Former Priest, Registered Sex Offender Back In Court
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 11:11AM WLKY Kentucky - December 3, 2008
by Steve Burgin | WLKY
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A former Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing children was back in court Wednesday, accused with violating his probation.
Daniel Clark has been convicted twice of abusing children, first in 1988 and again in 2003.
He spent about five years in prison before that conviction was overturned.Instead of going to trial again, in January, Clark pleaded guilty, and as a part of his plea agreement, he was placed on probation for another five years -- a move requiring him to register as a convicted sex offender and seek treatment.
"Initially, he was rejected from the program for a misunderstanding," said William Yesowitch, Clark's attorney. "I think between himself and the provider. Subsequently, the motion was filed. We went back and found another provider."
Clark finally got into a program in September, some nine months after he agreed to it. On Wednesday, the prosecutor decided not to pursue further action.
In 2002, a Target 32 investigation discovered Clark was working as a Camp Taylor Fire Department chaplain and attending Explorer Scout meetings. Within days of that story airing, he was charged in Bullitt County with sexually abusing two boys from 1999 to May of 2002.
Clark was rejected from one sex offender program because he refused to admit he had done anything wrong.
According to the Kentucky Sex Offender Registry, Clark is living in apartments on Hackel Lane in southwest Jefferson County, along with three dozen other convicted sex offenders.
Wednesday's brief hearing was attended by Tom Weiter, a victim of clergy abuse who was part of the lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Louisville.
"I would like to see the laws changed," Weiter said. "If you're convicted of sexually abusing a child, you should remain in a treatment program for life, like Alcoholics Anonymous."
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Ex-priest pleads guilty to abuse
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 11:05AM Ventura County Star - California
December 3, 2008
Oxnard man admits to molesting boy 20 years ago
from Star Staff and wire reports
A former Roman Catholic priest who lives in Oxnard has pleaded guilty to molesting a boy 20 years ago. George Miller, 70, entered his guilty plea Tuesday to one count of a lewd act on a child under the age of 14. Prosecutors say Miller also admitted to sexually assaulting three other boys, whose cases couldn't be charged because of statute-of-limitation issues.
Miller, who has been free on bail since his arrest in July 2007, faces up to three years in prison.
Miller pleaded guilty to molesting a boy he met in the early 1980s while assigned to Guardian Angel Church in Pacoima, prosecutors said. The actual molestation occurred between March 1988 and March 1989 when Miller was serving at Santa Clara Church in Oxnard, but it occurred outside Ventura County, according to authorities.
Miller was at Santa Clara Church from 1984 to 1996 and at San Buenaventura Mission in Ventura from 1968 to 1971. Sentencing was set for Jan. 30.
He was arrested and charged with molesting three boys in the 1970s and 1980s while assigned to the Pacoima church. But the case was dropped when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a California law extending the statute of limitations on sex crimes was unconstitutional.
Authorities arrested Miller in July 2007 after the victim in the ongoing case came forward. Miller had befriended the victim's mother and was a guest at the family home, taking the boy on overnight trips, authorities said.
Miller's arrest came about a week after the Los Angeles Archdiocese reached a $660 million civil settlement of claims by more than 500 alleged victims of clergy abuse.
This article was found at:
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/dec/03/ex-priest-pleads-guilty-to-abuse/Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield pays $4.5 million to 59 clergy abuse victims
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 10:55AM The Republican - Massachusetts
December 2, 2008
by Stephanie Barry
SPRINGFIELD - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield announced Tuesday it paid $4.5 million to 59 alleged victims of clergy abuse, including two men who named the Most Rev. Thomas L. Dupre, former Springfield bishop, as their abuser.
The payments went out Nov. 20 and ranged from $5,000 to $200,000, according to statements released by the diocese.
This resolution followed a $7.7 million payout to dozens of claimants in 2004. They were recently offset by an $8.5 million settlement three insurance companies paid to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, after first resisting coverage of the abuse claims.
Some claimants said the recent payments they received from diocese after years of negotiations left them cold, and still haunted by decades-old memories.
