Alicia Koback, 49, claims she was sexually abused by her now-deceased adoptive father throughout her childhood is suing her mother, the Seventh-day Adventist Church and two of its schools, alleging they knew about the abuse but failed to protect her.

Koback was adopted shortly after her birth by Bob and Constance Heitsman of Aldergrove, and says in a statement of claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court that the abuse began when she was a toddler and continued until she left home at 16, pregnant and traumatized.

Her mother, church officials and teachers at two schools — Fraser Valley Adventist Academy in Aldergrove and Cariboo Adventist Academy in Williams Lake — knew about the abuse but did not try to stop it or report it to authorities, she claims.

The statement was filed Friday by lawyer Jim Poyner, but the allegations have not been proven in court and the four parties named in the lawsuit have yet to file a statement of defense.

The church also wouldn’t comment on the case, saying it had no information as of Friday.

Koback said her parents were deacons of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and she was raised in a devout household with two brothers, also adopted, and a younger sister who was the Heitsmans’ only biological child. Family and religious rules were plentiful and included obeying elders, not questioning authority and distrusting non-believers.

They say Alfons August Mandorfer, 79, is also accused of torturing and neglecting young boys under his care between 1973 and 1993, when he was director of the school run by a monastery in the Upper Austrian town of Kremsmuenster.

But spokesman Andreas Pechatschek of the regional public prosecutor's office says most of the charges are based on suspicion of "numerous crimes of a sexual nature."

Mandorfer was dismissed as a priest after several former pupils accused him several years ago of abuse.

Hundreds of alleged sexual victims of Catholic clergy in Austria have come forward in recent years as part of pedophilia accusations rocking the church internationally.

A former public middle school principal charged with a string of sexual abuse was sentenced to three months in prison and 12 years of probation for abuse that occurred four years ago.

The man, Ronald B. Anderson, 34, allegedly met the victims, who were teenage boys, at his church.

Anderson, former principal at Kennedy Middle School in Antioch, was convicted in January by a Davidson County jury of four counts of sexual battery by an authority figure.

Police arrested Anderson in March 2009 after prosecutors charged him with sexually abusing two teenage boys, whom he took under his wing at the Royal Life International Church in Madison. Anderson had given them rides, treated them to dinner and become a mentor of sorts, according to court testimony.

School officials said Anderson underwent a background search prior to his hiring. Before starting at Kennedy, Anderson was assistant principal at Gra-Mar Middle School in Madison. School officials said they do not believe any students were abused during Anderson's tenure.

In a meeting with the Holy See's doctrinal chief, the new pope declared that combating sexual abuse was important "for the Church and its credibility."

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LAKE CITY, Fla. - A lawsuit has been filed against a church in Lake City after two women said that when they were young girls, two ministers forced them to have sex.

The women say it happened at the First Apostolic Church in the 1980s.

They now live out of state and are only being referred to as Jane Doe I and II. Their attorney says it's taken them this long to come to terms with what happened

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A 43-year-old Centerville man who is a former LDS Church employee was sentenced Friday to two years in jail for sexually abusing one child and showing his genitals to a second child last year.

Timothy William Bothell was charged in 2nd District Court with two counts of first-degree felony aggravated sexual abuse of a child stemming from incidents at a home between Dec. 1, 2011, and Aug. 9. He was also charged with four counts of lewdness involving a child, a class A misdemeanor.

The felony count carries a potential prison term of up to life, and the lewdness count is punishable by up to a year in jail.  But Judge Glen Dawson instead ordered five years of probation with a year in jail on each count, running consecutively.

Dawson also said the probation was "zero tolerance," meaning that any violation of his probation conditions would land Bothell in prison for the rest of the sentence.

As part of his probation, Bothell must complete sex-offender treatment, must pay $14,000 in restitution and will not be allowed contact with the victims or any other children under 18 — except those approved by the Department of Corrections.

A former youth worker and teacher at a Christian school in Gaithersburg has been charged with molesting teenage boys during the 1980s and '90s.

Nathaniel Morales, 55, has been indicted in Montgomery County Circuit Court on 10 counts of sexually abusing four boys under his care.

Morales, now a Pentecostal bishop in Las Vegas, has a hearing scheduled for Friday .

Police began investigating in 2009 after a man came forward to say that Morales had performed sex acts on him beginning when he was about 14 years old.

Morales was a member of Covenant Life Church and a teacher at the victim's school, the now defunct Montgomery County Covenant Life Academy. Morales held Bible studies and sleep overs at his Germantown apartment where the victim said much of the molestation occurred.

The victim's father told detectives that he talked with pastors about Morales, but there were "concerns of tarnished reputations," and no police report was made.

Police interviewed two pastors who confirmed that they talked to Morales about the allegations that he was abusing boys.

One pastor, Ernest Boisvert, told police that "normally the church would appeal to the accused to stop his criminal behavior and then, should it not stop, they would alert people that the person is not acting in a Christian manner," according to police.

Boisvert said he "took his cues from the families of the victims," who did not indicate they wanted to notify police, charging documents said.

Police said they then discovered three more victims, who all told similar stories of Morales sneaking into their bedrooms at night and molesting them.  The alleged abuse occurred at the boys' homes, on camping trips and at the school.

Another father, when questioned by police, told investigators that he had confronted Morales, and Morales asked for the father's forgiveness. The father told police that Morales confessed, and he forgave the man. The father did not notify police.

A jury convicted a priest and teacher in a pivotal church-abuse case that rocked the Philadelphia archdiocese and sent a church official to prison for child endangerment.

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The Missouri Board of Education president has resigned following allegations of sexually abusing a minor.

Stan Archie, who also serves as pastor of Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in Kansas City, resigned Friday. He was appointed to the state board in 2006.

A lawsuit filed alleges that Archie made lewd comments about his sexual prowess after he began counseling a 15-year-old female member of the congregation, who is now 23. It was the second such lawsuit filed against Archie in a little more than a year.

Archie is also accused of encouraging the teenage girl to act promiscuously and report her experiences to him, often by Skype. He also allegedly told the girl he used to be a pimp and viewed himself as her surrogate father.

The lawsuit claims that Archie told her that he was "next to God," and that the sexual acts were "a Holy thing."

The church was also named as a defendant.

A gangster turned self-proclaimed "apostle" was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for sexually abusing girls he met through his Central Florida ministry.

Luis "Tito" Morales, founder of En Fuego for Jesus, has been described as a serial sexual predator who brainwashed his followers.

An Orlando federal jury convicted him in November, and after hearing testimony from 10 of his victims and their parents on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. handed down the sentence.

Documents from the late 1980s show that Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and another archdiocese official discussed strategies to keep police from discovering that children were being sexually abused by priests.

Fifteen years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement, including keeping them out of California to avoid prosecution, according to internal Catholic church records released Monday.

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An investigation has uncovered new information about allegations of child sex abuse involving a former Rock Church Academy school teacher.

Attorney Stephen Estey confirmed he filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of four alleged child victims. The lawsuit claims that the Rock Academy failed to protect the children and violated a legal responsibility to report suspicions of abuse as soon as they became aware.

Latisha and Mel Zamora say their daughter was molested by the teacher in a Rock Church Academy classroom. She was in the first grade.

The teacher's name is not being revealed, because he has not been criminally charged.

The Zamoras say their daughter was assaulted during "movie time." The same story was reported by Vanessa and Jose Rodriguez, who are also part of the civil suit filed by Estey. The families are angry and forever scarred.

Vanessa Rodriguez said, "She explained the teacher put his hands up her shirt and he would rub her legs and the inside of her legs and bottom and hold her tight and wouldn't let her go. This happened every Friday on movie day."

The families both report that a teacher walked in on the abuse in a dark classroom, nearly a year before the accused teacher was terminated.

"My daughter said the teacher that walked in was so startled the girls fell off his lap and the teacher felt it was not right and was uncomfortable and reported it to the school," said Latisha Zamora.

A spokeswoman for the Rock Church released the following statement on Monday evening:

 "The Rock Church has not seen a copy of any civil complaint.  We understand there continues to be an ongoing investigation by the authorities and we do not know the status of that investigation, but will continue to cooperate as we have from the beginning...”

  In February 2010, after reports of a breach of Academy protocols by the teacher, the church confirmed the behavior and his employment was promptly terminated. The church also immediately forwarded the information to the San Diego Police Department."

The teacher in question also worked at Horizon Christian Academy in San Diego.

Five people have joined a Maryland lawsuit that claims a Kentucky-based evangelical church group covered up allegations of sexual abuse against children and failed to alert police and shield children from known sexual predators.

The new plaintiffs join three women who filed a civil lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries in October. The suit accuses church leadership of encouraging parents of alleged victims to refrain from reporting abuses to police and creating "a culture in which sexual predators were protected from accountability and victims were silenced."

The church moved its headquarters to Louisville last year after three decades in Maryland. The group has struggled in recent years with fractured leadership and criticism over its discipline methods. Leaders at the church must be men, and women are not permitted to teach or to have authority over a man, according its website.

A message left at the church office in Louisville on Tuesday was not immediately returned. The church said in a statement about the suit last year that the suit contains "a number of misleading allegations, as well as considerable mis-characterizations of intent."

A veteran District of Columbia police officer has been arrested on charges that he sexually abused a girl who participated in his church choir, the authorities said.

Wendel Palmer, who joined the department in 1990 and had been assigned to its Sixth District, was arrested Wednesday on a charge of first-degree sexual abuse.

Police say the abuse was reported last March by the accuser’s mother and occurred between 2004 and 2006 when the girl was between 11 and 13 years old.

Palmer, 42, was the choir director at the church where the girl and her family were members, police records say. The girl alleged that much of the abuse occurred at the church during rehearsal breaks, when Palmer would ask that she stay with him in the pastor’s office while the other children were sent to the store. Palmer’s family runs the church, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

On one occasion, the affidavit says, Wendel began to sexually assault the girl without a condom but stopped after she told him he was hurting her.

Police say the accuser in March picked out Palmer’s picture from a photo array of nine D.C. police officers.

Police are looking for any more possible victims after a 19 year-old former church daycare volunteer was arrested on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 6.

The alleged assault took place inside the children’s ministry at the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Lake Worth.

Court documents obtained by CBS11 say the victim, who is 4 years old, said a “boy put his mouth on him” and pointed to his crotch area.

The search warrant, obtained by CBS 11, says the boy told his mother what happened as they were leaving church.

When the family went back in, documents say the boy pointed at a teenage volunteer, 19-year-old Ryan Welborn, and the child’s mother went after him.

Welborn had to be put in a safe room, according to court documents, to separate him from the boy’s mother.

Court documents say the boy has had nightmares about the incident.

Police took DNA samples from both the child and Welborn, which were later analyzed.

Once police got the results, they obtained an arrest warrant.

Welborn was arrested on January 2nd and released under a $30,000 bond.

Former Catholic brother and convicted pedophile Bernard McGrath, 65, will fight extradition to Australia where he is wanted on 252 sexual abuse charges.

The former St John of God brother returned to New Zealand from Sri Lanka voluntarily last month after the new charges emerged.

In 2006, McGrath was jailed for five years for sexually abusing boys at Marylands School in Christchurch in the 1970s, and was paroled in 2008.

Now, Australian police want him extradited from New Zealand to face the new charges of abusing, molesting and raping boys and young adults at church-run institutions in New South Wales over several decades.

McGrath was granted bail and ordered to come back to court today.

Judge David Saunders remanded McGrath on his existing bail conditions until January 28.

Files the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles kept on dozens of priests accused of sexual child abuse could become public next month.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered Monday that the Archcdiocese turn confidential files over to her by the end of this month so she can review objections to redacted issues. Plantiffs and the Los Angeles Times have filed objections to the redactions.

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Sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has long been hidden. Victims who came forward were intimidated into silence; their families were shunned; cases were dropped for a lack of cooperation.

But on Monday, a State Supreme Court jury in Brooklyn delivered a stunning victory to prosecutors and victims’ advocates, convicting a 54-year-old unlicensed therapist who is a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help.

The verdict represented the first time Attorney Charles Hynes’ office has won a conviction of a prominent member of the Satmar Hasidic community of Williamsburg for child sexual abuse.

The case also offered a glimpse of the Satmar community’s shadowy efforts to enforce rigid codes of behavior — particularly for young girls — by allowing so-called modesty committees to intimidate girls for wearing revealing clothing or using cellphones, and requiring parents to send children judged to be breaking rules to religious counselors, many of whom are not licensed and charge high fees.

The trial of Mr. Weberman, which began on Nov. 26, was a difficult one because there was no physical evidence; the trial hinged on the credibility of Mr. Weberman, who is well connected and powerful in his community, and that of a young woman who had been shunned for being a rebellious teen. The girl said Mr. Weberman had abused her for three years, starting when she was 12, groping her and forcing her to perform oral sex. He denied he had ever touched her.

The jury believed the young woman and convicted Mr. Weberman of all 59 counts against him. Justice John G. Ingram scheduled a sentencing on Jan. 9; the most serious charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years, but depending on how the sentence is structured, Mr. Weberman could spend even longer in prison.

Prosecutors told reporters after the verdict that other women had come forward to assert that they had been abused by Mr. Weberman, including one who had come forward during the trial. Mr. Hynes said those women were unwilling or unable to testify, leaving his office with just one prosecutable case.

A Sunday school volunteer at a Costa Mesa church has been arrested in connection with the sexual abuse of children, according to church leaders and court documents.

Two families at Rock Harbor Church came forward with new allegations against Christopher Bryan McKenzie, the pool cleaner accused of years-long sexual relationships with at least three children younger than 14.

McKenzie, 48, of Costa Mesa, attended Rock Harbor and applied to be a child-care volunteer at the 3,000-member campus in late 2007, communications director Jeff Gideon said.

On Saturday, Newport Beach police announced they had arrested McKenzie on suspicion of sexually abusing two boys, one from the late 1990s to 2005 and one from 2005 to 2007. Neither had ties to the church, police said.

In total, McKenzie is charged with inappropriate interaction with four children.

The fourth, who pastors said is also from Rock Harbor, was allegedly used to distribute obscene material. Pastors told congregants Monday that they don't believe McKenzie had inappropriate contact with any children at the church or during a church function. Volunteers are never allowed to be alone with children, Proctor said.

However, he said, leaders believe McKenzie most likely met the children and formed relationships with their parents at Rock Harbor, where he volunteered in a fifth-grade classroom for about five years. At Rock Harbor, all child-care applicants have backgrounds checked, are screened on the Megan's Law website, must produce references and are interviewed, leaders said.

McKenzie pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol in 2007, and, in cases like that, a church committee weighs the severity of the crime and how much time has elapsed, Gideon said. McKenzie was ultimately granted approval to volunteer.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 45 years to life in state prison. He is being held on $1-million bail. The ages and genders of the alleged victims from Rock Harbor were not immediately available.

A 15-year-old girl told police that a youth leader at her church repeatedly raped and assaulted her when she was 12 and 13, according to court documents.

The girl told police that even after the alleged physical contact stopped a year ago, 26-year-old Joshua Mitchell Markelwitz, who worked with a youth group at Charlton United Methodist Church in Lower Paxton Township, kept asking her to send naked pictures of herself.

Police learned of the alleged sexual assaults in August and are investigating whether there are other alleged victims.

According to court records in the case, Markelwitz, “regularly” assaulted the girl at the church and her home beginning in December 2009. The abuse stopped when the girl quit the youth group, documents state.

A spokesman for the church said that the church doesn’t employ staff or take on volunteers without submitting them to screening for criminal backgrounds.

The screening requires clearance from state and federal law-enforcement agencies, Wolgemuth said. A church "safe-sanctuary policy" is routinely updated and two conference employees are assigned to work with member churches to be sure policies are understood and followed.

