleged victim only recently began to realize the abuse and impact it had on him. He approached the archdiocese last year seeking help and was told it would pay for counseling if he did not contact a lawyer or bring a claim.

“As Plaintiff’s realizations developed during counseling about his patterns of self-destructive behavior and the extent of his harm, Plaintiff did contact an attorney,” the complaint reads. “When his attorney contacted the Archdiocese, the Church ‘cut off’ its parishioner from any further counseling, despite his need and the benefits he obtained therefrom.”

The suit claims that the alleged victim suffered “a lifetime’s worth of emotional harm and turmoil,” including “severe emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, loss of faith, loss of sexual capacity, loss of self-esteem and other damages.”

The alleged victim is being represented by Albuquerque attorney Brad D. Hall and Kelly Clark, a nationally known Portland, Ore., attorney known as one of the nation’s leading child abuse lawyers.

“We plan to prove that the entire Church, and certainly the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, well knew by the 1980s that a substantial number of its priests were pedophiles but that, despite that knowledge, the archdiocese failed to put into practice effective policies to screen or supervise its priests, including Father O’Brien, and also failed to warn Catholic families of the dangers of their children from pedophiles in the priesthood,” Hall said.

According to Hall, the alleged victim or a member of his family apparently contacted Clark and Clark contacted him to serve as counsel in New Mexico.

A bio on his law firm’s website says that Clark has represented hundreds of children and adults abused as children in child abuse cases.

In 1999, Clark, who has a master’s degree in theology, won a case against the Archdiocese of Portland in the Oregon Supreme Court, which changed the law in that state and garnered national attention for its theory of liability for “institutions of trust.”

In 2010, Clark was lead counsel in a trial against the Boy Scouts of America that disclosed the so-called “Perversion Files,” a log on pedophiles kept by BSA. That case resulted in a nearly $20 million verdict against the Boy Scouts, including $18.5 million in punitive damages.

Clark could not be reached on Tuesday, but in a news release he’s quoted as saying that incidents of “delayed disclosure,” as apparently experienced by the alleged victim in this case, are common.

“Over and over again, we see that children who are betrayed and abused by a trusted adult cannot bring themselves to disclose what happened to them as children, and often cannot do so even well into adulthood. This is especially true if there is a religious or spiritual component to the betrayal and abuse, as was the situation here,” he said.

O’Brien was known to lead youth on pilgrimages to the Santuario de Chimayó from the Estancia Valley in the 1970s.

A Taos News article from 2009 indicates that Father O’Brien served at San Francisco de Asís Church in Ranchos de Taos from 1977-81. While there, he led a restoration effort at the more than 200-year-old church, which is considered one of the most photographed churches in the world.

Hall said a records search shows that O’Brien, who was ordained in 1970, also served at several other northern New Mexico churches in the 1980s, including St. Gertrude in Mora, from 1982-84; Our Lady of Sorrows in Las Vegas, from 1985-86; and then St. Anthony, from 1987 to at least 1989.

Accusations of child molestation at the hands of priests is nothing new to the Roman Catholic Church, and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in particular.

In the early 1990s, several lawsuits were filed against New Mexico priests alleging sexual impropriety.

By August 1993, 17 priests in New Mexico had been accused of crimes ranging from child rape to fathering a child.

Six of the priests were convicted of sex crimes, two were arrested but not convicted and eight were sent to Servants of the Paraclete, an order in Jemez Springs that worked with troubled priests.

Servants of the Paraclete is where bishops from all over the United States sent troubled priests, some of whom were reassigned to New Mexico parishes.

The article notes, “Child sexual abuse is a health crisis, a pandemic, a worldwide epidemic. In the United States, one of out of three girls and one out of six boys is sexually abused by the age of 18. (ACE Study 2005). More than 90 percent of juvenile sexual abuse victims know their perpetrators in some way.”

If we act now, we can help stop the abuse and prevent another generation of children from suffering.  It’s up to us.

Now, of course, each one of these stories represents a tragedy: some young life, or lives, forever scarred by betrayed trust and sexual exploitation. I hardly need repeat what it now well-established in the mental health literature–that sexual abuse of a child, especially from a trusted adult, is a lifelong event. It often damages or destroys a person’s ability to trust, to be intimate, to experience spirituality. It may trigger early and sustained addiction problems–to alcohol, drugs, gambling or–ironically enough, sex.  It may cause a person to spin in and out of serial relationships, broken marriages, dysfunctional relationships with children, even his own children.  Sexual abuse is a kind of vandalism of the soul, and recovery from it takes enormous work and lasts a lifetime. No matter how many times I meet or advocate for an abuse survivor, I never get used to the stories, and I never stop being saddened and angered.

But the larger story I want to note here is one I have written about before.  And that is the question of how safe is the Boy Scouts of America these days?  We now know, because of the public release of the so-called Perversion Files– a release that I am proud to say was triggered by our 2010 trial in the Kerry Lewis case–that for decades up until the 1980′s at least, BSA had thousands of notices that its program was systematically being infiltrated by pedophiles, and that tens of thousands of boys were being abused in Scouting. Still, BSA took no action at all to make its program safer, to warn boys, parents or the community about the dangers of abuse in Scouting.  This is the key reason, in my view, why the Portland jury in the Lewis case hit BSA with nearly $20 million in damages, most of it punitive damages, in 2010.

But the BSA has said for many years now, essentially, “that was then, this is now; we are safer now, and in fact, we are the safest youth organization around.”  And there is no doubt that BSA has put in place some good policies to minimize abuse, and has apologized for its past mistakes–for which they should be applauded.  But is the new system working? Is BSA a safe organization these days?  If so, then why is it that we still see so often stories like the one above?  Dozens and dozens of such stories, over the last couple of years, of Scout leaders arrested for abusing boys.  How can that be, if the BSA is so safe?  I mean, for all the abuse problems in the Catholic Church over the last decades, we no longer see weekly stories about recent abuse in the Church; so why do we continue to see such stories in BSA?  How safe is BSA anyway?