Donald Smith Henneberger, 50, of Springfield, said he feels unsatisfied by the $75,000 he received for abuse he suffered when he was 11 and 12.
"This second round of victims, who seemed to have to wait and suffer more, are being treated like second-class citizens," said Henneberger, who estimated he was abused 75 to 100 times by a Stigmatine priest in Pittsfield while he was a paper delivery boy for a church there.
Dupre resigned abruptly in 2004 when questioned by The Republican about the abuse allegations. He fell under a criminal probe and was indicted by a grand jury that year for sexual assault of a child. However, Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett said he could not prosecute because the legal deadline to pursue the allegations had run out.
Dupre went to a Maryland treatment center for troubled priests after resigning. Many plaintiffs and others involved in the negotiations argue he remains there, his treatment financed by the diocese.
A lawyer for Dupre refused to confirm the cleric's whereabouts. A spokesman for the diocese also declined to discuss his location, but confirmed that the church is obligated to provide limited financial assistance to a priest unless he is defrocked.
A lawyer for about half of the plaintiffs, John J. Stobierski, of Greenfield, said a third Dupre accuser emerged in this group.
The lawyer and a representative from the diocese said the man, whose name was not disclosed, alleged he was abused by Dupre in Chicopee in the late 1960s when the accuser was 20. However, church officials said the settlement he received was linked to abuse by another priest when he was a child.
"We have no reason to dispute or support whether he was abused by Bishop Dupre, but that claim had no bearing on the settlement," said Mark E. Dupont, a spokesman for the diocese.
However, Michael O. Jennings, a lawyer for Dupre, said the new accusations are untrue.
"He categorically denies this, and if he had been required to, he could prove it never happened," Jennings said of Dupre.
Dupre's first accusers, Thomas Deshaies and Tuan Tran, both in their early 40s, were parishioners of Dupre's church in Holyoke during the 1970s. The men said he plied them with liquor and gay pornography while abusing them.
A lawyer for the men declined to comment on the settlement, as did Deshaies. Tran could not be reached.
Dupre contributed some of his own money for the payments to Deshaies and Tran, but officials would not say how much.
Claimants and their lawyers said that a settlement fund was established in June, and each had to complete paperwork detailing their abuse, then discuss it with a mediator. The mediator made recommendations on monetary settlements.
"Our rehashing of the whole thing ... It kind of took everyone back, to hear the horrors we endured," Peter J. Herrick, 51, of Bangor, Maine, said during an interview. "But, the church bears a lot of responsibility even today. It's driven a major wedge into my family . I kind of think we got low-balled and the lawyers for the diocese all patted themselves on the back."
Formerly of Greenfield, Herrick, his older brother Paul Herrick, and two other brothers said they suffered abuse by what they termed a cabal of abusive priests including the defrocked Edward M. Kennedy, the late J. Roy Jenness and the Rev. Ronald E. Wamsher. Peter and Paul Herrick are estranged from their other siblings and their father, they said.
Dupont said the diocese intends to support the claimants beyond the settlement.
"We didn't cut these checks to walk away from these people," Dupont said. "The harm that has been done to many of these individual will take a lifetime to heal, if ever."
This article was found at:
http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/roman_catholic_
diocese_of_spri.html
Couple jailed, accused of beating baby over 'demons'
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 10:45AM Houston Chronicle - December 4, 2008
Associated Press
HENDERSON — A young East Texas couple was arraigned Wednesday on capital murder charges accusing them of beating the woman's 1-year-old daughter to get rid of "the demons."
Authorities said that the child was also bitten more than 20 times.
Blaine Milam, 19, and Jessica Carson, 18, remained jailed Wednesday in lieu of a $2 million bond for each.
They were arrested Tuesday after Rusk County Sheriff's deputies responding to a 911 call found 13-month-old Amora Bain Carson beaten. Investigators think the couple used a hammer to "beat the demons out" of Amora, Carson's daughter.
Lt. Reynold Humber said that the couple told detectives various stories on how the child was injured, including that the toddler was in an auto accident and attacked by the family's dogs. They even said that the child beat herself in the head with a hammer.
"They had multiple stories they went through before they told us they had beaten the child to death," he told The Tyler Morning Telegraph for its Wednesday editions.
Humber said the couple eventually told deputies the child was possessed and they were trying to rid her of demons.
An arrest affidavit says that after the child was dead, the couple "drove to Henderson to pawn some items to pay for an exorcism."
A message could not be left at a telephone number listed for the couple's home. They did not have an attorney, according to Justice of the Peace Bob Richardson's office.
Officials said Milam and Carson told detectives they decided to hire a priest after the exorcism went badly. Humber said there was no information on any clergy being called to the home.
While waiting to be arraigned, Carson crossed her arms and sobbed silently. Milam looked around the courtroom and occasionally glanced at his hand, where he had a visible bite mark.
Milam was sentenced in August on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child and received a probated sentence. Investigator William Brown with the Rusk County District Attorney's Office said that case did not involve Amora.
Milam has also been arrested on charges of causing a disturbance and assault/family violence.
Humber said Carson graduated as an honor student last year and had not been in any trouble with police.
The child's body has been sent to Dallas for an autopsy.
This article was found at:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6146084.html
Ark. officials seize 6 Alamo ministries children in Ind.
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 10:27AM Chicago Tribune - December 3, 2008
by Jon Gambrell | Associated Press Writer
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Child welfare officials have seized six children in Indiana associated with the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, potentially signaling a multistate sweep targeting minors involved in the jailed evangelist's church.
Julie Munsell, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services, declined to say where or how the children were taken into state custody. Anthony Lane, a father of three of the children taken into custody, said officials acted Tuesday after receiving a tip from him about their location.
"I said, 'Thank God, they're going to follow us on this lead,"' Lane told The Associated Press. Lane declined to offer any specifics about where the six children were found, saying the FBI asked him to remain quiet.
Steve Frazier, a spokesman for the FBI's Little Rock field office, declined to comment Wednesday.
Wednesday morning, California child welfare officials went to the Alamo ministry's compound in Santa Clarita, said Louise Grasmehr, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. Alamo and his wife Susan were street preachers along Hollywood's Sunset Strip in 1966 before forming a commune near the city just north of Los Angeles.
Grasmehr said no children were taken into state custody. She said officials went to the compound after the California Department of Social Services passed along information it received from Arkansas officials.
"Since there were no children there, we left," Grasmehr said.
The six children now in the state of Arkansas' custody will be placed in foster homes, pending future court hearings. All will undergo screenings to ensure their mental and physical health, Munsell said.
"I believe they are all in general good health, just like the others were," Munsell said.
Since a Sept. 20 raid on Alamo's Fouke compound, state officials have seized 32 children associated with the jailed evangelist's ministries over stories of alleged beatings and sexual abuse. Alamo, 74, remains held without bond on charges that violated the Mann Act, a federal law that bans carrying women or girls across state lines for "prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose."
Alamo, who has said "consent is puberty" when it comes to sex with young girls, has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges. The evangelist has blamed his prosecution on a federal push to legalize same-sex marriage while outlawing polygamy, as well as a Vatican-led conspiracy and drug-abusing ex-followers.
Arkansas state officials continue to look for children associated with the Alamo ministries. However, civil orders issued in the state to place children in protective custody don't carry legal authority in other states, Munsell has said. That means parents could spirit their children to other states to avoid them being taken. On Nov. 18, state officials took 20 children from the ministries, the majority of them found in two vans that were stopped on a state highway near the Texas border.
However, child welfare officials in other states can seize children and conduct their own investigations. Munsell declined to say what information Arkansas has shared with other states. Alamo is said to have ministries and business operations in a number of states, including Colorado, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
Lane, who works as a roofer in Texarkana, said he has been trying for 10 years to reunite with his children, who belong to Alamo's ministry. Lane said he saw a 13-year-old girl marry a man of about 40 just before he was kicked out of the church for asking too many questions.