“There’s no way to be 100 percent [safe], but I consider what we have done to be due diligence,” he said. “We feel very good about our safe-sanctuaries policy.”

Still, church leaders will be reviewing policies following Markelwitz’s arrest, he said.

He also said he expects church insurance to cover the girl’s care and treatment.

A judge denied a motion to dismiss charges against two of five Tulsa megachurch employees facing misdemeanor charges for waiting more than two weeks to report the rape of a 13-year-old girl.

John and Charica Daugherty, the son and daughter-in-law of Victory Christian Center senior pastor Sharon Daugherty, both claim they are innocent of the charges.  They and three other church employees are due in court next month on the same charges.

One ex-employee of the ministry, 20-year-old Chris Denman, pleaded guilty last month to raping the 13-year-old in a stairwell on church property and other sex crimes. He could face life in prison when he's sentenced in December.

Another ex-employee, Israel Castillo, is due in court Nov. 29 on charges of making a lewd proposal to a child and using a computer to facilitate a sex crime. Those charges involve a fourth alleged victim at the church, a 15-year-old girl.  He's pleaded not guilty. His preliminary hearing was postponed last month after prosecutors said they are investigating a possible second victim in his case.

In addition to John and Charica Daugherty, who are Victory Christian Center’s senior high youth pastor and assistant senior high youth pastor, respectively, staff members charged in the case are Paul Howard Willemstein, 32, associate youth pastor; Ana Alisa George, 24, high school outreach program director; and Harold Frank Sullivan, 73, former human resources director.

The pastor of a Tongan church in West Valley City has been fired after church officials say he didn’t report child sex abuse soon enough.

The United Methodist Church said pastor Havili Mone knew an older boy sexually abused other boys inside a church building but Mone waited several months to report the abuse. The church says the suspect is 16 years old and found his victims through church youth events at the Tongan United Methodist Church at 1553 West Crystal Ave.

“For many of these kids the church is a second home so they would sleep over and he would wake them up and take them into other rooms in the building,” said Ivoni Malohifoou-Nash, program director at the National Tongan American Society.

Church officials say there may be as many as ten victims and, according to NTAS officials  they’re all boys, ages 6 to 10, and they were molested over a two-year time frame.

NTAS officials say when parents told pastor Havili Mone about the abuse he said, “Let’s just talk about it amongst ourselves,” Nash said. “It’s just a game that kids do.”

It’s unclear if Mone will be prosecuted for failing to report the abuse sooner. West Valley police have investigated the pastor and turned over their findings to Salt Lake County Attorney Sim Gill, who will make the decision.

A Big Spring youth minister is accused of sexually abusing a young girl.  70-year-old   Samuel Lee Lyte was arrested on October 22nd.

Lyte is accused of sexually abusing a girl under the age of 14 on multiple occasions.

Few other details have been released on the incident Lyte was arrested for.

 Lyte was reportedly working as a youth minister at the Mt. Bethel Baptist Church in Big Spring at the time of his arrest.

It's unclear if Lyte knew his alleged victim from his work in churches.

Now, Lyte is charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child, indecency with a child with sexual contact and tampering with evidence.

As of Monday evening, Lyte was being held in the Howard County Detention Center on $23,300 bond.

A former North Carolina scoutmaster who was not reported to police after molesting as many as 10 boys in the early 1970s went on to work for years at a church-run day care in Charlotte.

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A former Sunday school teacher and Fitzroy Harbour businessman faces charges after several victims came forward to complain they had been sexually abused.

The arrest of Paul LaFramboise, 73, who used to teach Sunday School in Fitzroy Harbour, West Carleton and Kanata, stunned his wife of more than 50 years.

Joyce LaFramboise said Tuesday her husband was put in handcuffs and arrested near their home on Friday.

“I’ve been married to Paul for 52 years. He’s a good man, he would not hurt anybody. He loves me. He’s provided for me well. He’s looked after me well,” Joyce LaFramboise said. “He would never hurt me, and I believe he would never hurt anybody else.”

Police began the investigation just over a week ago after receiving a complaint from an alleged victim.

Police would not say how many victims there are, but they are “confident” there are more that haven’t come forward.

Anyone with information can call police at 613-236-1222, extension 5944.

A 46-year-old Phoenix man faces several charges after detectives say he sexually abused a boy at a church.

Documents show the convicted sex offender was performing fake medical exams on his victim.

Eduardo De Los Reyes was arrested at his probation officer's office after a 15-year-old boy came forward with the information.

According to court documents, De Los Reyes was volunteering on a construction project at The Light Of The World La Luz Del Mundo Iglesia Church near downtown Phoenix.

The victim told detectives De Los Reyes had been touching him inappropriately while performing medical examinations on the boy in a medical room at the construction site for the church.

According to the documents, De Los Reyes checked the victim's blood pressure and heart rate and then checked his groin area for bumps and took it several steps further in a sexual manner.

Furthermore in the documents, De Los Reyes said he told detectives he had been attending nursing school, but did not successfully complete nursing school because he was arrested for exposing himself to a juvenile in 2010.

Officers also noted De Los Reyes was previously in violation of his sex offender registration for living at a residence where he was not registered. He also had a prior indecent exposure conviction from Bakersfield, California in 1998.

De Los Reyes is currently being held in the Maricopa County Jail without bond.

The 46-year-old faces several charges including sexual abuse, sexual conduct with a minor and kidnapping.

A fourth victim of alleged abuse at a 17,000-member Tulsa megachurch has come forward, and police said Tuesday that there might be a fifth.

At the same time, members of Victory Christian Center are beginning to speak publicly about the allegations that have shaken the worldwide ministry's foundations and tarnished the reputations of its pastor and her family members.

Prosecutors added two additional charges Monday against 20-year-old Chris Denman, a former church employee. He was arrested Sept. 5 on a complaint alleging that he raped a 13-year-old girl in a stairwell on the ministry's campus in August and molested a 15-year-old girl. He faces new charges of making a lewd proposal to a child and using a computer to commit a sex crime involving a 12-year-old girl.

Another ex-church employee, 23-year-old Israel Castillo, was arrested last week and is charged with making a lewd proposal to a 15-year-old girl and using a computer to commit a sex crime.

Tulsa Police Det. Cpl. Greg Smith told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that a third suspect could face charges related to alleged sexual abuse of a fifth victim. Two things are complicating that case, Smith said, because the victim's parents are uncooperative and the suspect is no longer in Tulsa.

On Wednesday, five employees of the south Tulsa church — including the son and daughter-in-law of head pastor Sharon Daugherty — are scheduled to be arraigned in district court for allegedly waiting two weeks before reporting the rape of the 13-year-old by Denman to authorities. John Daugherty, Charica Daugherty, Paul Willemstein, Anna George and Harold _Frank_ Sullivan each face one misdemeanor count of failing to report child abuse.

Tim Peterson, a 28-year Victory member, said other churches across the country should learn from what's happened here.

_Every youth pastor knows now 'If I suspect abuse, I need to report it,' because if you don't report this, you could end up being charged,_ Peterson said.

Pam Tiernan, a member of the church for more than 30 years, praised Victory Christian Center for being as transparent as possible regarding the allegations against the former employees. _That's how you heal,_ she said. _You don't sweep anything under the rug._

In a statement to The Associated Press, the church said its employees failed to follow a written policy requiring any allegation of abuse to be reported by employees to the state's Department of Human Services, and internally within one hour to their department head and the director of human resources.

Anthony Martinez, 36, was a part-time volunteer with the Edge youth-ministry program at Santa María de la Paz Catholic Community in Santa Fe.

Martinez pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor Thursday in accordance with a plea agreement. Vigil, believing that there might be more victims who have not come forward, handed down the maximum sentence of 15 years.  His 15-year sentence incorporated two separate cases, one from 2011 and one from last summer.

In 2011, Martinez was accused of giving a cellphone to a teenage boy in exchange for oral sex. He pleaded guilty to charges that he had sexual contact with the boy and also contributed to the delinquency of another minor, and faced up to 7 1/2 years in prison.

In August, a grand jury indicted Martinez on three new charges of criminal sexual penetration of a minor younger than 13. The victim confided to a counselor that when he was 11, Martinez had raped him.

Assistant District Attorney Judith Reed said Thursday that the positive things Martinez’s family said about him were precisely the reason he was so dangerous as a sexual predator. Reed emphasized the word “predator,” saying that Martinez planned out everything he did and chose his victims carefully. Since his arrest, Reed said, Martinez has used his personality to fool psychiatrists and other counselors into believing he was remorseful for his actions.

The mother of the most recent victim to come forward broke down while addressing the court. Her husband took over, describing how their son was successful in academics and athletics when he was young, and that he was a natural leader with a strong faith.

Then, at age 11, he met Martinez through the Edge youth-ministry program. “Our son was cheated of his childhood, cheated of his happiness,” the father said.

Since then, state police records show the boy has been in and out of court for various criminal charges. He was eventually sent to Arizona for treatment by Judge Vigil. It was there that he told one of his counselors about the sexual assault, the boy’s father said.

The father said that he has spoken with his son, who says there are more victims who have not come forward.

Timothy L. Dampier pleaded guilty Thursday to multiple charges of rape of a child and child molestation for sexually abusing boys when he was involved in church and youth organizations, the King County Prosecutor's Office said.

Dampier, 39, pleaded guilty to a total of 22 counts involving ten victims between the ages of nine and 17.

Dampier was arrested last year and charged with a number of crimes against minor boys, after being questioned at his job at the Boys & Girls Club. The investigation was launched after one of the victims, now 21 years old, went to the minister of a Seattle church and told him that Dampier had abused him. The victim had heard that Dampier was hired as a musician by that church and told the minister he was concerned about the safety of other children. The minister notified Seattle Police of the man’s report.

The crimes occurred between 1997 and 2011, the prosecutors office said in a news release. Prosecutors say they will recommend a sentence of 22 years in prison when Dampier is sentenced on Oct. 12.

William Jackson, 57, a music teacher at the Bible Baptist School in Shiremanstown, has been fired from the school and from his position as minister of music at the Bible Baptist Church.

Jackson was fired from the Bible Baptist School in Shiremanstown last Friday after two parents came to the school with 19 pages of inappropriate text messages and emails Jackson allegedly sent to their 17-year-old son.  Jackson was fired from both the school and the church Monday, according to Wiedman and church pastor Ron Berrus.

Police contacted the parents and the student, and the student admitted that when he was 15 years old, he and the teacher were alone in the music room together, the court document said. At that time, the teacher asked him to pull down his pants, and when he did so, the teacher looked at his genitals closely and fondled him, according to the search warrant.

The student also said that he heard from another student (who is now the second alleged case) that he was hugged by the teacher and “felt uncomfortable,” the court document said. The first student also said that the teacher would give massages to other boys when they were alone with him in the music room.

A second search warrant was executed on Tuesday, and in that, the other 17-year-old boy, who talked to the first student earlier in the year, was interviewed by police and said that he was also fondled by the teacher, according to ABC27.

Jackson has not been charged.

A letter was sent out to parents notifying them of Jackson's termination and giving out  phone numbers for them to contact investigators and advocates. The letter said the school was notified of a concern about Jackson on Friday and immediately contacted authorities.

Jackson has been teaching music at the private Christian school since 2005, Wiedman said.  He also directed choirs for all levels and directed the orchestra for the school musical.

He was minister of music at the church for the past 18 years, Berrus said.

Jackson was also involved in other central Pennsylvania musical endeavors, including as accompanist for Voices of Palmyra and a singer with the Susquehanna Chorale.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 717-737-4356 or the district attorney's office at 717-240-6210.

Calls for Bishop Robert Finn's resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking Catholic Church official in the U.S. to be convicted of a crime related to child sexual abuse.

Soon after a Missouri judge found Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse, unhappy Catholics began discussing ways to oust the bishop on a Facebook page titled "Bishop Finn Must Go."

Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Finn was informed of nude photos of children found on the Rev. Shawn Ratigan's laptop computer in December 2010, but instead of turning them over to police, Finn sent Ratigan to live at a convent in Independence, Mo. Finn's second-in-command in the diocese, Monsignor Robert Murphy, finally turned the photos over to police in May 2011 — against Finn's wishes, according to court documents — after Ratigan continued to violate Finn's orders to stay away from children and not take any pictures of them.

Finn was sentenced Thursday to two years of supervised probation. If he abides by a set of court stipulations, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.

"He has lost his ability to lead our diocese," Patricia Rotert, a Catholic church member in Kansas City, said Friday. "He's lost his credibility."

But Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph spokesman Jack Smith indicated that Finn wasn't going anywhere. "The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties," Smith said.

A former church leader who pleaded guilty to a federal charge of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison.

Prosecutors say in 2004, Joe Flowers drove a child younger than 15 to Florida to visit an amusement park. While there, Flowers engaged in sexual activity with the child.

Flowers is already serving a seven year sentence for repeatedly sexually abusing a boy between 2007 and 2010. The victim attended Flowers' church, The Walk of Life Christian Center.

Thursday’s sentence will be served consecutive to a state prison sentence the defendant is currently serving.

The trial of a former priest and a parochial school teacher accused of molesting the same young boy was abruptly postponed Tuesday after a death in the family of a defense attorney.

A new trial date for Father Charles Engelhardt, 65, and ex-teacher Bernard Shero, 49, will be decided on Friday and the case will be turned over to a new judge because of scheduling conflicts.

The delay was likely to frustrate both the prosecution and the alleged victim, identified only as "Billy Doe."  Billy was allegedly repeatedly molested and raped by Shero, Engelhardt, and a third priest beginning in 1998 — one of the most disturbing complaints of child sex abuse to come out of the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

Bernard G. Shero is charged with raping an altar boy at St. Jerome's Parish in northeast Philadelphia in the late 1990s and stands trial on Sept. 4, 2012.

The third attacker, ex-priest Edward Avery, pleaded guilty in March to sexual assault and was sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison.

The victim, now 23, was expected to take the stand against both Shero and Engelhardt, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The court has ordered a continuing gag order prohibiting lawyers or witnesses from talking to reporters about the trial.

Billy Doe also testified earlier this year in the landmark conspiracy trial against Msgr. William J. Lynn, 61, the first U.S. church official convicted of covering up sex-abuse claims against Roman Catholic priests. Billy's ordeal helped prosecutors build a case against Lynn.

Edward Avery was kept in his parish even after Billy's allegations surfaced, prosecutors said.

For his part, the victim has led a troubled life, struggling with a drug addiction and being kicked out of two high schools. He has also been arrested on charges including shoplifting.

The young man, who only spent an hour on the witness stand during Lynn's trial, said he kept his abuse secret for years. "I thought I did something wrong - and it's a priest," he said of Avery's assault. "I didn't think anyone would believe me."

According to the grand jury report, Engelhardt was the first to assault Billy, who referred to the abuse as "sessions." Soon after, Avery also began "sessions" with the boy.  The following school year, Shero was accused of raping Billy in a park while giving the boy a ride home.

A Junction City minister at the center of a church sex scandal has been arrested in connection with two additional cases.

Jordan Young, 25, is facing child molestation charges in four separate cases stemming from an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct at Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church in Junction City where he had been serving as the music minister.

He was originally arrested for Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child, Attempted Criminal Sodomy and Solicitation of a Child.

He was still in jail when he was re-arrested for Aggravated Criminal Sodomy, Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child and Sexual Solicitation of a Child in connection with a second case involving a second victim.

On Thursday, August 30, 2012, police confirmed that Young was arrested in two more cases. In one, he was arrested for Aggravated Criminal Sodomy and Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child and in the other, he was arrested for Indecent Liberties With a Child and Criminal Solicitation of a Child.

