A 14 year old boy from Utica, New York was charged yesterday with filing a false sex abuse complaint against Monsignor H. Charles Sewall. Sewall admitted last month to molesting three teenagers in the 1970s. The boy was nabbed after investigators from the Oneida County DA’s Office found inconsistencies in the allegations he made against Sewall.
(New York)
Resnikoff and Viscio, a Garden City law firm, has filed a racketeering lawsuit against the Diocese of Rockville Centre claiming that its legal counsel, Msgr. Alan Placa, conspired with two of the firm’s clients to secretly settle sexual abuse claims against the diocese, depriving the firm of $100,000 in legal fees. The firm filed suit Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Mineola, claiming that the diocese recently reached settlements of $150,000 each with two women the firm said it had represented in earlier litigation. Four years ago Judith Cajigas of
A panel of Roman Catholic bishops in the United States announced recommendations yesterday that would defrock any priest who abuses a minor from this day forward. They panel also said, any priest who has committed more than one act of abuse in the past should also be expelled.
Senator Charles Schumer said yesterday that victims of sexual assault in New York and other states who are medically insured are being charged as much as $1,500 for rape kits despite a federal law requiring states to cover them. That’s like asking a murder victim to pay for their own autopsy, Schumer (D-NY) said at a news conference outside Beth Israel Medical Center’s emergency room. It’s outrageous, it’s wrong and it has to stop.
(New York)
A 14 year old former altar boy told Pat McDonough, during a religious retreat, that the Rev. Joseph Mundy had confided how lonely he was, how difficult celibacy was, and how the two of them needed each other. McDonough, then a religious educator, told Msgr. Alan Placa she believed Mundy was grooming the boy for sex and asked Placa what he would do about it. McDonough believed the boy was about to kill himself because of the unrelenting attentions from Mundy when she met with Placa eight years ago. She
A law that sought to protect children from Internet pornography by withholding government subsidies from public libraries that fail to install filtering software on their personal computers was struck down by a federal judicial panel yesterday. A three-judge panel ruled unanimously that the Children’s Internet Protection Act, Congress’ third attempt to control online smut, was facially invalid under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which safeguards the right to free speech.
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)