Truth is, we don’t know: because the BSA won’t tell us.  They know: I mean, they continue to keep Perversion Files, they study–at least they say they study–the problem of abuse in Scouting.  Why won’t they release the data on what they know?  Why won’t they release the modern Perversion Files?  The public has never seen the Perversion Files from 1985- today, and in fact, BSA fiercely fights any attempts by our office or other lawyers to obtain them in litigation.  Why?  What is BSA hiding?  If it is such a safe organization, then show us.    And, if they won’t show us, it is up to Congress–which oversees BSA as a congressionally chartered corporation–to force BSA to tell the public what it knows about the current abuse numbers, statistics, studies.  Paul Mones and I have repeatedly petitioned Congress to do an audit of BSA’s current practices, to no avail.

So the fact is, as matters now stand, and just judging from the frequency with which Scout leaders are STILL being arrested, convicted, sentenced, for child sexual abuse, we have to assume that kids are still not safe in Scouting.  I wish that were not so, and I wish I did not have to say it.  But that is the only responsible conclusion that people who care about preventing child abuse can draw from stories like the one above, and from BSA’s continued stonewalling about letting the public know what it knows about its modern abuse problem. The ball is in their court, and so far, they show no indication that they plan to do anything about that.

In the interview, Sandusky makes the weak and somewhat garbled argument: “I don’t understand how anybody would have walked into that locker room from where he was and heard sounds associated that was sex going on like he said that could’ve been,’’ Sandusky said, actually laughing on the tape.  “I mean, that would have been the last thing I would have thought about.  I would have thought maybe fooling around or something like that.”

Give me a break! It reminds me of the story I’ve heard from more than one child molester: “We were just wrestling around and the kid’s pants came off.”

This time, Penn State officials responded swiftly and appropriately to the Sandusky interview:

Jerry Sandusky’s statements today continue to open wounds for his victims, and the victims of child sexual abuse everywhere. We have tremendous respect for the men who came forward to tell their stories publicly. Penn State continues to take important steps, including the training of over 11,000 employees and volunteers on how to recognize and report suspected child abuse.

In many instances, pedophiles and those who prey on minors never come to grips with the tremendous damage they’ve inflicted upon their victims.  Sandusky is a case in point.  He continues to insist that he was the one victimized.

Is it little wonder that survivors of sexual abuse struggle with coming forward and engaging in the process of healing?

I get all this. My initial reaction to the man is that I like him, and I hope he is all the things that they are saying he is, and I especially hope that he carries his experiences as a priest and bishop to a poor country into his new post as Pope, and that he reminds Christians everywhere that we follow a humble carpenter who was crucified for standing against the oppressive authorities of his day—both religious and secular. So as a person of Christian faith (if not a very virtuous one), I wish and pray the best for Francis, and for the Church as a key institution in carrying the Good News of Christ to the world, along with hopes that he will carry messages of peace, reconciliation and renewal to all nations and peoples.

However, the important questions for readers of this blog will have to do with how Francis will govern the Church when it comes to the deep, longstanding and ongoing child abuse crisis. In terms of protecting children and weeding out the corrupt, clericalist culture of the Vatican that many experts have seen as fomenting the sexual abuse crisis in the first place, we just don’t know what he will do. Late last week a story was making its way around social media that the new Pope had met Cardinal Law, the disgraced former Cardinal of Boston and ordered him out of the Basilica of St. Mary Major. According to this story, the Pope also was preparing to send the 81-year-old to a monastery for penance. Unfortunately, that story seems to be untrue.

But there are a few steps, in my opinion, that would demonstrate to survivors that Francis is a true reformer and interested in protecting children. He could do the following: 1) make sweeping changes concerning curial appointments starting with the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (this is the Congregation primarily responsible for investigating priests accused of sexual abuse), 2) remove those bishops and cardinals who intentionally and knowingly failed to protect children from plainly abusive priests, 3) meet with survivors and their advocates to engage them in a collaborative, world-wide effort to protect children; and 4) demand transparency and accountability from every bishop and cardinal when it comes to child abuse.

Finally, Pope Francis needs to speak out, early and often, about the past failures and sins of the Church in the abuse crisis, making it clear that he takes the words of his Lord seriously, who told the disciples to “let the little children come unto me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14) and “it would be better for a man to have a millstone placed around his neck and be thrown into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Matthew 18:6). The office of the papacy is a sacred bully pulpit, as we have seen from recent popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. This pope—who carries the name of one of Christianity’s most beloved, humble and honest saints—should be as bold as his namesake in calling the Church to repentance and in taking it as his mission, in the words that St Francis heard in his call, “go rebuild my Church.” It is my deepest hope that Pope Francis will speak out boldly, in the spirit of St Francis, and call the Church to deep and fundamental metanoia—repentance—concerning the abuse of children at the hands of its priests.

This is an important point to consider in light of the recent release of approximately 1,250 “Perversion” files created by the Boy Scouts of America between 1965 and 1985.  Child sex abuse in Scouting doesn’t only affect boys.

Young women 13 or older may participate in the “Venturing” program offered by the BSA.  Venturing grew out of the earlier “Explorer” Scouts program, which went co-ed in 1969.

According to the commonly reported history of the Explorer program, the BSA invited girls to participate in the Explorers after commissioning a study showing, among other things, that “[c]oed participation . . . [was] necessary to attract young adults to Exploring.” (See here, here, and here, for example.)

Overall, girls probably loved being in the Explorers.  It gave them opportunities to go camping, learn about careers, and otherwise participate in a popular program from which they had been excluded for decades.  But it is disturbing that the BSA, in opening the Explorers to girls, was apparently motivated, not by the desire to benefit girls, but by the need to entice boys to stick with Scouting when they entered their teenage years.