Police Chief Jim Brown has released few details on the case, calling the church probe "sensitive" because of the allegations involving children.

Officials say rather than adding to the list of charges Young will face in court, he is being arrested in a new case each time they have enough evidence connecting him to another victim.

Young is the son of former Faith Tabernacle pastor Edwin Young, who reportedly recently and abruptly resigned.

Young is being held in the Geary County Jail.

First Baptist Canton allowed a fired employee with a history of suspected sexual misconduct against children to return to the church as a volunteer, a misstep that led to the sexual battery of a teenage boy, the parents of the alleged victim claim in a civil suit.

The boy's parents are suing the church, senior pastor George Anderson and former church employee Shawn Finch, alleging that they not only failed to properly supervise the volunteer and the children in their care, but tried to "downplay" the abuse in a meeting at the church.

A Cherokee County grand jury in April 2011 indicted the volunteer, 29-year-old Matthew Brent Sheffield of Canton, in the alleged June 2010 sexual battery of the boy, who was 14 years old at the time. Sheffield, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, faces two felony counts of child molestation.

According to the suit, which was filed Aug. 1 in Cherokee County Superior Court, Sheffield supervised children as a First Baptist employee, and was a Cherokee County School District substitute teacher.

Though court documents don't specify a precise time, at some point, the parents of "male students who attended Cherokee High School" met with church officials and reported that their children had received "sexually explicit text messages from Defendant Sheffield." They also said Sheffield made "sexually suggestive remarks to male students."

While the church's pastor and Finch urged Sheffield to discontinue the texts, they never notified the Cherokee County School District of the allegations. Sheffield was only relieved of his substitute duties after parents notified school officials of the texts.

He was later fired from First Baptist Church for "insubordination" after officials learned that Cherokee High students continued to receive texts from Sheffield. Despite his termination, he returned months later as a volunteer to run First Baptist's sound system.

During this time, Sheffield allegedly sexually abused the couple’s child. 
According to the civil suit, “Sheffield again committed sexual battery upon plaintiffs’ minor child who reported the matter to his sister and his mother. The incident was reported to law enforcement by the child’s father”.

When contacted by authorities, the parents said Finch, now an associate pastor and minister to students at Woodridge Baptist Church in Kingwood, Texas, “failed to report...Sheffield’s past sexual abuse of children”. Instead, he “attempted to cover for Sheffield by portraying to officers that Plaintiff’s child was an unruly youth...not worthy of belief.”

The suit spells out other attempts to cover up the alleged abuse.  In one instance, First Baptist rented Sheffield a car “so he could get away before Plaintiffs were able to get to Florida to pick up their child”.

“Had Defendant First Baptist, Defendant Dr. George Anderson and Defendant Shawn Finch not ben negligent in managing the risk posed to children by persons, such as Sheffield, who have a sexual interest in children,” according to the civil suit, “(they) would have prevented other children, including the Plaintiffs’ minor child from being sexually battered by Sheffield.”

Jack Schaap, 54, pastor for 11 years at the First Baptist Church of Hammond, confessed to having sex with a member of the church when she was 16.

The church, located in the Chicago metropolitan area, has 40,000 members and typically has 15,000 people in church on any given Sunday, Eddie Wilson, PR director, said.

The age of consent in Indiana is 16.  FBI became involved because Schaap is accused of taking girl across state lines to Illinois -- where the consent age is 17 -- when she was 16,

Schaap had been employed by the church and associated Hyles-Anderson College for about 30 years, Wilson said.
Schaap's wife is the daughter of Jack Hyles, the pastor who built the church, NBC Chicago reported.

Trisha Kee, who said she is a victim advocate for people abused at Independent Fundamental Baptist churches and had attended Hyles-Anderson College, told Reuters that Schaap's behavior was discovered accidentally at a youth conference last week.

She said Schaap left his phone on the pulpit. A deacon found it, and a text came through from the girl that revealed the relationship, said Kee, who runs a Facebook group for ex-congregants.

A former church leader, 37 year old John Astorga, has been sentenced to three yeas in jail for sex crimes against children.

He faces one count of sexual abuse in Cullman County and three counts involving three victims in Madison County.

Sheffield Police are investigating claims of sexual abuse against a former official at a local church. The allegations involve sex abuse against children.

Sheffield Police say the man is not charged yet. Police said the claims surfaced over the last two days after Sheffield First United Methodist Church conducted an internal investigation.

» Please click here to read the full article....

Australian police are reportedly preparing to give state prosecutors evidence against three senior Catholic bishops who reportedly knew about cases of child sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests but did not report those priests to police. The potential arrests are being called a “landmark case that could expose the church to a new wave of criminal prosecution” – and could land several Chabad rabbis in prison, as well.

The Sydney Morning Herald, which broke the story Tuesday, calls this a “landmark case that could expose the church to a new wave of criminal prosecution.”

Ronald William Brown, 57, of Florida was arrested after police uncovered graphic Internet chats in which he talked about abducting, murdering and cannibalizing children.

A Florida puppeteer known for community involvement was arrested and charged with conspiring to kidnap a child and possession of child pornography, according to a criminal complaint filed in a federal court in Tampa court on Friday.

A day earlier, federal and local agents arrested Brown after uncovering graphic Internet chats in which he talked about abducting, murdering and cannibalizing children, referring specifically to his interest in a boy attending his church, the complaint says.

In a search of Brown's computer investigators came across pornographic images of children, including some of boys in bondage and others in which the subject appears to be dead, according to the 29-page complaint.

Brown, who lived alone in the Whispering Pines mobile home park in Largo, had ties to many organizations in the Tampa Bay area, including the Gulf Coast Church, the Pinellas County School District, the Christian Television Network, the city of Largo, and Gulf Coast Jewish Family & Community Services, the Tampa Bay Times reported. All said Brown had been hired or volunteered as a performer, instructor or mentor, according to the report.

A former University of Oklahoma social work professor who is awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing children helped train Oklahoma Department of Human Services child welfare supervisors, records reveal.

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The Lake County Sheriff's Office said it's looking for more potential victims who may have been sexually abused by a minister and day care worker.

Investigators said Kenneth Hagins abused children and disabled adults at the places where he worked.

Authorities said they have identified at least six alleged victims and they believe there are more.

Investigators and the Department of Children and Families said they are working to contact children and vulnerable adults who Hagins had contact with through his jobs at a day care facility for the disabled and a church.

Hagins was a youth pastor at Promise Land Ministries in Eustis.

DCF stripped Pat's Kidz World day care of its license last week because investigators said the owner did not report child sexual abuse allegations involving Hagins.

According to authorities, one of Hagins' victims is a 4-year-old  boy from the day care and another victim is an 18-year-old mentally disabled client at Sunrise Arc, which is also in Lake County.

Hagins remains in jail on $200,000 bail.

A King County jury has awarded $6.4 million to a victim of sexual abuse at a Seattle Catholic school. The sum is believed to be the largest ever against the Catholic Church in Washington state.

The jury found the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Catholic order of priests, guilty of ignoring the plaintiff's complaints of sexual abuse at St. Benedict School in Wallingford. The plaintiff testified in court that he was abused on a weekly basis between 1961 and 1964 by a former teacher and principal, Daniel Adamson.

"This wasn't minor abuse. This was three years of the worst crimes you can imagine on a child," said the plaintiff, Stephen O'Connor. "What sexual abuse and sodomy and rape of a 12-year-old child is minimal?"

O'Connor, who grew up in Seattle but now splits his time between Western Washington and Spokane, said he hid the memories of sexual abuse for nearly 50 years but that a 2008 reunion at St. Benedict - to mark the school's 100th anniversary - triggered an onslaught of feelings.

"As a United States Marine in combat, I wasn't the only one. As a police officer on the worst 911 calls, I knew that Skagit County was coming or state patrol was coming," he said, "but as a 12 year old 7th grader at St. Benedict's I had no one. And none of those victims did. I was 12-years old, and everybody thought it was okay."

A Redwood City church volunteer already charged with sexually abusing two minors he met through graphic and direct online advertisements was charged Friday with 10 more felonies for allegedly having an inappropriate relationship with another boy.

Brandon Hamm, 37, is also charged with 44 felonies and two misdemeanors in the first two cases.

“This is a fellow who truly seemed to be out on the Internet looking. He is truly a predator,” said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

The new case involves a boy who met Hamm in October 2010 when he was 15 and continued a relationship with him through his June 22 arrest.

Hamm was a volunteer with the Peninsula Metropolitan Community Church in San Mateo but the congregation suspended him following his initial arrest by South San Francisco police who posed as a young boy in response to his online advertisement seeking “horny skater boys.”

Over several weeks, the two exchanged emails and Hamm reportedly sent photographs of his genitals and requested the same. A detective who met Hamm at a prearranged spot reported him having a backpack full of sex toys, lubricant and a cellphone containing child pornography.

Hamm was prepared to post $200,000 bail when investigators located another alleged victim who was 14 when he responded to a 2009 Craigslist ad posted by Hamm.

The boy reportedly tried to stop the relationship but Hamm persisted and they stayed in contact up to his arrest.

Wagstaffe said he would not be surprised if publicity of the case continues to draw out more possible victims.

Paul Hawksley, 43, who was a youth leader at the Free Evangelical Fellowship in Easton, was sentenced to life behind bars Monday for raping an 11-year-old boy he befriended during that time. 

Prosecutors said Hawksley befriended the 11-year-old boy while at the church between 2003 and 2004. He called the boy frequently, bought him gifts and brought him to a Pawtucket Red Sox game, according to prosecutors.

Hawksley took the boy to his home and sexually assaulted him and on another occasion sexually assaulted him in a church bathroom, according to the Bristol County District Attorney's office.

The young boy did not disclose the abuse for some time, which prosecutors said is common in these types of cases. The victim, now 20, began to reveal the abuse to his family and eventually went to police. He testified at the trial.

Hawksley had previously served a child rape stint in prison..
Hawksley pleaded guilty in June 2006 to raping two boys between 1993 and 2000 at his home at the time on Juniper Road in North Attleboro.

At the time, Hawksley was a teacher's assistant at North Attleboro High School but police said none of the incidents were related to his position at the school.

The current charges were filed in August 2010 just days before Hawksley was to be released from prison after serving a five-year sentence.

A Northern California jury has awarded $28 million in damages to Candace Conti,  a woman who said the Jehovah’s Witnesses allowed an adult member of a Fremont, Calif., church to molest her when she was a child.

“This is the largest jury verdict for a single victim in a religious child abuse case in the country,” said her attorney, Rick Simons.

In her lawsuit, Ms. Conti, 26, said that in 1995 and 1996, when she was 9 and 10 years old and a member of the North Fremont Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, she was repeatedly molested by a fellow congregant, Jonathan Kendrick.

Ms. Conti has identified herself publicly to encourage other victims of sexual abuse to come forward, Mr. Simons said.

Ms. Conti also said in her lawsuit that the Christian denomination’s national leaders formed a policy in 1989 that instructed the church’s elders to keep child sex abuse accusations secret. Congregation elders followed that policy when Mr. Kendrick was convicted in 1994 of misdemeanor child molestation in Alameda County, according to Mr. Simons.

Mr. Kendrick was never criminally charged in the case involving Ms. Conti, but he was also convicted in 2004 of lewd or lascivious acts with a child, records show.

Mr. Kendrick, 58, now lives in Oakley, Calif., according to the state’s sex offender registry. He was ordered to pay 60 percent of the judgment, but Mr. Simons said there would be no attempt to collect any money from Mr. Kendrick, in part because he would not be able to pay. The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York — the organization overseeing the Jehovah’s Witnesses — would be responsible for 40 percent, Mr. Simons said.

Ten years ago, the Roman Catholic sex-abuse scandal dominated the headlines with horrific stories of priests preying on vulnerable youths and a church hierarchy more concerned with protecting clergy instead of kids.

Now, it’s back. A Philadelphia jury is deliberating whether, for the first time, a high-ranking church official will be held criminally accountable.

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The wife of an East Prairie pastor, Beth Lynnette Allen, 36, is charged with the endangering welfare of a child-1st Degree.

Her husband, Kenneth Neal Allen, 36, is charged with three counts of first degree statutory sodomy and possession of child pornography.

The East Prairie community says Kenneth Allen is the Pastor at Grace Apostolic Church.

According to the probable cause statement, Beth Allen is a state paid child care provider and knew about an instance when her husband allegedly inappropriately touched a male child and failed to report it.

Beth Allen said she was aware her husband would enter the bathroom, sometimes multiple times when boys were bathing and would sleep with the boys in their home, according to court documents.

Robert Van Handel was a 15-year-old seminarian at St. Anthony's, a prestigious Franciscan boarding school, when, he said, a priest slipped into the infirmary where he was recovering from a fever and began to molest him. The priest told him it would help draw the fever out.

More than a decade later, Van Handel himself was molesting children while working as a Franciscan priest at the same Santa Barbara boarding school. Van Handel formed a boys' choir for local children and chose his victims from among its ranks for eight years.

The sexual abuse at St. Anthony's, including Van Handel's own account of his crimes, is included in more than 4,000 pages from the confidential files of nine Franciscan religious brothers who were accused of abuse. The internal files, coupled with an additional 4,000 pages of sworn testimony obtained by The Associated Press, are the largest release of a religious order's files to date and paint one of the fullest pictures yet of a pervasive culture of abuse that affected generations of students at the seminary dedicated to training future Franciscans.

The religious order settled for $28 million in 2006 with plaintiffs who alleged abuse by the nine Franciscans, but Van Handel and other defendants fought the release of their private files for six years in a legal battle that reached the California Supreme Court.

The files were obtained by The Associated Press from a plaintiff's attorney ahead of them being made public Wednesday.

» Please click here to read the full article....

ANTIOCH -- Ranging in age from 9 to 16, six sisters had been sexually abused by their parents virtually every day since they were toddlers before finding hope in 1995 that their nightmare would end.

Instead, they say, it grew more horrific as the people they counted on to rescue them -- police, child-welfare workers, their church pastor -- failed to deliver.

A year after their parents were imprisoned for sex crimes spanning 20 years, the Dutro sisters -- Glenda Stripes, Amber and Sarah Dutro, Martha McKnelly, Frances Smith and Christina Moore -- are now suing the people and agencies they say failed to protect them as children by not following laws and procedures for handling child abuse.

Child Protective Services went to the Dutro sisters' Antioch home Aug. 18, 1995, after police had garnered two confessions from their pedophile father because 14-year-old Glenda had disclosed to a church pastor that she was being molested. Had they been given a moment alone with social workers, the sisters say, they would have told them they had been tortured for 16 days in preparation of the CPS visit, after the pastor had tipped off their parents days before calling police.

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One of Exeter’s most prominent pastors, 62-year-old Alton Dorrough, was arrested Monday.  A teenage girl, a youth leader at the same church, is accusing Dorrough of sexually abusing her for several years.

Dorrough is a pastor at the Church of God of Exeter and a volunteer chaplain with the Exeter Police Department.

The news of his arrest quickly sent shockwaves through the community of Exeter. The Dorrough family, including his wife Linda and daughter Kristina, moved to Exeter in 2005 to start a Celebrate Recovery program, a Christ-centered 12-step program for “hurts, habits and hang-ups.” The program started in March 2006 at the Church of God of Exeter. Gene and Linda became Recovery Pastors in March 2011. In 2010, the Dorroughs founded Mirror Image Ministries, Inc. The non-profit ministry was not affiliated with any church or denomination with the purpose of using only volunteers to support the common good of the community. That July, Dorrough purchased the “old yellow house” at the corner of Palm and E streets as a meeting place for Celebrate Recovery. It briefly served as a foster care home before reopening as a women’s transitional living facility last month.

