News Story of the Day

BY KENNETH LOVETT, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, June 3, 2017

ALBANY — The state Assembly Friday introduced a reworked bill designed to make it easier for child sex abuse survivors to seek justice as adults — and it’s expected to pass as soon as next week.

The bill goes slightly further than a previous version that had been criticized by abuse survivors, who now support it.

Bill sponsor Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) said the plan is to move the bill through committee starting Tuesday and then have a full floor vote later in the week.

The Hearld, June 1, 2017

More than one in eight children in well-off countries around the world say they have experienced some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime, Scotland's child abuse inquiry has heard.

Even more - one in five - has been at the receiving end of violence from a parent or caregiver, the inquiry was told.

The hearing heard claims there is a "huge gap" between the cases known about by authorities and what children actually report when they are questioned in a confidential survey.

By Caitlin Busch, May 31, 2017, Inverse Entertainment

The "villain" of Netflix's docu-series doesn't get any less complicated after the final episode.

By Kenneth Lovett, Stephen Rex Brown, Reuven Blau, May 30, 2017, New York Daily News

When Peter Marghella hurt his ribs wrestling with some friends at summer camp he had no idea it would change his life forever.

May 30, 2017, BBC News

Convicted paedophiles would be denied passports in Australia under a "world-first" plan proposed by the government.

The proposal, to be introduced to parliament, would prohibit registered sex offenders from travelling overseas.

Valley News Live, May 29, 2017

When asked about the nature of the accusations against Father Feltman, a Fargo Diocese spokesperson said that any of those questions would have to be directed towards the Richland County Sheriff's office.

The spokesperson also couldn't say if there were similar claims made at Father Feltman's previous parishes.

By Toby Harnden, May 28 2017, The Sunday Times

A potential Irish victim of Joseph Maskell, an American priest who fled to Co Wexford in the 1990s following allegations of sexual abuse in Baltimore, Maryland, has come forward after a Netflix documentary revealed his possible involvement in murder.

Maskell fled to Ireland in 1995 after US police uncovered a trove of incriminating documents, including psychological profiles of his victims, that he had buried in a Baltimore graveyard the previous year. While in Ireland he worked as a psychologist in private practice and with the local area health board.

By Australian Associated Press, 26 May 2017, The Guardian

The chair of Australia’s child sex abuse royal commission has said he is “deeply saddened” by the death of tireless victims advocate Anthony Foster.

Foster, who became a relentless advocate after his daughters were raped by a priest, was reported to have died on Friday evening from a major stroke.

Foster and his wife, Chrissie, shared their torment to the media and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

By Dan Rodricks, The Baltimore Sun, May 25, 2017

Richard Sipe, the former priest who spent 25 years studying the sexual behavior of the Catholic clergy, appears in “The Keepers,” the Netflix documentary series about the unsolved murder of Sister Catherine Cesnick and the monstrous abuse of some of her students by the chaplain of a Baltimore high school in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Sipe is the bearded fellow with the cool eyeglasses in Episode 4.

A Benedictine monk and priest for 18 years, Sipe came to Baltimore to study counseling at the old Seton Psychiatric Institute. He left the priesthood at 38 and married a former Maryknoll sister. He practiced psychotherapy in Maryland before moving to California with his wife in the late 1990s. 

By Christian Boone, May 25, 2017, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s become a familiar narrative: Respected community leader, active in the Boy Scouts, accused of sexual abuse but shielded for decades from prosecution and exposure.

Ernest Boland, whose predatory behavior was detailed in so-called “perversion files” that the Boy Scouts of America maintained for decades to identify volunteers accused of child molestation, was named in a lawsuit filed this week by two former Scouts who say they were among his many victims. Filed in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, the suit comes with a little more than a month remaining on a special provision that extended the statute of limitations in Georgia for childhood victims of sexual abuse seeking damages.