Abusive dad’s confession kept secret by priest
A FATHER who sexually abused his one-year-old daughter confessed to a minister but the matter was never reported to police.
The man, who cannot be named, told police of his crimes after further abusing the girl when she was just four.
The Melbourne father told the minister at a small evangelical Christian church that he had committed offences against his young daughter in 2004.
The clergyman allegedly advised the family to stay with him in order to address the offending. The family lived with the minister for about two weeks.
But the father abused his daughter again last year.
He later went to a police station and confessed to the offences.
Clergymen are not subject to mandatory reporting laws.
The man yesterday pleaded guilty to four counts of incest and three of committing an indecent act with a child under 16.
A court heard that initially he sexually abused his daughter while changing her nappy. He also sexually abused his stepson.
In a victim’s impact statement to the court, the girl’s mother said she was hurt that her husband could behave in such a despicable way.
The court heard that the toddler had suffered thrush and began behaving in a sexualised way.
The man’s lawyer said he had been dealing with an internal conflict for many years – on one hand holding deep religious beliefs and on the other being a paedophile.
“It is the case that he has endeavoured to obtain some assistance from those who gave him religious guidance to try to behave in a way other than his paedophilic tendencies would indicate,” the defence lawyer said.
“Tragically, for his children, he had failed on a number of occasions in that regard.”
His lawyer said his client had not been in trouble with police before and was of otherwise good character.
“He’s a person who has an insight into the nature of the offending and the consequences of it,” he said.
The prosecutor said it was acknowledged that the man had shown a level of remorse but the offences were at the higher end of the scale for incest.
“He used lollies and other intelligent means to manipulate a very little girl and boy,” the prosecutor said.
She said it was an abhorrent breach of trust between a mother and father.
The man has been remanded in custody for sentencing at a later date [source].
Jesus on a Cheeto = Cheesus
[Source]:
Kelly Ramey has found a Jesus Cheeto! The Missouri woman says she has found Jesus Christ in a bag of delicious Cheetos!
Kelly Ramey said of her cheesy snack: “I think I found Jesus on a Cheeto as funny as that sounds.”
Kelly bought her bag of Cheetos at a local convenience store. She dipped her hand in to munch on the cheesy snack when she pulled out a cheeto:
“I looked at that and I thought, ‘Oh my that looks like Jesus on the cross.’ It was just like wow.”
Kelly’s husband, Pastor David Bennett of the Kirkwood United Methodist Church, calls the cheeto “Cheesus”.
Bennett says: “If people can find Jesus, somehow, in each of us like she’s found in this object, that would be a wonderful thing.”
Kelly has decided to keep the cheeto – so you’ll have to find Jesus somewhere else! A photo of the ‘Cheesus‘ is here!
YUM, YUM!
Family Claims to See Jesus in Cat Fur
You could call her a holy cat or a feline with Jesus on her side… An Indiana family says if you look closely at their pet, you can see the face of Christ.
“In this window well down here was 4 baby kittens… stuck together.”
Lori Johnson couldn’t help but take in two kittens, she found abandoned outside her house on mother’s day.
“Oh no, i couldn’t imagine giving them away now. I’ve worked too hard. They are a part of me now. I love being a mom.”
The two kittens, brother and sister, now named sissy and bubby — could also be called opposites… the female has striped fur. The male is all black.
“Maybe one’s an angel.. and the other one’ is not. Yeah, we have the good and evil.” Recently, lori’s husband was petting sissy when he noticed…
“He says ‘i swear that looks like jesus with a shroud on’ and i’m like ‘ok,’ and then my son took that picture, and it was like ‘wow!’”
Do you see Jesus?
“After looking at the picture and stuff, it was like ‘oh, there it is.’”
“See the eyes beard. here’s the shroud.”
After a closer look, you might see the “shroud of turin.” And even if you don’t… “then they might think we are weird crazy or something.”
Something this family is fine with. To them, sissy’s fur is a sign from above of joy and blessings to come.
“We’ve had a lot of things happen in our lives. This was a good sign that uh.. everything’s ok and got somebody looking after us.” [source].
Former Rhode Island Priest Accused of Sexual Abuse Dies
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – [source]:
A former priest accused of sexually abusing minors in Rhode Island has died in Texas.
The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth yesterday announced the death of 72-year-old Philip Anthony Magaldi, who told diocese officials earlier this year that he was HIV positive.
Magaldi was removed as a priest in 1999 amid claims of sexual misconduct in Rhode Island, where he served from 1960-90. Other claims were made in the Fort Worth area, where he served from 1990-92 and 1993-99.