Dorrough is being held at the Tulare County jail on more than $1 million bail.

Investigators say this appears to be an isolated incident between the pastor and the girl, and at this point, they do not believe Dorrough has abused any other children.

Charges of sexual abuse against children and teenagers have been made against a Christian commune in Waco, Texas.

Homestead House has been upheld as an utopia with wholesome Christian values for thirty years and is well known in the local community.

But those who have left the church, which sits in a gated compound of 500 acres, have revealed a dark side to the secretive religious group.

Blair Adams, church leader at Homestead Heritage, has been accused of covering up widespread abuse of children and teenagers.

Sexual exploitation of children and teens, as well as physical and emotional abuse, is commonplace, they claim.

In the past seven years, five insiders at the community have been convicted of abusing a child.

It is likely that more cases of abuse have taken place as the church promotes a system of internal justice - and the police rarely hear about allegations.

State law requires church officials to report cases of abuse within 24 hours.  However, members sign a covenant of silence before gaining acceptance in the community, which encourages extreme loyalty and explains why members have not made allegations of abuse before.

Becky Crowe, a former pastor’s wife, said “Some have not only been raped, they have been sold for others' sexual perversion by the ones who should have protected them.”

Former members say the self-proclaimed messenger of god, evoked an atmosphere of fear.

Officials from the homestead have claimed that the allegations have been made by 'embittered former members' and have a petition on their website, which to date has been signed by 85 people.

Standing under a stormy sky, Bill Stankiewicz got chills as he looked toward the old brick building that once housed the Catholic Community middle school in South Baltimore.

"It's kind of creepy," he said, rubbing goose bumps along his forearms. He hadn't been back since graduation in the 1970s, purposely avoiding the school — and the memories of what happened in it.

"Thirty-six years is a long time to bury something. It's time to exorcise the demons."

Roughly two dozen of his surviving classmates gathered at the site last weekend, all bound by a shared childhood tragedy detailed in multiple court filings: repeated sexual and mental abuse by English teacher John J. Merzbacher, now 71. They've come together in middle age to fight for his continued imprisonment, as a federal judge's court ruling threatens to release the convicted child rapist from four life terms.

The former students are posting recollections on a private Facebook page and using their renewed connections to marshal resources. They've reached out to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, along with local politicians and prosecutors, and vowed to bring fresh criminal cases — or push for the reopening of old ones — if Merzbacher is set free.

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It could be a pivotal case for prosecutors in the nationwide scandal of child sex-abuse by Roman Catholic priests.

Five weeks of testimony concluded Thursday in the Philadelphia trial of a senior clergyman who allegedly chose to protect the church, instead of the children.

It's the first time in the U.S. that a senior official with the Catholic Church has faced charges in the church's child sexual abuse crisis.

CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports that Monsignor William Lynn is accused of endangering children by helping reassign priests suspected of child sex abuse to jobs where they continued to prey on boys and girls. Lynn was in charge of Philadelphia's priests from 1992 to 2004.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City's Catholic bishop has become the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children after he and his diocese waited five months to tell police about hundreds of images of child pornography discovered on a priest's computer, officials said Friday.

Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, and the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese have pleaded not guilty on one count each of failing to report suspected child abuse.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and the diocese were required under state law to report the discovery to police because the images gave them reason to believe a child had been abused.

"Now that the grand jury investigation has resulted in this indictment, my office will pursue this case vigorously," Baker said. "I want to ensure there are no future failures to report resulting in other unsuspecting victims."

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Additional molestation charges have been brought against a former Fort Lauderdale pastor, bringing the total number of alleged victims to six.

Until now, Jeffery London of Lauderdale Lakes, was accused of abusing four children and has been held without bond since his initial arrest in January.

London, 48, has been accused of molesting two more victims.

He faces a total of 30 counts of sexual assault, molestation and sexual battery.

In the new cases, London allegedly performed oral sex on the now 21-year-old victim when he was 11 years old and had the child do the same to him, according to a Broward Sheriff's Office report. It occurred on a daily basis until the child reached adulthood.

London would allegedly give the victim money in exchange for oral sex; the initial abuse occurred at a time when the victim's mother was incarcerated and the child was staying with London, according to the report.

Another victim alleged that in 1995, London also performed oral sex on him when he was 8 years old and also forced him to perform oral sex on London, too.

That victim was in foster care and, at the time, stayed with London for three weeks. The victim alleges that London threatened to have him taken away from his family if he told anyone about the sexual acts.

London's first alleged victim came forward in January. Some of the other victims had also lived with London at some point. He was considered a father figure to several boys over the years and introduced them as his sons.

The pastor worked at the Bible Church of God in Fort Lauderdale, was the dean of students at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes from 2003 to 2009, and was a counselor at the Boys & Girls Club in Fort Lauderdale.

A Catholic priest at a Kalispell parish has been charged with felony sexual abuse of children for allegedly possessing digital images of nude boys on his computer.

Rudolph “Rudy” Carl Bullman, 67, a priest at Risen Christ Parish in Kalispell, is scheduled to enter a plea on the charge at a March 29 arraignment hearing. He remains released on his own recognizance and has been on administrative leave from the church since Dec. 16, when officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena first learned of the investigation.

The diocese spokeswoman said Bullman was asked to vacate the parish residence and has been living in a non-ministerial setting off of parish grounds. He has had no involvement in the ministry since the allegations surfaced and has been receiving counseling arranged by the diocese.

According to charging documents the investigation into Bullman began last October when a woman called authorities to report that a Nintendo DS game console she’d purchased from Bullman contained photos of nude and underage boys.

On Dec. 16, a detective with the Sheriff’s Office interviewed Bullman, who admitted using the Nintendo to view gay pornography but said he only accessed websites that clearly stated the subjects of the photos were over the age of 18. Bullman said he also viewed pornography on his computer, and agreed to let the detective search the machine.

The search revealed images of young males between the ages of 12 and 18, either engaged in sexual activity or displaying their genitals, the charging document states. A subsequent analysis of the computer’s hard drive by the Montana Division of Criminal Investigations uncovered 23 images of child pornography stored in the Internet cache files. The agent analyzing the computer also extracted an additional 23 images from a file containing deleted JPG images.

The detective, Jeanne Parker, viewed the images and determined based on her experience that the photographs depicted children under the age of 16 in a sexually explicit nature.

Bullman, a retired Libby millworker who entered the Catholic priesthood at the age of 55, faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000 if convicted of the charge.

Twin brothers whose father worked at the prestigious Delbarton School have filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by two monks.

The Star-Ledger reports that Tom and Bill Crane, who are in their 40s, filed a suit in Superior Court in Morristown on Tuesday morning alleging that they were sexually assaulted and/ or abused by the Rev. Luke Travers, 55 and the Rev. Justin Capato, 63.

According to the complaint, the brothers were abused in the late 1970s and 1980. The 35-page lawsuit does not describe the abuse.

The twin’s father, Bill Crane Sr. worked at the Morris County school for 42 years, first as a teacher and then as an administrator, rising to the level of assistant headmaster. The family lived on the school campus for two years. As children, the brothers had access to both the school campus and the adjoining St. Mary’s Abbey.

The Crane brothers contend that officials at Delbarton and St. Mary’s Abbey knew or should have knows about the abuse and engaged in a cover-up.

According to the Daily Record, the brothers also claim to have been abused by the Rev. James T. Hanley while attending St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Mendham. Hanley, who was defrocked in 2002, admitted to molesting at least 12 children and claimed publicly that Bill Crane Jr. was his last victim.

Governor Chris Christie’s son, Andrew is currently a student at Delbarton.

A fugitive Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, has been arrested in India after seven years on the run from charges that he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old Minnesota girl who sought his advice about becoming a nun.

Megan Peterson said she was firmly committed to testifying against Jeyapaul if he is extradited to Minnesota to face trial. "I am ready — it's about time," she said. "If my voice can help, then I'll be there."

In the past, Jeyapaul has asserted his innocence and continued to serve as a priest in India, where he was prohibited from direct contact with children.

He was arrested Friday and is being held pending a formal U.S. request for his extradition, to be filed in New Delhi, The Associated Press reported.

Jeyapaul is one of at least 32 Roman Catholic priests nationwide who have fled to foreign countries since 1985 while facing criminal charges or being investigated over allegations that they sexually assaulted or abused youths in the United States. Only five of them have been returned to the U.S. to face trial.

Efforts to extradite another priest who fled to his native India, the Rev. Sleeva Raju Policetti, have dragged on for nearly a decade. Policetti was charged in 2002 with 20 counts of criminal sexual assault and abuse of a 16-year-old Chicago girl, though the charges are now in jeopardy because a lawyer for the alleged victim has indicated she may not want to pursue prosecution.

In the Jeyapaul case, Peterson said she was 14 and had just started high school when he came to her church sometime in fall 2004.

"I (would) be surprised if there weren't more people in India who were affected by his actions. I hope that justice will prevail, and we get him back to the United States and get him away from vulnerable kids."

On the eve of his trial on 13 charges of sex crimes against children, former Pineville church youth minister Angelo “Doogie” Golatt, age 29, pleaded guilty today, March 19, to four counts of forcible rape.

Ninth District Judge Tom Yeager sentenced Golatt to four concurrent prison terms of 40 years.

Golatt was a youth minister at Donahue Family Church in Pineville during much of the period from 2003 to 2007, when he was suspected of molesting and raping boys whose families were members of the now-closed church.

While the Golatt and his former wife were in Idaho, Golatt was charged by Jerome County prosecutors with two counts sexual abuse/exploitation of a vulnerable adult. Golatt pleaded down to a misdemeanor charge and spent a month in jail before skipping bail and returning to Louisiana in early 2007. An Idaho courthouse worker last year said authorities didn’t pursue extradition of Golatt because the crime was a misdemeanor.

The adult victim was a resident at a home for the mentally challenged – the Twin Falls, Idaho, branch of the Centers for Independent Living – where Golatt also worked in 2006.

At least 10 teenage boys or young men under the age of 21 were surgically castrated "to get rid of homosexuality" while in the care of the Dutch Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s.

Evidence of the castrations has emerged amid controversy that it was not included in the findings of an official investigation into sexual abuse within the church last year.

The NRC Handelsblad newspaper identified Henk Heithuis who was castrated in 1956, while a minor, after reporting priests to the police for abusing him in a Catholic boarding home.

Joep Dohmen, the investigative journalist who uncovered the Heithuis case, also found evidence of at least nine other castrations. "These cases are anonymous and can no longer be traced," he said. "There will be many more. But the question is whether those boys, now old men, will want to tell their story."

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Waynesville, Mo. - When Father Joseph Carlo of the Christ Episcopal Church in Rolla retired in 1990, he left behind a legacy as a priest who lead his congregation to flourish. An internal church investigation recently completed by the Episcopal Church’s Diocese of Missouri may leave Carlo with a new legacy.

According to Rev. Cannon Daniel Smith of the Diocese of Missouri, an investigation into reports of alleged sexual abuse of children within the church by Carlo was recently completed.

According to Smith, the church has been in contact with five people who claim they were abused by Carlo between 1975 and 1985.

“We believe that(sexual abuse) has occurred,” Smith said about the abuse allegations and the results of the internal investigation.

Carlo worked at the Rolla congregation from 1960 to 1990. He went into retirement when he left the Rolla congregation and is believed to be living in Florida.

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The Crown has been given the go-ahead to seek a long-term offender assessment for a former church youth volunteer convicted of child pornography.

Roderick Kyle Janssen, 35, pleaded guilty Oct. 31 to 18 charges of child pornography and sexually abusing boys over a five-year period.

An agreed statement in court says Janssen “used his position as a church counselor and trusted friend to take boys on trips and bring them to his house to hang out, play video (games) and use his hot tub.”

Janssen made his guilty pleas while several family members of the 10 boys he is accused of photographing and filming were present.

Janssen began taking pictures and videos of the boys, all under the age of 14, in January 2006. By 2009, Janssen had progressed to sexually touching six of the boys aged six to 13.

By October 2010 Janssen had caught the attention of an FBI agent working undercover to monitor the exchange of child pornography on an Internet file-sharing network.

Janssen also distributed more than 70,000 images and videos of the sexual abuse of children while operating under the username “jonnydoitmore.”

The case will be back in court on Friday.

A defrocked Philadelphia priest has pleaded guilty to a sex-abuse charge days before a landmark priest abuse trial.

Sixty-nine-year-old Edward Avery pleaded guilty Thursday to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child. He was immediately sentenced to 2 1/2 to five years in prison and was ordered to surrender within 10 days.

The charge stems from Avery's abuse of a boy at St. Jerome's Parish in northeast Philadelphia.

Two other church officials will still go on trial. One is Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official ever charged with endangering children for allegedly failing to oust accused predators from the priesthood.

Monsignor William Lynn, 61, the highest ranking cleric charged in a Philadelphia child abuse scandal, asked a judge on Friday to dismiss his case because his boss - the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua - ordered the shredding of a list he made of predator priests.

The real criminals, his lawyers argued in court documents, were Bevilacqua, who died last month, and his closest advisors. These included Lynn's former supervisor Monsignor James Molloy, who died in 2006, now retired Bishop Edward Cullen of Allentown and Bishop Joseph Cistone, now head of the diocese in Saginaw, Michigan, none of whom were charged in the case.

Lynn, who served the Philadelphia Catholic Archdiocese as secretary of the clergy during Bevilacqua's time as archbishop from 1987 to 1998, would be the first church official to stand trial in a child sex abuse case if opening arguments begin as scheduled on March 26.

As clergy secretary, Lynn on his own initiative reviewed secret church archives and created a list of 35 priests who had been involved in abusive conduct or were classified with a sexual disorder, Lynn's lawyers said in court documents. He culled the names from a list of 323 priests in the church's "secret archives," the court documents said.

Lynn handed the list over to Bevilacqua in 1994 and it was discussed at a meeting in March of that year between Bevilacqua, Molloy, Cullen and Cistone. Bevilacqua at the time ordered Molloy to destroy the list, and Molloy recorded the directive in a handwritten memorandum, the court documents said.

"I shredded... four copies of these lists from the secret archives," Molloy said in the 1994 memorandum, according to the court documents filed on Friday.

Bevilacqua, 88, who was to have been a witness in the trial, died on January 31 after suffering from dementia and cancer. His death came a day after a judge ruled he was competent to testify in the upcoming trial.

After Bevilacqua's death last month, a locksmith was called in to open a safe at the archdiocese headquarters and inside were copies of both the list of 35 predator priests and the memorandum that it had been destroyed.

"Unbeknownst to anyone else and in violation of the cardinal's directive, Monsignor Molloy preserved a copy of this list in a different place - a safe to which no one else had a combination," the court documents said.

"As this newfound memorandum proves, the District Attorney's Office is entirely correct in its belief and assertion that an overarching Archdiocesan conspiracy existed in Philadelphia in the 1990s," said the court documents filed by Lynn's lawyers, who are paid by the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

"Its participants were Cardinal Bevilacqua, Bishop Cullen, Bishop Cistone and Monsignor Molloy," the court papers said. "Appallingly, none of these individuals is on trial."

The jury that indicted Lynn for covering up the abuse also indicted two priests, a former priest, and a former archdiocese school teacher on charges of sexually abusing children between 1996 and 1999.

All parties in the case are under a court-issued gag order which restricts them from commenting on the matter.

HOUSTON (CN) - A Jane Doe plaintiff claims the United Methodist Church did not protect her from a philandering pastor who adopted and began molesting her when she was 14, and made her get an abortion after impregnating her while she was in high school.

Doe sued Pastor Kendall Graham and trustees of the United Methodist Church's Texas delegation in Harris County Court, for more than $25 million.