By the time girls were invited to join the Explorers, the BSA had created thousands of “Ineligible Volunteer” files documenting accusations of the sexual abuse of Scouts by adult troop leaders and other volunteers.  How sad that the girls who signed up for the Explorers knew nothing of these files or the dark secrets they contained.

We know that the trauma of child sex abuse lasts a lifetime – but the time available to sex abuse victims to seek justice is too short. Most victims of child sex abuse are too young to speak out. When they are adults they still face trauma, depression, addiction and shame.

Our laws should give victims a chance to hold perpetrators accountable – and to expose them for the danger they are to all of our children.  My firm is honored to represent child abuse victims in civil lawsuits.  Although we are not involved in criminal cases, we understand how important it is to a victim’s healing for abusers to face criminal charges.

House Bill 3284 eliminates the criminal statute of limitations for the certain sex crimes against minors – Sex Abuse in the First Degree, Sodomy in the First Degree, Child Sex Abuse in the First Degree, Unlawful Sexual Penetration in the First Degree, and Incest.  HB 3284 only applies to offenders who are over 18 at the time of the crime.

Currently the statute of limitations on these crimes expires when the victim turns 30.  The proposed change would allow a District Attorney to bring charges at any time the crime is reported if they feel there is adequate evidence for a trial.

It is time to open the doors of justice to victims of child sex abuse and hold offenders accountable.  Please support HB 3284!

According to one media report, “Two of the women testified that Tenorio quickly requested that he counsel them separately from their husbands and would focus on sexual topics, before demonstrating sexual positions on them or touching them. One woman said she has ‘psychological wounds’ from what happened.  ‘This is a man who used all of his influence with the church,’ she said. ‘I pray … this man will never have the opportunity to be around innocent, trusting people again.’One woman said she struggled to engage in even friendly hugs with anyone after Tenorio’s unwanted and inappropriate advances. Another said she can’t trust anyone and has become more strict with her children.  ‘I was completely out of sorts as a wife and mother,” one woman said. “A lot of members of the church, a lot of us, believed in the integrity of this man.’”

Tenorio acknowledged his crimes and was convicted of additional charges of forced sexual abuse after two more victims came forward.  It is unclear how the Mormon Church allowed Tenorio to pose as a counselor.

The BSA is a billion dollar corporation. Actually, according to the most recent tax return and financial statements of the BSA, the national Boy Scout corporation has assets totaling just over $1.15 billion.

Allowing victims to seek compensation for the wrongs done to them will not put a dent in the BSA’s financial situation. Consider the following financial information, all found in the most recent BSA Treasurer’s Report:

• The BSA has a reserve fund just shy of $85 million set aside for all liability claims, including sex abuse claims. The BSA also has insurance for itself and its state Councils.  This $85 million claims fund only kicks in if the insurance does not cover a claim.

• Each year, the BSA’s largest source of income is the sale of branded merchandise, including Scout Handbooks, uniforms, sportswear, camping equipment, gift items, and novelty goods. In 2011, gross sales of “Scout Stuff” totaled just under $137 million.

• The BSA has approximately $668 million invested in liquid assets, mostly stocks and mutual funds.  The BSA has earmarked another $306 million in investments as an “Endowment” ($234 million of which is “unrestricted”).

• The National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas, possesses a collection of fine art appraised in March 2012 at approximately $60 million.

• The BSA owns real estate – mostly donated – with a reported value of approximately $228 million.  This figure significantly under-represents the actual value of the real estate because it is based on the market value of the property as of the date it was donated.  For example, 127,395 acres of beautiful, mountainous New Mexico known as the Philmont Scout Ranch is on the BSA’s books at the value of the land back when Waite Phillips donated it in the late 1930s.

Don’t just take my word for it.  The BSA acknowledges in its Treasurer’s Report that it faces lawsuits for sexual abuse of children by Scout volunteers and that additional lawsuits are threatened. According to BSA, the reserve fund and insurance described above is “sufficient to provide for the resolution of these lawsuits and, where not covered by insurance, . . . the total amount of payments in resolution of those lawsuits will not be material to the financial position or results of operations” of the BSA.

There you have it – paying damages to Scouts who were sexually molested by Scout volunteers is immaterial to the BSA’s bottom line.

According to media reports in the Salt Lake City Tribune, “In court papers, Davis County prosecutors contend the 20-year-old from Kaysville attempted to have sex with the girl multiple times between Nov. 23, 2010, and May 31, 2012, by placing his penis in or near her vagina. . . The alleged abuse took place prior to Cordero serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, church spokesman Scott Trotter said in a prepared statement.”

Of course, this makes one wonder if Cordero had been screened prior to his acceptance as a Mormon missionary or if he had had any other similar allegations prior to the criminal charges brought against him.

I [name and surname], Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, promise and swear to be faithful henceforth and forever, while I live, to Christ and his Gospel, being constantly obedient to the Holy Roman Apostolic Church, to Blessed Peter in the person of the Supreme Pontiff, and of his canonically elected Successors; to maintain communion with the Catholic Church always, in word and deed; not to reveal to anyone what is confided to me in secret, nor to divulge what may bring harm or dishonor to Holy Church; to carry out with great diligence and faithfulness those tasks to which I am called by my service to the Church, in accord with the norms of the law.  So help me Almighty God.

The newly created cardinal is reminded that upon declaration of this oath he must be willing to shed his blood for the welfare of the Pope and the Church (hence the scarlet attire).  A recent article provides a “top ten” list of those cardinals who were the most notorious in keeping this oath in terms of protecting the institution in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal.  Many of the names will be familiar to those of us living in the United States since half of them are Americans who served in major Archdioceses in the US such as Los Angeles (Mahony), New York (Dolan), Philadelphia (Rigali), and San Francisco (Levada).