Overall, he was accused of sexually abusing at least five minors in two states. Magaldi was never charged and always maintained his innocence.
The bishop in the Fort Worth diocese flew to Rome earlier this year to ask the Vatican to expedite the process of having Magaldi defrocked. That would remove him from clerical status.
Magaldi will be cremated and buried with his parents in Florida.
York County Pastor Text Messaged 2 Girls
WINDSOR, Pa. — [source]:
A York County pastor is charged with the corruption of minors, accused by police of exchanging thousands of text messages with two girls.
Scott Snyder, 34, is a pastor at the New Beginnings Bible Fellowship Church in Windsor Borough.
Snyder exchanged more than 3,000 text messages with two girls, ages 13 and 14, and some of the messages were inappropriate, state police said.
The exchanges were discovered in April. State police don’t believe Snyder had sexual contact with either girl.
Pastor Scott Snyder
Victim, cop slam archdiocese’s efforts to get priest out of prison early
SEX ABUSE | ‘600 YEARS WOULDN’T BE ENOUGH’
A victim of sex-abusing priest Norbert Maday and the detective who helped put the clergyman behind bars said Wednesday they were appalled and disheartened by efforts by the Archdiocese of Chicago to spring Maday from prison.
“It made me sick,” said Oshkosh police Detective Gerald Forseth, now retired.
Referring to a letter from Cardinal Francis George to Maday that six years in prison was “enough,” the victim, now 40, said in an interview that “600 years wouldn’t be enough.”
Laicized in December 2007, Maday was convicted in 1994 and sentenced to 20 years in jail by a Winnebago County, Wis., judge. Forseth, who investigated the case, including visiting Chicago parishes where Maday worked, said Wednesday he had read Sun-Times accounts of the efforts by George and other archdiocese officials to get Maday released.
The archdiocese’s efforts didn’t surprise him. When he came to Chicago to investigate, the archdiocese “stonewalled us at every turn,” Forseth said.
“[Maday] was well-connected, no doubt about it. There was a lot of pull there. He had a lot of friends.
“This guy was a total pervert, and the church knew this, and they kept moving him from church to church,” recalled Forseth, who said he found eight other Maday victims during the course of his investigation in Chicago. “And there is no accountability for all the moving, all the cover-up they did.”
Asking to be identified only as Mike, Maday’s victim said his abuser “should never walk the streets again.’
George might now be more inclined than ever to agree, not least of all because text of his sworn deposition and a $12.6 million sex abuse settlement from the archdiocese were made public Tuesday.
But he didn’t always.
“Hopefully, some good souls will see that the six years of incarceration you have already endured are enough to satisfy the state and any sense of justice,” George wrote to Maday in March 2000.
“I think he obviously disagrees with that because he’s changed his position,” said the cardinal’s spokeswoman, Colleen Dolan.
Like Forseth, Mike, too, was disturbed by the recent revelations.
“I think that it’s disheartening to the victims, and it re-victimizes them when this information comes out that the cardinal would be writing letters on behalf of a convicted sex offender,” he said. Mike is among 16 victims who’ll receive a settlement from the archdiocese.
Mike said his own history of abuse by Maday began in 1982, when Maday was stationed at St. Bede the Venerable Church in Chicago, and ended in 1984.
Maday’s abuse allegedly included putting his hands down Mike’s pants.
“[Priests] were considered godlike, and everything they said and did was not to be questioned,” Mike said of his upbringing.
Maday was scheduled to be released in October 2007 but is being held at a state-run facility in Winnebago as Wisconsin officials move to commit him indefinitely as a “sexually violent person,” said Wisconsin Department of Corrections spokeswoman Rachel Krueger. A trial is set for Nov. 17.
——————————————————————
Esam Mudeer: read the words of Mike again about the clergy and pause to ponder:
“[Priests] were considered godlike, and everything they said and did was not to be questioned.”
Now compare this statment with this verse from the Holy Quran of the Muslims:
“They (Jews and Christians) took their rabbis and their monks to be their lords besides Allâh* (by obeying them in things which they made lawful or unlawful according to their own desires without being ordered by Allâh), and (they also took as their Lord) Messiah, son of Maryam (Mary), while they (Jews and Christians) were commanded [in the Taurât (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)) to worship none but One Ilâh (God - Allâh) Lâ ilâha illa Huwa (none has the right to be worshipped but He)[]. Praise and glory is to Him, (far above is He) from having the partners they associate (with Him).” [HQ 9:31].