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A former Kansas City-area Catholic priest sexually abused four boys in an Independence family, a lawsuit alleges.

John Tulipana, who left the ministry in the mid-1990s, purportedly abused four boys while serving at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Kansas City. The suit alleged that the abuse began in 1976 and occurred on camping trips and at the family’s home.

The suit names Tulipana and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph as defendants. It does not identify the plaintiffs.

In a statement issued, the diocese noted that its leaders had twice sent the priest for psychological evaluations in the early 1990s after complaints about him. He returned to the ministry in both cases, the statement noted, only after the diocese received the approval of medical specialists.

Tulipana’s name first surfaced regarding abuse in 1994 when The Kansas City Star reported that the diocese had paid a man $150,000 to settle accusations that he had been abused 13 years before. The diocese soon confirmed that it had settled two complaints against Tulipana, who continued to deny the allegations.

Allegations against Tulipana also were part of a $10 million settlement the diocese approved in 2008 with 47 plaintiffs who had claimed sexual abuse by clerics.

Earlier this month, the diocese was sued over the alleged conduct of a priest who died of AIDS in 1992. The suit alleged that James H. Ford, who left the priesthood in 1986, abused the boy in the mid-1970s at Holy Cross Parish and at a rectory.

In both cases, the diocese urged anyone who knows of sexual abuse in the church to contact its ombudsman, Jenifer Valenti, at (816) 812-2500 or send e-mail to JeniferValenti@att.net.

A registered sex offender serving as a pastor has been allowed to continue preaching at his Florida church and children are being turned away from services because he legally cannot be near them. Members of the local community insist the pastor's status means he has no business in the pulpit.

The situation is causing a great deal of controversy in the community, as many are outraged that the pastor, Darrell Gilyard, who was convicted and served a three-year sentence for abusing a 15-year-old girl in 2009 and sending lewd text messages to another, is still allowed to lead the congregation at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville. He was just released from prison in December.

He can have no contact with minors, however, until he enrolls or completes a sex offender therapy program in order to be granted even supervised contact with minors. This is why his sermons are "adult only" and parents are forced to leave their children at home if they want to attend services.

The convicted pastor had preached once on the Rev. Jerry Falwell's television ministry and another time from the pulpit of the denomination's annual convention, which helped him rise in prominence.

While in his 20s, Gilyard pastored Victory Baptist Church in Texas, one of the nation's 10 fastest-growing congregations, but left in 1993 after he was accused of sexual impropriety. He then went on to Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, which had to settle a sexual misconduct allegation against him in 1996.

However, the accusations against Gilyard extend further than his conviction of abusing the 15-year-old girl. According to the Guardian's report, in 2004, Gilyard also admitted that he had fathered a child with a woman who had accused him of raping her during a counseling session – however, the pastor was never charged with a crime.

A website titled "Let's stop pastor darrell gilyard together," created by Tiffany Thigpen Croft, a wife and mother from Jacksonville, offers a long series of sexual crimes allegedly levelled against the pastor. "We have a convicted, confessed, and known child/woman abuser. A man that used his position for 3 decades to manipulate his way into positions of trust and to ultimately become sexually perverse with girls and women. Not only did he seduce some, but let's not forget that he took (by rape) from those that said no," Croft writes in a blog post.

"He twisted young girls into thinking he was the 'only one' that could really love them, sending text messages, 'counseling' with them behind closed doors, calling at odd hours...to young, innocent, naive, young teen girls. And he forever has altered the course of their lives... please do not underestimate the damage that has been done to hundreds (over 3 decades)," she adds.

New charges allege that a fourth girl was victimized by a 55-year-old former pastor who has been accused of abusing girls in his storefront congregation under the guise of counseling, a Las Vegas prosecutor said Monday.

Known as Reverend Otis to members of his United Faith Church congregation, Otis Holland was arrested Jan. 25 in Tijuana, Mexico, after his disappearance a year ago was highlighted on the television show "America's Most Wanted."

The latest allegation says Holland abused a girl under the age of 14 at locations in Las Vegas, prosecutor James Sweetin said.

He was already facing multiple counts of sexual assault with a minor under 16, sexual assault with a minor under 14, lewdness, child abuse and conspiracy to destroy evidence in two other cases in Henderson. He was arrested in December 2010 and again in January 2011 after Henderson police investigated allegations that he abused girls as young as 7.

The conspiracy to destroy evidence charges stem from allegations that Holland orchestrated the disposal of computer hard drive discs, sex toys and paperwork for church counseling sessions after he was contacted by police. Holland is also accused of telling the girls that if anyone found out what was going on, he would be sent to prison and the church would break up.

The charges could put him in prison for the rest of his life.

Holland appeared Monday before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe M. Bonaventure by court closed-circuit video conference from the Clark County jail, where records showed that he was being held without bail. Bonaventure scheduled an evidence hearing for March 26.

The former pastor of a Montgomery County church has pleaded guilty in Frederick to second-degree sex offense with a 10-year-old girl.

Seventy-four-year-old Joe Ivey of Walkersville entered into the plea deal Tuesday. Frederick County prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault and sexual abuse of a minor.

Ivey was charged in September with having had sexual contact with the girl from January 2009 to December 2010. The abuse began when the girl was 10.

Ivey resigned in September as senior pastor of the Barnesville Baptist Church.

A Cape music instructor and former church music director pleaded not guilty to more than a dozen charges of sexual abuse in Barnstable Superior Court this morning.

Stephen B. Lindberg, 55, of Marstons Mills was arraigned in court on four counts of rape of a child, six counts of indecent assault and battery on a person under the age of 14, three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of 14 and one count of violating a restraining order.

The charges were filed amid allegations of an alleged series of assaults on a 14-year-old girl from late 2010 until June 2011. The girl took private vocal lessons from Lindberg starting in 2007 when she was 10.

The alleged victim involved with the Falmouth allegations was 12 years old at the time of the alleged abuse.

At the time of his arrest, Lindberg was working as music director at Unity on Cape Cod church in Hyannis. The Rev. Steve Cordry, the church's pastor, said he fired Lindberg, who held the position on a contract basis since 2007, when he became aware of the charges against him.

Cordry told the Times that Lindberg had no contact with children as part of his position.

The $20,000 bail set at the district court level was continued and Lindberg remained in custody. He is due back in court March 15 for a pretrial conference.

Stewart O. Newman was found guilty for the sexual assault of a now 12 year old girl. He was also convicted on six counts of possessing child pornography.

The girl says she was ten when the last sexual assault occurred, but she says it all began four years before that--when she was just six years old.

Newman, 40, faces 15 years to life on the sexual assault charge and 3-50 years for each of the six counts of child porn he was found guilty on.

Newman and his wife, since divorced, had been associated with a youth ministry.

His sentencing date is scheduled for April 11th.

A volunteer who worked with preteens at a Loveland church is accused of sexual assault on a child and has a previous criminal record including child abuse and domestic violence.

Robert Kirchhoff, 54, was a volunteer with Resurrection Fellowship Church until recently, when church leaders learned of the charges.

There is no information indicating the alleged incidents occurred at the church, according to Loveland Police Department.

Deborah Kline, assistant to the pastor, said she wasn't aware of the previous child-abuse case. Asked whether volunteers are screened with background checks, she said the church has "certain policies" but declined to elaborate.

Kirchhoff's pleaded guilty in 2007 to misdemeanor domestic violence and child abuse and negligently causing bodily injury in Jefferson County. That offense occurred in December 2006, and he was given a deferred sentence the following year.

Anyone with information about Kirchhoff or the alleged sexual-assault is asked to call Loveland police Det. Brandon Johnson at the tips line, (970) 962-2032.

Otis Holland, 55, a Las Vegas pastor wanted on charges of having sex with underage girls, was captured on Wednesday, Jan. 25, in Mexico.

Holland disappeared from the Henderson area in June, after an arrest warrant was issued for him by the Henderson Police. The warrant was for 11 counts of sexual assault of a victim under the age of 16, one count of child abuse and conspiracy to commit a crime.

On a recent airing of Fox-TV's America's Most Wanted, the pastor's crimes were broadcast, bringing in a tip from a viewer who saw the program. The information was delivered to the U.S. Marshals Service, which had been working in conjunction with the Henderson Police in the search for Holland.

"He was a con man, and he used the church front for his schemes," said Kevin Abernathy, Henderson Police Department's lead investigator on the case, during the Jan. 20 airing of the show. "In the 19 years that I've been on the job, I would rank this as probably the worst case I've dealt with, as far as a predator identifying and abusing victims."

The Mexican National Police, coordinating with the U.S. Marshals Service, apprehended Holland without incident in Tijuana, Mexico, on Wednesday about 10 p.m., according to Javier Jimenez, assistant chief deputy U.S. Marshal.

Holland was deported from Mexico and custody was turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service. He currently is being held in the San Diego Central Jail pending extradition back to Henderson.

In December 2010, the pastor originally was arrested on three counts of sexual assault of a victim under 16. Upon investigation by detectives, however, it was discovered that there were allegations that Holland may have had inappropriate contact with other minors, too.

Holland acted as pastor of the United Faith Church, which had been holding its services in the lobby of a tax service business on Hacienda Avenue in Las Vegas. The alleged incidents involving Holland are said to have occurred at various locations in Henderson and Las Vegas.

The Henderson Police Department is asking anyone with information regarding this case to call 267-4750 or Crime Stoppers, to remain anonymous, at 385-5555.

Youth Pastor, Jeffrey London, was arrested last week at his Lauderdale Lakes home for allegedly sexually abusing a boy. The alleged victim in the case said he lived with London for more than a decade and he was repeatedly abused during that time.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office said another child has come forward to say that they were sexually abused by 48-year old Jeffrey London. During a court hearing on Thursday, the judge ordered that London be held without bond.

According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, the victim’s mother left him in London’s care when he was eight-years-old after running into financial hardship. “He’s been living with this child from the ages of 8-18, the abuse began right away,” said Det. Julie Bower of the BSO.

BSO said London was involved with the Bible Church of God and worked as the Dean of Students at Eagle Charter Academy in Lauderdale Lakes from 2003-2009. Neither Miami-Dade County Public Schools, nor Broward County Public Schools have a record of London ever working for them, according to BSO.

“Apparently, he would have a lot of young boys over at his house and spend the night,” Det. Bower. “And from my victim’s statement there could be other victims. God forbid it happened. If it did happen, please let us help you.”

Boys who think they may have been abused by London can report it by calling the sheriff’s office at (954) 321-4240 or 954-493-TIPS (8477).

Police across Ontario nabbed 60 suspects, including three teens and a former youth worker, and identified 22 victims in what police say is the largest child porn bust in Ontario history.

Police executed 76 search warrants Wednesday and filed 213 charges, including sexual assault, child luring, and accessing, possessing, making and distributing child pornography.

The three teen boys charged are all 16 years old. The oldest suspect is 69, police said.

Also among the suspects is Gregory William Pickard, 41, who was a youth worker at a group home for young people and worked with children at his church. This is the second time in just over a year he faces child porn-related charges.

None of the suspects are part of a child-porn ring, police said. Investigators monitored their computer activities using specialized software.

Twenty-five police departments in Ontario took part in the raids, including Sault Ste. Marie, Ottawa, Sudbury, Cornwall, North Bay, Chatham, Brantford, Sarnia, Barrie, London, Toronto and Hamilton.

Scott Tod, acting commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, said the project is aimed at stopping the sexual abuse of children. “Child pornography is the sexual abuse of children,” he said. “Every image...represents a child victim. “Every trading or transmission of that image represents a re-victimzation of that child.”

Additional arrests and charges are pending, Goldschmidt said.

He said child pornography is pervasive in Ontario. Police with the Provincial Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation on the Internet identified more than 8,900 IP addresses on child pornography sites in the past three months, Goldschmidt said. Of those, police arrested 60 suspects, he said.

Goldschmidt said police face constant technological challenges as they try to keep up with child pornographers.

“It’s like the speeders on the highway,” Goldschmidt said. “There are so many of them out there that you only going get (some) of them.”

About 550 people are asking for restitution for alleged sexual abuse by clergy in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee - more than in any of the other U.S. dioceses that have filed for bankruptcy protection, according to a lawyer involved int eh Milwaukee case. One priest alone is accused of abusing some 200 boys at a suburban school for deaf students from 1950 to 1974.

John Stang, a bankruptcy lawyer who represents creditors in the Wisconsin case, estimated that about 550 claims had been filed by the Wednesday afternoon deadline set by the bankruptcy court.

A victim’s advocacy group call the number of filings “extraordinarily tragic”, but said that represented only a small portion of people abused by clergy.

The other seven Catholic dioceses in the U.S. that have filed for bankruptcy since the clergy abuse scandal erupted in 2002 in Boston are in Davenport, Iowa; Fairbanks, Alaska; Portland, Ore; San Diego, CA; Spokane, Wash.; Tucson, Ariz; and Wilmington, Del. Two other religious order have also filed for bankruptcy.

A March trial date has been set for a man accused of sexually abusing two children in the 1990s.

Gary W. Freeland, 60, of Washington Court House, is facing four first-degree felony counts of rape and one third-degree felony count of gross sexual imposition. Both victims in the indictment are adults now but were 11 and 4 at the time of the alleged incidents, one of which reportedly happened inside Tabernacle Baptist Church where Freeland once was a member.

Freeland was in court Tuesday where counsel had a pretrial status conference in chambers.

A high-ranking former orthodox archbishop has been ordered to stand trial on Manitoba sexual abuse charges dating back decades.

Seraphim Storheim appeared in a Winnipeg courtroom Wednesday for the conclusion of a preliminary hearing to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for the case to proceed. A court-ordered ban prevents specific details from being published.

Provincial court Judge Rocky Pollack ruled the Crown had met the standard of proof required to move the case along. The case will return to court in March for the setting of a trial date.

Storheim has pleaded not guilty to sexually abusing two teenage boys while he was a priest in Winnipeg 30 years ago. He remains free on bail with several conditions, including having no contact with children.

Storheim was the highest-ranking Canadian cleric in the Orthodox Church in America until church officials suspended him last November, days after Winnipeg police laid charges against him following a lengthy investigation into allegations that only recently emerged.

None of the charges has been proved and he is presumed innocent.

A U.S.-based victims' group spoke out following Storheim's arrest, angry that a parish was using a church website to raise defense funds for Storheim. A Vancouver parish of the Russian Orthodox Church in America posted three messages of support for Storheim, including one with an address in Edmonton where funds for his defense could be sent.

Last December, the Orthodox Church distanced itself from the Vancouver parish with a statement that said in part: "The Archdiocese of Canada for the Orthodox Church in America is not in any way associated with any legal fund or other defensive effort being set up to aid Archbishop Seraphim."

A former church leader in Rochester, already convicted of sexually abusing a young boy, will be back in court Thursday.

Bishop Joe Flowers is accused of molesting two other children. He was sentenced in August for sexually abusing an eight-year-old boy. That child’s family went to Flowers’ church.

Flowers was sentenced to seven years in prison for that charge but he is currently in the Monroe County Jail until these other cases are resolved.

The day before his suicide, the Rev. Robert Carlson was told by Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross, a longtime friend, that Carlson was the subject of a state police investigation of child sex abuse allegations, according to a Waldo County Sheriff’s Department report.

Ross said Wednesday that he felt compelled to tell Carlson that he was the focus of the Maine State Police probe because Carlson was on the Penobscot County Jail’s board of visitors and Ross wanted to limit his access to the jail.

Ross, who was Carlson’s co-worker for 33 years, said he spoke with Carlson around noon on Nov. 12. Carlson jumped to his death from the Penobscot Narrows Bridge early the next morning.