Once these men were created cardinals or elected Pope as the former Cardinal Ratzinger was they had the power and the ability to change the oath to fit the new circumstances in which the Church finds itself in light of the sexual abuse scandal.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one of them had had the moral courage to re-write the oath to state “to divulge to the proper authorities what may bring harm or scandal to the children of God”.  What a powerful witness that would be.

In the meantime, those of us who are committed to protecting children rather than institutions must continue to seek justice in the courts.  Our children can’t afford to wait for the cardinals to change or take a different oath.

The blog posts require a response on two fronts-1)sociological and 2)theological and scriptural.  The latter does not typically draw my attention in this blog but I believe a theological/scriptural response is appropriate because it is so closely connected to the sociological aspects of sexual abuse, especially for those who’ve been abused by clergy.

In my work assisting survivors of sexual abuse, I am often confronted with a perpetrator who never fully appreciates the damage wrecked on victims of abuse.  The perpetrator somehow feels self-pity and expects the world to understand and appreciate his suffering.  The abuser is not capable of perceiving the world from any perspective other than his own and never confronts the reality of his monstrous actions.  Once you read Cardinal Mahony’s blog posts it would be difficult to miss the similarities between his point of view and that of a perpetrator.  Mahony deftly casts himself as the victim and writes that in his suffering he is called to be humiliated like Christ.  The not so subtle implication is that just as Christ was accused of criminal behavior, the Cardinal himself has suffered the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.

Of course, this is a gross misrepresentation of reality, which brings me to my second point.  Besides casting himself in the role of Christ, Mahony re-interprets Scripture (something sacred for Christians)to fit his own nefarious ends.  In his February 18^th post entitled, “Jesus, Suffering Servant”, he states, “The poem of the Suffering Servant is important for all of us who are disciples of Jesus Christ since we are called to imitate his words, actions, and life.  Part of that journey will always entail suffering from time to time.  But what makes Jesus’ suffering so different, and so important for us, is that he lived out Isaiah’s prophecy fully:  ‘…he did not open his mouth…’ That means never rationalizing what is happening in our lives, never protesting misunderstandings, and never getting angry because of false accusations.  And that is so difficult for us human beings.  It is certainly difficult for me on my journey.”  While he casts himself as the Suffering Servant in imitation of Christ, that’s not the common interpretation of the attribution given the patrimony of the church or Scripture scholars.  We benefit from the Suffering Servant but are not the Suffering Servant.  We aren’t innocent and led to the slaughter as Jesus was.  The blog post was written right around the same time that he was to give deposition testimony in an abuse lawsuit in Los Angeles.  How convenient for him to have found a Scriptural passage that explains his silence and refusal to answer questions.  Mahony should know better but I suspect he truly sees himself as suffering for the good of the church and its people.

When institutions of trust lose their integrity they begin to grasp for power in a desperate attempt to hold on to what they perceive as rightly theirs.  Some will go to great lengths to preserve that power, even manipulate Scripture and the emotions of others.

The civil sex abuse lawsuit was filed in Ohio because many of the 300 sexual assaults Thomas Abner endured occurred in Ohio.  The state of Ohio reformed its statute of limitations concerning civil matters concerning sexual abuse in 2006.  The new Ohio law allows survivors of sexual abuse to bring civil claims against perpetrators and the institutions that protected them up until the survivor reaches the age of 30.

Our lawsuit alleges that the Boy Scouts of America were aware of Woodard’s sexual deviancy but failed to protect children.  According to one media report, “At Woodard’s 2002 sentencing, a judge noted that concerns about Woodard had been raised to Scout officials, “apparently without success,” the newspaper reported; two active scouting leaders spoke in support of Woodard, leaving a victims’ advocate “absolutely furious.”

Here is a video report by Cincinnati CBS affiliate on the case:

The Catholic Church in Hawaii is no stranger to child sexual abuse.  We’ve written and commented upon those who’ve preyed on children in Hawaii and we suspect this new legislation will provide further opportunity for more survivors to step forward and seek justice.

BSA placed Dr. Ewalt in its Ineligible Volunteer Perversion Files in 1965 for his abuse of Scouts.  This step should have resulted in Dr. Ewalt being banned from Scouting for good.  It did not.  Dr. Ewalt went on to hold many more positions and be given several awards in Scouting over the next 20 years, until he was finally removed in 1987 for again sexually abusing Scouts.  Dr. Ewalt’s case is just another egregious example of the complete inadequacy of BSA’s IV File system at effectively keeping child molesters out of Scouting.

Dr. Ewalt was born on September 16, 1940.  He was a Church of Christ member and served in the U.S. Navy from 1959‒1962.  After serving in the Navy, he attended Marshalltown Community College from 1962‒1965.  He was the Scoutmaster of Troop 323 in Green Mountain, Iowa from December 1963 through July 1964.  In 1965, BSA added him to the IV Files for “homosexual activities with the boys in the Troop.”  BSA claimed that adding Dr. Ewalt to the IV Files would “enable [BSA] to identify Mr. Ewalt should he ever again attempt to register in the Scouting program.”  However, as with many other child molesters, the IV Files did not keep Dr. Ewalt out of Scouting.

In 1980, BSA denied Dr. Ewalt’s attempt to register as the Commissioner of Unit 8602 of the Evergreen Area Council in Everett, Washington.  Dr. Ewalt and the Council Executive wrote to BSA National wondering why Dr. Ewalt’s registration had been denied when he had been “a registered Scouter serving either as a Troop Committee Chairman or as a Commissioner” for the Evergreen Area Council for the past six years.  Dr. Ewalt then sent a list to BSA National of all of the different positions he had held and awards he had received for those years, imploring BSA to let him register again.  BSA did.

