The Rev. Robert Burns was assigned to parish positions despite advice that he be kept out of jobs that would put him in contact with minors. Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law told the Vatican in 1999 that his archdiocese had assigned Burns, who has a past history of child sex abuse, to two parishes where he had abused six more boys.
(Boston, Massachusetts)
Alisha Ludwig, 31, offered to take 11 year old Nicole Hayward to a store to shop for jeans and to grab a snack. Hayward is the niece of Mike and Cindy Costello and Ludwig a friend of theirs. At first, when they didn’t return, the Costellos thought they had been abducted. But when law-enforcement officials began tracking usage of Ludwig’s credit cards, their images showed up on a hotel security camera. Late Saturday night, the pair were spotted on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. The girl was unharmed and Ludwig was
Ricardo Miranda, 21, is the sixth Fort Drum man to be charged in the gang rape of a 16 year old girl. He was charged with third-degree sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child. He was released on $500 bail. Miranda was away on leave when five other men were charged last week. Police said the girl attended a party August 25 at the Fort Drum residence of Pfc. Beau Hawkins, 24, and was raped.
(LeRay, New York)
James Andrew Smith, a businessman and former pastor, was charged with possessing child pornography after a photo of a nude boy appeared during a computer slide presentation he gave at work. Employees at Exel Inc. told police when Smith finished a computer slide show on September 4, he tried to open another document on his laptop. The image of the young, nude boy appeared on screen.
(Fort Worth, Texas)
The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops, determined to put a year of turmoil behind them, were relentless in a message last week as they amended their landmark sex abuse policy. Any priest or deacon who has been found guilty of the sexual abuse of a minor will not be allowed to resume ministry under any circumstances, said Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford, Illinois. I don’t know how to say that any more clearly.
New York Post/Kati Cornell Smith
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that Federal law enforcement authorities have charged89 people, including seven New York State residents, in a nationwide crackdown on an Internet childpornography ring. Among the 89 members of a defunct discussion group on Yahoo! Inc.’s Web sitearrested in the undercover FBI probe over 17 months are Paul Alexander, 39, of Bay Shore, SusanFlynn, 35, and her husband, James Flynn, 36, of West Hempstead, and Shannon Timothy Macauley, 36,an upstate school bus driver from upstate Constable. Two Catholic priests, six other clergymembers,a