"I didn’t feel it was a conflict. I felt it was my responsibility as a sheriff," Ross said when asked why he informed Carlson of the investigation.

State police detectives never got the opportunity to speak to Carlson, 68, before his death, Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety, has said.

The sheriff said he initially felt a certain responsibility for Carlson’s death but since has come to another conclusion. "If I hadn’t been the one to talk to Bob, Bob would have been dead a week later after talking to state police," Ross said.

The Waldo County Sheriff’s Department, which investigated Carlson’s death, released its report Wednesday to the Bangor Daily News but blacked out the names of Carlson and several people interviewed, including the Bangor man police believe was the last person to see him alive. Ross’ name was not blacked out.

The state police investigation into the sex abuse allegations, which began on Nov. 10, is continuing and should be completed in the next month, the lead investigator, Sgt. Jeffrey Love of the criminal investigation division in Augusta, said earlier this week.

Ross said he received a copy of the anonymous letter that sparked the child sexual abuse investigation on Nov. 10 and got a call shortly afterward from state police Detective Troy Gardener, who thought Carlson was a county jail employee.

Carlson was the Penobscot County Jail administrator when Ross was hired and later became the jail’s chaplain, a post he held for 38 years. He retired nearly two years ago, Ross said.

Ross said he is waiting for all of the final police reports before he makes any judgments about his longtime friend. "I’ve known and respected the man my whole police career," the sheriff said, saying he was heartbroken. "It’s still a hard pill to swallow."

Serving a 20-year-to-life sentence in a Houston, Texas prison, 56-year-old Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader Warren Jeffs pulls the strings of his 10,000 followers from behind bars. Gone are the days after his Aug 9, 2011 conviction for raping his niece and nephew of his “nervous breakdown,” hunger strikes and medically induced coma. Jeffs now runs the FLDS church from his jail cell, allowing phone calls and visitors to carry away his instructions. Jeff’s inherited the church in 2002 from his father, Rulon Jeffs, who started the “United Holy Order,” a polygamous group that settled in the ungoverned lands near Colorado City Arizona to recreate the incestuous tribe of early Mormons. Despite denounced by the Salt Lake City-based Mormon Church, states’ rights advocates believe the federal government should butt out.

First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion gives cults like the FLDS church un-deserved protections in which to violate state and federal laws protecting children from abuse. Jeffs, and other FLDS leaders, see nothing wrong with childhood brides, as young as seven years of age, marrying church elders in their 40s and 50s, breeding at the whim of husbands’ arbitrary supreme authority. While multiple wives are permitted in the FLDS church, young boys are removed from their mothers and abandoned to make more female offspring available to Church elders for marriage and breeding. “He regulates sex and money on behalf of God,” said Willie Jessop, a former FLDS spokesman no longer affiliated with the group. Since placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List in 2005, Jeffs went on the lam, eventually captured in his Cadillac Escalade Aug. 28, 2006 after a year-long manhunt.

Apart from having a loyal following, Jeffs, like the late fundamentalist preacher Jim Jones, of Jones Town fame or David Koresch of Waco’s Branch Davidians, ruled by coercion and brainwashing. “”There are eight questions, before they get there, they ask. ‘Do you accept Warren Jeffs as God’s mouthpiece and your prophet,’ and if you believe he can rule in all the affairs of your life,” Jessops said, showing the kind of domination and manipulation making Jeffs among the most dangerous psychopaths masquerading as a religious leader. With the Constitution’s Separation Clause, loonies like Jeffs set their traps, attract weak-mined zealots and recruit the downtrodden with promises of salvation. ”What makes this important is that there has never been a time when people in the community have taken this sort of stand against Warren,” said Jessop, who still considers himself an FLDS member.

Jessops, like others, are in a state of disillusionment and disbelief now that their fearless leader sits behind bars. “I think the church is going through a social crisis that is extremely painful, but, in the long term, it’s healthy,” said Jessop, showing he still suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder a year after he left. Like children molested by their parents, FLDS members lack the autonomy and independent judgment necessary to make sound decisions.

While no one knows the exact numbers, around 40,000 Mormons in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona practice plural marriage, violating the Mormon Church and state and federal laws. Opportunities within fundamentalist Mormon churches for polygamy attracts pedophiles and other misanthropes seeking institutional approval for aberrant behavior. Jeffs’ original charges for violating Utah’s child abuse laws were tossed out June 9. 2010 by a sympathetic Utah judge. While convicted in Texas, FLDS judges, or at least those sympathetic with the Church, side with fundamentalists seeking a plural lifestyle in the insular communities of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona.

Charismatic cult leaders like Jeffs give legitimate religions like the Mormon Church a black eye. With GOP frontrunner former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, running for president, Jeffs being back in the news raises eyebrows. No organized religion should allow itself to be hijacked by garden variety psychopaths that hide behind the First Amendment. There’s simply no justification, historic or religious, for pedophilia and the damage it wreaks on innocent children. No religious order has the right under the Freedom of Religion to violate the nation’s laws protecting children.

Now running the FLDS from prison, Jeffs continues his devious behavior. Psychopaths and pedophiles should not perpetuate their sickness from prison or any other venue. Regardless of states’ rights, there can be no safe havens for criminals hiding behind organized religion to practice deviant behavior.

The trial of a former deputy head teacher who faced historical child abuse charges, ground to a halt today as the jury could not agree on a verdict.

David Griffiths, 50, of Thistlecroft Gardens in Stanmore, has been on trial at Wood Green Crown Court for eight counts of indecency with a child and one count of serious sexual assault. He has denied the charges throughout.

Today the jury could not agree on a verdict, and so the case has come to a standstill. The case has been adjourned until January 20. Griffiths also faced an additional charge of indecency with a child, but was found not guilty by the jury of this allegation at a hearing on Friday January 6.

Griffiths worked at several schools during his career which began in September 1987, including Broadfields Primary School in Barnet, Edgware Junior School, Frith Manor Primary School, also in Barnet, and Weald Junior School in Harrow.

The offences were alleged to have happened between 1991 and 1993 in more than one location, including a school, which cannot be named, and the Welsh Harp Boating Lake.

Griffiths, who is married, was a long running volunteer for Greater London and Middlesex West Scouts, having been rewarded for more than 30 years service including a role as a district commissioner.

He also had a voluntary role in child protection at a local church, as well as assisting with a range of other projects at the church.

The child-pornography probe in Missouri that led to the arrest of Jeffrey Greenwell began with a lead forwarded to St. Louis from Los Angeles, where a state and federal task force was in the process of dismantling Lost Boy, an online network of pedophiles who traded photos and videos via the Internet. Ultimately, the Greenwell investigation spun off into four additional cases in four different states.

In early 2010, Captain John Foster, a detective with the Yell County Sheriff's Department in northwest Arkansas, received a package of photos prepared by Brian Mize, a forensic investigator with the St. Louis Division of the FBI.

The images, which Mize had culled from the thousands he'd found stored on hard drives and other media seized from Greenwell's house, depicted various shots of four boys. Mize believed each of the boys had been sexually molested by a man named Evan Batton, a youth pastor at a Baptist church near the city of Dardanelle.

Foster immediately recognized the face of one of the children: "a cute little redheaded kid, wearing an army helmet," he recalls.

Later that same day, Foster drove to Batton's house armed with a search warrant and accompanied by a team that included an agent from the FBI's Little Rock Division. When Batton answered the door, the lawmen could see that the pastor wasn't alone. There was a little boy in the house — another face Foster had seen in Mize's dossier.

Rather than face a jury trial, Batton agreed to plead guilty to one felony count for the rape of a seven-year-old boy. Now 29, he is serving a 30-year sentence in state prison. He did not respond to two letters from Riverfront Times requesting comment for this story.

Yell County Prosecuting Attorney Tom Tatum II says he has chat-room transcripts in which Batton boasts to Greenwell about setting up a webcam in his bedroom in order to record himself having sex with boys.

"To have this guy in our back yard and not know it was shocking," says Tatum. "We were glad to get the tip and get rid of him."

During an interrogation session on the day he was arrested in 2009, Greenwell revealed the name of a child pornographer whose handiwork was widely shared on Lost Boy. Investigators in LA and St. Louis knew of the man only by his online alias, "SpongeBob."

In late 2009 a federal grand jury in Utah reviewed evidence that proved sufficient to indict Antonio Cardenas, a.k.a. SpongeBob, who is in jail awaiting trial, having entered a plea of not-guilty to seven counts of production and distribution of child pornography and aggravated sexual abuse of a child.

Mize was able to identify two other child pornographers whose images were part of Greenwell's massive stash. One remains at large in a Midwestern state, according to the FBI. Investigators tracked down the other man, an insurance manager in New Hampshire, only to learn that he had committed suicide in 2008.

A man suspected of using his connections with two Valley churches to molest young children has been arrested, according to the Phoenix Police Department.

Christian Turcios, 26, was arrested Monday on suspicion of 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, along with child molestation and unlawful surreptitious video recording counts, according to police.

Turcios was first suspected in summer 2010, when an 11-year-old accused Turcios of molesting him at a church summer camp at Phoenix First Assembly, police said. Police were unable to make an arrest because of lack of evidence, said Sgt. Steve Martos, a spokesman for the Phoenix Police Department.

Our hearts are broken anytime there are allegations of any injury to a child,” David Blythe, associates pastor at Phoenix First Assembly, said in a statement, “It is our overwhelming desire to protect innocent children in our care.”

Blythe continued to say that Turcios was only a volunteer with the church and that he is banned from the church campus.

Investigators with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit launched an investigation in October and were able to collect enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for Turcios’ home in December, according to police. At his home, investigators found child pornography and images of Turcios engaged in sexual acts with children between 13- and 16-years-old, Martos said.

Turcios also served as a volunteer with junior high students for a year and a half at Highlands Church in north Scottsdale. On Jan. 1, he was hired as a custodian, according to police and Highlands Church.

Turcios also worked as a babysitter for members of Highlands Church, according to police. There is evidence that he abused children he babysat, police said. Detectives from the Crimes Against Children Unit of the Phoenix police said they have identified one of the victims he babysat, but are still working to identify several others.

“We are completely stunned and shocked,” said Lee Hughey, senior pastor at Highlands Church. “We are saddened for any victims. We didn’t know it was going on.”

Since learning about the arrest, Hughey said Turcios has been removed from the staff and from any involvement with the church.

Investigators believe that he has been preying on young children for several years and that he worked to be in positions where he would be near children during church camps and other activities.

Police expect there to be several more victims.

For more information about this case or to report another victim of this suspect contact the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-6141, or remain anonymous by calling Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS.

David Pierce, 59, was the choir minister at First Baptist Church in Benton for 28 years. Four male teens who had been members of the youth choir reported sexual abuse by Pierce.

Pierce is married and has three grown children and several grand children. He had been with the church for 28 years and had no prior arrests.

Pierce was convicted in August 209 and is serving a 10-year prison term for four counts of sexual indecency with a child. He is up for possible parole on January 26, 2012. David Pierce.

A “traveling pastor” who was charged with sexual crimes against children earlier this year has been charged again after another accuser came forward, according to court documents.

Francisco Antonio Hernandez, 53, was charged last week with indecency with a child by contact, a second-degree felony, according to an arrest affidavit filed with Travis County courts today. In October, Hernandez was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by sexual contact.

Police have said that Hernandez, also known as Pastor Javier, traveled to private homes in the Austin area to hold services for a nondenominational church that had no name. The church was led by Hernandez, with services six or seven nights a week that entailed reading from the Bible and singing, police have said. Hernandez led services as early as the early 1990s and as recently as August of this year, detectives said.

Four women came forward earlier this year to say that Hernandez had sexual contact with them as children.

The latest charge against Hernandez comes from a woman who came forward in July. That woman told police that Hernandez, whom she knew as “Pastor,” sexually abused her when she was 7, the affidavit said.

The woman told police that she and her two sisters stayed with Hernandez and his wife in 1988 when their mother had to go out of town for an emergency, the affidavit said. She said Hernandez sexually abused her in his bedroom, the affidavit said.

The woman said she told her mother about the abuse in 1998 or 1999; the affidavit does not say whether the mother reported it.

A few days before the victim reported the abuse to police this summer, Hernandez came to the victim’s mother’s home to ask for forgiveness, the affidavit said. She told him to leave, the affidavit said.

His bail has been set at $220,000, and he has also been detained for immigration reasons, jail records show.

A second victim is accusing a former youth pastor and little league coach of sexual molestation stemming from incidents that occurred several years ago in Gwinnett County.

Gwinnett County police confirmed a second victim has come forward and accused a former youth pastor and little league coach of sexual molestation.

Stacy Lee Everett, 42, of Covington, is currently in the Walton County Jail facing several counts each of sexual battery, cruelty of children, false imprisonment and child molestation charges. Everett was charged in the summer following an investigation that began out of state. In that case, the victim was reported to have been 12 and living in the Loganville area at the time of the alleged incidents. Lt. Mike Westbrooks of the Loganville Police Department said additional charges also have been added in the case of that first victim, bringing them up to 17 counts in total.

Gwinnett County police have said they expect to file charges in connection with the second victim by next week. Westbrooks said she is reported to be an adult who lived in Gwinnett County and was under age at the time of the alleged molestation.

Everett's arrest stirred strong emotions on both sides of the issue. Although police say charges such as these are not filed without a thorough investigation first, people are urged to remember that an arrest does not constitute a conviction.

A Norwalk minister was sentenced fo five years in prison at Queens Supreme Court for molesting a young relative. The Rev. Phillip Joubert, 50, was facing up to seven years in prison after he was convicted in November of five charges related to the abuse. “Pastor Joubert’s unwillingness to admit guilt or express contrition did not help his case,” said his attorney. “However, it was impossible to answer to the charge in any other way.”

Joubert, the founding pastor of New Light Missionary Baptist Church in Norwalk, was accused if sexually assaulting female relative on two occasions at his Queens, N.Y. home in the summer of 2009.

The rape allegations against Joubert came to light after a Nov. 14, 2009, child abuse incident at Joubert’s Norwalk Home, police said. During the incident, Joubert allegedly hit the female victim in the face and several times about the torso after he came home to find his Lexington Avenue apartment was messy, according to his arrest warrant affidavit.

While officers were interviewing the victim and her mother, the victim revealed that Joubert sexually abuse her at his residence in Queens, police said. Norwalk officers turned the rape investigation over the New York City Police Dept.

New York City Police arrested Joubert on Nov. 24, 2009, as he arrived at J.F.K. Airport after a trip to Israel. Joubert admitted to touching the victim’s breast and vagina during a videotaped interview with N.Y. City police, but the victim alleged that he physically assaulted her and forced her to have sex with him, court documents show.

It happened for a very long time: Eighty-five men from Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox community are suspected of sexually abusing more than 100 of the community's children and teenagers.

Many, including the victims' parents, allegedly knew about it but chose to keep silent – until one of the community organizations decided to reveal the horrible secret and went to the police.

The affair was reported by the New York Post on Sunday. The New York police are still unsure when the abuse began, but it clearly stretched over several years. Several years of suffering, trauma and perhaps the worst thing of all – a conspiracy of silence aimed at preventing humiliation and shame, all at the expense of the helpless children.

An initiative called Kol Tzedek (“voice of justice") decided to expose the dreadful acts, and as the months went by more and more men were arrested. The organization members located children who fell victim to the abuse and convinced them to complain. The case involves 117 victims – 89 of whom are under the age of 17. The number of arrests is expected to increase as the affair unfolds.

So far, 38 indictments have been filed and 14 of the detainees have already been sent to jail for up to 20 years for rape, sodomy and kidnapping. Another 24 suspects have been released on bail, and the rest are still being questioned.

According to the investigation, in some of the cases parents knew their children were being molested but gave in to community pressure and chose to remain silent.

'Victims were troubled kids' One of the suspects is Andrew Goodman, 27, who worked for Jewish social-service agencies and looks like a movie star. According to the New York Post, many members of Brooklyn’s Jewish community believe he is a monster.

Goodman was already arrested in 2010, but was released on bail. The price of his freedom appears to have been heavy: Since returning home, he hosted dozens of children and allegedly abused them during parties with liquor and child porn. Some of the kids were photographed by neighbors entering and leaving the apartment.

So far, authorities have charged him with sexually abusing two Orthodox boys for years in Flatbush — one from age 11 to 15, the other from age 13 to 16.

According to the 144-count indictment, which alleges numerous violations since 2006, Goodman filmed sex acts with the youngsters on a Web cam. Court papers and source say he also “threatened the life” of a boy who reported him to authorities. Andrew Goodman is known in our community as a lifelong molester who preys on young boys and ruins their lives,” a Talmudic scholar at Congregation Bais Torah wrote to Brooklyn Judge Martin Murphy, who is hearing the case, the New York Post reported.

Rabbi Shea Hecht, of the Hasidic Lubavitch group, accused Goodman on a Jewish radio show of "hunting" for prey. He said Goodman went to yeshiva playgrounds, once offering a reward for any boy who found his “lost glasses". Goodman also pressured boys to recruit others, the rabbi said.

Goodman is currently in detention and has pleaded not guilty. “These were not forceful — no one was held against their will," his lawyer said, adding that the alleged victims were “troubled kids who did not have a good home life.” He claimed that one boy ran away and Goodman “gave him a safe haven."

Joseph R. Fultz, 47, a former Walworth minister (now of Milton), is accused of having knowledge of sexual abuse occurring between children at his church and Faith Christian School and not reporting it to law enforcement. He was charged with five counts of failing to report child abuse or neglect.

All those charges were dismissed Monday morning because law enforcement didn't provide evidence that Fultz had contact with any of the children who were allegedly sexually assaulted by other children. Although the complaint failed to state that Fultz had direct contact with the children, it did report that he had several meetings with parents.

Judge Robert Kennedy said Fultz probably should have reported the incidents to authorities, but he didn't legally need to based on the evidence he reviewed.

According to the criminal complaint, six boys, who are now between the ages of 6 and 12, engaged in sexual contact with each other at Faith Christian School, The Abbey Resort and in a restroom at Grace Evangelical Church, where Fultz was a minister. In the case, no adults are suspected of having sexual contact with children.

Kennedy said there are several elements to crime that need to be proven. One of the elements is that the defendant is required to report the abuse. Parents and other adults aren't required to report suspected abuse, but the law requires certain professionals, doctors, police officers, teachers, school administrators and members of the clergy to report suspected abuse.

Kennedy also said Fultz should have had reasonable suspicion of abuse, because he met with parents regarding the incidents. However, Kennedy dropped the case because there was no evidence Fultz had direct contact with the children involved. "I don't see any facts in the complaint that the defendant saw these children in the course of his professional duty," Kennedy said.

According to the criminal complaint, Fultz told investigators he contacted the superintendent of the district church and another unidentified pastor to discuss the situation. He said after discussing the situation, it was agreed the "incident was nonreportable because of the ages of the children," according to the complaint narrative.

An investigating detective also reportedly reviewed a written report by Faith Christian Administrator Craig Skrede referring to a Jan. 7, 2010 meeting with parents about the incident at Faith Christian School. It was agreed that the school would make sure the assaults did not happen again.

Bishop Eddie Long has announced that he is taking a break from the church – just days after his wife filed for divorce. In front of thousands of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church congregants, Long announced on Sunday that he will take time off in order to focus on his family.

The Atlanta megachurch pastor has been embroiled in a sexual misconduct case with four young men in the last year. Long has made headlines over the past year for a lawsuit filed against him by four young men – all of who used to attend his church – accusing the preacher of abusing his spiritual authority to lure them into a sexual relationship with him.

The case was settled out of court in late May, and the plaintiffs were paid a large sum of settlement money. Long reportedly paid a total of $15 million to the four plaintiffs and a fifth accuser, Maurice Robinson, who was not named in the lawsuit. But in late September, however, Long requested that three of the men – Jamal Parris, Spencer LeGrande and Centino Kemp – repay the settlement money because the men allegedly broke the confidentiality agreement when they spoke publicly about the case.

Eddie and Vanessa Long have been married for 21 years and have three children together.

Pastor Lynn Allen Roberts, 67, of Derby, Iowa, was arrested on a warrant for Sexual Abuse in the 2nd degree, a class B felony. The charges stem from an ongoing investigation that was reported in February of 2011. Roberts was accused of sexually abusing a 9- year-old child on the property of the New Life Full Gospel Church in Humeston, Iowa. He is being held on bond.

A one-time Marine who founded an Oceanside church was behind bars Wednesday on suspicion of having a two-year sexual relationship with a preteen Riverside County girl. Matthias Anderson, 41, was arrested at the alleged victim's Murrieta home Tuesday morning and booked on suspicion of unlawful sex with a minor and lewd acts with a child under 14.

The girl and her mother are members of New Wine Ministries Church, which Anderson started in 2002 while stationed at Camp Pendleton, according to Murrieta police Sgt. Phil Gomez. Anderson has since retired from the military and become a full-time minister, the sergeant said. The alleged victim and her mother, whose names have not been released, came forward recently with accusations that the pastor had been molesting the girl since 2009, Gomez said.

"The sexual relationship ... occurred multiple times in both Riverside and San Diego counties," Gomez alleged.

Anderson, who lives in Hemet, allegedly would pick the girl up at her home and take her to another location to have sex with her, the sergeant said.

"Based on the investigation, detectives believe there is a possibility of additional victims in the Oceanside area," he said.

Anderson was being held in lieu of $1 million bail at Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta.

A jury on Thursday convicted polygamist church leader Warren Jeffs of sexually assaulting two girls he had taken as "spiritual wives." The jury returned its verdict after about 3 1/2 hours of deliberations. Jeffs stood stone-faced as the decision was read. The penalty phase of the trial was to immediately follow. Jeff faces a sentence of up to life in prison. During the trial, prosecutors used DNA evidence to show Jeffs, age 55, fathered a child with a 15-year-old girl and played an audio recording of what they said was him sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. They also played audio recordings in which Jeffs was heard instructing young women on how to please him sexually.

Jeffs has repeatedly said that his freedom of religion protects his right to practice polygamy, which has been condemned by the Mormon church.

The self-proclaimed "prophet" and leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a banned offshoot of the Mormons that says men have to have three wives to be admitted into heaven, faces 119 years in prison if convicted on both charges. Jeffs had argued that his religious freedoms were being trampled. The FLDS, which has at least 10,000 members nationwide, is a radical offshoot of mainstream Mormonism. The church believes polygamy is the key to heaven and that Jeffs is God's spokesman on earth.

Eleven other FLDS men were charged with crimes including sexual assault and bigamy. All seven of those who have been prosecuted were convicted, receiving prison sentences of between six and 75 years.

Archdiocese has been under fire over accusations it concealed sexual abuse of children. Cardinal Justin Rigali, whose leadership of the Philadelphia Roman Catholic archdiocese has been tainted by a continuing scandal over sexual misconduct by priests, is set to retire Tuesday. The archdiocese, the sixth largest in the United States with 1.5 million Catholics, has been under fire over accusations it concealed the sexual abuse of children by priests to avoid a costly scandal. The archdiocese website announced that Rigali, 76, is to be replaced by Archbishop Charles Chaput, 66, who has been archbishop in Denver since 1997.

The Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of sexual abuse cover-up scandals in both Europe and the United States in recent years. Rigali, archbishop in Philadelphia since 2003, has been struggling to contain the pedophilia scandal in the wake of a Philadelphia grand jury report issued at the beginning of this year. Three priests, a monsignor and a church teacher were indicted as a result of the report.

"We would have assumed," said the grand jury in a report, "by the year 2011, after all the revelations both here and around the world, that the church would not risk its youth by leaving them in the presence of priests subject to substantial evidence of abuse. That is not the case." The grand jury said that it found 37 such priests who have been kept in assignments that exposed them to children. Of that number, 21 were suspended after the report, and three more were placed on administrative leave.

Twenty-one priests have been placed on administrative leave following a review of suspected child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church in Philadelphia, according to a statement from the city’s archbishop. The church investigated 37 priests identified in a grand jury report as remaining in “active ministry with credible allegations of child sexual abuse,” according to Cardinal Justin Rigali. In addition to the 21 announced, three other priests have already been placed on administrative leave after the report was released in February, Rigali said.

In February, three Philadelphia priests and a parochial school teacher were charged with raping and assaulting boys in their care, while a former official with the Philadelphia Archdiocese was accused of allowing the abusive priests to have access to children, the city’s DA’s office said.

CNN Senior Vatican Analysis John Allen said the charges against the former church official appeared to be unprecedented and could have national implications. “This is apparently the first time that a Catholic leader has been charged criminally for the cover-up, as opposed to the abuse itself,” he said. “It sends a shot across the bow for bishops and other diocesan officials in other parts of the country, who have to wonder now if they’ve got criminal exposure too.”

Three priests–Edward Avery, Charles Engelhardt, and a Catholic school teacher, James Brennan, have been charged with raping and assaulting two young boys over the course of several years. A fifth man, Monsignor William Lynn, has been charged with child endangerment for allegedly allowing the abuse to continue. Monsignor Lynn was one of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua’s top aides. The indictments were made by a grand jury, and it is believed to be the first time a high ranking Catholic official has been accused of being criminally accountable for covering up priest abuse. Advocates for abuse victims celebrated the indictments. “This news means that finally one of the hundreds of complicit Catholic officials who have hidden or are hiding clergy sex crimes might be brought to justice”, said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

An Oviedo man with past ties to church missions in Africa was arrested by the FBI on child pornography charges. The arrest of Samuel Shamba Warlick, 39, comes three months after the Presbyterian Church (USA) published a report unrelated to the FBI case accusing Warlick of sexually abusing children at a housing facility for missionary families in the Congo in the late 1980's. The church’s report details inquiries into sexual abuse claims that occurred on 10 Presbyterian mission fields, spanning a 40-year period. He faces charges of possessing and distributing child pornography, and could be sentenced to 30 years in prison if convicted.

When agents searched his home, Warlick told them he has possessed child pornography for the past 10 years, and that he prefers boys who are between 13 and 16 years old. He also admitted to posing online as a 16-yr-old boy, with the goal of persuading boys to send him nude photos of themselves. The nearly 600-page report by the church said that Warlick had participated in activities or was employed by various Presbyterian churches in various states. The report also said that he had ties to a Boy Scout troop in Orlando. The church’s report details inquiries into sexual abuse claims that occurred on 10 Presbyterian mission fields, spanning a 40-year period. The report said Warlick abused children who were sleeping, and his victims were younger, smaller and less able to resist.

Convicted pedophile priest Oliver O'Grady, who served at St. Anne's Catholic Church in the 1970s, was arrested on Friday on charges of possessing thousands of pictures of child pornography, according to the Dublin Times newspaper in Ireland and Catholic canon lawyer Patrick Wall.

O'Grady was arrested at his Dublin hostel just after 7 a.m. Ireland time, the Times reported. Authorities found child pornography photos on O'Grady's laptop and a hard drive, the newspaper reported.

O'Grady, 65, was released from custody on bail that amounts to 500 euro, the equivalent of about $750, Wall said on Sunday. He is next due in court on Friday.

Oliver O'Grady previously served seven years at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione after pleading guilty to four counts of sexual abuse with children under 14 in Calaveras County while he was a priest in San Andreas.

He served at St. Anne's in Lodi from 1971-78 and at parishes in Stockton, Turlock, Hughson and San Andreas from 1979 until his arrest in 1993.

O'Grady was paroled from Mule Creek in 2000 and deported to his native Ireland.

A documentary about O'Grady's life, called "Deliver Us From Evil," was released in 2006. Much of the movie involved interviews with Bob and Maria Jyono of Lodi, whose daughter was sexually abused by O'Grady. The film is available on DVD.

Since being deported to Ireland, O'Grady moved to Holland, where he volunteered at a parish and organized birthday parties at a McDonald's restaurant there, Wall said. He grew a beard and went by Brother Francis (Francis is his middle name), Wall added.

Authorities found videos and still photos of child pornography on his computer, with victims as young as the age of 2, Wall said. O

'Grady had applied for Dutch citizenship, but he returned to Ireland after someone saw him in "Deliver Us From Evil" in Holland and reported him to police, Wall said.

After a three-year legal battle, nearly 10,000 pages of previously sealed Catholic church documents have been made public and showed that the Diocese of San Diego long knew about abusive priests, some of whom were shuffled from parish to parish despite credible complaints against them. Attorneys for 144 people claiming sex abuse made the papers public Oct. 24. 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. They include a decades-old case in which a priest under police investigation was allowed to leave the U.S. after the diocese intervened.

The plaintiffs settled with the diocese in 2007 for nearly $200 million, but the agreement stipulated that an independent judge would review the priest’s sealed personnel records and determine what could be made public.

At least one of the priests, Gustavo Benson, is still in active ministry in Ensenada, Mexico.

The release of records is the biggest so far in a U.S. church case, said Terry McKierman, founder of the website Bishop Accountability.org Lawyers for plaintiffs have been trying to get similar internal church documents from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for years, but have not had success. That diocese settled with more than 500 plaintiffs in 2007 for a record-breaking $660 million in a settlement agreement that also called for the disclosure of priests files. The only other release of church files in California came after a 2005 settlement between plaintiffs and the Diocese of Orange. About 4,000 pages were made public.

A group of Americans from SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) protested the Pope's visit by holding up photo posters of themselves as young children who had been abused by priests. One photo showed an 8-year-old girl in her first communion dress with the caption "Raped at Age 8". This woman, Therese Albrecht, said she was sexually abused by a priest from the age of 8 to 11, and also by a nun. Barbara Dorris, director of the SNAP, said that some of these children committed suicide as adults. She said that they want to see a worldwide register of priests who were "credibly accused predators", so parents could find out if their children were at risk. They also want the Pope to hand over internal church documents about sex abuse accusations to local police for investigation, and bishops who were complicit in the "cover-up" of sexual abuse to be disciplined.

Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, a special commission said Friday. It appears the church tried to cover up the abuses, as suggested by: the recent resignation of Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe due to admitted sexual abuse, and over 500 witnesses coming forward with stories of molestation by clergy over the past decades. The chairman of the commission said most of the abuse occurred during the 60's and 70's.

Police raided the home and office of the recently retired archbishop of Belgium, taking documents and a computer as part of an investigation into the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. Police and prosecutors would not say if Daneels was suspected of abuse himself or simply had records pertaining to allegations against another person.

A lawsuit was filed Monday against the Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church, alleging that 27-year-old Gregory Starkey sexually abused two teen choir members while he was employed by the church. The families say that when their 15-year-old daughters were sexually abused, instead of addressing the problem, the church looked the other way. The alleged misconduct dates back to 2004. The suit also alleges there was a history of other sexual predators at the church before Starkey, but the church did nothing to train their employees to prevent victims in the future, and even failed to report the earlier allegations to the authorities.

A 40-year-old schoolteacher has charged that the Rev. James Tully, a Catholic priest, abused him and other boys repeatedly during his first stint in Sierra Leone, from 1979 to 1985. While back in the U.S., a seminarian, William Nash, accused Tully of abusing him, and received an out-of-court settlement, though Tully did not admit to any wrongdoing. After a conviction in the U.S. for giving minors alcohol and groping them, the church sent Tully back to Sierra Leone for a second stint from 1994 to 1998. Tully’s religious order finally laicized him in Feb. 2009, after Nash went on a mission to have him defrocked. The schoolteacher said that if victims of sexual abuse by priests were assured they would not be punished for telling the truth, "you would see many, many, many people coming forward."

A choirmaster in the Anglican Church of Canada has been re-arrested in Kingston, Ontario for allegedly assaulting a boy between 1980 and 1982. John Galienne, 65, of Ottawa had previously pleaded guilty in 1990 to 20 sex crimes against 13 choirboys form the church. Two of his victims later committed suicide. He served 4 years in prison. He had been banned from serving in a leadership position in the church, but was eventually allowed to participate in the church music program under a "tightened leash".

Brazilian authorities overnight charged a 74-year old Catholic priest with pedophilia after eight children in his church choir accused him of sexual abuse. Father Jose Afonso De is being prosecuted for allegedly assaulting children aged 12 to 16. He has denied the allegations but has been suspended by his diocese. The choir children said the priest invited them into his home on the pretext of Bible studies, but once inside he forced them to kiss him on the mouth and touch his genitals.

Belgium's longest serving bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, 73, resigned after admitting he sexually abused a young boy both as a priest and after becoming a bishop in 1984. His resignation stands out because, while several bishops have resigned amid the abuse scandal, they did so under the weight of accusations that they shielded pedophiles in their roles, not because they themselves abused children.

Heads are starting to roll in the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal. Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare, Ireland is the third Irish bishop to step down since December. Two more Irish bishops have offered to resign, and the pope is expected to agree. There are also mounting calls for the country's top prelate, Cardinal Sean Brady, to leave because of his handling of the case of a notorious child rapist.

The German prelate, Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, was accused of hitting children decades ago when he was a priest, as well as financial irregularities at a Catholic orphanage where he served. The most prominent resignation to date in the U.S. was that of Cardinal Bernard Law as Boston archbishop, who stepped down after the U.S. scandal exploded in 2002.

Newly public documents appear to show that the Vatican office headed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, did not act on requests by the Oakland Diocese to defrock a priest, Rev. Stephen Kiesle, who had already been sentenced to probation (in 1978) for tying up and molesting young boys. A letter from then-Cardinal Ratzinger expressed his concern about provoking "some scandal among the faithful". Kiesle was 38 at the time. He remained a priest until 1987. Kiesle, now 63 and a registered sex offender, lives in a Walnut Creek gated community, according to his address listed on the Megan’s Law sex registry.

The Legion of Christ, a Catholic religious order whose late founder, Marcial Maciel, was revealed to have molested many young seminarians, formally apologized to his victims Friday. After years of defending him, the Legion fully repudiated Maciel, who died in 2008 at age 87. Maciel had a close relationship with the late Pope John Paul II, who praised the Legion of Christ for its orthodox doctrine. The Legion raised millions of dollars and built schools across Latin America. In 1997, nine former Legion seminarians went public about the abuse, and in 1998 filed a formal accusation with the Vatican entity investigating such charges. The entity was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict. Before taking action against Maciel in 2006, Ratzinger tabled the accusations against him for years, Maciel’s accusers said.

The Vatican yesterday strongly defended its decision not to defrock an American priest accused of molesting some 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin and denounced what it called a campaign to smear Pope Benedict XVI and his aides. Church and Vatican documents showed that in the mid-1990's, two Wisconsin bishops urged the Vatican office led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger- now the Pope - to let them hold a church trial against the Rev. Lawrence Murphy. The bishop admitted that the trial was coming years after the alleged abuse, but argued that deaf community in Milwaukee was damanding justice from the church.

A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged yesterday that a German archdiocese made "serious mistakes" in handing an abuse case wile the pope served as its archbishop. The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, after which he committed further abuses and was prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest's transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement. In the Munich case, a priest from Essen, "despite allegations of sexual abuse, and in spite of a conviction - was repeatedly assigned work in the sphere of pastoral care by the then-Vicar-General Gerhard Gruber," who worked under Benedict when he was the archbishop from 1977 to 1982.

In November Rev. Phillip Joubert, pastor of Community Baptist Church in Bayside, was arrested on charges of raping a 13-yr.-old relative, possibly his daughter. Joubert has pleaded not guilty. On New Year’s Eve, charges of assault were added in Norwalk, CT, where the Reverend maintains another residence and pastors another church; it is claimed he punched a young girl several times. It is not yet known whether this girl is the same one he is charged with raping.

Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and most fellow clerics turned a blind eye, an investigation ordered by Ireland's government concluded yesterday. Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the 3-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse - yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins. Yesterday's 720-page report focused on why church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese - home to a quarter of Ireland's 4 million Catholics - did not tell police about a single abuse complaint against priests until 1995. By then, the investigators found, successive archbishops and their senior deputies–among them qualified lawyers–had compiled confidential files on more than 100 parish priests who had sexually abused children since 1940. Those files had remained locked in the Dublin archbishop’s private vault.

Tony Alamo, 74, a one-time street preacher who built
a multi-million-dollar ministry and became an outfitter
of the stars, was convicted of taking girls as young as 9
across state lines for sex. His five victims, now age 17 to 33,
were in court and told jurors that Alamo "married" them in
private ceremonies while they were minors. Prosecutors said
Alamo could face a total of 175 years in prison over violating
the nearly century-old Mann Act, a morality law once aimed
at stopping women from being sold into prostitution.

Former assistant church pastor, Daniel Silverman,  pleaded no contest to sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl. A Roanoke circuit court Judge, James Swanson, has given Silverman a sentence of 18 months in prison for the abuse of the girl.

Christopher Reardon, 29, a former church worker, YMCA
instructor, and scout leader, who raped and molested boys,
pleaded guilty to 75 counts, including rape, indecent assault
and battery on a child, and disseminating pornography.  He
has been sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison.

Thousands of children were physically and sexually abused by priests and nuns at orphanages and reform schools in Ireland from 1930 to 1990. A nine-year investigation took place which produced a 2,600 page report showing the terrible trend of sex abuse, rape, and frequent assaults to make kids feel worthless. For decades, Ireland educated tens of thousands of orphans and other children ages 5 to 16. These children came from all walks of life, including some with disabilities, others born to unwed mothers, or some with history in petty crimes and truancy. This was a government project that was run by the Roman Catholic church in the Dublin area. The worst part, aside from the abuse is the fact that the "commission said documents found at the Vatican showed that religious orders knew of the numerous abuse complaints but covered them up."

Two men who held leadership positions in the same Heritage Baptist church are facing time in prison . Dean Harold Stone, a former deacon at the church, pleaded guilty in Franklin County Circuit Court to 12 sex crimes. Stone, 45, admitted to molesting three girls between 2006 and 2008. Two of the girls were 13 or younger, and the third was between the age of 14 and 16. Stone pleaded guilty to three counts of animate object penetration and nine counts of aggravated sexual battery. Stone faces up to 20 years in prison. The second man, Daniel Silverman, was the former pastor at Heritage Baptist church. Silverman, 43, pleaded no contest to touching a 12-year-old girl, sometime between July and August. He is awaiting trial.  

Melissa Huckaby, 28, is the granddaughter of Clifford Lane Lawless; a pastor at Clover road Baptist Church in Tracy City. Huckaby has been living with her grandparents and working in the church as a Sunday school teacher. Huckaby, since getting divorced, has been bouncing back and forth from Orange County to the small city of Tracy. Tracy city is home to 78,000 people and 60 miles east of San Francisco. Huckaby is the main suspect in a brutal murder, rape case involving a Sandra Cantu, who was an 8-year-old neighbor girl. Sandra disappeared March 27, 09 and was found April 6, 09 in a suitcase which is confirmed to be Huckaby's. Her prior involvement with the law was back in 2006 for a property theft conviction, for which she spent time in the Los Angeles county jail. Melissa Huckaby was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and killing Sandra Cantu. She is the only suspect and faces a total charge of murder, rape with a foreign object, lewd or lascivious conduct with a child younger than 14, and murder in the course of kidnapping. She is being held at San Joaquin County Jail without bail.

Marshall Seymour, a youth Pastor at Parkway Assembly of God church in Mobile, is facing up to 65 years in prison. This isn't the first time Seymour has found himself facing child molestation charges. Seymour is being charged with five felony charges that were brought against him in a Florida child molestation case, which involved a Baptist church in Lakeland. Seymour is being accused of molesting a boy back in 2002, at Rain High School. The boy claims that Seymour molested him nine times. A Biloxi pastor has come forward with claims that Seymour quit his job as a youth minister in Biloxi after being caught giving a teenage boy a massage. Seymour had been engaged with the boy sexually in the church parking lot and at the ministers home. These are only a few cases against Marshall Seymour.

A former Solana Beach pastor serving 29 years in prison for child molestation is challenging a state prison rule that he alleges prevents his daughter and granddaughter from visiting him.

A lawsuit filed April 1 on behalf of Michael Loren Skoor asks a Superior Court judge either to declare that a California Department of Corrections regulation does not apply to Skoor or that the regulation is unconstitutional and void.

Skoor pleaded guilty in August 2002 to 20 charges of committing lewd acts on a child under the age of 14 and four counts of attempted lewd acts. The charges involved an 11-year-old boy who was molested during counseling sessions with Skoor, and attempts by Skoor to molest the boy's younger brother.

Skoor, 55 at the time and the former pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church in Solana Beach, was sentenced in October 2002 to 29 years in prison.

The lawsuit alleges that since a new prison regulation took effect on March 20, 2003, Skoor has been prohibited from having any visits with his daughter and granddaughter.

The regulation in dispute prohibits inmates who have been convicted of specified crimes, including child molestation, from having visits from any children.

The regulation provides an exception, however, based on sections of state law that allow child victims to visit an adult in prison who committed a crime against them if the child victims or their guardians request it.

State law requires judges to order that adults sentenced to prison for child molestation and other specified crimes have no contact with their child victims unless the victims or their guardians object to that and ask for a hearing on the issue.

Skoor's lawsuit alleges that the regulation preventing him from having visits with his family members is invalid and unenforceable "because it prohibits non-victim children from visiting with their parents or other family members, while allowing the actual children who were the victims of certain inmates to visit with those who victimized them."

Rev. Gary Holtey, 59, former pastor of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church and Academy, was granted probation yesterday after pleading guilty in February to 10 misdemeanor counts of possession of child pornography. One of the conditions of his probation requires that he complete a year-long offender program. He went on leave from St. Charles shortly after federal agents and San Diego police raided his parish office May 6. A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego said Holtey has been permanently removed from the ministry. Holtey is one of more than 100 people in San Diego and Imperial counties linked to child-porn sites through credit card transactions in an international investigation. Another condition of his probation required him to register as a sex offender wherever he lives.

The sex-abuse crisis that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church during the past 12 months has spread to nearly every American diocese and involves more than 1,200 priests. These priests are known to have abused more than 4,000 minors over the past six decades. According to the extensive New York Times survey, it counted 4,268 people who claim publicly or in lawsuits to have been abused by priests. Every region was seriously affected with, 206 accused priest's in the West, 246 in the South, 335 in the Midwest and 434 in the Northeast. ( Some priests were counted more than once if they abused in more than one region.) The survey also showed that 1.8 percent of all priests ordained from 1950 to 2001 had been accused of abuse, Research indicates that the extent of the problem remains hidden.

A former Solana Beach Lutheran church pastor who molested an 11-year-old boy during counseling and tried to molest the child's younger brother was sentenced to 29 years in prison.

After an emotional, four-hour hearing, Superior Court Judge Kenneth So sentenced Michael Skoor, after saying his actions amounted to a "significant betrayal of trust”.  “What happened was not an isolated incident. It was not spur of the moment," So said.  In many instances, Skoor's actions were premeditated, the judge said.

On Aug. 12, the former Boy Scout troop leader and police officer pleaded guilty to 20 counts of committing a lewd act on a child under 14 and four counts of attempted lewd acts.

The ex-senior pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church could have faced well over 100 years to life in prison if he had gone to trial and lost, prosecutor Jill Schall said.

The plea bargain saved the boys -- now 10 and 13 -- from having to testify against their former mentor, who had been at the church for 12 years.

Skoor helped the older boy with counseling when his parents divorced.

The defendant admitted molesting "Peter" repeatedly between October 2000 and April 2001 in his home, a church office, the boy's bedroom, in Skoor's car and on a camping trip.

Defense attorney William Nimmo said the minimum sentence was "monstrous," considering all the good Skoor had done during his lifetime.

"He's not a predator," Nimmo said. "He was a pastor who fell by the wayside. Twenty years is a monstrous sentence for this man."

The Rev. Paul R. Shanley made his reputation as a Boston "street priest" in the 1960's and 70's, a crusader for runaways and drifters, drug addicts, and teenagers struggling with questions about their sexual identity. Shanley didn't just have sex with children; he publicly endorsed the concept. Over the years he had been accused of numerous sexual allegations, and church officials, aware of this, rather than report him to police or defrock him, reassigned him to various dioceses. In May 2002, Shanley was arrested in San Diego, where he had been living, and returned to Massachusetts to face 10 counts of child rape and six counts of indecent assault and battery. He was removed as a priest by Pope John Paul II and served jail time. More than 40 alleged victims have now claimed abuse.

In 2005 he was found guilty of the aforementioned charges and sentenced to 12-15 years in jail.

Micheal Skoor, 54, formerly the senior pastor at Calvary Lutheran Church is suspected of molesting a 12-year-old boy he was counseling over the course of several months. He also is suspected of molesting the boys 9-year-old brother.

Jeffrey Todd Fines 39, was a deacon at EAST OAKLAND CHURCH. He was charged with molesting a 15 – year – old Bible class student. Investigators suspect additional victims. Fines gave the boy a prescription pain medication that made him groggy. Fines then touched the boy and had the boy fondle him. Connecticut Post

Richard Elliott, 31, a music pastor and associate pastor at Community Bible church in Scripps Ranch, is charged with molesting a boy. Elliott has been charged with molesting a boy on three different occasions. Elliott has pleaded guilty to three counts of molesting a child under the age of 14 and faces a 12-year prison sentence.

Christopher Reardon, 28, served as a Catholic youth worker, summer camp counselor and boy scout volunteer. Reardon was originally charged with raping 3 boy’s, but after authorities looked into his computer they found a list of 250 boys. They found additional tapes and a hidden camera in the church where Reardon was a youth coordinator. CNN

Richard T. Quinn, 25, was the roommate and friend of Mark E. Davis, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Both men were found guilty for molesting children they had been baby sitting. Quinn was found guilty and is serving a 6 year prison term. Quinn and Davis were baby sitters for their local Baptist Church in Fallbrook.

Mark Ethan Davis, 30, a baby sitter at a local Baptist Church has been arrested and charged with 17 counts of child molestation. The victims two boys and three girls range in age from 2 to 12. If convicted on all 17 counts Davis will face a 136 year prison sentence.

Lloyed Gerald Pond, 51, a spokesman for the Mormon Church has pleaded guilty to molesting a 14-year-old girl. Pond is facing up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Pond has been charged with two counts of forcible sodomy.

The Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, Utah has again covered up for there own. A lawsuit of $750 million has been brought forth against the Mormon church leaders. James Adams had told at least three leaders in 1989 that he abused his daughter, then 4 and son, then 8. The Mormon church did not contact authorities, which led to 5 more years of frequent and sadistic abuse. If  the authorities had been contacted, these children could have spared five years of abuse. Adams continued to abuse children until police found a 55-minute video made of his molestations. Adams pleaded guilty to 37 counts of child sexual abuse and was sentenced to 75 years in prison.