In 1980, BSA allowed Dr. Ewalt to register on a probationary basis for “two to three years.”  In 1985, Dr. Ewalt abused Scouts again while working as the Camp Health Officer at the Fire Mountain BSA camp.  Scout employees and volunteers became aware of these incidents in 1985, but did not take steps to remove Dr. Ewalt from Scouting until 1987.  We believe he died in 1996.

If you have any knowledge of Dr. Ewalt, any of the Scouting groups he was involved with, or child abuse within Scouting generally, please contact me at 503-306-0224 or ashleyn@oandc.com.

William Todd Brewer was the Executive Director of the Chickasaw Council of Boy Scouts.  His duties included oversight of five Mississippi counties of Boy Scout troops.  Those responsibilities ended when he was arrested and charged with nearly two dozen sex offenses involving minors.  The charges range from fondling to forced oral sex.  Thus far, five survivors, all under the age of 16 years old, have come forward to accuse Brewer of child sex offenses.  According to law enforcement, all the crimes occurred between May and July 2012.  In addition to the child sex offenses, Brewer faces 10 counts of possession of child pornography.

Because Brewer had ingratiated himself with families and the community, he had easy access to young boys.  The most disturbing fact concerning this arrest is that it happened less than a year ago!  In October 2012, when we released the Boy Scouts Perversion Files, we heard Boy Scouts’ executives repeat to the public how things have changed, how their safety procedures would now prevent the future abuse of children.  But we continue to see episodes like this all over the country every few weeks.  It is this continuing pattern of abuse that led us to call on Congress to do an audit of BSA’s current child safety policies, so that improvements can be made and children better protected. So far, that request has fallen on deaf ears, both in Washington DC and in Irving, Texas, at BSA headquarters.

I come from a long line of Bavarian Catholics (even though the strain was diluted to Nebraska Lutherans by my generation), so was pleased to see a Bavarian Cardinal appointed Pope, even though I do not follow Vatican politics.  Those who do are out in full force now, making all kinds of speculations about why this Pope resigned, who will succeed him, and just what role a retired Pope is supposed to play.

The most scintillating of this conjecture is whether the Pope’s resignation has any connection with the German Bishops Conference’s abrupt cancellation of a independent investigation into 70 years of sex abuse allegation against German clergy.

But we shouldn’t lose site of the real goal of putting an end to child sexual abuse, within the Catholic Church as well as in other institutions of trust.  The next papal election is a side issue because reform will never come from within an institution.  Real reform is the product of advocates who tirelessly pursue the protection of children through changes in criminal and civil statutes of limitations, litigation, investigative journalism, and hands-on support for survivors of child abuse.

The Boy Scouts have a long history of sexual abuse throughout the organization.  The Sea Scouts is no exception, and we have represented other victims of abuse in Sea Scouting. [LINK:  http://www.kgw.com/news/Suit-filed-over-sea-Scouts-abuse-in-70s-120801269.html]

Child abuse thrives in secret. If you have information about Gerald “Jerry” Dimmitt, his activities in the Boy Scouts, or the problem of sexual abuse within Scouting (generally), please email me at peterj@oandc.com or call 503.274.1170.

The Story Doesn’t End There

The very next morning, a spokesman for the Archdiocese, Tod Tamberg, clarified Gomez’ remarks and noted that while Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Curry’s resignation remained intact, the statement about Cardinal Mahony’s status needed clarification.  Tamberg’s clarification indicated that Mahony was a priest in “good standing” and that his day-to-day activities would not change.  Canon law was cited and duly noted that no bishop has the authority to restrict the movements or activities of a cardinal.  Mahony himself weighed in-attempting to justify his behavior by stating that he had done everything in his power to prevent child sexual abuse and that at the time of his ordination to the priesthood he was ill-equipped to deal with such a problem.  In the end, nothing changes.  Mahony can continue to live the life of a prince of the church and even vote for the next pope if that happens to take place before he turns 80 in three years!

This is “institutional thinking” at its most base level.  I’ve seen the same kind of thinking in other institutions such as the Boy Scouts when they fought to keep secret their own Perversion Files.  It’s the type of thinking that keeps children in danger of exploitation and abuse.  It’s the type of thinking that needs to change if we hope to protect the future generations of children.

Rather than retry Fugee, prosecutors reached an agreement to put him in a rehab program for first-time sex offenders, and to bar him from being alone with kids for the rest of his life. But as far as the Archdiocese of Newark is concerned, Fugee is not only clean, but he is, in fact, a victim too:

Goodness, the spokesman, characterized Fugee as a victim in the case, saying the priest had been through a ‘terrible ordeal.’”

Dreher, a former Catholic who left the Church after reporting on the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal was a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, blames the culture of clericalism for this new assignment.  Dreher believes the Catholic bishops favor supporting their priests rather than protecting children.  Here’s another excerpt:

“Because, you know, for many bishops and other church leaders, the welfare of the clergy is always and everywhere more important than the welfare of the laity and their children, or even basic moral integrity.

 These guys never learn.

 UPDATE: Let me clarify what I’m interested in here. I take it for granted that some bishops and church leaders make these kinds of calls because they are bad men with something to hide. But I think many others make this kind of call out of a malformed sense of charity, abetted by a sense, likely unconscious, that the clergy are “real” to them in a way the laity are not. I would love to hear from priests and laypeople who have knowledge of this mentality. Help me understand how it works. It is not, please note, a liberal thing or a conservative thing. That is a canard. Nor, I should say, is it an exclusively Catholic thing.”