* God in Arabic
2 more girls possibly sexually abused by church youth leaders
By Robert Wilson (Contact) – [source]
Thursday, August 14, 2008
MARYVILLE – As the investigation continues into alleged child sex abuse involving a Maryville church’s youth leaders, two more teens’ names have been added to the list of possible victims.
Maryville Police Chief Tony Crisp confirmed the addition of the two names, bringing the list of victims to five.
No charges have been filed in connection with the two new alleged cases, and Crisp said that probably will not happen until the investigation is complete and the cases are turned over to a grand jury.
David Hutsell, one of the founders of The Lord’s Disciples Church, near the intersection of East Broadway and Old Knoxville Highway, said Wednesday that the entire sequence of events “blindsided us. We had no knowledge” of any problems with the youth program.
“Not a one said anything,” he said.
Michael R. Salazar and his wife, Laura Lee Click Salazar, both 35, have been charged in connection with the case.
Michael Salazar faces charges of sexual battery by an authority figure and statutory rape by an authority figure involving each of three teenage girls who attended the church. He is in the Blount County Detention Facility on $300,000 bond – $50,000 for each offense.
Laura Lee Salazar faces the same two charges involving only one girl, and her bond totals $100,000.
The Salazars will face a court hearing Friday before General Sessions Judge David Duggan, who was elected last week to the Blount County Circuit Court bench that hears criminal cases. Duggan will be sworn in Sept. 1.
Court documents in the case state that the rape charges involved penetration and that the offenses occurred at the Salazars’ home on Wrights Ferry Road beginning in September 2007.
Crisp said Wednesday that his officers are still trying to determine how many young people may be involved in the case.
“All sex crimes are more difficult to work,” Crisp said. “You’ve got to ask tough questions.” He added that there is no information to suggest that any abuse occurred outside the church group.
Hutsell said the church has a youth group with about 20 members and that the allegations have thrown the entire church “off balance. I cannot imagine this happening.”
The Salazars had been working with the youths of the church – known locally as the bikers’ church – for about two years, Hutsell said. The cinder-block church building is decorated on the outside with murals depicting motorcyclists in religious settings.
Church stands by accused child molester
OAK HARBOR, Wash. – [source]:
He’s accused of committing dozens of sex crimes against children, but those who know him are sticking by him.
Investigators said Nathan Martinez, 21, gave a partial confession during which he admitted to some of the crimes they’ve uncovered.
Martinez admitted to molesting three boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 13 since June 2007. He had been babysitting the children, whom he had met at his church, at the time.
The allegations are horrendous but members of Martinez’s church, the Living Faith Christian Center, is standing by his side.
“He’s a member and we love him,” said associate pastor Fred Burleson. “And we care for him just as much as we do for any other member. We will continue to do what we can to help him in this troubling part of his life right now.”
Martinez, who told police he himself had been abused as a child for more than a decade, volunteered as a youth counselor at the church, teaching Sunday school and showing kids how to dance.
Some of the alleged victims could be members of the church, police said, but church members aren’t so sure.
“Now see, we don’t know that was his intention to target anyone. So we can’t make that assumption ourselves,” Burleson said.
The Oak Harbor man only admitted to molesting three children, but police have already identified eleven additional victims, not all of whom had been babysat by Martinez.
Police believe further investigation will reveal additional victims. Martinez lived in military housing with his sister, and there are concerns that he may have violated children who live there.
Investigators are urging anyone else with information on the case to come forward.
“It’s critical. Number one, it’s going to help the prosecution and identify any need the child might need, having been victimized by this individual,” said Oak Harbor Police Chief Rick Wallace.
Martinez is charged with 30 counts of sex crimes including child rape and child molestation. He’s being held on $250,000 bail.
Serving priest ‘abused 18 boys’
A serving Catholic priest has been charged with abusing 18 boys, some of them at schools in Sydney and Newcastle.
Sixty-five-year-old John Sidney Denham faces 30 child sex charges relating to boys aged 11 to 17.
Police allege the priest abused the boys in the 1970s and early 1980s, while he was based at St Pius X High School in Adamstown in Newcastle, at the Charlestown and Taree parishes, and at Sydney’s Waverley High School.
The charges arose from an initial single complaint made in April.
Denham chose to remain in his cell when Central Local Court heard the matter this afternoon.
He made no application for bail. It was formally refused and the matter was put over until October 2.
Police say the Newcastle-Maitland Diocese of the Catholic Church has helped them with their investigation, which is continuing [source].
