The Child Protection eNewsletter

Despite new church rules, sex abuse in Catholic school went unreported…

For nearly two years, students at St. Dominic Savio Middle School, in Niagara Falls, New York -­ particularly the girls -­ referred to Christian Butler, a part-time computer teacher, as “the Perv.” Read More Mr. Butler began earning that nickname shortly after the school opened in 2002, frequently making lewd comments in class and, in a one-on-one encounter, coarsely complimenting a pre-teen girl on her body, according to court records and interviews with his former students, their parents and a co-worker.

Students turned on the laptop computers assigned to them to find pornography, both live and animated. At least twice, students said, Mr. Butler projected crude images, including one of two topless women wrestling in mud, onto walls during class.

He was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison for violating probation requirements stemming from his 2005 guilty plea on charges of possessing child pornography and endangering the welfare of a minor. At the same time, two families of his victims are filing a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo seeking $1.5 million and an apology, claiming that school and church officials ignored repeated complaints about Mr. Butler until a former student alerted the police in June 2004.

“What did they do when this behavior was repeated for two years?” asked one of the plaintiffs, Remi Gonzalez, a director for the Niagara Falls Catholic Youth Council, a Eucharistic minister and the father of one of the girls. “They did nothing and made these kids live with a sexual predator.”

The case has drawn particular ire from victims’ advocates because the school opened three months after the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved its Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People at a meeting in Dallas, which mandated a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse. It required that church institutions “have mechanisms in place to respond promptly to any allegation where there is reason to believe that sexual abuse of a minor has occurred,” and to “report an allegation of sexual abuse of a person who is a minor to the public authorities.”

Meanwhile, The Vatican’s top diplomat accused the media of “shameful and mystifying” coverage of allegations of sexual abuse by Italian priests and suggested there might be a campaign against the Church. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20377315/ Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone took aim at reporting of a probe by Turin prosecutors into clergy accused of paying a 24-year-old man to keep quiet about past abuse. A separate investigation involves accusations of abuse by one of Italy’s best-known priests, 82-year-old Pietro Gelmini.

In Illinois, a Jesuit priest convicted last year of sexually abusing two teenage boys about 40 years ago is facing new accusations of abuse. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/us/22priest.html Though the original charges against the priest, the Reverend Donald J. McGuire, date from the late 1960s, the new accusations, in a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court, describe abuse that occurred from 1999 to 2003.

The lawsuit says Father McGuire, who is 77, abused the plaintiff, known as John Doe 116, who was 13 when he first came to stay with Father McGuire at a Jesuit residence in Evanston, Illinois. It also states that Father McGuire sexually abused the boy in 13 states and 6 foreign countries.

Meanwhile, lawyers who worked on the bankruptcy filing of the Archdiocese of Portland have submitted a legal bill for nearly $19 million. Read More The tab of over $18.8 million includes $10.8 million in fees and $1 million in expenses charged by four law firms representing the archdiocese, according to court documents filed Friday. The rest are expenses and fees charged by attorneys and experts working for other parties. In U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the party seeking protection pays legal fees for both sides.

Finally, a Roman Catholic priest barred from pastoring since 1994 and charged 10 years later with molesting teenagers at a drug-treatment center in New Jersey will receive no jail time after pleading guilty yesterday to two counts of child abuse. Read More The Rev. Richard Mieliwocki, 60, admitted to incidents that took place while he was a social worker at Daytop New Jersey in Mendham.

Southern Baptist Church puts pedophile in the pulpit…

A southwest suburban Chicago Southern Baptist congregation allowed a convicted child sex offender to preach for the last few years -- despite his past, and a warning from his previous church that he might still be dangerous, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/517063,CST-NWS-Baptist20.article In 1996, Jeff Hannah was sentenced to nine years in prison for having sexual relations with four underage girls -- ages 15 to 17 -- while a married youth minister at Crossroads Church in Libertyville.

Hannah was paroled in 2001 and joined the First Baptist Church of Romeoville, where his new wife was a member. Soon after, the pastor moved on, and church members -- aware of Hannah's crimes -- asked him to step into the pulpit until a replacement was hired, according to church members, Hannah and others.

Hannah served in that role for three years and ever since has been a fill-in preacher, teacher and music minister at the church.

