Volume 5, Issue 15
March 2, 2007
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The Child Protection eNewsletter San Diego Diocese Files Chapter 11… The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a few hours before it was to go to trial Wednesday in the first of more than 140 lawsuits accusing priests of sexual abuse. Read More Here The bankruptcy filing, put in at five minutes to midnight, automatically halted the court proceedings. In a letter posted on the diocese's Web site, Bishop Robert H. Brom said the diocese made its decision because any damage awards in the earlier trials could deplete "diocesan and insurance resources" and leave nothing for other victims. The diocese claimed in the filing late Tuesday $95.7 million in property holdings and another $60.4 million in liquid assets, including stocks, bonds and operating accounts. San Diego is the fifth diocese in the nation to file for bankruptcy protection.Diocese officials and lawyers for the plaintiffs failed to reach a settlement during two days of negotiations that ended Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. The diocese had called plaintiffs' lawyers on Tuesday morning to make a "final and best" settlement offer, Micheal Webb, a lawyer for the diocese said. He declined to specify how much the church had offered but said it was higher than total settlements reached in other dioceses in the United States. Devlin Indicted for Kidnapping, Child Porn…  A grand jury charged a former pizzeria manager Wednesday with kidnapping and armed criminal action against a 13-year-old who was found in the man's apartment with another missing boy. Read More Here The indictment, which had been expected, accuses Michael Devlin, 41, of using a deadly weapon in snatching Ben Ownby on Jan. 8, four days before police found him and Shawn Hornbeck, 15, who had been missing for four years.Devlin was indicted Thursday on federal charges he took pornographic pictures and videos of one of the youngsters. Read More Here The indictment marked the first federal charges against Michael Devlin. U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said the six-count indictment alleges Devlin photographed and videotaped a minor engaged in sexually explicit acts between 2002 and this year. Two other counts allege he took the minor to Illinois and Arizona with the intent to engage in sexual assault. Child Care Oversight Lax in Many States…  Many states are distressingly lax in their regulation and oversight of child care centers, according to a new nationwide survey which gives its lowest marks to Idaho and Louisiana and its highest grade to the far-flung system run by the U.S. military. Read More Here Among the common problems in the states are infrequent inspections, deficient safety requirements, and low hiring standards - including lack of full criminal background checks - for center employees."State child care standards and oversight in this nation are not protecting our children and are not preparing them for success in school," said Linda Smith, executive director of the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, which produced the first-of-its-kind ranking. The report is available online at Read More Here but for just the state rankings, see Read More Here. In other news… Sex offender John Evander Couey stole 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford from her home, raped her, wrapped her in garbage bags, then left her alive in a dirt hole to suffocate to death, a prosecutor said Thursday during opening arguments in the case. Read More Here Lawmakers in Ohio said they want to require convicted sex offenders to use a fluorescent-green license plate on their cars so they can be easily identified. Read More Here A Lancaster, Pennsylvania police detective said he arrested a convicted sex offender at the exit doors of Lancaster County Prison. Read More Here Megan’s Law requires the man to tell prison officials where he will reside after his release. He refused to do so at least twice in the weeks leading to his release, the detective said, so he was arrested and charged with failure to comply with registration-of-sexual-offender requirements. A South Carolina middle-school teacher accused of having sex with at least five boys has been fired and remains in jail after she refused to speak with police about the charges, authorities said. Read More Here The 23-year-old woman who is married, had sexual encounters in the past three months with the 14- and 15-year-old boys at the school, at a motel, in a park and behind a restaurant, according to arrest warrants. An American historian sentenced to seven years in a Romanian prison for sexual perversion and abuse of minors won early release from prison because he wrote a book about Dracula, his attorney said. Read More Here He was sentenced to the maximum of seven years in December, 2002 for offenses involving two girls, ages 10 and 13, whom he invited into his home in Iasi. A Romanian woman convicted of being his accomplice is still in prison. Authorities believe a Missouri man took his children — ages 10 months, 2 and 4 years old — from the family's house on February 19, and flew with them to El Salvador. Read More Here Family members told FOXNews.com that they believe Joel Hundley is engaged in questionable sexual activities, and that they fear the children could become victims of a human trafficking or child prostitution ring. Texas Governor Rick Perry replaced the chairman of the state's juvenile prisons board over a report that the agency covered up sex abuse of inmates, but lawmakers demanded bigger changes. Read More Here The Texas Senate held a rare evening session and approved a resolution urging Perry to overhaul the Texas Youth Commission by replacing the seven-member board and the executive director with an independent administrator who could investigate and fire employees who covered up abuse. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider the case of a former Phoenix, Arizona, high school teacher sentenced to 200 years in prison for possessing child pornography. Read More Here Morton Berger argued that his sentence was grossly disproportionate to his crime, amounting to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Researchers could be liable for damages if they obtain private information through false pretenses, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday. Read More Here The psychologist, Elizabeth Loftus, set out to investigate an article written by another scholar who suggested the anonymous girl had repressed memory. Through court records, Loftus learned the girl's identity and interviewed her foster mother in 1997. Loftus is regarded as one of the nation’s leading pedophile apologists. See vol4_iss45, vol3_iss7 and vol3_iss8. More than 50 percent of children in refugee camps around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced some form of sexual abuse, a humanitarian group said in report Monday. Read More Here World Vision said more than half of about 1.4 million children displaced by a string of wars in one of the world's most violent regions were victims of sexual exploitation and needed urgent help. A former California judge, who apparently visited a pedophile newsgroup (Usenet) in 1999 that had been infected with a virus, was convicted and sentenced based on evidence gathered from his PC by the hacker who planted the Trojan horse. Read More Here The hacker apparently created the virus to catch child abusers. *for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org" Unsubscribe |
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