News Story of the Day
SPJ NORCAL HONORS TRANSPARENCY CHAMPIONS IN JAMES MADISON FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AWARDS
February 12, 2025
Media contacts: Thomas Peele (510) 499-4944 | Laura Wenus (650) 996-3112 | [email protected]
SAN FRANCISCO – The Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists announces its 40th Annual James Madison Freedom of Information Awards, recognizing people and organizations who have made significant contributions to advancing freedom of information and expression in the spirit of James Madison, the creative force behind the First Amendment.
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Citizen
Dan McNevin, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP)
While navigating his own healing journey after being abused as an altar boy, Dan McNevin spent years compiling a list of hundreds of Bay Area Catholic priests and other clergy accused of sexual abuse.
McNevin and other members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests combed through court filings, news reports and church documents. While some local dioceses have released internal lists of suspected abusers, McNevin’s work shows how incomplete those disclosures are. In Oakland, McNevin’s list is more than three times as long as the list of alleged abusers published by the Bishop. And in San Francisco, where Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone has steadfastly refused to name accused priests within the Archdiocese, McNevin’s list has filled that void.
McNevin’s advocacy helped lead to a vast body of investigative work by local reporters in 2024. The reporting holds California dioceses accountable for how they have handled the child sexual abuse scandal. His work fighting for the public’s right to know has also shown other survivors they aren’t alone, in many cases leading survivors to realize they were not the only victims of a certain priest.
To read about the others honored by the Society of Professional Journalists - Northern California, go here.
Miami jury finds American founder of Haiti orphanage guilty of sexually abusing boys there
Miami Herald
February 20, 2025
By Jay Weaver
At 73, Michael Geilenfeld could have cut a plea deal to reduce his potentially long prison sentence on federal charges of sexually abusing numerous boys in Haiti.
But the American founder of a Port-au-Prince orphanage gambled on a jury trial in Miami federal court — and lost.
The 12-person jury found Geilenfeld guilty, after deliberating for only five hours on Thursday, of six counts of engaging in illicit sexual contact with minors in a foreign place and one count of traveling from Miami to Haiti for that purpose. He faces up to 30 years in prison on each of the charges at his May 5 sentencing before U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz.
Before trial started with jury selection in early February, prosecutors told Judge Leibowitz that they made a plea offer to Geilenfeld but he rejected it, asking the judge to note that in case the defendant makes any appeals or attacks on his conviction.
Geilenfeld faced six of his accusers on the witness stand over the three-week trial.
New details revealed in Florida civil case against former Dubuque Priest
February 19, 2025
By Terra Konieczny
DUBUQUE, Iowa (KWWL) -- New details are coming to light in three civil lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Dubuque and former priest Leo Riley.
The plaintiffs, who filed these lawsuits in Charlotte County, Florida, where Riley now lives, allege the abuse happened in Dubuque in the 1980s.
The Florida Chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is sharing insight on why these victims are coming forward decades later.
Florida SNAP leader Sally Zakhari said, "Maybe you don't even see the trauma, but decades later, it hits you."
Advocates rally behind bill proposing $30 million in state funding for crime victims
The VICTIM Act seeks to alleviate strains caused by federal funding cuts, organizers say.
27 R.I. victim service organizations are working with legislators to advocate for the bill’s passage.
Media by Kaiolena Tacazon | The Brown Daily Herald
By Michelle Bi
Senior Staff Writer
On Feb. 12, Rhode Island legislators and victim service organizations held a kickoff press conference at the State House Library to advocate for the passage of the Victims of Crime Trauma Informed Mobilization, or VICTIM, Act.
The act would set aside $30 million in annual state funding to fund organizations that provide services to “minor victims of child abuse, sexual assault survivors, elder abuse victims, domestic violence victims and survivors of human trafficking, community violence and gun violence,” according to the bill. The VICTIM Act was introduced in both chambers of the Rhode Island General Assembly earlier this month.
Injustice for priest's victim-survivors despite death
The death of Australia's worst pedophile priest could contribute to trauma for victim-survivors, advocates say, with concerns a recent court decision may further deny them justice.
Gerald Ridsdale, convicted of abusing at least 72 children over three decades, died aged 90 on Tuesday morning in Port Phillip Prison's medical unit.
He was one of multiple convicted pedophile priests and Christian Bothers who operated in the Diocese of Ballarat in western Victoria, along with Robert Best, Edward Dowlan, Gerald Leo Fitzgerald and Bryan Desmond Coffey.
Judy Courtin, a lawyer whose firm represented many of Ridsdale's victims in court, said a landmark 2024 High Court judgement not to recognise the vicarious liability of the Diocese "twisted a knife" into abuse victims and survivors.
"These people can no longer sue the Diocese of Ballarat for any of Ridsdale's horrific sex crimes if the Diocese establishes it had no prior knowledge of his heinous offending," Dr Courtin said.
"Justice is, yet again, cold-bloodedly denied by the Catholic Church."
The impacts of abuse were often lifelong and included chronic PTSD, depression, anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, and estrangement from family and friends.
New Cincinnati archbishop faced past child abuse claim that authorities deemed 'unfounded'
New Archbishop of Cincinnati Bishop Robert G. Casey speaks at a press conference, Wednesday at Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter in Chains in downtown Cincinnati. Frank Bowen IV/The Enquirer
February 12, 2025
By Dan Horn
A few hours after his introduction as Cincinnati's new archbishop, Robert G. Casey answered a question about his past that he said he knew was coming.
He confirmed that in 2008 he faced an allegation of misconduct with a child, which authorities later determined to be "unfounded." The accusation, made while he was a parish priest in Chicago, was investigated by both local authorities and church officials.
In response to a question from The Enquirer, Casey said in a statement that the claim was a false accusation, but he said he recognized that concerns about it may follow him to his new post in Cincinnati, where he will lead more than 400,000 Catholics.
Catholic Diocese and school in B.C. settle abuse lawsuit for $3.4M
A sexual abuse case that was about to get underway with a 23-day trial in B.C. Supreme Court was settled this week, as the Roman Catholic Diocese of Prince George and Burnaby's St. Thomas More Collegiate agreed to pay the unnamed plaintiff $3.4 million, according to the plaintiff's lawyer. (Peter Scobie/CBC)
February 11, 2025
By
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Prince George, B.C., says it hopes a $3.4 million settlement gives an alleged victim of sexual abuse by a school teacher "some degree of restitution for the harm that was so unjustly inflicted upon him by his abuser."
The settlement by the diocese and St. Thomas More Collegiate, a Catholic school in Burnaby, B.C., was announced in a statement released by lawyer Sandra Kovacs, who represented the anonymous man in the lawsuit.
Also named in the lawsuit was former teacher Alfred Patrick Quigley, who the anonymous plaintiff said sexually abused him in the 1990s.
Quigley taught at O'Grady Catholic High School in Prince George, and one of the alleged assaults was said to have occurred at St. Thomas More Collegiate.
Arkansas Court of Appeals overturns extended statute of limitations law for child sexual abuse victims
Posted: Feb 5, 2025 / 04:16 PM CST
Updated: Feb 5, 2025 / 04:17 PM CST
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A ruling by the Arkansas Court of Appeals overturned a 2021 law on Wednesday intended to aid child sexual abuse victims.
The court’s majority opinion stated the Justice for Vulnerable Victims of Sexual Abuse Act was not legal due to a long-standing legal precedent that prohibited extending the statute of limitations. The act intended to allow child sexual abuse victims under 55 years old to sue their abuser.
Previously, the law only allowed victims to sue for three years after the victim turned 18 as a statute of limitations. A revision to the act in 2023 removed the 55-year-old requirement and allowed all victims, regardless of age, to file for two years after the revision became law.
What survivors, advocates know about Mass. AG's inquiry into child sexual abuse at Catholic dioceses
A photograph of Phil Saviano in the room where he met with investigators from the Massachusetts attorney general's office, when he was in hospice in 2021. The office was investigating child sexual abuse at the Worcester Diocese, where Saviano had been abused. The results of the investigation have not been made public. Nancy Eve Cohen/NEPM
February 5, 2025
By Nancy Eve Cohen
This is part two of a series. Read part one here.
It’s been about five years years since the Massachusetts attorney general’s office launched an investigation into child sexual abuse by priests at three Catholic dioceses in the state.
Back then, Gov. Maura Healey was the attorney general. The state's current top prosecutor, Andrea Campbell, said her office is still seeking court approval to release the results of the investigation.
"I inherited a report that was completed, sitting there. And now I'm doing what I can to see what we can do in terms of releasing it," Campbell said on GBH Radio.
But survivors and advocates aren't waiting. They're revealing what they know about the attorney general's inquiry.
The investigation started as early as 2019 and continued at least until November 2021. Early that month, Assistant Attorney General Helle Sachse interviewed Phil Saviano. Matthew Stone, a state trooper, was also at the meeting.
Saviano was a survivor of child sexual abuse at the Worcester Diocese and an outspoken advocate for justice for those who were abused by priests. At the time of the meeting, he was in hospice at his brother's house, dying of cancer.
Maryland’s highest court upholds ending statute of limitations on child sex abuse lawsuits
David Lorenz, the Maryland director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, talks to journalists Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, outside of the Supreme Court of Maryland in Annapolis, Md. (AP Photo/Brian Witte, File)
