Tag Archives: sex abuse

Arrested childcare worker charged with Sex Abuse of 91 Children facing 1,623 charges

Child Sex Abuse

Important Takeaways:

  • Australian Police Charge Ex-Childcare Worker with Sex Abuse of 91 Children
  • A former Australian childcare worker is facing 1,623 child abuse charges after allegedly sexually abusing 91 children, filming it, then sharing the content online.
  • Police allege the man preyed on young girls over a 15-year period at a dozen centers in Australia as well as overseas all while distributing the content on the dark web.
  • He was arrested in August 2022, but it has taken police a year to investigate and identify alleged victims.
  • The accused man, 45, has been charged with 136 counts of rape and 110 counts of sexual intercourse with a child under 10, ABC News reports.
  • An investigation involving the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as well as Queensland and New South Wales state police led to the arrest of the man, with offences allegedly committed in Brisbane, Sydney and overseas between 2007 and 2022.
  • Police said the abuse happened at 10 different childcare centers between 2007 and 2022 and exclusively targeted “prepubescent girls” — some as young as one year old.

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Catholic Church credibility on the line at abuse meeting

FILE PHOTO - U.S. Cardinal Theodore Edgar McCarrick arrives for a meeting at the Synod Hall in the Vatican March 4, 2013. REUTERS/Max Rossi

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican will gather senior bishops from around the world later this week for a conference on sex abuse designed to guide them on how best to tackle a problem that has decimated the Church’s credibility, but critics say it is too little, too late.

The unprecedented four-day meeting, starting on Thursday, brings together presidents of national Roman Catholic bishops conferences, Vatican officials, experts and heads of male and female religious orders.

“I am absolutely convinced that our credibility in this area is at stake,” said Father Federico Lombardi, who Pope Francis has chosen to moderate the meeting.

“We have to get to the root of this problem and show our ability to undergo a cure as a Church that proposes to be a teacher or it would be better for us to get into another line of work,” he told reporters.

The meeting, whose theme is “prevention of abuse of minors and vulnerable adults”, comes as the 1.3 billion-member Church still struggles to enact a concerted, coordinated and global effort to tackle a crisis that is now more than two decades old.

Lombardi, 71, said bishops from countries including the United States, which have developed protocols for preventing abuse and investigating accusations against individual members of the clergy, would share experiences and knowledge with those from developing countries, including those whose cultures make it harder to discuss abuse.

The Church has repeatedly come under fire for its handling of the sexual abuse crisis, which exposed how predator priests were moved from parish to parish instead of being defrocked or turned over to civilian authorities around the world.

Most of the crimes took place decades ago.

The pope called the meeting in September at the suggestion of his closest advisers, and last month he told reporters it was necessary because some bishops still did not know fully the procedures to put in place to protect the young and how to administer cases of abuse.

Francis said it would be a “catechesis,” or a teaching session, a pronouncement that stunned victims of abuse and their advocates.

DISGRACEFUL DELAY

Some experts have questioned why it has taken so long to get to this point.

“The fact that this still exists in 2019, that there is still awareness-raising that has to be done (among bishops) is a measure of what a low priority this has truly been for the Vatican,” said Anne Barrett-Doyle of the U.S.-based abuse tracking group bishopaccountability.org.

“I hope he has the candor to admit that it’s absolutely disgraceful that that’s where we are today,” said Barrett-Doyle, speaking in St. Peter’s Square.

On Saturday the Vatican sent what some saw as a warning that it would get tough with bishops who have either committed abuse or covered it up.

It expelled former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the Roman Catholic priesthood after he was found guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults.

While many priests have been expelled for sexual abuse, few bishops have met the same fate, and McCarrick was the first former cardinal to be thrown out.

Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top sexual crimes investigator, told Reuters that McCarrick’s dismissal was a “very important signal” to the Catholic hierarchy that no one is above the law.

While victims of sexual abuse and their advocates welcomed the expulsion, many were skeptical.

“I worry that this (McCarrick’s expulsion) is not going to be anything more than the equivalent of the pope tossing a bone to placate his critics, placate the survivors,” said Phil Saviano, who was molested by a priest in Massachusetts when he was 12 years old and whose story was told in the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella; editing by Mike Collett-White and David Evans)

Justice Department probes Catholic Church sex abuse in Pennsylvania

Storm clouds pass over a Roman Catholic church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S. August 14, 2018. REUTERS/Jason Cohn

(Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation into child sex abuse by priests in Pennsylvania, four Roman Catholic Church dioceses said on Thursday.

The dioceses of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Erie and Allentown told Reuters that they had received federal subpoenas following a state grand jury report that alleged over 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania had sexually abused children over 70 years. The Associated Press first reported on Thursday the Justice Department investigation.

The dioceses said they were cooperating with the investigation but declined further comment.

The Justice Department and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia declined to comment.

An 884-page report made public in August by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro after a two-year investigation contained graphic examples of children being groomed and sexually abused by clergymen. Shapiro said at the time that it was largely based on documents from secret archives kept by the dioceses, including handwritten confessions by priests.

The report cited 301 priests, some of whom have died.

In September, U.S. Catholic bishops said they would set up a hotline for accusations of sexual abuse against clergy members and lay persons employed by the Church.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Writing by Andrew Hay Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Olympic officials failed to act on Nassar sex abuse claims: report

Larry Nassar, a former team USA Gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty in November 2017 to sexual assault, listens to victims impact statements during his sentencing in the Eaton County Circuit Court in Charlotte, Michigan, U.S., January 31, 2018.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Olympic Committee officials were told in 2015 that an investigation by USA Gymnastics uncovered possible criminal sexual abuse by team doctor Larry Nassar but they failed to intervene, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

USA Gymnastics then-president Steve Penny called Scott Blackmun, the chief executive of the U.S. Olympic Committee, in July 2015 with a request for guidance on how to handle allegations Nassar had sexually abused gymnasts, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Nassar plead guilty to sexual assault in a Michigan court and received a sentence of up to 175 years in prison on Jan. 24.

On the call, Penny told Blackmun he planned to alert law enforcement after a gymnast described what appeared to be a sexual assault by Nassar, the newspaper reported.

Blackmun told Penny to “do what he had to do,” but provided no further guidance to USA Gymnastics in the months to come on how to handle the matter, it said.

Blackman told the Journal that he had urged Penny to turn over the case to law enforcement, and that the USOC’s own upcoming investigation would examine what individuals knew about Nassar and when, the newspaper said.

In response to The Wall Street Journal Story, the USOC reiterated in an email to Reuters it was launching an independent probe “to determine what complaints were made, when, to whom, and what was done in response.” USA Gymnastics did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Many of Nassar’s victims have criticized the USOC for failing to remove him sooner. That has come as part of wider outrage at USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body in the United States, and Michigan State University, where Nassar was employed and abused many of his victims.

Under pressure from the USOC, the entire board of USA Gymnastics resigned last week. The president and athletic director at Michigan State University also stepped down.

The Journal said that Penny, who resigned from his post last year, followed up later in 2015 with an email to USOC Chief Security Officer Larry Buendorf that described Nassar’s questionable treatment of three gymnasts and outlined USA Gymnastics’ handling of the matter.

USA Gymnastics has said it contacted the Indianapolis office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on July 27, 2015, which instructed it not to comment on the matter so as not to compromise its investigation, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay)