http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101025/ap_on_re_us/us_california_church_abuse
Attorneys for nearly 150 people who claim sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests released thousands of pages of previously sealed internal church documents Sunday that detail complaints against the clerics and include medical records and correspondence between priests and their superiors.
A retired San Diego Superior Court judge ruled late Friday that roughly 10,000 pages of internal records could be made public after a yearslong legal battle with the Diocese of San Diego. The records are from the personnel files of 48 priests who were either credibly accused or convicted of sexual abuse or were named in a civil lawsuit.
The 144 plaintiffs settled with the diocese in 2007 for nearly $200 million, but the agreement stipulated that an independent judge would review the priests' sealed personnel records and determine what could be made public.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs said Sunday the files show how much the diocese knew about abusive priests, starting decades before any allegations became public, and that some church leaders shuffled priests from parish to parish or overseas despite credible complaints against them.
Donna Daly, a spokeswoman for the diocese, did not immediately return a call on Sunday.
The papers contain documents from the files of Rev. Anthony Rodrigue. In 1976, a group of parents at Rodrigue's parish in Heber, Calif., complained he had molested their children, according to court documents.
The priest was sent to a psychiatric facility in Massachusetts for treatment but was put back in ministry despite the recommendations of those who treated him.
Rodrigue later admitted he had molested up to six children a year over a span of about 25 years, said Irwin Zalkin, an attorney for the plaintiffs. About 30 people filed lawsuits against the diocese alleging sexual abuse against the priest, who died within the last year, he said.
"He was probably one of the most profilic abusers in this diocese. ... And they knew about this guy from his days in the seminary but kept him in ministry," Zalkin said.
Another case outlined in the files involves the Rev. Robert Nikliborc, who was sent to a psychiatric treatment facility after the diocese received complaints, then became director of a Roman Catholic residential facility for troubled boys called Boystown of the Desert in Banning, Calif.
Boys who lived there filed lawsuits against Nikliborc and were part of the 2007 settlement, said Anthony DeMarco, a plaintiffs attorney. The priest died while litigation was under way.
"It's just unfathomable how any person in a position of trust could ever think of assigning someone like Nikliborc to direct a facility of such vulnerable children," he said.
EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
8 comments:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-23/vatican-banker-says-church-under-attack-in-money-probe-sex-abuse-cases.html
Where's Vito Lopez when you need him? The Vatican is also under investigation for money laundering.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheVinVid#p/u
Boro ParK
http://www.lohud.com/article/20101025/NEWS03/10250365/Ryan-Karben-fired-as-Spring-Valley-village-attorney
Ryan Karben fired as Spring Valley village attorney
“The mayor told me there was an incident,” Delhomme said. “She didn’t explain it to me. I have no idea what happened. The mayor has the right to bring people in and take out people.”
Karben, 36, served on the Ramapo Planning Board before he turned 20, then won election to the Rockland Legislature in 1997 after graduating from law school.
Karben won an Assembly seat in November 2002. He resigned in 2006 amid allegations of improper behavior with legislative interns in Albany. He said he resigned to spend more time with his family and on his law practice.
In December 2008, he pleaded guilty to driving while impaired by alcohol and served a night in jail on a two-day sentence.
Read more tomorrow at lohud.com and in The Journal News.
http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/new-square-appoints-vaad-to-deal-with-sexual-abuse/
one high-profile case that reached the upper echelons of New Square society: Heshy (Zvi) Brier. Brier, in his 50′s, served in an unofficial capacity directly under the Skverer Rebbe. He is widely believed to have sexually abused hundreds of children over the years.
http://www.lohud.com/print/article/20101025/NEWS03/10250346/Rabbi-sues-neighbors-over-access-to-river
UPPER NYACK — A $2.25 million Hudson River property bought for the New Square grand rabbi's solitude has become the subject of legal action contesting the use of a 155-foot swath of land providing neighbors access to the river.
The response to the lawsuit by the rabbi's followers goes into their failed illegal transfer of the property to a New Square-based congregation to avoid paying $198,000 in property taxes on the rabbi's retreat house.
Paul Savad, a Nanuet attorney involved with Menucha and the title company, said Fisher has a different agenda by raising issues concerning the rabbi's activities and his followers.
"The house is for him to meet with secular people," Savad said, "and he invites groups of students to come visit him. It's like going to see the pope.
Ben Dunner of London, a donor to Hasidic Jewish organizations, raised $3.4 million and gave it to Shekel Hakodesh, a charity organization.
Zvi Breier of New Square is a member of the Shekel Hakodesh in New York. He has worked for the grand rabbi for 30 years and gets paid $58,000 a year through Congregation of New Square, a subcongregation of Congregation Zemach David of New Square that has assets of $7.6 million, according to court documents.
Could Fischbein be connected to the year round Satmar yeshiva in Fleischmanns which is in Greene County?
I hope he's not hunting deer for OU approved Musicon Farms with some heter from Rabbi Belsky! We already saw Rabbi Belsky standing there smiling in the secretly taken video when deer at Musicon were abused before shechita.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=7743963
Police in Ramapo have charged two men for firing a crossbow at a deer that ended up in a house.
"Just a thump. That's all I heard," said Ciril Cohen.
Cohen now knows that thump was much more than nothing. It was an arrow that narrowly missed the front window of her Suffern home.
Police say about 7:20 Sunday night, two men in a car on Carlton road in Suffern shot a deer with a crossbow. The arrow went through the animal and lodged into the home just below the window where Mrs. Cohen often sits. Neighbors say the deer stumbled across the street to some woods and died.
"The cops came to the door and said by the way, did you see the outside, the arrow. And I said what arrow, you know, the blood. I said, oh, usually I'm sitting there reading. She said you're just lucky it was a foot below because if it would have been higher - it would have killed you," adds Cohen.
Ramapo police arrested 43-year-old Abraham Fischbein of Greene County in upstate New York and 47-year-old Lee Jones, a lifelong resident of Suffern. Both men face a felony charge of reckless endangerment.
Police showed Eyewitness News the camouflaged, high-powered, compound crossbow they recovered from Jones' vehicle.
But he didn't commit the criminal act," said Kenneth Gribetz, Fischbein's attorney.
Both Fischbein and Jones were charged additionally by the Department of Environmental Conservation officers with the following unclassified misdemeanors.
shooting within 500' of a dwelling
shooting across a public highway
take a deer with implement not specified
illegally take protected wildlife
hunt deer during closed hours
take deer with the aid of motor vehicle
hunt without a big a game license
I brought the Jewish Star article on Breier's molesting when it was first published to a rov who is a two faced jerk because he has close ties to Skver and is always going there to see the Rebbe. He scratched around for excuses to not even read the article, like "isn't the Jewish Star a Conservative paper?"
Rabbi Schabbes in New Hempstead is a talmid chochom & a nice guy but has anyone gotten the same feeling as me that there are plenty of weirdos in his shul? One thing they do which almost no shul in the world does except for a few other weird places is to call up a guest for an aliyah on a regular shabbos and then squeeze you at the amud in front of everyone for money. Most shuls have a rule that they cannot even sell an aliyah unless it is Yonteff. They certainly do not call up someone on a regular Shabbos to ambush him for money.
http://sungar.blogspot.com/
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