Another source here
Catholic priest facing 30 sex charges
Australian priest charged with sexual assault
International Herald Tribune – France
AP SYDNEY, Australia: Australian police say they have arrested a Catholic priest and charged him with 30 counts of sexual assault related to abuse …
Church placed sex charge priest opposite school
Sydney Morning Herald – Sydney,New South Wales,Australia
A priest charged today with 30 sex offences has been working in a Catholic library opposite a school, having been placed on restricted duties by the church …
More charges against priest likely
NEWS.com.au – Australia
By Kim Christian and Danny Rose NSW police expect to lay more charges against a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing 18 boys aged as young as 11 in …
Australian priest charged with sexual assault
The Associated Press –
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Australian police say they have arrested a Catholic priest and charged him with 30 counts of sexual assault related to abuse …
Thompson allowed convicted priest to hold memorial service in prison
MADISON — [source]:
Former Gov. Tommy Thompson played a key role in arranging an unusual memorial service for the mother of a former Catholic priest and convicted child molester inside a Wisconsin prison, according to documents that surfaced this week as part of a legal settlement.
The documents also provide a fuller picture into the efforts by Catholic officials to win better treatment and even early release for the former priest.
In a September 8, 1997, letter to Thompson, Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, thanked the then-Republican governor for “personal thoughtfulness in granting an extraordinary permission” for the body of the priest’s deceased mother to be brought into the prison.
The former Chicago priest, Norbert Maday, was serving time for sexually assaulting two boys in Wisconsin.
George’s letter was released as part of a $12.7 million legal settlement announced Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois between the Chicago Roman Catholic Archdiocese and 16 victims of sexual abuse by Maday and other priests.
“It was an exceptional act of charity,” George wrote to Thompson, who is Catholic. “I know of the extraordinary planning and subsequent mobilization that had to take place that day. It required exceptional effort of your staff.”
The letter drew sharp criticism from Peter Isely of Milwaukee, the Midwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who said it showed the special treatment priests can receive from public officials.
“The unwritten law has been, unfortunately, that clearly priests and bishops are treated differently, even if they’ve raped children, than other citizens. And that has to change,” Isely said.
Thompson spokesman Jason Denby said Thompson was traveling on business and unavailable Wednesday to comment on the letter and the memorial service.
In an e-mail, Susan Burritt, a spokeswoman for the Chicago archdiocese, said she didn’t know how George first approached Thompson’s office or whether Maday received special treatment. Mayday was withdrawn from public ministry in March 1992 and stripped of the priesthood in December 2007, Burritt said.
The service for Maday’s mother, Catherine, was held on Aug. 27, 1997, and involved bringing her sealed casket and a hearse into Fox Lake Correctional Institution. Two funeral home workers, at least one Catholic priest and six other people on Maday’s approved visitor list attended the 15-minute memorial, the Wisconsin State Journal reported two weeks later.
The State Journal reported then that corrections officials in Madison arranged the service after Thompson’s office received the request from Catholic officials in Chicago. At the time, a spokesman for Thompson’s office was vague about the governor’s personal role in handling the request.
After the service, the warden at the prison told the newspaper he would not approve such an arrangement again.
Under current policy, a memorial service can be held in a prison, but no remains or casket can be brought in, said Rachel Krueger, a state Department of Corrections spokeswoman. Corrections officials aren’t aware of any other such service being allowed.
“This service was unusual,” Krueger said.
Maday, 70, was an associate pastor at Our Lady of Ridge parish in Chicago Ridge, Ill. He was convicted in 1994 in Winnebago County of two counts of second-degree sexual assault and had two counts of intimidating a witness dismissed by the prosecutor. The molestations occurred in 1986 at an outreach center in Oshkosh. Maday was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with a mandatory release date of October 2007.
He served his full sentence and now is facing a state action in Winnebago County to have him civilly committed as a sexually violent person, said Brown County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Greene, who is handling the case. He is being held at the Wisconsin Resource Center in Winnebago awaiting his commitment trial, which begins Nov. 17.
Maday’s lawyer in that case, Aaron Birnbaum, did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
The victims’ lawyer in the Illinois case, Jeff Anderson of St. Paul, Minn., said in an interview that George and the archdiocese also attempted unsuccessfully to seek early release for Maday. Anderson pointed to a May 1999 letter written to the Wisconsin Parole Commission outlining how the diocese could help supervise Maday if he were released.
A February 2000 internal archdiocese memo also suggested having the then-92-year-old Aloysius Wycislo, the now deceased bishop emeritus of Green Bay, “intercede with the governor in his own name” on Maday’s behalf. But George has denied actually asking Wycislo to do so and Tony Kuick, a spokesman for the Diocese of Green Bay, said Wednesday that Wycislo never spoke with Thompson about Maday.