Rod Dreher has worked with Jason Berry the author of Lead Us Not Into Temptation and Fr. Tom Doyle in investigating priest sex abuse.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) is at the center of an FBI investigation into his trips to the Dominican Republic, paid for by a major Democrat donor.  Menendez has taken the major step in acknowledging that the trips were illegally paid for by reimbursing the doctor nearly $60,000 for two (2!) trips to the island.  FBI reports also indicate that Menendez travelled to the DR (in violation of congressional ethics rules) to engage in sex with prostitutes.  http://fedsinvestigationonsenmenendez.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/mailwithfbi9.jpg   Making matters much worse, Sen. Menendez apparently liked the “youngest and newest girls,” and these tragic victims have spoken to the FBI.  http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/31/dominican-prostitute-senator-bob-menendez-likes-the-youngest-and-newest-girls/  There are indications that the senator in fact sought out underage prostitutes.  http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/25/emails-show-fbi-investigating-sen-bob-menendez-for-sleeping-with-underage-dominican-prostitutes/  The FBI quoted “testimony of one of the girls,” and described it as a letter: “the original written in her own hand,” the source wrote. “She’s 19 now, but took part in private parties with Senator Menendez being only 16.”  That’s not just having sex with prostitutes, it’s engaging in and supporting the international sex trafficking trade.

It is bad enough that a sitting US Senator would accept unlawful trips out of the country to frequent prostitutes, but for that particular US Senator—one of the most powerful men on the planet—to victimize underage girls is simply vile.  The allegations are such that any man with a shred of decency would resign immediately while the investigation is concluded.  Should these things prove true, Senator Menendez must offer his apologies and compensation to his victims, and serve a long and harsh prison sentence to the end of his days.

Bernard Shero, a former Catholic school teacher in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was convicted of rape, attempted rape, indecent sexual assault and other charges.  Fr. Engelhardt was convicted of indecent assault of a child under 13, corruption of a minor and conspiracy with another priest Fr. Avery.

According to NBC News, “The young man said the abuse started after Engelhardt caught him drinking altar wine in fifth grade. He said Engelhardt told fellow priest Edward Avery about their “session,” prompting Avery to twice sexually assault the boy. And he said Shero raped him in a car a year later, after driving him home after detention.”

The abuse survivor who reported the two men in 2009 is the son of a Philadelphia police officer.  The 24-year-old survivor showed great courage in testifying against the two men.  The defense attorneys responded by pointing to the survivor’s history of substance abuse, suggesting this reflected on his credibility.

We’ve seen these defense tactics before and they rarely work.  Jurors usually understand that survivors of child abuse are left with significant emotional scars.  To survive, victims often turn to substance abuse, sexual compulsions, and other unhealthy lifestyle choices in subconscious efforts at avoidance.

Thus, the irony in the defense’s approach in Philadelphia and other cases is that they are blaming the victim for a symptom caused by the abuse.  Thankfully, despite these defense tactics, the survivor’s decision to come forward and speak out about the abuse is actually the first step on the road to recovery and healing.

The lawsuit alleges that Walker sexually molested my client on more than 50 occasions in the mid-1980s, when Walker was pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon.  My client was 14 years old when Walker first abused him.  The abuse continued for years, and took place at the Eugene church, at Camp Magruder (a church camp on the Oregon Coast), in Walker’s car, at his home, and elsewhere.

My client’s statement about his experience demonstrates his courage and desire to protect children in the future.  “When I read that Pastor Walker molested another boy during the same period of time he was molesting me, I realized that I was not alone in what happened. I’m not so much angry as I am sad that my own church would cover up what he did, and put kids’ well-being at risk.”

It seems that Walker had sex with children, teenagers, adults, men, and women.  He appears to have been an omni-sexual, serial predator who preyed on the vulnerable and unsuspecting.

If you have any information about William O. Walker, please contact me.  Victims and other witnesses who have information about Walker will always be listened to and treated with respect.

According to the NY Times, Cardinal Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until his retirement in 2011, was the archbishop who “fought longer and more energetically” than any other bishop in hiding the sexual abuse crisis that has wreaked havoc on the Catholic Church.

The Times reports, “Sounds good — please proceed!” the cardinal, now retired, instructed in 1987 after the aide, Msgr. Thomas Curry, cautioned against therapy for one confessed predator — lest the therapist feel obliged to tell authorities and scandalize the archdiocese. The two discussed another   priest, Msgr. Peter Garcia, who admitted specializing in the rape of Latino immigrant children and threatened at least one boy with deportation if he complained. Cardinal Mahony ordered that he stay out of California after his release from a New Mexico treatment center out of fear that “we might very well have some type of legal action filed in both the criminal and civil sectors.” Monsignor Curry worried that there might be 20 young people able to identify the priest in “first-degree felony” cases.”

Ten years ago I had a lengthy interview with two detectives from LA who were on Cardinal Mahony’s trail, and I told them what I knew. Based on what they had back then, and what NY Times writes about here, I am surprised the Cardinal has never been indicted.

While both organizations had historically serious problems with child sexual abuse within their ranks, both also have made good progress in many ways and are doing a better job than before in abuse training and prevention.  Still, there are some troubling questions about the extent and breadth of the historical, and current, abuse problem for the Mormon Church. Unlike the Boy Scouts of America, which has been forced through our litigation to release at least major portions of their child abuse files, the Mormon Church has never released its child abuse files, and indeed claims it has none.  Now, if that latter claim is true–that there are no records of child sexual abuse in the Mormon Church–a church that keeps meticulous records on just about everything–then this is indeed troubling.  The mere fact that there are no files, if that is so, is itself a bald failure; how can it be that this powerful and sophisticated organization never thought to keep track of and study such a serious problem as child sexual abuse?  Can this really be true?

I don’t know if we’ll ever get to the bottom of this.  But these questions are worth pondering and posing to the Church.”

Walker was born in 1932. He attended seminary at Boston Theological Union. He was married to Carol Walker, who passed away in 1990.

Walker received his first pastoral appointment in 1957 at the Dillard-Winston United Methodist Church in Dillard, Oregon. From the late 1950s to the late 1960s, he worked with Methodist churches in North Bend and Salem. Over his career, he supervised 48 churches in many counties throughout Oregon, including churches in Clackamas, Washington, Multnomah, and Columbia counties.