Authorities say there's no evidence that Hannah has re-offended -- and Hannah insists he has not -- but he abruptly resigned his membership in the congregation when a reporter started inquiring about him last week. "In our church, we believe in forgiveness," said Del Kirkpatrick, one of the deacons who hired Hannah.

In talking to the Sun-Times last week, Hannah, 42, was unapologetic about his crimes, saying his first marriage had been troubled and he'd had "urges." "I honestly believe that had I been a college pastor, I'd slept with college girls," he said. "But I was a youth pastor. It was less about age and more about who I spent all my time with."

Thank God he wasn’t a first grade Sunday school teacher.

Reverend Steve Farish, pastor of Crossroads Church, which has relocated to Grayslake, said he considered Hannah so dangerous that he warned the Romeoville church and a regional Southern Baptist official.

CBS was warned on ‘Kid Nation,’ documents show…

The producers of a CBS reality show featuring 40 children living on their own in the New Mexico desert were warned by the state attorney general's office while the show was being taped last spring that they might be violating the state's child-labor laws, according to interviews with state officials and documents obtained Tuesday under the state's open records act. Read More

The show, "Kid Nation," which is scheduled to premiere on CBS on Sept. 19, is a reality show whose premise is to take 40 children, ages 8 to 15, and place them in a "ghost town" in New Mexico to see if they can build a working society without the help of adults. But after the production ended in mid-May, the parent of one child in the production complained to state officials that the children's treatment bordered on abuse. Four children received medical treatment for accidentally drinking bleach, one child was burned on her face with hot grease while cooking in an unsupervised kitchen, and most of the children were required to work 14 hours or longer per day. They received a payment of $5,000 for their participation.

In interviews last week, CBS contended the children were not employees because they were not performing specific work for specific wages. A lawyer for CBS, Jonathan Anschell, said the network had received no indication that it was violating the law.

But on May 1, two weeks after a state labor inspector was turned away from the site, Andrea R. Buzzard, a New Mexico assistant attorney general, warned in a letter to lawyers for the production that the state did not agree with the network's interpretation of state labor law.

"We are not certain that those laws are limited to traditional 'employment' relationships," Ms. Buzzard wrote, citing part of the state child-labor statutes that say that a child's frequent presence at a work site "shall be prima facie evidence that such child is unlawfully engaged in labor."

New Mexico frequently issues exemptions to its child-labor statutes to Boy Scout camps, Boys and Girls Clubs and similar groups to allow minor members of those groups to participate what would otherwise be considered work, Carlos Castaneda, a spokesman for the state labor department, now known as the Department of Workforce Solutions, said Tuesday.

In other news… 

Baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs would be illegal under a proposed amendment to Atlanta's indecency laws. Read More The amendment, sponsored by city councilman C. T. Martin, states that sagging pants are an "epidemic" that is becoming a "major concern" around the country. The proposed ordinance would also bar women from showing the strap of a thong beneath their pants. They would also be prohibited from wearing jogging bras in public or show a bra strap, said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.

Florida parents can run easy background checks on their children's teachers using an interactive database that went live Monday on the state Department of Education Web site. Read More allows parents to enter a specific teacher's name to see if the state has taken action against him or her for misconduct. Parents can also enter a county's name to retrieve a list of disciplined teachers.

More than 20 million Americans log on to their computers each month looking for love, according to Online Dating Magazine. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/ While getting to know a potential mate from the privacy of their home may be comforting to some -- especially single women getting back in the dating pool -- it is not without danger. A growing number of sexual predators and pedophiles are taking advantage of online anonymity and using dating sites to prey on single mothers and their children.

The United Nations' human rights office on Tuesday accused forces allied with Sudan's government of mass abduction and rape of women and girls in Darfur, acts it said could constitute war crimes. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/ Its latest report, based on testimony from victims and witnesses, called on Khartoum to investigate reports that about 50 women were forced into "sexual slavery" after an attack on the rebel-held town of Deribat in South Darfur's Jebel Marra region last December. The abductees, who included many children, were held for about one month, and beaten and raped repeatedly, often in front of each other, the report from the office of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said.

Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) is seeking co-sponsors for the Child Pornography Elimination Act (H.R. 3148), which would prohibit accessing child pornography, impose mandatory penalties for possession of child pornography, increase civil penalties for Internet Service Providers who fail to report child pornography to law enforcement, and provide mandatory restitution for child pornography victims. http://www.house.gov/hensarling/

*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"