Lane hired a lawyer and said that he had tried to subpoena his former girlfriend, but that it had been difficult as she moves among Alamo's churches in Arkansas and California.
Lane said he last saw his oldest daughter in 2005 as he sat in his car reading a newspaper outside of Alamo's church in Fort Smith. She offered him a ministry pamphlet, apparently unaware of who he was. When Lane told her he was her father, he said, she ran off.
When he heard his children had been found, Lane said he remained composed as he talked to state officials. But when Lane called his wife, he said the moment became too much for him to contain.
"They were tears of joy, not tears of sorrow," he said.
Alamo faces trial in February on the 10 federal child-abuse charges in Arkansas. Alamo's lawyer has said he may ask a judge for more time to prepare a defense.
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Associated Press Writer Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
This article was found at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ar-evangelist-childa,0,
3214927.story
Vt. Catholic Church asks court for mercy
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 10:11AM Rutland Herald - Vermont
December 4, 2008
By KEVIN O’CONNOR | Herald Staff
BURLINGTON — At first glance, they’re the same child-sex claims in the same court that sparked a record $8.7 million verdict. But with a different accuser, a different judge and a different jury, Vermont’s Catholic Church is hoping for a different outcome.
The state’s largest religious denomination, socked this spring with a ruling of negligence in its 1970s hiring and supervision of a pedophile priest, pleaded for leniency Wednesday at the start of its third trial of the year involving the same retired clergyman.
“Looking back on it, we can say it was ill-advised because we have the benefit of hindsight,” church counsel Thomas McCormick said. “The present is how do we, as a judicial system, deal with an organization’s responsibility for decisions made 36 years ago?”
Twenty men have filed civil lawsuits in Burlington’s Chittenden Superior Court alleging the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese was reckless for not telling their childhood parishes about past sexual abuse of boys by former priest Edward Paquette, who served in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976.
In the first trial in May, a jury rejected the diocese’s defense that it wasn’t liable for the priest’s misconduct and awarded plaintiff Perry Babel, a 40-year-old Burlington native, $950,000 in compensatory damages and an additional $7,750,000 in punitive damages.
But in a similar trial in August, the diocese altered its defense in a case brought by 41-year-old Burlington native Thomas Murray and expressed remorse for priest misconduct it said it tried to curb. A jury went on to deliberate for three days before announcing it couldn’t agree on a verdict, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial.
The diocese now is expressing regret in the case of David Navari, a 43-year-old Burlington native and information-technology specialist in Takoma Park, Md. In a trial that began Wednesday, Navari’s lawyer, Jerome O’Neill, said his client was an 11-year-old altar boy at Burlington’s Christ the King Church when Paquette groped the fifth-grader’s genitals on two occasions in 1977.
“We’re talking about a little boy,” O’Neill said as he displayed a childhood photo of his client.
Navari had stood still and silent as the priest unbuckled the boy’s belt.
“He thinks, ‘Is this something a priest is supposed to do to help me get ready for Mass?’” O’Neill said. As for the child telling an adult: “Who would believe him?”
Navari went on to grow angry, anxious and afraid, lose interest in religion and pick fights to prop up his masculinity, his lawyer said. In later years, he binge-drank and suffered from insomnia and clinical depression.
“The diocese must be held accountable,” O’Neill said. “The diocese had a pattern and practice of aiding and abetting its priests in molesting children. It covered it up for years.”
The lawyer said his client was seeking compensatory and punitive damages but limited his specific request to the words “serious money.”
In response, McCormick expressed the church’s regrets.
“Father Paquette should not have fondled David Navari — not once, not twice, not at all,” the diocesan attorney said before repeating his opening words from the last trial: “It’s illegal now, it was illegal then. It’s immoral now, it was immoral then. It’s wrong now, it was wrong then.”
That said, McCormick contended that Navari’s lawsuit was filed after the state’s time limit for submission. He also questioned how a jury could asses