In 1968, he became the pastor of the Corvallis First United Methodist Church. From 1976‒1982, he served as the district superintendent in Portland, Oregon for the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church. Finally, in 1982, he became the Senior Pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon, where he remained until his death in 1992.

Throughout his career, he also worked with the African-Methodist University in Zimbabwe and was elected to attend the United Methodist Church’s national General Conference six times. Walker was also an active volunteer during the summer months with the United Methodist Church camp, Camp Magruder, located in Rockaway Beach, Oregon.

If you have any information or memories regarding Rev. Walker, please contact us at:
Gilion C. Dumas gilionc@oandc.com 503-306-0224
Ashley L. Nastoff ashleyn@oandc.com 503-306-0224

With this new law in mind, it is worth considering Hawaii’s recent history of alleged abuse within the Hawaii Diocese of the Catholic Church.  The Catholic Church’s presence in the state of Hawaii began as a missionary effort in the mid-19^th century.  In 1941, The Hawaii Diocese was established and Pope Pius XII named San Francisco priest Fr. James Sweeney as the first bishop of Honolulu.  Since then, Hawaii has had five bishops who’ve served a rather small Catholic population.  Presently, there are fewer than 100 parishes in the entire state of Hawaii.

In spite of the small Catholic presence in the state, the Catholic Church in Hawaii has faced a number of sexual abuse allegations made against priests.  Notably, one of its own bishops was accused of sexually molesting a teenaged boy in the 1980s.  That man filed a civil abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Hawaii and Bishop Joseph Ferrario.

Fifteen other priests serving in Hawaii have been accused of sexually abusing children.  Of those 15, one Catholic deacon, Rev. Mr. Ronald Gonsalves, was accused and pleaded guilty on May 17, 2006, to several counts of sexual assault on a 12-year-old boy.  He was sentenced to one year in prison and 20 years of probation.  At the time, Gonsalves was serving as administrator of Saint Ann Roman Catholic Church in Waihee, Maui.

In 1992, Reverend Arthur O’Brien, a priest incardinated by Msgr. Ferrario into the diocesan presbyterium was convicted of sexual assault at a Maui parish.  Bishop DiLorenzo later permanently retired Ferrario.

One Hawaiian plaintiff won $3.5 million (reduced to $1.04 million on appeal) in a case involving Father Thomas Adamson.  Allegations against Adamson spanned 22 years, and included claims that the Catholic Church shuttled him into new assignments.

Some of those accused of sexually abusing children in Hawaii were members of religious orders.  For example, John Paul Medvit was named in a 2012 civil lawsuit against the Christian Brothers and the Diocese.  The now adult man alleged that Medvit abused him in 1986 when he was a freshman at Damien Memorial School on Oahu and Medvit was his teacher.  The lawsuit alleged that Medvit caressed, rubbed, groped, and hugged the student, which he reported to the school and Diocese at the time.  Medvit was temporarily removed and later returned to the school where he again physically attacked the student.  Medvit died in Aug. 2012.

A Capuchin priest, Andrew Manetta, was accused of sexually molesting a mentally challenged 19-year-old boy.  That lawsuit alleged that parents of two altar boys complained of Manetta’s behavior in 1994 but the Diocese of Honolulu denied that the priest’s actions were sexual.  Manetta was reassigned in 2002 to New York, prior to the civil lawsuit.  The civil case settled for $375,000 in January 2007, just before trial.

These are just a few of the sexual abuse cases that have been made public in the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.  Fortunately, for those abuse survivors who have not come forward, the new law in Hawaii has allows a sexual abuse survivor to come forward and seek justice in court.  However, this new law in Hawaii expires in April 2014.  For more information on the new Hawaii law, please click here.

Anytime a public institution ignores the welfare and safety of children, especially those in its charge, the public has a right and a duty to punish that institution.  Our country just can’t afford to continue to disregard our children for a football program, a scouting program, or a religious institution.

This California ruling follows the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision in June 2012, upholding the trial court’s decision from Lewis vs. Boy Scouts of America, Case No. 0710-11294 to release twenty years of BSA’s Perversion files to the public, spanning 1965 to 1985. This firms represented plaintiff Kerry Lewis in that case, and made those files publicly available for the first time ever on October 18, 2012. You can view all of those files here.

The recent California Supreme Court’s ruling is a step in the right direction. BSA, however, needs to go one step further to release its modern Perversion files to the public and law enforcement, especially so that law enforcement may investigate these allegations. Transparency and accountability — by seeing their abusers prosecuted where possiblt and BSA taking responsibility for its own actions—can be critically important for victims’ healing process.

Once incorporated into the BSA’s budget, those dues go to pay for, among other things, salaries and pensions for BSA executives. Including, it was reported last week, the pension for Douglas Sovereign Smith – the former head of BSA’s youth protection program – who was just released from federal prison after serving a seven-year sentence on child pornography charges.

It’s bad enough that Smith was the proverbial fox guarding the chicken coop. But that he continues to draw a Boy Scout paycheck is too much.

From tackling the Catholic Church for its role in the sex abuse of children by its priests, to helping abuse survivors remain assertive in their quest to find justice against abusive Mormon church officials, Clark makes the task of fighting seemingly lost causes look easy.

So, when he took the Boy Scouts of America to task for covering up the nefarious and often sexually-deviant deeds of over one thousand volunteers who they had deemed unfit for service around young boys –and won, the nation, including legal publisher, Lawyers USA, noticed.

For his work in uncovering these files and making them readily available to the public on this website, Clark was given the Lawyers USA distinction as one of its “2012 Lawyers of the Year.”

Although honored by the title, Clark feels that his clients are equally responsible for bringing these facts to light, stating, “Advocating for people abused as children is one of the signal honors of my career, but any credit or award for this work always belongs to the survivors of abuse, who are the real heroes. My task is simply to help these folks find their voices, and then stand with them as they speak their truth. I am grateful to Lawyers USA for recognizing the importance of the child abuse cases.”

To read more, click here and scroll down to the article about Kelly and Paul Mones.

According to an article in the Washington Post, “The Boy Scouts kept internal files on alleged sexual abuse for nearly a century. Through other court cases, the Scouts were forced to reveal files dating from 1960 to 1991. They detailed numerous cases where abuse claims were made and Boy Scout officials never alerted authorities and sometimes actively sought to protect the accused.”

The California high court ruling follows the Oregon Supreme Court ruling last October concerning the Boy Scouts’ abuse documents surrounding our Kelly Lewis trial in 2010.  Our firm was successful in providing these abuse documents to the general public for the first time ever.

Such court decisions are a step in the right direction toward transparency and justice which are central to the future protection of children and accountability for those who’ve protected child abusers in the past.  I’m very pleased that the California Supreme Court ruled to continue the movement toward transparency and accountability.

Read the blog post here.

In our Kerry Lewis case in 2010, Smith was a key witness. Here is a link to his deposition testimony, taken by my co-counsel Paul Mones.

Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr., the BSA’s former national director for youth protection, leaves prison a convicted sex offender who will have to report to a probation officer for the remainder of his life and is prohibited from accessing the internet, using a smart phone or camera.

It’s difficult to fathom the depth of the institutional problem the Boy Scouts face until one is reminded that their own national safety director was convicted of possessing images of prepubescent boys in sexual acts. While the Boy Scouts have tried to distance themselves from this particular case, it’s hard to imagine how this doesn’t directly reflect on the institution as a whole.

As allowed by court rules, the case does not use the victim’s name, but refers to him as Jack Doe. The defendant is the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, the organization that operates the First United Methodist Church in Eugene, Oregon where Walker was the pastor from around 1980 until his death.

It is not unusual for victims to file lawsuits many years after they were abused. As a result of the trauma caused by childhood sexual abuse, very few sexual abuse victims ever report what happened to them. It can be years and even decades before those who do report come forward. Simple telling their story is a huge step towards healing.

The law in many states recognizes that child abuse victims can take years or even decades to figure out that problems they have as an adult were caused by the abuse they suffered as kids. These states allow victims to file lawsuits many years after the abuse. In Oregon, for instance, child abuse victims can file a lawsuit before they turn 40, or even later, as long as they file the case within five years of when they make the connection between their adult problems and their earlier abuse.

Our client himself explained, “For years, I put what happened to me when I was a kid out of my thoughts. But the abuse severely affected my life, and I am just now able to face my fears, come forward to make sure the church is held accountable for its actions, and try to help prevent this kind of abuse from happening to someone else.”

The lawsuit we filed alleges that Pastor Walker abused his position of leadership, trust, and respect as a church Pastor and mentor to repeatedly sexually abuse Jack Doe when he was only about 11 years old, both at the First United Methodist Church in Eugene, as well as at Camp Magruder, a Methodist church camp. The abuse included kissing, fondling, and anal sex on multiple occasions.

A newspaper article published after Walker’s death revealed that he died in July 1992 from “complications related to AIDS[,]” and that he had several bisexual relationships. According to The Register-Guard article, “Painful Revelation,” published on December 6, 1992, Walker was diagnosed with AIDS in 1989, but “sought to keep [his diagnosis] secret[.]” The article also details how church officials told church members in November 992 that “[h]e was a minister . . . who had abused his power as a religious leader by attempting to seduce emotionally vulnerable young men.” “In all, at least 12 males, including six or more ministers and one minor, . . . told church leaders that Walker made sexual advances toward them [,]” the article states.

Based on these reports of Walker’s history of sexual activity with minors, and what we know about pedophiles in general, it is likely that there are other victims of Walker or other witnesses with relevant information. We want these witnesses or other survivors of abuse to know that, if they come forward, they will be listened to and treated with respect.

Anyone with additional information about William Walker or any of the events at issue in this case is encouraged to contact me at: giliond@oandc.com or 503-306-0224.

According to the NY Times, the allegations of sexual abuse and the school’s cover-up are all too familiar-groping and raping boys on campus, in his car and on trips, while administrators enamored with his success ignored a series of allegations made against him.  Goglietta died in 1998.

The Times reported, “Mr. Foglietta was hired by the school as its football coach in 1966, and a student spoke out that same year. William Jackson, then an eighth grader, told his parents that Mr. Foglietta abused him, and he and his parents took those allegations to the school. Administrators “proceeded to conduct a sham investigation,” the complaint says, and told Mr. Jackson and his parents that the accusations were lies and that any further complaints would result in severe consequences.

That was a dark turn for Mr. Jackson, one of the plaintiffs: he lost his parents’ trust, and they died estranged from him. He struggled with drug and alcohol abuse and depression, and tried to kill himself in 2004. The complaint describes similar trajectories for the other plaintiffs and says hundreds of other victims probably followed suit.”

Unfortunately, we’ve seen the tragic effects of the sexual abuse of minors involving the Boy Scouts of America, the Mormon Church, and other institutions of trust-all with the same result.  All too often, the institutions dismiss these allegations, allowing the perpetrators to continue to abuse children.  This won’t stop until the institutions are held accountable in each and every instance of the abuse of a child.

The argument that only by keeping the files “confidential” will people report child abuse is simply nonsense.  In our Oregon experience, the files were publicly released and yet the names of the victims and those who reported abuse were kept anonymous through redactions.  The press has consistently honored the anonymity of both victims and reporters.  In short, the Boy Scouts’ argument is simply without merit, and thus the continuing effort to fight the public release of the modern files seems little more than a desire to prevent more bad publicity.  The Boy Scouts of America can and should do better.