Sex Abuse Scandals Media ArticlesExcerpts of Key Sex Abuse Scandals Media Articles in Major Media
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[Larry] Clay was the law until one day in the fall of 2020, when a teenage girl ... reported that her stepmother sold her to be raped for $100 when she was 17 years old. The buyer, she told the sheriff's department, wasn't just anyone – it was Police Chief Larry Clay. While he was in uniform and on duty. The first time, against his department-issued vehicle. The second, inside a police office. Clay, 55, and the stepmother, 27, were both charged with sex trafficking of a minor. When law enforcement officers are charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse, they usually avoid trials. The Post examined the cases of 1,800 of these officers. The majority of those convicted took plea deals, which frequently allowed them to evade lengthy sentences and public reckonings over their crimes. Other cases quietly fell apart when children said they were too afraid to continue. Sgt. James Pack ... led child sex crimes investigations for the [Fayette County] sheriff's department. Pack knew that sex trafficking rarely looked like it did in the movies, with strangers abducting kids. Far more often, it involved people who knew each other, one taking advantage of the other's vulnerabilities. Did selling her stepdaughter strike her, the prosecutor [in Clay's case] asked, as something out of the ordinary? "It was done to me," [stepmother] Naylor-Legg said. "My mom used to sell me for money or for drugs if we needed something." "And how old were you at the time?" "It started at 10," Naylor-Legg answered.
Note: Read more on the Washington Post's investigation into the 1,800 officers charged with sexually abusing children. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Suge Knight, co-founder and former CEO of Death Row Records tells [Chris Cuomo] that Sean "Diddy" Combs is "not the only one" to put younger artists through humiliating sexual acts, describing various industry practices throughout the decades. Combs, who has gone by various aliases including P. Diddy, Diddy, Puffy and Puff Daddy, was arrested on Sept. 16 following a grand jury indictment for several felonies, including sex trafficking and racketeering. The arrest came as the producer faced a mounting list of civil lawsuits alleging abuse and assault spanning over three decades. Knight claims Diddy "was taught from people before him, and he did it to the younger people after him." It's an industry that, according to Knight, has a long history of sexually abusing and assaulting its newest members. Without attending "those butt naked parties," it's hard to comprehend what happened – but that doesn't mean it was a secret, according to Knight. Knight also said he believes Diddy's allegations stem from his own experiences. "You know, hurt people hurt people … Someone was sexually abused, they wind up being a perpetrator. Is that what you're suggesting about Sean Combs, that he was sexually abused, and he now sexually abuses?" NewsNation's Chris Cuomo asked. "Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I think it was done to him," Knight said. He also mentioned artists by name who should have been "whistleblowers," including Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg and Rick Ross, among others.
Note: Diddy has been called the Jeffrey Epstein of the entertainment industry. Read more about the disturbing history of child sex abuse in Hollywood from the courageous voices of actor Corey Feldman and Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood.
Border Patrol agents are warning that kids as young as 8 are being drugged and smuggled into the US by traffickers posing as their parents or family members – and nobody knows how common the horrifying practice is. Authorities have rescued children caught up in two different instances of such smuggling in recent weeks – including one instance in which the alleged traffickers had birth certificates for multiple kids to whom they weren't related, according to the Border Patrol. Authorities say it's not clear what is happening to the children once they are smuggled into the US – but many are vulnerable to being exploited for child labor and child sex trafficking. "Sometimes we encounter criminal actions so horrendous, they defy human decency," said Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol chief of California's El Centro sector in the southeast of the state, in response to the case. In one case, border agents rescued a child at the California border who had been "heavily dosed with sleep aids to prevent him from talking" to authorities, Bovino said Friday. Those agents found that the traffickers had birth certificates for more children. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the number of children crossing illegally into the US alone and without relatives has skyrocketed. Thousands of those children have also gone unaccounted for after they've been released to sponsors, who whistleblowers say aren't properly vetted, in the US.
Note: Why is this horrific issue not being discussed on a significant mainstream level? According to a report by The Center for Public Integrity, thousands have disappeared from sponsors' homes after the federal government placed them there. Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the US government facilitates child trafficking at the border.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) may have lost track of thousands of children who immigrated to the country as unaccompanied minors, imperiling both the children's safety and the effectiveness of the immigration process, an internal watchdog report found. Between 2019 and 2023, more than 32,000 unaccompanied minors failed to show up for their immigration court hearings, and ICE was "not able to account" for all of their locations, according to a report from the ICE inspector general's office. During that period, more than 448,000 unaccompanied children overall immigrated to the US and were transferred from ICE custody to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency responsible for placing them with a sponsor or in foster care. Once they were handed off to HHS for settlement, ICE couldn't determine all of these children's locations, and more than 291,000 of the kids were not placed into removal proceedings because ICE had never served them notices to appear or scheduled a court date for them. "Without an ability to monitor the location and status of [unaccompanied migrant children], ICE has no assurance [they] are safe from trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor," Inspector General Joseph Cuffari wrote in the report. ICE agreed with some of the report's recommendations to incorporate more automated tracking mechanisms, but argued the watchdog had "misunderstandings about the process."
Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the US government facilitates child trafficking at the border. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on immigration corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
In 2015, my career with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency led me to step forward as a whistleblower, exposing a grave issue–the placement of unaccompanied migrant children with inadequately vetted sponsors. Since 2012, Homeland Security officials have released over 730,000 children they encountered to Health and Human Services (HHS) for placement with sponsors. This year alone, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, nearly 95,000 unaccompanied migrant children have been encountered at the border. Each of these numbers represents a vulnerable life. The crux of the issue lies in our inadequate vetting processes for sponsors. Despite my whistleblowing efforts in 2015 that briefly led to policy changes, we've regressed. Children continue to be placed with potentially dangerous sponsors, exposing them to risks of trafficking, abuse, and neglect. This is not a partisan issue; it's a moral imperative that transcends political affiliations. Despite the gravity of this crisis, it's important to note that Congress is not meaningfully acting on the problem. Senator Chuck Grassley ... revealed that the HHS had placed children with sponsors connected to MS-13, a notorious international criminal gang, and even with individuals suspected of involvement in human trafficking rings. The trafficking of minors across our borders has become a dark and lucrative business, and our failure to adequately safeguard these children makes us complicit.
Note: This article was written by former U.S. Army Captain Jason Piccolo. Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the US government facilitates child trafficking at the border. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on immigration corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Employees of a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied migrant children repeatedly subjected minors in its care to sexual abuse and harassment, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a new lawsuit. From 2015 through at least the end of 2023, multiple employees at Southwest Key Programs, the country's largest private provider of housing for unaccompanied children, subjected unaccompanied children in their care to "repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, and misconduct," the lawsuit said. Minors housed in its shelters were subjected to severe sexual abuse and rape, solicitation of sex acts, solicitation of nude photos and entreaties for sexually inappropriate relationships, among other acts. The children range in age from as young as five years old to teenagers just shy of eighteen years old. Southwest Key employees allegedly discouraged children from reporting abuse, in some cases threatening them and their families. One report describes a Southwest Key Youth Care Worker who repeatedly sexually abused a five-year-old girl, an eight-year-old girl and an eleven-year-old girl. He entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their "private area," and threatened to kill their families if they disclosed the abuse, according to the lawsuit. The company has come under scrutiny before. Videos from Arizona Southwest Key shelters in 2018 showed staffers physically abusing children.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on immigration corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Three Republican U.S. senators and federal whistleblowers raised alarm over the government's alleged complicity in human trafficking at the nation's southern border. The New York Times [reported that] Health and Human Services could not reach more than 85,000 children between 2021 and 2023, adding that DHS and HHS leaders refused to attend the roundtable. Deborah White, who worked in Health and Human Services' Unaccompanied Child Program, joined those senators in calling for justice. "Make no mistake, children were not going to their parents. They were being trafficked with billions of taxpayer dollars by a contractor failing to vet sponsors and process children safely, with government officials complicit in it," White said at the roundtable. White began working at HHS' Pomona, California, Office of Refugee Resettlement site in 2021, where she said she saw hundreds of children sent to unknown fates. "What I found there was horrifying and shocking, as I made [the] initial discovery at the site that children were actually being trafficked," White told NewsNation. The last time HHS published a report on sexual abuse and sexual harassment among unaccompanied minors was in 2017. "We don't know what happens to them afterwards, right? We never hear from them again," White said. "Once they leave HHS or our custody, they wipe their hands of it. They're not concerned with what's happening to them once they leave. They're supposed to do 30-day wellness calls, but … when they did 30-day wellness calls, the case managers were finding that the children were not anywhere to be found in most cases."
Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the US government facilitates child trafficking at the border. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on immigration corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Biden administration's Office of Refugee Resettlement failed to vet sponsors responsible for caring for unaccompanied children apprehended crossing the border, whistleblowers told Senators Tuesday, describing several cases of apparent human trafficking involving the minors and their sponsors. [Whistleblower Deborah] White revealed that she and her colleague, Tara Rodas, first discovered a case of trafficking involving minors crossing the border in June 2021, but even after reporting it, "children continued to be sent to dangerous locations with improperly vetted sponsors." "Children were sent to addresses that were abandoned houses or nonexistent in some cases," White said. "In Michigan, a child was sent to an open field, even after we reported making an 911 call after hearing someone screaming for help, yet the child was still sent. When I raised concerns about contractor failures and asked to see the contract I was told, â€You're not gonna get the contract and don't ask for it again.'" White ... described the case of a 16-year-old girl from Guatemala, whose sponsor claimed to be her older brother. "He was touching her inappropriately. It was clear her sponsor was not her brother," Rodas said, noting that the girl "looked drugged" and as if "she was for sale" on her sponsor's social media postings. The sponsor had other social media accounts containing child pornography, according to Rodas, explaining that it keeps her up at night.
Note: Watch our Mindful News Brief video on how the US government facilitates child trafficking at the border. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on immigration corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
OnlyFans makes reassuring promises to the public: It's strictly adults-only, with sophisticated measures to monitor every user, vet all content and swiftly remove and report any child sexual abuse material. Reuters documented 30 complaints in U.S. police and court records that child sexual abuse material appeared on the site between December 2019 and June 2024. The case files examined by the news organization cited more than 200 explicit videos and images of kids, including some adults having oral sex with toddlers. In one case, multiple videos of a minor remained on OnlyFans for more than a year, according to a child exploitation investigator who found them while assisting Reuters. OnlyFans "presents itself as a platform that provides unrivaled access to influencers, celebrities and models," said Elly Hanson, a clinical psychologist and researcher who focuses on preventing sexual abuse and reducing its impact. "This is an attractive mix to many teens, who are pulled into its world of commodified sex, unprepared for what this entails." In 2021 ... 102 Republican and Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives called on the Justice Department to investigate child sexual abuse on OnlyFans. The Justice Department told the lawmakers three months later that it couldn't confirm or deny it was investigating OnlyFans. Contacted recently, a department spokesperson declined to comment further.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Florida prosecutors heard graphic testimony about how the late millionaire and financier Jeffrey Epstein sexually assaulted teenage girls two years before they cut a plea deal, according to transcripts released Monday of the 2006 grand jury investigation. Epstein's ties to the rich and the powerful seems to have allowed him to continue to rape and sex traffic teenagers. Transcripts show that the grand jury heard testimony that Epstein, who was then in his 40s, had raped teenage girls as young as 14 at his Palm Beach mansion. The teenagers testified and told detectives they were also paid to find him more girls. After the grand jury investigation, Epstein cut a deal with South Florida federal prosecutors in 2008 that allowed him to escape more severe federal charges and instead plead guilty to state charges of procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. He was sentenced to one and a half years in the Palm Beach County jail system, followed by a year of house arrest. He was required to register as a sex offender. According to the transcripts, Palm Beach Police Det. Joe Recarey testified in July 2006 that the initial investigation began when a woman reported in March 2005 that her stepdaughter who was in high school at the time said she received $300 in exchange for "sexual activity with a man in Palm Beach," Recarey testified. Another teenager ... told detectives that she was 17 years old when she was approached by a friend who said she could make $200 by providing a massage at Epstein's home. Epstein told her that he would pay her if she brought other "girls" to his home. "And he told her, â€The younger, the better,'" Recarey said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
A Washington Post investigation has found that over the past two decades, hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have failed to protect kids, punish abusers and prevent additional crimes. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time. Children in every state ... have continued to be targeted, groomed and violated by officers sworn to keep them safe. James Blair, a Lowell, N.C., police officer, met a 13-year-old girl who ran away from home. He offered to help with her school work and presented himself as a mentor. Months later, court records show, he got the girl pregnant. Matthew Skaggs, a Potosi, Mo., police officer, offered money or vape cartridges to three boys he sexually exploited. Joshua Carrier, a Colorado Springs, police officer, sexually assaulted 18 boys at the middle school where he had once worked as school police officer and later volunteered as a wrestling coach. The Post identified at least 1,800 state and local law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022. Officers charged with child sex crimes worked at all levels of law enforcement. Many used the threat of arrest or physical harm to make their victims comply. Nearly 40 percent of convicted officers avoided prison sentences. Children who are sexually abused by law enforcement officers sworn to protect them face lifelong consequences.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
As a teenager almost 20 years ago, Jeffery Christian was sent to a juvenile detention center in southern Illinois. He was abused by multiple staff over the course of several years, starting just a few days into his detention. According to a lawsuit filed last week in the Illinois Court of Claims, his mother reported at least some of the alleged abuse to leadership but no one followed up. He is one of more than 90 people who sued the state last week, saying they were abused by employees when they were in juvenile detention, some as young as 12 years old. It is the latest in a flurry of legal cases around the country claiming similar sexual misconduct by employees of facilities housing children charged with a crime. The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday announced an investigation into Kentucky's youth detention facilities. Since the start of the year, there have been lawsuits filed in at least four states, including the one in Illinois. The men and women in the lawsuits allege very similar abuse. Some say they were raped. Others say they were forced to perform oral sex or were inappropriately touched by employees. Some say they were given rewards, like special snacks or extra recreational time, if they complied; others say they were punished for refusing. According to the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group, recurring abuse has been documented in state-funded juvenile detention facilities in 29 states and the District of Columbia.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Created by the Boy Scouts of America decades ago, law enforcement Explorer posts are designed to help teens and young adults learn about policing. [There are] at least 194 allegations that law enforcement personnel, mostly policemen, have groomed, sexually abused or engaged in inappropriate behavior with Explorers since 1974, an ongoing investigation by The Marshall Project has found. The vast majority of those affected were teenage girls – some as young as 13. In many programs, armed officers were allowed to be alone with teenage Explorers. In a few instances, departments minimized or dismissed the concerns of those who reported troubling behavior, records show. The officers accused of abusing teenagers spanned the ranks, from patrolmen to police chiefs. Some were department veterans cited in news articles for their community work. Many cases led to criminal charges. Some officers went to prison, while others received probation or weren't required to register as sex offenders. A few departments allowed officers to keep their jobs after a reprimand or short suspension. The Marshall Project's analysis found at least 14 departments, among 111 agencies, that had a history of repeated allegations. Slightly more than half of the cases reporters found occurred since 2000. In 2022, the Boy Scouts agreed to settle with more than 82,000 people, most of them men, who said they were abused as minors in Scouting programs.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
On Friday, the Biden administration unveiled final Title IX regulations, nearly two years after the administration proposed dramatic changes to how colleges handle sexual assault allegations. According to the final regulations, accused students will lose their right to a guaranteed live hearing with the opportunity to have a representative cross-examine their accuser. This is accompanied by a return to the "single-investigator model," which allows a single administrator to investigate and decide the outcome of a case. Further, under the new rules, most schools will be required to use the "preponderance of the evidence" standard, which directs administrators to find a student responsible if just 51 percent of the evidence points to their guilt. Schools are also no longer required to provide accused students with the full content of the evidence against them. Instead, universities are only bound to provide students with a description of the "relevant evidence," which may be provided "orally" rather than in writing. This is a stunning rollback of due process rights for accused students. Under the new regulations, a student can be found responsible for sexually assaulting a classmate because a single administrator believed there was a 51 percent chance he had committed the assault, and this conclusion can be reached without ever allowing the accused student to know the full evidence against him or providing a hearing during which he could defend himself.
Note: Sexual abuse is real and deeply important to address. Yet where is the due process in entrusting a single administrator working behind closed doors to decide the fate of accused individuals who aren't allowed to know the full evidence against them? Social justice activist adrienne maree brown has called attention to how abuse, harm, and conflict often get conflated, leading to damaging misinterpretations of behavior. Brown articulates: "We absolutely have a culture that affirms rape and abuse of power. But we also have a developing culture of moving to callouts and calling for cancellation very quickly." In a time where cancel culture has led to unprecedented in-house fighting and toxic public discourse, how do we honor context and healthy dialogue before accusing someone of sexual assault?
The first trial to contend with the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in US custody begins on Monday, in a case brought by three men who were held in the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The jury trial, in a federal court in Virginia, comes nearly 20 years to the day that the photographs depicting torture and abuse in the prison were first revealed to the public, prompting an international scandal that came to symbolize the treatment of detainees in the US "war on terror". The long-delayed case was brought by Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili and As'ad Al-Zuba'e, three Iraqi civilians who were detained at Abu Ghraib, before being released without charge in 2004. The men are suing CACI Premier Technology, a private company that was contracted by the US government to provide interrogators at the prison. Only a handful of lower-rank soldiers faced military trials; no military or political leaders, or private contractors, were held legally accountable for what happened at Abu Ghraib or at any other facility where US detainees were tortured. As governments' reliance on private actors in conflict zones and crisis situations has grown exponentially since the war in Iraq, the case is also a test of the courts' ability to hold those contractors responsible for human rights abuses. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ... earned private companies trillions in defense and other government contracts. To this day, CACI continues to make millions in US government contracts.
Note: Read more about the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
Diddy has been dubbed the Jeffrey Epstein of the music industry. The internet was shaken to its core when Homeland Security Investigators' raid of Diddy's Los Angeles and Miami homes hit the headlines. Even though the cause of the raid has remained undisclosed, sources suggested it has to do with the s-x trafficking allegations against the music mogul. In a lawsuit filed by Rodney "Lil Rod" Jones, Diddy was accused of hosting "freak parties" that were attended by "celebrities, athletes, politicians, international dignitaries, and music label executives." The music producer further stated that these parties were sponsored by major players in the recording industry, giving them access to "s-x, drugs, and underage girls." He also alleged that the ... rapper hired underage girls to work for him and drugged their drinks. The lawsuit further stated that Combs Global Enterprises chief of staff, Kristina Khorram, "ordered s-x workers and prostitutes for Mr. Combs." According to lawsuits against Diddy and Epstein, both men had their homes fitted with hidden cameras that captured the debauchery that went on during their parties. In Jones' civil lawsuit against Diddy, he stated: "Mr. Combs had hidden cameras in every room of his home... has recordings of several celebrities, artists, music label executives, and athletes engaging in illegal activity. Mr. Combs possesses compromising footage of every person who has attended his freak-off parties and his house parties."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and other sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
No criminal charges have been filed against rap mogul Sean Combs, even though one of his two mansions on Star Island – and one in Los Angeles – were raided by Homeland Security agents on Monday. That's a disturbing development. The question: Is Combs another South Florida-grown Jeffrey Epstein? A civil lawsuit filed one month before the raid alleges Combs, better known as Diddy, his staff and executives engaged in "serious illegal activity," including using drugs, possessing illegal firearms and providing laced alcoholic beverages to drug sex workers and minors, all for Comb's pleasure. The lawsuit, filed by producer Rodney "Lil Rod" Jones, says Combs was running a "widespread and dangerous criminal sex trafficking organization." Combs settled another suit filed by singer Cassie in November that accused him of raping her. Jones said in the lawsuit that Combs, his staff and music executives knew about – and were involved in – illicit and unwanted sexual activities in Florida, New York, California and the U.S. Virgin Islands. In December ... four civil lawsuits filed by women [alleged that Combs] promised to launch their singing careers, then sexually abused them, trafficked them and forced them to have sex with other people. If the allegations are true, then Combs used his position of power over aspiring female artists, models and assistants in a manner comparable to Weinstein's serial abuse of women hoping to advance their careers.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring and other sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
It prides itself on offering an "assortment of family-friendly programming." For Alexa Nikolas, however, Nickelodeon's claims concealed a darker truth. She says young stars were exploited into taking part in sexually suggestive scenes. "Kids are groomed into thinking that the lines that they're doing are pretend, that it's not real life," the star, who played Nicole Bristow on the Nickelodeon TV series Zoey 101, [said]. Nikolas spoke out in the wake of docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which aired on the Investigation Discovery channel ... and exposed the "toxic culture" and alleged abuse on the set of some of Nickelodeon's biggest shows. In addition to Nikolas, several former child stars have spoken out, claiming sexual assault and harassment while working for the channel. Drake & Josh star Drake Bell speaks publicly for the first time about being repeatedly molested by his dialogue coach, Peck, when he was 15. "I was sleeping on the couch where I usually sleep and I woke up to him... I opened my eyes and I woke up and he was...he was sexually assaulting me." Bell claimed the abuse occurred more than once and said he was scared to report it. He explained: "And it just got worse, and worse, and worse, and worse, and I was just trapped. I had no way out. The abuse was extensive and it got pretty brutal." The four-part docuseries documents the child sexual abuse committed by assistant Jason Handy, dialogue coach Brian Peck, and studio freelancer Ezel Channel, as well as the alleged abusive and misogynistic behavior of showrunner Dan Schneider.
Note: Read more about the disturbing history of child sex abuse in Hollywood from the courageous voices of actor Corey Feldman and Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Over the past year, Neha Wadekar and I unearthed a whistleblower's shocking claim of a cover-up of a child sex abuse scandal, a who's who of international do-good financiers, and a for-profit education chain operating mostly in Africa called Bridge International Academies. An investigator working for the World Bank was stymied and retaliated against. We got notes from a critical phone call between World Bank officials and company executives showing a plan to "neutralize Adler" – the lead internal investigator who had uncovered the allegations – and to slow down the process. "Time matters," as one person on the call put it. "Need to delay until Series F." (That's a name for a financing round.) Following our reporting, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Peter Welch, D-Vt., sent multiple letters to the World Bank, warning the new president that how he responded to the scandal would be used by Congress as a proxy for his broader seriousness about reforming the bank. "We view the Bridge case as a litmus test for the conversation currently taking place around IFC's responsibility to remedy social and environmental harm caused by its projects, especially those where IFC is not following its own policies," the senators wrote. Bridge International Academies was backed by the World Bank's IFC, as well as prominent Silicon Valley and venture capital leaders, including private funds linked to Bill Ackman, Mark Zuckerberg, and Pierre Omidyar.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Several prominent Hollywood actors wrote letters of support for Brian Peck, the Nickelodeon dialogue coach convicted of child sexual abuse in 2004. In the Investigation Discovery documentary series "Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV," former "Drake & Josh" star Drake Bell accuses Peck of sexually assaulting him when he was 15, for the first time identifying himself as the victim at the center of the case. Peck was arrested in 2003 and the following year pleaded no contest to two child sexual abuse charges. But the documentary's fourth episode discusses Bell's surprise that Peck still received support in Hollywood after he was convicted. Before Peck was sentenced in 2004, several famous actors wrote letters of support for him, including James Marsden, 50, and Taran Killam, 41. In "Quiet on Set," Bell alleges that Peck, a dialogue coach on "The Amanda Show," subjected him to "extensive" and "brutal" sexual abuse. He also describes being "shocked" when he went to court for Peck's sentencing and found his "entire side of the courtroom was full" with supporters, noting there were "definitely some recognizable faces." During the sentencing, Bell ... made a statement to those supporting him. "I looked at all of them and I just said, 'How dare you?'" Bell recalled. "I said, 'You will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person, and I will forever have the memory of the person you're defending violating me.'"
Note: Brian Peck was charged with 11 counts of child sex abuse. Explore our archive of revealing reports from reliable media sources on high-level pedophilia and sexual abuse.
Widespread sexual abuse of children in the entertainment industry must be urgently stamped out, an independent UN expert told the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, presenting hard-hitting findings and recommendations on how to end the scourge. "The sexual abuse and the exploitation of children within the entertainment industry resulting from unethical systems, structures, practices or abuse of power and authority is widespread," said Mama Fatima Singhateh, the UN Special Rapporteur on sale and sexual exploitation of children. Child performers in the entertainment industry are exposed to sexualized, violent and aggressive environments that are unsafe for their integral development and in which they can be exposed to the consumption of addictive substances, she said the report. The Special Rapporteur found that predatory sexual behaviour, including grooming, was accepted as the norm in the entertainment industry. Moreover, perpetrators often faced no repercussions for unlawfully exercising power and authority over young and aspiring child performers. "Abusive work conditions and portrayal of sexual abuse and exploitation of children in various entertainment platforms ... objectify and instrumentalise children," Ms. Singhateh said. "Victims and survivors have been met with silence, non-acknowledgement, lack of investigation, duress, intimidation or non-availability of reparation measures."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Dr. Phil called the migrant crisis at the southern border "out of control" during on appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast – blasting the Biden administration for "paying money to take these children and sell them into sex slavery." Phil McGraw, the former TV host, shared video footage of a conversation that he had with Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, during Tuesday's episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience." Judd told McGraw that US border authorities no longer had rapid DNA testing kits due to the massive influx of migrants that have poured into the country from Mexico. McGraw speculated that the lack of DNA testing could lead to minors being linked up with traffickers. "They come in with these addresses written on their bodies, written on their arm and we call up there and say, â€Do you know so and so?' â€Yes, we're waiting for them.' â€Okay, they'll be on a plane or a bus'." McGraw lashed out at President Biden and his administration for what he perceives as lax enforcement of immigration laws. "This is a weird thing they are doing. They're just letting people come in, and the Red Cross and different groups are giving people maps, showing them how to do it, and encouraging it," McGraw said. McGraw praised Texas for deploying agents to the border with Mexico. He said state law enforcement is a greater deterrent of illegal immigration than Customs and Border Protection.
Note: Watch a concerning interview with an investigative journalist exposing who's behind the large government-funded facilities housing thousands of undocumented children. A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Aaron Stevenson is trying to stop the facilitation of child trafficking at the US border. Watch a 23-min video of his experience with this deeply concerning issue, including his investigation into a common pattern of criminals (many of them sex traffickers) across the world who become sponsors for unaccompanied children. Worst off, when he tried to track down who was monitoring and vetting the sponsors, he couldn't find any information about it. According to a report by The Center for Public Integrity, thousands have disappeared from sponsors' homes after the federal government placed them there. Why is this not being talked about on a mainstream level?
764 has been responsible for horrific abuse and blackmail across the globe. It's a network of online communities using several social media platforms (primarily Telegram, where the recruitment and spread of content occur, and Discord, where the actual abuse and grooming take place). The engine behind this nightmare factory is sextortion, a form of blackmail that's becoming increasingly prevalent. It refers to a predator convincing a victim to send sexually explicit images of themselves, and then using that to bend the victim to their will–this most commonly involves money but can, for instance, involve threatening to send pictures to the victim's parents if they don't cut themselves. In many cases, these demands involve the creation of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, and "hurtcore" content, which focuses on the non-simulated infliction of pain and humiliation on children, typically toddlers. The members of 764 boast that they have left thousands of children traumatized. [Discord] removed 37,000 accounts for child safety in the last quarter of 2022; that number exploded to 116,000 in the final quarter of 2023. The FBI said that from October 2021 to March 2023 it received over 13,000 reports of sextortion of minors, which led to "at least 20 suicides." There are also tools like Take It Down, which youths can anonymously use to aid them in removing content that is being used to abuse them. The tool works by issuing a unique digital fingerprint to content, which platforms can use to track the image and take it down. This can be done without informing a parent or law enforcement or giving any sort of personal information.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and mind control from reliable major media sources.
Victoria Hill never quite understood how she could be so different from her father – in looks and in temperament. Worried about a health issue, and puzzled because neither of her parents had suffered any of the symptoms, Hill purchased a DNA testing kit from 23andMe a few years ago and sent her DNA to the genomics company. What should have been a routine quest to learn more about herself turned into a shocking revelation that she had many more siblings than just the brother she grew up with – the count now stands at 22. Some of them reached out to her and dropped more bombshells: Hill's biological father was not the man she grew up with but a fertility doctor who had been helping her mother conceive using donated sperm. That doctor, Burton Caldwell, a sibling told her, had used his own sperm to inseminate her mother, allegedly without her consent. Hill's story appears to represent one of the most extreme cases to date of fertility fraud in which fertility doctors have misled their female patients and their families by secretly using their own sperm instead of that of a donor. A CNN investigation into fertility fraud nationwide found that most states, including Connecticut, have no laws against it. More than 30 doctors around the country have been caught or accused of covertly using their own sperm to impregnate their patients, CNN has confirmed; advocates say they know of at least 80. No doctors have yet been criminally charged for the behavior.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse by doctors from reliable major media sources.
Despite its long history as part of conflicts, sexual violence is often not reported because of the trauma and shame it brings to survivors, their families and their wider communities. There has also been reticence among various authorities to speak out. Only in modern times, in the 1990s when wars broke out in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, did the United Nations begin to recognize sexual violence as ... a category of war crime. The specific term "conflict-related sexual violence," or CRSV, was first introduced in 2000 when the United Nations Security Council issued a resolution that launched the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. The U.N. defined the term as "rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict." [CRSV] is widespread and is used as a tactic of war to assert dominance and power. "It can be just as traumatizing to see your daughter, your sister or your parents being raped in front of you," says [Dr. Ranit] Mishori. "Or you're forced to strip naked in front of soldiers or in the city square. People often carry this trauma without knowing it's an international crime and minimize what happened to them." For conflict resolution and peace building to be successful, survivors need to be included in the process. For some countries this method has already started to work. [In Colombia], they have built women into the peace process. It's not perfect – no peace is perfect – but it is progressive and it is intentional, and that is important. Intentional peace building must be inclusive of survivors of this form of violence.
Note: The public receives censored and sanitized versions of war from the government and the media. Yet in reality, unethical violations of domestic and international human rights law are common and often kept hidden during wartime. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Internal US Bureau of Prison (BOP) documents obtained by The Grayzone under Freedom of Information laws raise extremely serious questions about whether Jeffrey Epstein's alleged first suicide attempt on July 23, 2019 in fact happened, and suggest the Bureau distorted evidence to attribute his death to suicide before his autopsy had even been completed. Officially, Epstein was found to have died in his cell at New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019, with a medical examiner ruling at the time that he had taken his own life by hanging. The ruling was aggressively contested by Epstein's associates and widely disbelieved. Epstein's legal team publicly declared available evidence on his death was "far more consistent" with murder. On August 9 ... regular checks on [Epstein] ceased. Three CCTV cameras nearby apparently malfunctioned. Two on-duty guards fabricated records to hide how they allegedly flouted their legal duties to surf the internet. And the next day, the prison's most infamous inmate was dead. In the immediate wake of Epstein's death ... BOP suicide prevention coordinator Robert Nagle visited the Metropolitan Correctional Center to initiate a "psychological reconstruction" of Epstein's last moments. His resultant report recorded that a video of the "significant incident" was confiscated by the FBI before his review began. He was also prohibited from conducting formal interviews with prison staff.
Note: Many questions remain unanswered regarding Epstein's death. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.
The New Mexico attorney general, RaĂşl Torrez, who has launched legal action against Meta for child trafficking on its platforms, says he believes the social media company is the "largest marketplace for predators and paedophiles globally". The lawsuit claims that Meta allows and fails to detect the trafficking of children and "enabled adults to find, message and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos", concluding that "Meta's conduct is not only unacceptable; it is unlawful". Torrez says that he has been shocked by the findings of his team's investigations into online child sexual exploitation on Meta's platforms. Internal company documents obtained by the attorney general's office as part of its investigation have also revealed that the company estimates about 100,000 children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment each day. The idea of the lawsuit came to [Torrez] after reading media coverage of Meta's role in child sexual exploitation, including a Guardian investigation that it was failing to report or detect the use of Facebook and Instagram for child trafficking. If it progresses, the New Mexico lawsuit is expected to take years to conclude. Torrez wants his lawsuit to provide a medium to usher in new regulations. "Fundamentally, we're trying to get Meta to change how it does business and prioritise the safety of its users, particularly children."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Over the past week thousands of pages of court documents relating to late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have been made public after US judge Loretta Preska ordered the release of filings in a lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre against Ghislaine Maxwell. The documents named scores of prominent figures including, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Victoria's Secret boss Les Wexner. Being identified through the court documents does not mean that the individual was involved in or aware of any wrongdoing by Epstein. The final batch of documents, released on Tuesday, included depositions from Ms Giuffre, Maxwell and Epstein. In Epstein's deposition, he was questioned about his campaign of abuse of young and underage girls. He pleaded the Fifth over 1,000 times. In Maxwell's deposition, she was confronted with disturbing messages left for Epstein – one of which referenced what appeared to be code for procuring an underage Russian girl for Epstein. "She is two times eight years old. Not blond. Lessons are free and you can have your first today if you call," it read.
Note: Read about the new evidence suggesting Epstein ran a sex blackmail operation for intelligence agencies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents have described bombshell allegations about sex tapes involving Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson. In emails sent by Epstein victim Sarah Ransome – sections of which were included as exhibits in one of the filings unsealed on Monday – she said that an unnamed friend "had sexual intercourse with Clinton, Prince Andrew and Richard Branson" and that these encounters had been filmed by Epstein and that she herself had later seen the sex tapes. In the messages, Ms Ransome said that her friend later came forward to report what happened "with Epstein, Clinton, Branson and Prince Andrew" to the police in 2008 but said that "nothing was done" and "she was made to feel like a dirty whore and a liar". A couple of months later, her friend was allegedly "approached by Special Agents Forces Men sent directly by Hilary [sic] Clinton herself, in order to protect her presidential campaign in 2008", Ms Ransome claimed. Ms Ransome went on to allege that the friend was given a "substantial" payout directly from the Clinton Foundation "to keep her quiet". She alleged that if her friend was to break the agreement to stay quiet, "she is dead". The woman also allegedly tried to sue Epstein for damages but was "severely bullied and threatened" by his attorney, Mr Dershowitz – a man who she claimed "she also had sexual relations with and who was also heavily involved in Epstein's paedophile ring".
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
Hundreds of pages of sealed records related to Jeffrey Epstein were made public on Wednesday, revealing previously unknown details about the late accused sex trafficker. Previously, the documents had been part of Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre's 2015 civil case against Ghislaine Maxwell. (Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking in 2022 and is currently serving a 20-year sentence. Epstein was facing 45 years in prison for his alleged crimes, but he was found hanged in his Manhattan prison cell in August 2019.) Bill Clinton was friends with Epstein for years, and he was widely speculated to be one of the high-profile figures who would appear in the documents. In a transcript of a deposition given by Epstein accuser Johanna Sjoberg, she said Epstein once told her that Clinton "likes them young, referring to girls." In February 2022, Prince Andrew reached a settlement with Giuffre over accusations that he'd sexually abused her numerous times when she was still a minor. He denied the allegations, but was officially stripped of his royal and military titles. Alan Dershowitz, Epstein's former attorney who helped him clinch the 2008 "sweetheart deal" in which he avoided prosecution for sex crimes against minors, also plays a big role in the unsealed documents. According to testimony from Epstein's former household staff, Dershowitz visited Epstein's Florida home "very often," allegedly going there by himself and spending time "in the presence of young girls."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
While nobody has offered hard evidence that intelligence agencies, and in particular the CIA or Mossad, were directly involved in Epstein and [Ghislaine] Maxwell's blackmailing of public figures, many of the journalists who investigated the Epstein case have concluded that they were running what is known in the intelligence community as a "honeypot" or "honeytrap" aimed at using sex to blackmail people. The current director of the Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns, had scheduled three meetings with Epstein in 2014. Epstein's private calendar showed that he had dozens of meetings with Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Meetings with many other wealthy, well-connected individuals occurred years after Epstein became a convicted sex offender. Reporter Vicky Ward ... wrote a story about the Justice Department's 2007 "non-prosecution agreement" with Epstein. Alexander Acosta was the U.S. Attorney for South Florida who arranged the lenient sentence. "I was told Epstein 'belonged to intelligence' and to leave it alone," Acosta said. In addition to his possible ties to American intelligence, Epstein may have also been connected to the Israeli Mossad. A former Israeli spy, Ari Ben-Menashe, said he was Robert Maxwell's "handler" and claimed to have introduced Epstein to Mossad. "They were agents of the Israeli Intelligence Services," said Ben-Menashe. The CIA has a long record of using sexual blackmail. In 1975, the Washington Post reported that for years, the CIA had "operated love traps in New York City and San Francisco, where foreign diplomats were lured by prostitutes in the pay of the CIA ...Through hidden one-way mirrors, CIA agents filmed the sexual adventures and later tried to blackmail the victims into becoming informants."
Note: Read more about former Israeli spy Ari Ben-Menashe's claims that Epstein was running a sexual blackmail operation on behalf of Israeli military intelligence. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
Court documents made public on Wednesday disclosed the names of dozens of powerful men with alleged connections to convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein who died by suicide in 2019. Federal Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan unsealed the documents, revealing the names of numerous individuals described in a 2015 civil lawsuit as associates, affiliates or victims of Epstein. The documents include references to former Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, the magician David Copperfield, Prince Andrew, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, actor Kevin Spacey, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, the late New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Vice President Al Gore, among others. The fact that people were named in these documents doesn't mean any of them face allegations or evidence of wrongdoing. Federal prosecutors say Epstein – who worked for decades as a private financier for a secretive list of wealthy clients – also operated an underage sex-trafficking ring based in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. Epstein allegedly developed a scheme to identify and exploit "dozens" of vulnerable girls and young women, some as young as 14 years old, beginning around 1994 and continuing at least until 2004. Some of his victims later claimed in civil lawsuits that Epstein instructed them to have sex with a who's-who of powerful men. Authorities in Florida first investigated Epstein for alleged sexual activity involving minors as early as 2005.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
Three people have been arrested in connection with operating high-end brothels in Virginia and the Boston area that served an exclusive clientele of elected officials, military officers, government contractors with security clearances and myriad other professionals, according to federal investigators. Since at least July 2020, prosecutors allege that Han Lee, 41, James Lee, 68, and Junmyung Lee, 30, ran brothels that advertised primarily Asian women under the guise that they were nude models selling their services to professional photographers. The brothels' clients, which prosecutors allege could number in the hundreds, also included tech and pharmaceutical executives, doctors, professors, lawyers, scientists and accountants. The allegations mirror a sex service that for 13 years catered to Washington's political elite, including a sitting senator. Known as the D.C. Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey was convicted of running that operation in 2008. Records of her ring included the names of 815 clients, and in 2016, Palfrey's former lawyer said her phone records "could be relevant" to the presidential election. A judge later blocked the release of those records. To make an appointment with a brothel, a prospective client had to go through a verification process that included filling out a form with their name, emails, phone numbers, employers and a reference, court filings alleged. They also had to submit a photo of themselves and credit card information.
Note: The D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey mentioned above reportedly hung herself in 2008. More recently, Jeffrey Epstein reportedly hung himself in a jail cell while awaiting trial for running a child sex ring involving powerful people. In both cases, the identities of elite sex buyers were shielded from public scrutiny by authorities. Learn about other major sexual abuse scandal cover-ups that took place in the highest levels of government.
Three people have been arrested and charged in connection with running "high-end brothels" in the Boston area and Northern Virginia. Prosecutors said the Massachusetts brothels were in Cambridge and Watertown, and the Virginia locations were in Fairfax and Tysons, primarily with Asian women in both states. The defendants are Han Lee, 41, of Cambridge, Massachusetts; Junmyung Lee, 30, of Dedham, Massachusetts; and James Lee, 68, of Torrance, California. All three were charged with conspiracy to coerce and entice to travel to engage in illegal sexual activity. "These customers spanned a wide array of different professional disciplines," the case agent said in court documents. "Some of these professional disciplines included, but are not limited to, politicians, pharmaceutical executives, doctors, military officers, government contractors that possess security clearances, professors, lawyers, business executives, technology company executives, scientists, accountants, retail employees, and students." Investigators also said that James Lee made deposits in his personal and business bank accounts since January 2020 that totaled $4.5 million. More than $550,000 of Covid relief funds, the agent wrote, were among those deposits. Investigators acquired records from the Small Business Administration that ... show James Lee applied for these loans for various businesses, including one listed as E.P.A. Green Services, and potentially under different identities.
Note: This case echoes the case of D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who ran a prostitution ring catering to elite clients. Jeane reportedly hung herself before all of the details of her operation could come out. Learn about other major sexual abuse scandal cover-ups that took place in the highest levels of government.
Meta's top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ignored warnings for years about harms to teens on its platforms such as Instagram, a company whistleblower told a Senate subcommittee. Meta instead fosters a culture of "see no evil, hear no evil" that overlooks evidence of harm internally while publicly presenting carefully crafted metrics to downplay the issue, said Arturo Bejar, an ex-Facebook engineering director and consultant. Bejar is the latest former insider to level public allegations that the tech giant knowingly turns a blind eye to problems that its policies and technology cannot cheaply or easily address. [Bejar] first became motivated to study the issue because of unwanted sexual advances his own 14-year-old daughter received from strangers on Instagram. "It is unacceptable that a 13-year-old girl gets propositioned on social media," Bejar testified, citing a statistic from his research finding that more than 25% of 13-to-15-year-olds have reported receiving unwanted sexual advances on Instagram. Lawmakers on Tuesday ripped into the social media giant. "They hid from this committee and all of Congress evidence of the harms that they knew was credible," said ... Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Missouri Republican Josh Hawley blasted Big Tech companies for spending "gobs" of money ... to thwart bills that would restrict the industry's power. He also accused Meta of "cooking the books" on data related to mental health harms.
Note: Read how Instagram connects a vast pedophile network. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
Lynn and Paul were sitting in their Seattle home one night earlier this year when their son, Michael, a 17-year-old high school football player, burst into the room and made a beeline for his mom's purse. "I'm being blackmailed," he said. Michael had fallen prey to what online safety and law enforcement experts call financial sextortion, in which predators befriend victims online under false pretenses, entice them to send incriminating photos and then demand payment under threat that they'll expose the photos to family and friends. The number of sextortion cases targeting young people "has exploded in the past couple of years," with teen boys being specific targets, said Lauren Coffren, executive director of the Exploited Children Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC, which serves as a clearinghouse for records of abuse, received more than 10,000 tips of financial sextortion of minors, primarily boys, in 2022 from the public as well as from electronic service providers, such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, which are required by law to report cases. By the end of July 2023, NCMEC had already received more than 12,500 reports. The repercussions of the abuse are devastating: At least a dozen boys died by suicide in 2022, after they were blackmailed, according to the FBI. Meanwhile, social media companies are playing catch up to stem the tidal wave of sextortion scams targeting children.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
When 23-year-old Mari walked out of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention in 2022, she felt invisible. Her time inside ICE's Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, between December 2021 and January 2022, left a deep mark on her self-worth. A year and a half later, it continues to wake her up in the middle of the night, shivering and in tears. Mari is not her real name. We're using it to protect her identity. She is one of five women who complained of being sexually assaulted by a male nurse who worked at Stewart. There is a pattern of sexual abuse complaints in ICE detention. Official records and testimonies obtained by Futuro Investigates ... show disturbing details of 308 sexual assault and sexual abuse complaints filed by immigrants detained in ICE facilities nationwide between 2015 and 2021. The data obtained by Futuro Investigates reveals a systemic pattern of abuse by detention officers, contractual guards, and ICE employees, accused of sexually assaulting the individuals they are meant to protect. According to the obtained data, more than half of all abuse allegations made in the past six years were directed against staff. At least five complaints in the records allege that ICE employees threatened them with deportation. Over the past two years, Futuro Investigates interviewed at least a dozen immigrants about their time in detention across the country. Read the original investigation here.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Corey Feldman says that the rejection of his self-financed documentary (My) Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys, in which he shared allegations of the abuse that he and his late friend, Corey Haim endured as children, left him with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). [The film] documents the sexual abuse Feldman and Haim allegedly suffered as child actors in the 1980s. Then known as "The Two Coreys," the actors starred in movies including The Goonies, Stand by Me, The Lost Boys, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. Feldman publicly named Jon Grissom, Alphy Hoffman and Marty Weiss as his alleged abusers in 2017. In the documentary, Feldman alleged that Haim told him that he was sexually assaulted by Charlie Sheen while they were filming the movie Lucas in 1986 when Haim was 13. Back in 2013, journalist Barbara Walters accused Feldman of "damaging an entire industry" with his abuse allegations. "The people that did this to both me and Corey [Haim] are still working, are still out there. They're some of the richest, most powerful people in this business," Feldman explained. "And they do not want me saying what I'm saying right now." Feldman and Haim had claimed that they were "passed around to pedophiles," adding: "They would throw these parties where you'd walk in and it would be mostly kids and there would be a handful of adult men. They would also be at the film awards and children's charity functions."
Note: Explore our archive of revealing reports from reliable media sources on high-level pedophilia and sexual abuse.
Instagram, the popular social-media site owned by Platforms, helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content, according to investigations by The Wall Street Journal and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Instagram doesn't merely host these activities. Its algorithms promote them. Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share niche interests. Certain accounts invite buyers to commission specific acts. Some menus include prices for videos of children harming themselves and "imagery of the minor performing sexual acts with animals." At the right price, children are available for in-person "meet ups." Current and former Meta employees who have worked on Instagram child-safety initiatives estimate the number of accounts that exist primarily to follow such content is in the high hundreds of thousands, if not millions. In 2022, the [National Center for Missing & Exploited Children] received 31.9 million reports of child pornography ... up 47% from two years earlier. Meta accounted for 85% of the child pornography reports filed to the center, including some 5 million from Instagram. Instagram has permitted users to search for terms that its own algorithms know may be associated with illegal material. In such cases, a pop-up screen for users warned that "These results may contain images of child sexual abuse."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Maya Jones* was only 13 when she first walked through the door of Courtney's House, a drop-in centre for victims of child sex trafficking. When she was 12, she had started receiving direct messages on Instagram from a man she didn't know. She decided to meet him in person. Then came his next request: "Can you help me make some money?" According to Frundt, Maya explained that the man asked her to pose naked for photos, and to give him her Instagram password so that he could upload the photos to her profile. Frundt says Maya told her that the man, who was now calling himself a pimp, was using her Instagram profile to advertise her for sex. The internet is used by human traffickers as "digital hunting fields", allowing them access to both customers and potential victims, with children being targeted by traffickers on social media platforms. The biggest of these, Facebook, is owned by Meta, the tech giant whose platforms, which also include Instagram, are used by more than 3 billion people. In 2020, according to a report by US-based not-for-profit the Human Trafficking Institute, Facebook was the platform most used to groom and recruit children by sex traffickers (65%), based on an analysis of 105 federal child sex trafficking cases that year. The HTI analysis ranked Instagram second most prevalent, with Snapchat third. While Meta says it is doing all it can, we have seen evidence that suggests it is failing to report or even detect the full extent of what is happening.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A whistleblower who viewed first-hand what she testified is a "sophisticated network" of child migrant smuggling into forced labor and other forms of slavery is calling on Congress to act to crack down on the U.S. role in that network. The hearing, "The Biden Border Crisis: Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children," was held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security and Enforcement and included Health and Human Services (HHS) whistleblower Tara Lee Rodas as a witness. Rodas, who was detailed with HHS at an Emergency Intake Site in Pomona, California, ... told lawmakers about what she experienced on the ground. "I thought I was going to help place children in loving homes. Instead, I discovered that children are being trafficked through a sophisticated network that begins with recruiting in their home country, smuggled to the U.S. border, and ends when [Office of Refugee Resettlement] delivers a child to a sponsor – some sponsors are ... members of Transnational Criminal Organizations. Some sponsors view children as commodities," Rodas said. The number of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) who arrive at the border has swelled from 33,239 in fiscal year 2020 to more than ... 152,000 in fiscal year 2022. "The U.S. government has become the middleman in a large scale, multibillion-dollar child trafficking operation that is run by bad actors seeking to profit off of the lives of children," Rodas said.
Note: Why is this horrific issue not being discussed on a significant mainstream level? According to a report by The Center for Public Integrity, thousands have disappeared from sponsors' homes after the federal government placed them there. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A US Virgin Islands investigations into the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's ties to an American bank issued subpoenas to four wealthy business leaders on Friday, extending its reach into the highest echelons of tech, hospitality and finance. The subpoenas issued to the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Hyatt Hotels chairperson Thomas Pritzker, American-Canadian businessman Mortimer Zuckerman and former CAA talent agency chairperson Michael Ovitz are crafted to gather more information about Epstein's relationship with JPMorgan Chase. The Virgin Islands' lawsuit against JP Morgan, the world's largest bank in terms of assets, alleges that the institution "facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of – and were in fact part of – a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude of dozens of women and girls in and beyond the Virgin Islands". "Human trafficking was the principal business of the accounts Epstein maintained at JP Morgan," it said. The disgraced financier ... owned two private islands – Little Saint James, or "Epstein Island", and Great Saint James – in the American territory, and authorities there have secured a $105m settlement from his estate. The demand for any communications and documents related to the bank and Epstein from four of the wealthiest people in the US comes days after it was reported that Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan's chairperson and chief executive, is expected to be deposed in the case.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring from reliable major media sources.
Florida's statewide prosecutor Thursday explicitly accused federal immigration authorities of "human trafficking" in their oversight of unaccompanied migrant children in the state. The Statewide Prosecutors' Office released an acerbic, 46-page grand jury report that denounces the federal Department of Homeland Security's Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), for leaving vulnerable migrant children with unvetted caregivers, or "sponsors" – and then abdicating all oversight of their welfare. The report suggests the policy amounts to criminal child neglect. The Statewide Grand Jury, which is an arm of Attorney General Ashley Moody's office, also accuses the federal government of covering up its alleged misdeeds. [Gov. Ron] DeSantis asked the state Supreme Court to empanel a statewide grand jury to investigate undocumented migrants last June. "The purpose of the grand jury will be to investigate individuals and organizations that are actively working with foreign nationals, drug cartels and coyotes to illegally smuggle minors, some as young as 2 years old, across the border," DeSantis said. By "incentivizing" illegal migration, the grand jury wrote, the Biden administration has encouraged children "to undertake and/or be subjected to a harrowing trek to our border. "This process exposes children to horrifying health conditions, constant criminal threat, labor and sex trafficking, robbery, rape, and other experiences not done justice by mere words," grand jurors added.
Note: A Department of Homeland Security whistleblower Aaron Stevenson is trying to stop the facilitation of child trafficking at the US border. Watch a 23-min video of his experience with this deeply concerning issue, including his investigation into a common pattern of criminals (many of them sex traffickers) across the world who become sponsors for unaccompanied children. Worst off, when he tried to track down who was monitoring and vetting the sponsors, he couldn't find any information about it. According to a report by The Center for Public Integrity, thousands have disappeared from sponsors' homes after the federal government placed them there. Why is this not being talked about on a mainstream level? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Bridge International Academies ... grew into a chain of schools providing a homogeneous curriculum developed by researchers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to hundreds of thousands of students in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Liberia, and India. Today, it is the largest for-profit primary education chain in the world. The company is financed today by some of the highest-profile do-good donors in the game – or rather, the for-profit arms of their networks. In March 2022, the World Bank's financing arm – the International Finance Corporation – quietly divested from NewGlobe, the parent company of Bridge International. A series of abuse and neglect allegations in Kenya ... had caught the eye of a Nairobi-based human rights group, the East African Centre for Human Rights, or EACHRights, as well as the internal watchdog at the World Bank, known as the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, or CAO. "I find it deeply suspect that CAO uncovers explosive child sexual abuse allegations in the course of a compliance investigation and shortly thereafter, the World Bank president unexpectedly terminates the head of the CAO," said one well-placed civil society representative whose clients have complaints before the CAO. "Meanwhile, three years after the child sexual abuse allegations came to light, the CAO has still not produced an investigation report." It's very sad, because the CAO has always been the kind of beacon of accountability of any kind of institution, public or private. No more.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The now-former mayor of College Park, Maryland, was arrested on child pornography charges Thursday morning, adding to a long list of mayors accused of preying on young children. Patrick Wojahn, 47, is charged with 40 counts of possession of child exploitative material and 16 counts of distribution of child exploitative material. Wojahn's case isn't an unusual one. At least 12 additional then-current and former mayors have been accused of child sex crimes since 2021, ranging from child pornography to sexual assault. Phil Briggs, the mayor of Spencerville, Ohio, resigned last month after he was arrested for allegedly secretly recording his girlfriend's teenage daughters while they undressed. Ted Tomaszewski, the former mayor of Mansfield Township, New Jersey, was charged in January with sexual assault, luring and child endangerment. He is accused of engaging in multiple sex acts with a 15-year-old. Carl Johnson, the former mayor of West Bountiful, Utah, and a former bishop for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was charged in September 2022 with sexually abusing three girls under the age of 13. He pleaded not guilty to seven counts of aggravated abuse of a child. An earlier Fox News Digital analysis found that at least 349 public school educators were arrested on child sex-related crimes spanning nearly every state in the country last year, averaging to almost an arrest every day on crimes ranging from grooming to child porn to raping students.
Note: Why is Fox News the only major media outlet covering this shocking issue? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
In the 1960s, 15-year-old Olivia Hussey and 16-year-old Leonard Whiting secured career-making roles in a film that retells the iconic love story of "Romeo and Juliet," the first film to use actors that were similar in age to the characters in the play. They were legally children when they were filmed in the nude together; the performance can now be found on sites meant for pornography. Fifty-five years later, Hussey, now 71, and Whiting, now 72, are suing Paramount Pictures for child abuse. They claim that "Romeo and Juliet" director Franco Zefirelli assured the actors that they would be wearing flesh colored garments and would not be physically nude in the scene. This allegedly changed in the last days of filming when Zefirelli asked the actors to do the scene fully nude with makeup, according to the lawsuit. [Judy] Garland was forced to take barbiturates and other drugs and live on a death-defying diet while working with the studio. Garland wrote in an unpublished autobiography that she was constantly molested behind the scenes by older men, including Louis B. Mayer, the producer and cofounder of MGM. Alyson Stoner was made to act out a rape scene when she was only 6 years old. "At 6 years old, I enter a sterile white room where a stranger stands apathetically behind a camcorder on a tripod. On cue, I perform the scene. This morning, I'm being kidnapped and raped," Stoner wrote. She developed eating disorders – among other health problems – due to stress.
Note: Read more about the disturbing history of child sex abuse in Hollywood from the courageous voices of actor Corey Feldman and Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood. Explore our archive of revealing reports from reliable media sources on high-level pedophilia and sexual abuse.
The former attorney general for the Virgin Islands, who recently secured a $105 million settlement from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein, was recently fired following months of friction between her and the U.S. territory's governor over the handling of the investigation into the disgraced financier, according to people briefed on the matter. Denise N. George, the former official, was dismissed by Albert Bryan Jr., the governor of the Virgin Islands, on New Year's Eve, four days after her office sued JPMorgan Chase in federal court in Manhattan for its dealings with Mr. Epstein, who died of an apparent suicide in 2019 while in federal custody. The timing of Ms. George's firing fueled media speculation in the Virgin Islands and beyond that the suit against JPMorgan was the immediate cause. In late December, Ms. George's office sued JPMorgan in federal court in Manhattan, claiming that bank was derelict in providing banking services to Mr. Epstein during the time he was charged with sexually abusing teenage girls and young women at Little St. James and elsewhere in the U.S. The lawsuit accused JPMorgan of facilitating and concealing wire and cash transactions that should have raised suspicions that Mr. Epstein was engaging in the sexual trafficking of teen girls and young women. The lawsuit contends the bank essentially turned a "blind eye" to Mr. Epstein's conduct because it was profitable. JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, was Mr. Epstein's primary banker from the late 1990s to 2013.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on banking corruption and Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring from reliable major media sources.
The government of the U.S. Virgin Islands alleges in a lawsuit filed this week that JPMorgan Chase "turned a blind eye" to evidence that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein used the bank to facilitate sex-trafficking activities on Little St. James, the private island he owned in the territory until his 2019 suicide. In a more than 100-page complaint filed by U.S.V.I. Attorney General Denise George in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan on Tuesday, the territory alleges that JPMorgan failed to report Epstein's suspicious activities and provided the financier with services reserved for high-wealth clients after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution in Palm Beach, Fla. The complaint says the territory's Department of Justice investigation "revealed that JP Morgan knowingly, negligently, and unlawfully provided and pulled the levers through which recruiters and victims were paid and was indispensable to the operation and concealment of the Epstein trafficking enterprise." It accused the bank of ignoring evidence for "more than a decade because of Epstein's own financial footprint, and because of the deals and clients that Epstein brought and promised to bring to the bank." "These decisions were advocated and approved at the senior levels of JP Morgan," it said. The bank allegedly "facilitated and concealed wire and cash transactions that raised suspicion of – and were in fact part of – a criminal enterprise whose currency was the sexual servitude of dozens of women and girls," according to the complaint.
Note: Just days after filing the lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase, the district attorney of US Virgin Islands was fired. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring from reliable major media sources.
On New Year's Eve 2005, Justin Rose headed to Camp Lemonnier's cantina for celebratory $2.50 beers with his fellow Marines before heading back to his "hooch" around 1:30 a.m. Sometime after daybreak, Rose woke up to find someone stroking his penis. Disoriented for a moment, he lept down from his raised bunk and gave chase as a man dressed in red dashed out of his quarters and into another tent. He found [Jase Derek] Stanton, dressed in red, feigning sleep in his bed; Rose was certain Stanton was the attacker. So Rose did what he had been trained to do. He went to his team leader, a young corporal, and reported the assault. The first question he heard was: "Are you sure you're not making this up?" Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. servicewomen reports being sexually assaulted – a rate far higher than that of men. But sexual assault of men in the military is also widespread and vastly underreported. Each day, on average, more than 45 men in the armed forces are sexually assaulted, according to the latest Pentagon estimates. For women, it is 53 per day, according to a September 2022 Pentagon report that uses a new euphemism "unwanted sexual contact" as a "proxy measure for sexual assault." Nearly 40 percent of veterans who report to the Department of Veterans Affairs, or VA, that they have experienced military sexual trauma, or MST – sexual assault or sexual harassment – are men. 90 percent of men in the military did not report a sexual assault they experienced in 2021.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Scandals brought down Harvey Weinstein's movie studio and major opioid supplier Mallinckrodt. But their wealthy owners, directors and executives were granted lifetime immunity from related lawsuits in bankruptcy court – an overwhelmingly common tactic in major U.S. Chapter 11 cases, a Reuters review found. Such immunity grants have become a pervasive but little-understood feature of the U.S. bankruptcy system. The releases are now granted by judges in 9 of 10 major Chapter 11 cases. The lawsuit shields, requested by the company or organization in bankruptcy, are called "nondebtor" releases because they are bestowed on people and entities that never have to declare Chapter 11 themselves. The recipients effectively get the benefits of bankruptcy protection without the associated financial or reputational damage. Reuters ... examined 29 U.S. bankruptcies that were preceded by mass tort litigation against companies or other entities, many of which included allegations involving dangerous products or sexual abuse. The review found that about 1.2 million claimants in these cases have signed away their rights to sue related parties or face pressure to approve such releases in ongoing bankruptcy-court negotiations. The 29 bankruptcies included those of 14 Catholic dioceses or religious orders and the Boy Scouts of America amid lawsuits alleging child molestation; [and] the collapse of opioid suppliers Purdue Pharma LP and Mallinckrodt plc over their alleged roles in a deadly addiction epidemic.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Earlier this year, Kik Messenger user "heyyyydude1" was selling a stash of videos he'd amassed of child sexual abuse. One customer, who said he was a 35-year-old father of two, offered to buy 200 videos for $45. "How do I pay?" he asked. "Cash App," heyyyydude1 responded, sending over his payment details and a code for a Cash App referral fee. With each transaction, and many more disturbing videos sent, the seller was unknowingly providing a pile of evidence to an undercover agent with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's child exploitation unit. Current and former police, as well as nonprofits working directly with cops to fight child exploitation, say that such crimes are often happening via Cash App, which brings in billions in gross profit every year for Block, Inc., the Jack Dorsey-run payments giant formerly known as Square. They say that whether it's to pay for sex with a minor, to send children funds in return for nude images or to traffic a young adult victim, Cash App is often the payment tool of choice. Though it recently launched a Cash App for Teens feature, the company is conspicuously absent from collaborative efforts to fight abuse, failing to provide any tips to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), America's national clearing house for sexual abuse material found on tech platforms. Hundreds of pages of court filings describe cases where law enforcement said Cash App was used to either pay for sexualized images or sex with minors and adults.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Five years nearly to the day since the New York Times and the New Yorker published their explosive exposĂ©s on Harvey Weinstein and his myriad misdeeds – all of them leveraging his vaunted position in Hollywood to extract sex and force humiliation on hopeful actresses – Weinstein and several other men accused as part of the broader #MeToo movement are seeing the inside of a courtroom. Weinstein, who was already sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault in New York, now faces trial for similar crimes in California. Paul Haggis, who won an Oscar for directing the film Crash ... goes to trial next month in a civil suit filed by a film publicist who says he raped her. And Kevin Spacey is also facing a civil suit filed by actor Anthony Rapp, who says Spacey got on top of him and made a sexual advance when he was just 14 and Spacey was 26. All three men have a few things in common. They are (or were) among Hollywood's most powerful men. They are a tiny minority among men accused of assault as part of the #MeToo movement to actually see the inside of a courtroom. And they all demonstrate both the benefits and the limitations of the legal system adjudicating sexual assault claims. Is this justice? No, not for everyone; not even for most. It also probably doesn't give many feminists much pleasure to hear that men like Weinstein are now suffering the same cruelties and dehumanizing humiliations our criminal justice system has long leveled on more invisible men.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A U.S. senator is pressing the FBI for more information after a whistleblower alleged that an internal review found 665 FBI personnel have resigned or retired to avoid accountability in misconduct probes over the past two decades. The whistleblower told the office of Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley ... that the Justice Department launched the review of the FBI's disciplinary database in 2020 following an Associated Press investigation into sexual misconduct allegations involving at least six senior FBI officials. The follow-up review found 665 FBI employees, including 45 senior-level officials, resigned or retired between 2004 and 2020 following a misconduct probe but before a final disciplinary letter could be issued, according to a letter this week from Grassley to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland. It was not clear how many of those cases involved sexual misconduct. Grassley's office, which declined to make the whistleblower or underlying documents available to protect the person's identify, said that was the kind of information it was still seeking but estimated the number could be in the "hundreds." The AP investigation in December 2020 identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the prior five years ranging from unwanted touching and advances to coercion. It found that several senior FBI officials have avoided discipline – quietly transferring or retiring with full benefits – even after claims of sexual misconduct against them were substantiated.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
For decades, mallgoers, slightly confused teenage girls and horny teenage boys have wondered what secret this mysterious Victoria is hiding. The new three-part Hulu docuseries "Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons" explores these secrets and, well, they are less "she only wears thongs (wink)" and more "wait, was this brand just a lot of pink thongs covering up the very real exploitation of underage girls?" The business was sold to Les Wexner [in 1982]. With Victoria's Secret in about 100 stores across America, Les Wexner hired Jeffrey Epstein as an investment advisor. Then Wexner quite suddenly gave him power of attorney in 1991, the most expensive home in New York City in the mid-'90s and sold Epstein his private jet well below market value. That private jet became known in the press as the Lolita Express, aka the jet where Epstein is accused of taking underage girls to be abused and exploited. Epstein allegedly began describing himself to women he'd meet as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret models in 1993. Wexner claims he cut all ties with Epstein after his first arrest, and he would go on to publicly condemn Epstein after his death in 2019, but the documentary alleges that L Brands directly paid for Epstein's legal defense, which was never publicly reported. There [was] a reported instance where Epstein, while staying in the guest house on Wexner's property, held a woman hostage for 12 hours after he and Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly assaulted her, leading her to call the police for help.
Note: Watch an eye-opening video on the top 10 shocking reveals of this documentary. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
MJ was just 5 years old, when her father admitted to his bishop that he was sexually abusing her. The father, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [of the Bisbee, Arizona ward], was in counseling with his bishop when he revealed the abuse. The bishop ... followed church policy and called what church officials have dubbed the "help line" for guidance. Lawyers for the church, who staff the help line ... told Bishop John Herrod not to call police or child welfare officials. Instead he kept the abuse secret. The Associated Press has obtained nearly 12,000 pages of sealed records from an unrelated child sex abuse lawsuit against the Mormon church in West Virginia. Families of survivors who filed the lawsuit said ... church leaders divert abuse accusations away from law enforcement and instead to church attorneys who may bury the problem, leaving victims in harm's way. "Child abuse festers and grows in secrecy," said [lawyer] Lynne Cadigan. Laws in more than 20 states [assert] that clergy who receive information about child neglect or sexual abuse during spiritual confessions "may withhold" that information from authorities ... under church doctrine. [Survivors and their families are trying to] change church policy so that any instance of child sexual abuse is immediately reported to civil authorities. Inaction by the church have raised ethical issues. "What aspect of your religious practice are you advancing if you don't report something like this?" [investigator Gerard Moretz] asked.
Note: To understand the scope of child sex abuse worldwide, learn about other major cover-ups in revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources. Furthermore, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse rings reach to the highest levels of government. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which also leads directly to the highest levels of government.
A resurfaced documentary is exposing a series of horrific accusations made by alleged victims of a 1988 child sex trafficking ring in 1988, who claim they were flown around the US to abused by high-ranking officials - alleging that FBI 'covered up' the shocking crimes. Back in the 1980s, several alleged victims claimed that a man named Lawrence King ran an underground club in Omaha, Nebraska, through which he, along with well-known politicians, businessmen, and media moguls, are said to have forced children as young as eight years old to have sex with them. In 1990, a Nebraska county grand jury concluded that the claims were a 'hoax,' and a federal grand jury later agreed. However, in 1993 ... alleged victims told documentary makers that the government forced them into silence by threatening those who spoke out, using scare tactics, and even murder. 'Obviously, the FBI was protecting something ... significant,' [lawyer John] DeCamp concluded. 'They were protecting some very prominent politicians, some very powerful and wealthy individuals associated with those politicians and the political system, up to and including the highest political people in this entire country. 'Every victim-witness who stepped forward in any way, or even was a potential witness that somebody heard about, has either been killed, put in jail under some theory or other, terrified or run out of the state, or discredited.'
Note: For an in-depth look at this disturbing crime ring, read The Franklin Cover-Up by John W. DeCamp or watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary Conspiracy of Silence. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
While Epstein's ties to former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, as well as Prince Andrew and Bill Gates, have been well publicized, his connection with [Les] Wexner flew under the radar until Epstein's 2019 arrest on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. For nearly two decades, Epstein was Wexner's personal money manager, but few people understood just how close the two were. The Ohio-born Leslie "Les" Wexner is the billionaire founder of L Brands Inc., the one-time parent company of The Limited, Bath & Body Works, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Victoria's Secret, the crown jewel of his retail holdings. Epstein was named the billionaire's power of attorney in 1991, which gave Epstein "unmitigated control over all of [Wexner's] assets," according to Washington Post reporter Sarah Ellison. He could sign checks, buy and sell property, and borrow money on Wexner's behalf. "There wasn't a part of Wexner's empire that Epstein didn't have access to and didn't have some ability to control," Ellison says in the docuseries. Anti-trafficking advocate Conchita Sarnoff makes the case that Epstein was able to "legally bring girls from all over the world into the United States under the guise of modeling thanks to his position as Wexner's financial advisor. The documentary details a culture of complicity at Victoria's Secret, which allowed Epstein to hide in plain sight with Wexner's help. For years, Wexner managed to keep his relationship with Epstein hidden from public view, but now people are looking for answers.
Note: Watch an eye-opening video on the top 10 shocking reveals of this Hulu documentary. For more along these lines, see the timeline of Epstein's case. You can also explore major cover-ups in high places in deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The new documentary-exposĂ© Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons [reveals] that the multibillion-dollar lingerie chain that marketed its models as the last word in hotness and glamour was a ruthless capitalist enterprise dogged by accusations of harassment, corruption and abuse. We meet old friends from the modern sexual abuse and violence documentary circuit. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, of course, but also Jean-Luc Brunel, whose predations against the girls and women he met as the head of Karin Models Agency and MC2 Model Management (financed, would you believe, by Epstein) were recently outlined in Sky documentary Scouting for Girls – alongside those of fellow agents John Casablancas, Claude Haddad and GĂ©rald Marie, the last of whom vehemently denies all sexual abuse allegations against him from several women. The new guy in the mix is Leslie Wexner, owner of the eponymous lingerie firm. He became acquainted with Epstein in the 1980s when Wexner needed an entrĂ© into New York society. It was Wexner who sold him the townhouse that would become infamous as the spycam site of his abusive operations, and who sold him the private jet that would become known as the "Lolita Express" as it ferried underage girls wherever Epstein and his fellow predators needed them to go. Wexner gave Epstein power of attorney over his entire estate – worth hundreds of millions of dollars – and didn't revoke it until 2007, well after Epstein's first arrest in 2006.
Note: Watch an eye-opening video on the top 10 shocking reveals of this documentary. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
On June 28, Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to recruit, groom and abuse underage girls. In Maxwell's defense, lawyer Bobbi C. Sternheim said that Ms. Maxwell's life had been clouded by two men: "her narcissistic, brutish father" Robert Maxwell, wealthy British media tycoon and former member of parliament, and "the controlling, demanding, manipulative" Jeffrey Epstein. What [Maxwell] could not say was that she was the one to take the fall for a sexual blackmail operation sponsored by Western intelligence agencies. That operation appears to have originated with her father Robert back in the 1980s. Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli intelligence official, claimed to have seen Jeffrey Epstein in Robert's office in the early 1980s. Robert was a long-time operative for Israeli intelligence. Ben-Menashe [said] that Epstein "was the simple idiot who was going around providing girls to all kinds of politicians in the United States. He was taking photos of politicians fucking fourteen year old girls. They would just blackmail people like this." Maxwell ... claims she has copies of everything that Epstein had and a secret stash of pedophile sex tapes that could implicate the world's most powerful and will try to use them to save herself. The flight logs from [Epstein's] Lolita Express reveal a "who's who" of early 1990s high society, including ... lawyer Alan Dershowitz, conservative billionaire David Koch; and politicians such as Tony Blair.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
"Victoria's Secret: Angels and Demons" [is a] fairly standard look at Wexner's business acumen in acquiring the lingerie outfit and transforming it into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, inspiring cultish devotion among employees while facing ever-escalating pressure to make the marketing more provocative. Yet Wexner's success also brought Epstein into his orbit, eventually leading to allegations that the latter leveraged his affiliation with the company as part of his predatory behavior. As for what Wexner might have known, the executive (who declined to be interviewed for the docuseries) and his representatives staunchly denied any awareness. The hardest-to-explain aspect of the story involve Wexner granting Epstein power of attorney over his assets. With so many projects devoted to the Epstein scandal, including docuseries from Investigation Discovery and Netflix, the emphasis on his role, while understandable, feels like well-trodden territory. Indeed, it tends to obscure insights having to do with Wexner's retail strategy and its broader implications -- turning something as mundane as underwear into a premium item, manufacturing in China to slash costs and from a cultural perspective, feeding unrealistic expectations about women's bodies with heavily photoshopped catalogue spreads. In the final chapter, however, director Matt Tyrnauer deftly weaves the pieces together, conveying how the key men behind Victoria's Secret were blind to the changes sweeping over society while allegedly engaging in their own questionable behavior.
Note: Watch an eye-opening video on the top 10 shocking reveals of this Hulu documentary. For more along these lines, see the timeline of Epstein's case. You can also explore major cover-ups in high places in deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Survivors of sexual assault in church settings and their advocates have been calling on churches for years to admit the extent of abuse in their midst and to implement reforms. In 2017 that movement acquired the hashtag #ChurchToo, derived from the wider #MeToo movement, which called out sexual predators in many sectors of society. In recent weeks #ChurchToo has seen an especially intense set of revelations across denominations and ministries, reaching vast audiences in headlines and on screen with a message that activists have long struggled to get across. "For us it's just confirmation of what we've been saying all these years," said Jimmy Hinton, an advocate for abuse survivors. "There is an absolute epidemic of abuse in the church, in religious spaces." Calls for reform will be prominent this week in Anaheim, California, when the Southern Baptist Convention holds its annual meeting following an outside report that concluded its leaders mishandled abuse cases and stonewalled victims. The May 22 report came out the same day an independent church in Indiana was facing its own reckoning. Moments after its pastor, John B. Lowe II, confessed to years of "adultery," longtime member Bobi Gephart took the microphone to tell the rest of the story: She was just 16 when it started, she said. Emily Joy Allison, whose abuse story launched the #ChurchToo movement, said the sexual ethic preached in many conservative churches – and the shame and silence it breeds – are part of the problem.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
More than 90 women who say they were sexually assaulted by Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor for U.S.A. Gymnastics who was convicted on state sexual abuse charges, filed lawsuits on Wednesday against the F.B.I. for its failure to investigate him when it received credible information about his crimes. The lawsuits come two weeks after the Justice Department decided not to prosecute two former F.B.I. agents accused of bungling the bureau's 2015 investigation into Mr. Nassar, allowing him to assault more than 70 girls and women for over a year before Michigan authorities arrested him. The agents were accused by the Justice Department's own watchdog of making false statements about the matter. In the fall, Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, testified to Congress that "there were people at the F.B.I. who had their chance to stop this monster back in 2015 and failed." The plaintiffs include the Olympic gymnastics gold medalists Simone Biles, Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney. "My fellow survivors and I were betrayed by every institution that was supposed to protect us – the U.S. Olympic Committee, U.S.A. Gymnastics, the F.B.I. and now the Department of Justice," Ms. Maroney said. "It is clear that the only path to justice and healing is through the legal process," she added. Mr. Nassar, who was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison, was accused of molesting hundreds of girls and women, including many members of the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Top administrative leaders for the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, said Tuesday that they would release a secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse. An attorney for the church's executive committee announced the decision during a virtual meeting called in response to the release of a scathing investigative report detailing how the committee mishandled allegations of sexual abuse and stonewalled numerous survivors. The 288-page report by Guidepost Solutions ... contains several explosive revelations. Among those were details of how D. August Boto, the executive committee's former vice president and general counsel, and former church spokesman Roger Oldham kept their own private list of abusive pastors. Gene Besen, the committee's interim counsel, said during Tuesday's virtual meeting that releasing the list is an important step toward transparency. The names of survivors, confidential witnesses and any uncorroborated allegations of sexual abuse will be redacted from the list that will be made public. After the report's release, more sexual abuse survivors have been contacting the executive committee to tell their stories, Besen said. Survivors and advocates have long called for a public database of abusers. The creation of an "offender information system" was one of the key recommendations in the report.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
In nearly 300 pages, a third-party investigator has produced the Warren Commission report, the 9/11 Commission report, of Southern Baptist Christianity. At issue is sexual predation by Southern Baptist pastors and the further abuse of victims by indifferent and hostile church officials. According to the "Report of the Independent Investigation," credible accusations of sexual abuse that came to Southern Baptist leaders were routinely ignored to avoid legal liability or were referred back to unprepared local congregations. Survivors' calls and emails, the report asserts, were "met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility." When victims organized to draw attention to their suffering, some church officials treated them as instruments of Satan. The main responses of the SBC, described in the report, have been to minimize allegations and undermine victims. The Southern Baptist Convention must have realized it was dealing with highly explosive information. For years, it denied keeping a list of abusers. That turned out to be a lie. Staff at the Executive Committee had a file of 585 possible abusers. But the purpose of that internal list was institutional self-protection from lawsuits. "Their main concern," the report says of the SBC's leaders, "was avoiding any potential liability for the SBC." Consider that for a moment. Their main concern was not women and children who were violated by sexual predators. It was the limitation of their legal exposure.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
National leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention suppressed reports of sexual abuse and resisted proposals for reform over two decades, according to a third-party investigation. The report also said that a former president of the denomination was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2010, a claim the report described as "credible." Sexual abuse allegations, and the church's handling of them, have roiled the convention for years. After mounting pressure from survivors of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist settings, delegates at the denomination's annual meeting last summer voted overwhelmingly to commission the report, and demanded that its 86-member executive committee hand over confidential documents in cooperation. The report covers abuse reports from women and children against male pastors, church employees and officials from the year 2000 to the present. It also found a pattern of intimidating survivors of sexual assault and their advocates, and said they were "denigrated as â€opportunists.'" In an internal email, August Boto, an influential executive committee leader, described advocates' efforts as a "satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism." The report also revealed that an executive committee staff member working for Mr. Boto had, for more than 10 years, maintained a detailed list of ministers accused of abuse. The most recent list, it added, contained the names of hundreds of alleged abusers.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
An Associated Press investigation had revealed a culture of abuse and cover-ups that had persisted for years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California, a women-only facility called the "rape club" by many who know it. Because of AP reporting, the head of the federal Bureau of Prisons had submitted his resignation in January. Yet no one had been named to replace him, so he was still on the job. "It's absolutely horrible. I've never experienced anything like this. In my career, I've never been part of a situation like this." Those words, spoken about the troubled Dublin facility, come not from an activist or inmate advocate, not from any elected official, not from anywhere outside the prison walls. They come from Thahesha Jusino, its newly installed warden. Her predecessor, Ray J. Garcia, is one of five Dublin employees who have been charged since last June with sexually abusing inmates. Garcia is accused of molesting an inmate on multiple occasions from December 2019 to March 2020 and forcing her and another inmate to strip naked so he could take pictures while he made rounds. Investigators said they found the images on his government-issued cellphone. Garcia is also accused of using his authority to intimidate one of his victims, telling her that he was "close friends" with the person investigating staff misconduct and boasting that he could not be fired. In February, more than 100 inmate advocacy organizations sent a letter to the Justice Department calling for "swift, sweeping action" to address abuse at Dublin.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.
The EARN IT Act [is] a bill designed to confront the explosion of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. EARN IT would help address what is, disturbingly, a common experience for young users: routine exposure to predatory targeting, grooming, sexual violence, prostitution/sex trafficking, hardcore pornography and more. A New York Times investigation revealed that 70 million CSAM images were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2019–up from 600,000 in 2008–an "almost unfathomable" increase in criminality. The EARN IT Act restores privacy to victims of child sexual abuse material and allows them to sueâ₏those who cause them harm online, under federal civil law and state criminal and civil law. It also creates a new commission to issue guidelines to limit sex trafficking, grooming and sexual exploitationâ₏online. CSAM still exists because tech platforms have no incentive to prevent or eliminate it, because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (passed in 1996, before social media existed) gives them near-blanket immunity from liability. While some in the technology sector [are] claiming EARN IT is a threat to encryption and user privacy, the reality is that encryption can coexist with better business practices for online child safety. We can increase security and privacy while refraining from a privacy-absolutism that unintentionally allows sexual predators to run rampant online.
Note: To understand the scope of child sex abuse worldwide, learn about other major cover-ups in revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Catholic groups and abuse survivors on Tuesday called on the Roman Catholic Church in Italy, which has yet to reckon with the scourge of sexual abuse by priests, to create an independent commission to investigate how the crisis has been handled. In a number of countries – including Australia, France, Ireland and the United States – the church has allowed some scrutiny of its actions. But so far, the church in Italy has resisted calls for an independent inquiry, even after Pope Francis in 2019 held a landmark meeting on clerical sexual abuse and called "for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors." "Italy is an anomaly," said Francesco Zanardi, a clerical abuse survivor and president of Rete l'Abuso, the country's most outspoken victims' rights group, which has independently tracked more than 350 cases of pedophile priests in the Italian justice system. The consortium wanted the church in Italy to "assume responsibility for the abuses, the cover-ups and the abandonment of the victims" who were not heard or given compensation. It also called on the Italian Parliament to improve existing legislation and draft new laws to make it easier for cases of abuse by priests to be reported and tried. Several abuse survivors ... said that at least in the past, church officials had not listened to their complaints. Antonio Messina ... said he was abused for four years when he was a minor. He said that when he tried to bring his abuser to justice, in 2014, the prelates he turned to for help either didn't believe him or tried to bribe him to keep quiet.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Congress on Thursday gave final approval to legislation guaranteeing that people who experience sexual harassment at work can seek recourse in the courts, a milestone for the #MeToo movement that prompted a national reckoning on the way sexual misconduct claims are handled. The measure, which is expected to be signed by President Joe Biden, bars employment contracts from forcing people to settle sexual assault or harassment cases through arbitration rather than in court, a process that often benefits employers and keeps misconduct allegations from becoming public. Significantly, the bill is retroactive, nullifying that language in contracts nationwide and opening the door for people who had been bound by it to take legal action. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has spearheaded the effort, called it "one of the most significant workplace reforms in American history." "No longer will survivors of sexual assault or harassment in the workplace come forward and be told that they are legally forbidden to sue their employer because somewhere in buried their employment contracts was this forced arbitration clause," she said. Gillibrand, who has focused on combating sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the military, originally introduced the legislation in 2017. The legislation had uncommonly broad, bipartisan support. That allowed the bill to be passed in the Senate by unanimous consent – a procedure almost never used for significant legislation, especially one affecting tens of millions of Americans.
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The University of California has agreed to pay $243.6 million to settle allegations that hundreds of women were sexually abused by a former UCLA gynecologist. The settlement covers about 50 cases involving 203 women who said they were groped or otherwise abused by Dr. James Heaps over a 35-year career. Each will receive $1.2 million. The lawsuits said that UCLA ignored decades of complaints and deliberately concealed abuse. Two women who said Heaps abused them spoke at an afternoon news conference. "I've been waiting 20 years for this day," said Julie Wallach, who said she was abused by Heaps in the late 1990s – but when she reported it to UCLA and the state medical board, "no one listened." Kara Cagle said she was assaulted by Heaps eight years ago at a time when she'd been undergoing grueling treatment for a rare form of breast cancer. "I could never have imagined that someone would have taken such despicable advantage of me during that time. It was so traumatic that I left in tears," she said. The University of California, Los Angeles, began investigating Heaps in 2017 and he retired the next year after the school declined to renew his contract. Heaps also was criminally charged last year with 21 counts of sexual offenses involving seven women. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. John C. Manly, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys ... said there are thousands of practicing doctors nationwide who have administrative and criminal convictions for molesting their patients.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse by doctors from reliable major media sources.
The drama surrounding Peng Shuai is following a familiar script, in which someone who has run afoul of China's Communist government disappears from view. What happens next depends on the case, but it is not uncommon for the person in question to disavow the statements or actions that first upset officials. Other times, the person simply keeps a lower profile. Sometimes, their arrest is eventually announced. Peng's saga began in November, when she wrote in a social media post that a former member of the party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee had forced her to have sex three years ago despite repeated refusals. The post was quickly taken down and the former top-ranked doubles player dropped out of public view late last year. After she reappeared weeks later, she denied to a Singapore newspaper that she ever made any accusation of sexual assault. In an interview published Monday by a French sports paper, the tennis player called the whole situation an "enormous misunderstanding." Other people ... have disappeared over the years – a phenomenon that has expanded since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013. Liu [Xiaobo], a dissident writer who joined calls for increased freedoms in China in 2008, was detained a day before the appeal for reforms was released. After his arrest, his whereabouts were unknown for a time. He was eventually accused of subversion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and died of cancer before he was ever released.
Note: What most likely happens is that these people are subjected to well established mind control procedures, such that afterward they dare not challenge those in power. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and mind control from reliable major media sources.
Britain's Prince Andrew has been stripped of his military titles and charities, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday, a day after a judge ruled a sexual abuse civil lawsuit against the Queen's son could proceed. Andrew will also no longer use the style "His Royal Highness" in any official capacity, a royal source told CNN on Thursday. The source said the decision was "widely discussed" among the royal family. "With The Queen's approval and agreement, the Duke of York's military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen," the palace said in a statement. On Wednesday, a New York judged ruled against a motion by Andrew's legal team to dismiss a civil lawsuit brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, who alleges she was trafficked by disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and forced to perform sex acts with the prince at the age of 17. Andrew has vigorously denied those claims. Giuffre brought her case against Andrew under New York's Child Victims Act, a state law enacted in 2019 which expanded the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases to give survivors more opportunities to seek justice. Giuffre says she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with his friends - including the prince - at a time when she was underage (17) in the US. She said the assaults happened in London, New York and the US Virgin Islands.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
A woman who says she was sexually trafficked to Britain's Prince Andrew by Jeffrey Epstein accepted $500,000 in 2009 to settle her lawsuit against the American millionaire and anyone else "who could have been included as a potential defendant," according to a court record unsealed Monday. The prince's lawyers say that language should bar Virginia Giuffre from suing Andrew now, even though he wasn't a party to the original settlement. The private 2009 legal deal resolved Giuffre's allegations that Epstein had hired her as a teenager to be a sexual servant at his estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Andrew was not named in that lawsuit, but Giuffre had alleged in it that Epstein had flown her around the world for sexual encounters with numerous men "including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen and/or professional and personal acquaintances." Attorney David Boies, who represents Giuffre, said in a statement Monday that the language about protecting potential defendants in the settlement between his client and Epstein was "irrelevant" to the prince's lawsuit in part because the paragraph did not mention the prince and he didn't know about it. "He could not have been a â€potential defendant' in the settled case against Jeffrey Epstein both because he was not subject to jurisdiction in Florida and because the Florida case involved federal claims to which he was not a part," Boies said. Giuffre sued the prince in August, saying he had sexually assaulted her multiple times in 2001 when she was 17.
Note: Read an excellent article on the shocking origins of Jeffrey Epstein. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein's palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico. Jurors deliberated for five full days before finding Maxwell guilty of five of six counts. With the maximum prison terms for each charge ranging from five to 40 years in prison, Maxwell faces the likelihood of years behind bars – an outcome long sought by women who spent years fighting in civil courts to hold her accountable for her role in recruiting and grooming Epstein's teenage victims and sometimes joining in the sexual abuse. During the trial, prosecutors called 24 witnesses to give jurors a picture of life inside Epstein's homes. Pilots took the witness stand and dropped the names of luminaries – Britain's Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump – who flew on Epstein's private jets. But the core of the prosecution was the testimony of four women who said they were victimized by Maxwell and Epstein at tender ages. They echoed one another in their descriptions of Maxwell's behavior: She used charm and gifts to gain their trust, taking an interest in their adolescent challenges and giving them assurances that Epstein could use his wealth and connections to fulfill their dreams.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
The BBC says it is investigating how Alan Dershowitz was allowed on its airwaves to talk about the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell without mentioning that the constitutional lawyer is implicated in the case and accused of having sex with an alleged victim of financier Jeffrey Epstein. Shortly after Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of sex-trafficking charges for assisting Epstein in abusing young girls, BBC News brought on Dershowitz to analyze the guilty verdict of Epstein's longtime paramour. But the network failed to mention that Dershowitz not only previously served as Epstein's attorney but that he is accused of having sex with Virginia Roberts Giuffre when she was as young as 16. Dershowitz has denied the allegations. Dershowitz used his time on the "BBC World News" to slam Giuffre for supposedly not being a credible witness in the Maxwell case – claims that went unchallenged by the show's anchor. He also claimed the case from Giuffre against him and Britain's Prince Andrew, who has also been accused of sexual assault and has denied the allegations, was somehow weakened after Maxwell's guilty verdict. Giuffre has said that Epstein and Maxwell forced her to have sex with public figures, such as Dershowitz. She asserted to the Miami Herald and the New Yorker that she had sex with Dershowitz at least six times in Epstein's various residences. In denying her claims, Dershowitz ... called Giuffre a "prostitute" and a "bad mother" to her children.
Note: Read an excellent article on the shocking origins of Jeffrey Epstein. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
A feminist advocacy organization sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on Wednesday, accusing the agency of putting female prisoners at risk by housing biological males in women's prisons. The Women's Liberation Front lawsuit ... argues that the state department of corrections of is violating the First, Eighth and 14th amendments with a new law known as the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, or SB 132. Plaintiff Krystal Gonzalez says she was sexually assaulted by a biological male who was transferred to Central California Women's Facility under the law. According to the suit, when Gonzalez filed a complaint and requested to be housed away from men the prison's response called her alleged attacker a "transgender woman with a penis." "Krystal does not believe that women have penises and the psychological distress caused by her assault is exacerbated by the prison's refusal to acknowledge the sex of her perpetrator," the lawsuit says. [The law] requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to "house transgender, gender-nonconforming and intersex (TGI) individuals in a manner that matches their gender identity while supporting health and safety." Under the law, the prison system must house the individual in a "correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual's preference." A total of 295 inmates who were housed in an institution for males had requested to be moved to a women's facility.
Note: Read lots more on the irony and unfairness of this case in this Matt Taibbi article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.
Nebraska's attorney general recently identified 57 priests and other Catholic officials responsible for allegedly sexually abusing more than 250 victims, mainly boys, over decades while the church's hierarchy shrugged or covered up the crimes. The number of clerics who will be criminally prosecuted is zero. Yes, it's an old story. As in other states, and many countries, prosecuting clerical abusers in Nebraska for crimes committed years ago is impossible because the criminal statute of limitations has closed or the abusers themselves are dead. Most of the instances of reported abuse documented by the state attorney general's office took place in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s and tapered off over the past 20 years. Nebraska has changed its laws to eliminate any time limit on prosecutions for future child sex assaults, but past cases remain off limits both for criminal charges and for lawsuits. It's an old story; it's also a current one. Typically, the victims, whose abusers are often authority figures, say nothing for years. In Nebraska, the hair-raising details of Attorney General Doug Peterson's report reflect the depth of the church's arrogance and impunity. One of the state's three dioceses, based in Lincoln, for years refused to participate in the church's own annual reviews of sexual misconduct. Incredibly, the church tolerated it. It was in Lincoln that church higher-ups knew about multiple allegations of sexual abuse for at least 15 years against James Benton, a priest who continued on in ministry until his retirement in 2017.
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Jeffrey Epstein believed he could make a deal with prosecutors by revealing secrets about former presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, according to a new book by Michael Wolff. The disgraced financier and convicted sex offender was arrested in July 2019 on sex trafficking charges, and died a month later in his jail cell. In his new book, "Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Damned, the Notorious," Michael Wolff reveals Epstein's thinking in his final few months. According to the book, Epstein believed that The Justice Department had arrested him, under the instruction of then-President Donald Trump, because they wanted information on Bill Clinton, who had flown on his private jet multiple times. "The White House, through the Justice Department, was looking to press a longtime Republican obsession ... and get Epstein to flip and reveal the sex secrets of Bill Clinton," Wolff wrote. Epstein also believed New York prosecutors who were investigating Trump's business affairs might have ordered his arrest to "pressure him to flip on Trump," Wolff reportedly suggests in the book. Wolff revealed that months before Epstein's death, he visited the billionaire. During Wolff's visit, Steve Bannon reportedly called Epstein on the phone and told him that he had feared him during Donald Trump's presidential campaign because he thought the financier knew secrets about Trump. "You were the only person I was afraid of during the campaign," Bannon told Epstein.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The Metropolitan Police will not take any further action against the Duke of York following a review prompted by Jeffrey Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre. Ms Giuffre is suing Prince Andrew in the US for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager. Prince Andrew has consistently denied Ms Giuffre's allegations. A source close to the duke told PA Media it had "come as no surprise" the Met had decided to drop its probe. They added: "Despite pressure from the media and claims of new evidence, the Met have concluded that the claims are not sufficient to warrant any further investigation. In August, the Met said it would review its decision not to investigate allegations connected to Epstein. Ms Giuffre, 38, claims she was sexually assaulted by the prince at three locations - London, New York and on Epstein's private island in the Caribbean. Her case claims Prince Andrew engaged in sexual acts without Ms Giuffre's consent, including when she was 17. The Met also confirmed it had completed its review into allegations reported in June by broadcaster Channel 4 News that British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, trafficked, groomed and abused women and girls in the UK. The force said it had "reviewed information passed to us by a media organisation in June" and decided that "no further action will be taken". In August 2019, US financier Epstein was found dead in his cell in New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Note: Once again a major child sex abuse case, in this case that of Jeffrey Epstein, fades from public view with no action taken. This New York magazine report has a wealth of information on Jeffrey Epstein's very strange death. Explore a complex yet very informative timeline of Epstein and his relationship to the Mossad and much more. Many links are made here with verifiable information that the major media has failed to report. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Clergy members in the Roman Catholic Church in France sexually abused more than 200,000 minors over the past seven decades, according to an estimate published on Tuesday by an independent commission that concluded the problem was far more pervasive than previously known. The long-awaited 2,500-page report by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church laid out in detail how the church hierarchy had repeatedly silenced the victims and failed to report or discipline the clergy members involved. "The church failed to see or hear, failed to pick up on the weak signals, failed to take the rigorous measures that were necessary," Jean-Marc Sauvé, the commission president, said. For years, the church showed a "deep, total and even cruel indifference toward victims," he added. There has been a growing reckoning with sexual abuse in the church in France after a series of high-profile scandals. The investigative commission was set up in 2018 at the request of the Catholic Church in France in response to criticism of its handling of abuse cases. The findings were the most extensive account to date of the scope of sexual abuse by clergy in the country. About 216,000 minors, mostly boys ages 10 to 13, have been abused by clergy members in France since 1950, according to an estimate by the commission. The figure reached 330,000 after including perpetrators who were laypeople and worked for the church or were affiliated with it, such as Boy Scout organizers or Catholic school staff.
Note: And this CNN article is titled "Up to 3,200 pedophiles worked in French Catholic Church since 1950, independent commission says." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Biden administration has made combating sexual assault in the military a major policy goal. From 2013 to 2019, that was also Amy Braley-Franck's mission – advocating for victims of sexual crimes within the military. A day after she informed a top general about widespread mishandling of sexual assault cases, however, she was suspended from duty and has been ever since. Braley-Franck has been a high-profile whistleblower, bringing the issue of sexual assault and command abuses to public attention. For close to two years, though, Braley-Franck has been suspended from her role as an Army sexual assault prevention and response victim advocate. She sees the suspension, at the hands of a general she was serving under, as a clear case of retaliation. President Joe Biden formed the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault, which recently recommended taking sexual assault cases outside the chain of command, a change military leaders have long resisted. Braley-Franck said her case proves that more reforms are still needed if the military truly wishes to rein in sexual misconduct. The Defense Department estimates that around 20,500 service members experience sexual assault annually, but only 6,290 official allegations of sexual assault were made in 2020. Since 2010, according to the Independent Review Commission, roughly 644,000 active-duty military personnel have been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Last week, the Justice Department's Inspector General released a scathing report detailing just how badly the FBI botched the major child abuse case involving Larry Nassar, former doctor for the USA Gymnastics national team and Michigan State University accused of abusing dozens of young patients in his care across several states. The report says the FBI's Indianapolis Field Office did not respond to the claims against Nassar "with the utmost seriousness and urgency that the allegations deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and failed to notify state or local authorities of the allegations or take other steps to mitigate the ongoing threat posed by Nassar." According to Jane Turner, a 25-year FBI agent-turned-whistleblower who reported the mishandling of crimes against children on American Indian reservations in North Dakota, the FBI's failures in the Nassar case are, unfortunately, not unique. Turner believes the breakdown comes from a lack of training in handling these kinds of cases, a lack of oversight when things do get handled badly, and a lack of interest on the part of a majority white and male staff who, according to Turner, would rather be working more glamorous assignments. "They don't give a shit about kids or young people," she says. Because of the Indianapolis Field Office's delays ... the Inspector General's report said that Nassar was able to abuse an estimated 70 more young athletes between July 2015 and August 2016.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Boy Scouts of America reached an $850 million settlement Thursday with tens of thousands of people who say they were sexually abused when they were Scouts over decades and later sued in a case that rocked the historic institution. The settlement, which came after the organization filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year while facing mounting legal costs over the abuse claims, is one of the largest of its kind in a child sexual abuse case in U.S. history. The lawsuit involved more than 84,000 people who claimed sexual abuse dating as far back as the 1960s. The agreement – the first legal settlement in a litany of lawsuits against the Boy Scouts – is more than double the group's initial proposal to victims in March. The organization is facing roughly 275 abuse lawsuits and 1,400 potential claims. The settlement notes that local councils are expected to contribute to the settlement fund. The deal also calls for commitments to abuse victims that include youth protection measures, a reporting system and the formation of a Child Protection Committee. But while the settlement was celebrated by some, other lawyers involved in the lawsuit said the deal would fall far short of what abuse survivors deserve. Jason Amala, a lawyer whose firm represents more than 1,000 men who say they were sexually abused by Boy Scouts leaders and volunteers, said he will object to the BSA's proposal. "We're very concerned," Amala [said]. "It equals less than $10,000 per survivor."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Leaders of a First Nation in Canada said Thursday they have found indications of at least 751 unmarked graves near the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan, the second such announcement here in less than a month as the country reckons with the devastating legacy of one of the darkest chapters of its history. Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme said the discovery was made near the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in the southeastern corner of the prairie province, confirming the stories of Indigenous elders and residential school survivors who had long told stories of a burial site there. Nearly 150,000 Indigenous children were sent to the government-funded and church-run boarding schools, which were set up in the 19th century to assimilate them and operated until the late 1990s. Many children were forcibly separated from their families to be placed in the schools. Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission said in a 2015 report that many of the students were subjected to physical and sexual abuse at the schools, which barred them from practicing their traditions and speaking their languages. It said the schools carried out "cultural genocide" and effectively institutionalized child neglect. The commission identified more than 3,000 students who died at the schools, a rate that was far higher than for non-Indigenous school-aged children. Officials say the total number of children who died or went missing at the schools might never be known.
Note: The 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission report led to a $5 billion settlement between the government and surviving First Nation students. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced he will support changes to the military justice system that would take sexual assault cases away from the chain of command and let independent military lawyers handle them. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has long pushed for legislation on the issue, praised Austin's move but [said] that it doesn't go far enough. Austin said he will present President Biden with a series of recommendations aiming to "finally end the scourge of sexual assault and sexual harassment in the military." It's a seismic shift that requires amending the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which no other secretary of defense has been willing to do. Austin's announcement follows a report by the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault in the Military, whose mandate from Biden was to find solutions to improve accountability, prevention, climate and culture, and victim care and support involved in such cases. The Pentagon has long resisted any outside interference. In studying the issue for several years, Gillibrand said, "We recognized that there's a lot of bias in the military justice system." She noted that the rate of sexual assaults in the military continues to grow, but relatively few cases go to trial or end in convictions. A 2020 report from the Defense Department indicates unrestricted reports of sexual assaults in the military have doubled, while the rate of prosecution and conviction has been halved since 2013.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
At a US border detention centre in the Texan desert, migrant children have been living in alarming conditions - where disease is rampant, food can be dangerous and there are reports of sexual abuse. The tented camp in the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso, Texas, is the temporary home for over 2,000 teenaged children who have crossed the US-Mexico border alone. A number of tents have also been set up just to accommodate the large numbers of sick children - the children have nicknamed it 'Covid city'. In addition to Covid, outbreaks of the flu and strep throat have also been reported since the camp opened in late March. And some children in need of urgent medical attention have been neglected. Photos and video smuggled out of the facility by staff and given to the BBC, show rows of flimsy bunks, set inches from each other, extending in long lines. There are reports of staff sexually abusing children at the Fort Bliss camp. At a camp training session, secretly recorded by a staff member and shared with the BBC, an employee voiced concern. "We have already caught staff with minors inappropriately," she said. Another employee told the BBC that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had spoken to staff about a rape. "DHS mentioned there was a rape - they are giving the girls pregnancy tests," she said. "And I heard the other night that another contractor was caught in a boys' tent, you know, doing things with him."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
By the time Melinda French Gates decided to end her 27-year marriage, her husband was known globally as a software pioneer. But in some circles, Bill Gates had also developed a reputation for questionable conduct. On at least a few occasions, Mr. Gates pursued women who worked for him at Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And then there was Jeffrey Epstein, whom Mr. Gates got to know beginning in 2011, three years after Mr. Epstein, who faced accusations of sex trafficking of girls, pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Ms. French Gates had expressed discomfort with her husband spending time with the sex offender, but Mr. Gates continued doing so. So, in October 2019, when the relationship between Mr. Gates and Mr. Epstein burst into public view, Ms. French Gates was unhappy. She hired divorce lawyers, setting in motion a process that culminated this month with the announcement that their marriage was ending. Mr. Gates [and] Mr. Epstein ... spent time together on multiple occasions, flying on Mr. Epstein's private jet and attending a late-night gathering at his Manhattan townhouse. "His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me," Mr. Gates emailed colleagues in 2011, after he first met Mr. Epstein. For years, Mr. Gates continued to go to dinners and meetings at Mr. Epstein's home, where Mr. Epstein usually surrounded himself with young and attractive women.
Note: Learn more in this Bloomberg article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
The Biden administration is holding tens of thousands of asylum-seeking children in an opaque network of some 200 facilities that The Associated Press has learned spans two dozen states and includes five shelters with more than 1,000 children packed inside. The number of migrant children in government custody more than doubled in the past two months, and this week the federal government was housing around 21,000 kids, from toddlers to teens. A facility at Fort Bliss, a U.S. Army post in El Paso, Texas, had more than 4,500 children as of Monday. A few of the current practices are the same as those that President Joe Biden and others criticized under the Trump administration, including not vetting some caregivers with full FBI fingerprint background checks. Part of the government's plan to manage thousands of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border involves about a dozen unlicensed emergency facilities inside military installations, stadiums and convention centers that skirt state regulations and don't require traditional legal oversight. Inside the facilities, called Emergency Intake Sites, children aren't guaranteed access to education, recreational opportunities or legal counsel. Some of the facilities holding children these days are run by contractors already facing lawsuits claiming that children were physically and sexually abused in their shelters under the Trump administration.
Note: Could there be an agenda here with child sex slavery? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
German prosecutors have broken up an online platform for sharing images and videos showing the sexual abuse of children, mostly boys, that had an international following of more than 400,000 members, they said. The site, named "Boystown," had been around since at least June 2019 and included forums where members from around the globe exchanged images and videos showing children, including toddlers, being sexually abused. In addition to the forums, the site had chat rooms where members could connect with one another in various languages. German federal prosecutors described it as "one of the largest child pornography sites operating on the dark net" in a statement they released on Monday announcing the arrest in mid-April of three German men who managed the site and a fourth who had posted thousands of images to it. The accused administrators of the "Boystown" site, aged 40 and 49, were arrested after raids in their homes. A third man accused of being an administrator ... has been detained. A fourth man, 64, was arrested in Hamburg on suspicion of uploading more than 3,500 images and videos of abuse to the site, as one of its most active members. He faces charges of belonging to the site and sharing material depicting child sexual abuse. Last month, the German Parliament passed a law to expand the authorities' abilities to pursue those suspected of harming children and increase the prison terms for anyone convicted of sexually abusing minors.
Note: To learn the dark meaning of "Boystown," explore on this webpage the Franklin cover-up and its involvement in child sex trafficking rings leading to the highest levels of government based out of Boystown in Nebraska. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
One woman carried a ruler at FBI headquarters so she could smack James Hendricks' hands when he reached for her legs and breasts. Another went home shaken after he tugged on her ear and kissed her cheek during a closed-door meeting. And when Hendricks went on to lead the FBI's field office in Albany, New York, in 2018, colleagues described him as a "skilled predator" who leered at women in the workplace, touched them inappropriately and asked one to have sex in a conference room, according to a newly released federal report. Hendricks quietly retired last year as a special agent in charge after the Office of Inspector General – the Justice Department's internal watchdog – concluded he sexually harassed eight female subordinates in one of the FBI's most egregious known cases of sexual misconduct. Hendricks was among several senior FBI officials highlighted in an AP investigation last year that found a pattern of supervisors avoiding discipline – and retiring with full benefits – even after claims of sexual misconduct against them were substantiated. The details of Hendricks' sexual harassment [were] outlined in a 52-page report obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The OIG blacked out Hendricks' name in the report, but he was identified by law enforcement officials familiar with his case. Drawing on interviews with more than a dozen FBI officials, the report traces Hendricks' harassment to his time at FBI headquarters, where he served as a section chief in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
John Geddert, the former USA Gymnastics coach, was found dead in February just hours after he had been charged with 24 felonies including human trafficking and sexual assault in relation to his decades of work with young gymnasts in his home state of Michigan. Teristi, 46, says she was 10 years old when Geddert's coaching style became verbally and physically abusive. She says she was 14 years old when Geddert started sitting in on training sessions with sports medicine physician Larry Nassar, Geddert's close friend and a serial sexual predator, as Nassar repeatedly sexually abused Teristi. Nassar may not be making national headlines since his sentencing hearing three years ago, but the women he abused have been fighting every day since for accountability from the systems that allowed his abuse to flourish. Most of these survivors have one straightforward demand: a complete and objective accounting of how Nassar was allowed to abuse children for nearly 40 years. Who knew about the abuse and did nothing? Why were there no safeguards in place to prevent this from happening? An independent, transparent investigation that answers these questions can ensure that a predator like Nassar will never again go undetected in the sport of gymnastics or at a college like Michigan State University. And yet, at every turn survivors have been met with institutional apathy, continued betrayal and negligence – a press statement with flowery sentences about change followed by little to no action.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A New York judge has granted a request by Ghislaine Maxwell's legal team to redact segments from the case filed against her, claiming they would "serve to cater a â€craving for that which is sensational and impure.'" US District Judge Alison J Nathan issued the ruling last week on redactions from portions of a transcript the government filed under seal that Ms Maxwell's legal team had requested on the grounds of privacy concerns. The judge also granted redactions that prosecutors made when filing the transcript on the basis of protection of the "integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation and to protect third parties' personal privacy interests." "As a general matter, these interests are legitimate and provide a basis for overcoming the presumption of access," the judge ruled. Judge Nathan denied Ms Maxwell's objections to some of these redactions. The British socialite's lawyers argued that "some of the information contained in the redactions has been made public by other means." The judge wrote: "Though the Defendant contends that some of the information contained in the redactions is public, she furnishes no evidence to that effect", adding that the privacy interests at stake "justify the limited and narrowly tailored redactions." Ms Maxwell, a former confidante of disgraced financier and convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein, was charged by the FBI last year with multiple counts of sex exploitation and abuse of minor girls.
Note: Maxwell's trial has now concluded. Why has this trial been given so little attention by the media? Explore an excellent Whitney Webb article revealing links to Maxwell and Israeli intelligence, and much more. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly told a journalist that Jeffrey Epstein recorded tapes of former presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, who were former acquaintances of the disgraced sex offender. Ms Maxwell, who awaits trial on charges she assisted Epstein's crimes in the 1990s, reportedly told a CBS "60 minutes" producer that she would not release tapes of Mr Trump without those of Mr Clinton before the 2016 presidential election. The apparent revelations were made by Ira Rosen, an ex-producer for the CBS show, who released a memoir called "Ticking Clock: Behind the Scenes at 60 Minutes," which reveals details about his time on the award-winning programme. As reported by The Telegraph, Mr Rosen wrote that he was acting on a "hunch" that secret recordings of Epstein's former acquaintances existed – although the theory was never confirmed, and no tapes have been forthcoming. Mr Rosen allegedly told Ms Maxwell: "I want the tapes. I know he [Epstein] was videotaping everyone." Ms Maxwell was said to have ... "pointed a finger" at Mr Rosen, who theorized that Epstein secretly recorded those who visited his properties in Florida and New York in the 1990s, which included the former presidents. Ms Maxwell reportedly told Mr Rosen: "I am the daughter of a press baron. I know the way you people think. If you do one side, you must do the other. If you get the tapes on Trump you have to do Clinton'." Mr Trump previously remarked that he met Ms Maxwell "numerous times" ... while Mr Clinton has previously said his friendship with Epstein ended before [he] was convicted.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources.
Ghislaine Maxwell reportedly asked a "room of underage girls" to dance for Jeffrey Epstein. Ms Maxwell, 58, was charged last summer with six counts of recruiting and grooming girls and young women to be sexually abused by both her and Epstein, her former business partner and boyfriend. On Wednesday, 112 legal documents totaling thousands of pages were made public in the US. The documents included redacted witness testimony accusing Ms Maxwell of preying on underage girls and forcing them to perform sexual favours for Epstein's gratification. "Maxwell direct a room full of underage girls to kiss, dance, and touch one another in a sexual way for defendant and Epstein to watch," the statement said. A separate witness claimed that Ms Maxwell recruited her from a school campus to have sex with Epstein, by initially informing her that she would be hired as a personal assistant. While another released document alleges that "ample evidence in this case establishes that not only did Defendant [Maxwell] recruit underage girls for massage and sexual activities with Epstein, but that she participated in calling the girls; getting other people to bring girls; talking to the girls; taking massages from and leaving messages about the girls; and scheduling the girls to come over".
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal from reliable major media sources.
The fund set up to compensate victims of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual exploitation has already received more than 100 claims and paid out tens of millions of dollars. The fund will accept requests until the end of March, said Jordana Feldman, its administrator. So far, the fund has paid more than $30 million to accusers. The fund began taking claims in July, a little less than a year after Mr. Epstein, a financier, died in a Manhattan jail cell following his arrest on federal sex-trafficking charges. Because he had put his roughly $600 million fortune into a trust, there were concerns that it could take years for his victims to get any money back from his estate. But the estate's executors agreed to establish the fund, allowing accusers – including those who had reached settlements with Mr. Epstein after his 2008 conviction on soliciting prostitution from an underage girl – to seek compensation. Spencer Kuvin, a Miami lawyer representing nine women who have submitted claims to the fund, said the settlement process appeared to be fair. Three of [his clients] received settlements from Mr. Epstein when they were teenagers, but had felt intimidated by him and his legal team. "This process is light-years different," Mr. Kuvin said. Ms. Feldman said a person who received a settlement was normally barred from coming back for more money. But she said given the circumstances surrounding the earlier investigation of Mr. Epstein, it was important not to close the door on any victims.
Note: No mention is made of the many prominent men who were served by Epstein's girls. Why is no one investigating this? This New York magazine report has a wealth of information on Jeffrey Epstein's very strange death. Explore a complex yet very informative timeline of Epstein and his relationship to the Mossad and much more. Many links are made here with verifiable information that the major media has failed to report. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Three women hired to work for the military's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program are speaking out, alleging improper investigations and retaliation firings despite the Pentagon spending tens of millions of dollars on prevention and pledging to tackle the systemic issue. Amy Braley Franck, Marianne Bustin and Lindsey Knapp were all hired to work for the program, which was established by the Pentagon 15 years ago to provide support and resources to survivors of sexual assault and rape. Their jobs involved advocating for victims and helping navigate the process of reporting incidents of assault. They spoke to CBS News as part of a year and a half-long investigation, in which nearly two dozen survivors spoke out about their assaults. Military commanders are required to refer reports of sexual assault to criminal investigators. However, Franck found evidence that commanders were investigating some cases themselves – violating the military's own code of justice. "I discovered written documentation of illegal investigations and victims languishing," she said. "People are afraid," Franck said. "I have young ladies and men say, 'The rape was bad, but I don't wanna go through this other thing because it's worse than the rape.'" "This other thing," she said, referred to "the retaliation, the treatment, the judgment." Last year, Franck was suspended from her position as a victim advocate the day after she contacted a commanding general about retaliation she was seeing in the Army.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Boy Scouts of America will be facing at least 92,700 claims of sexual abuse as former scouts submit filings against the bankruptcy-bound organization, said one of the lead attorneys for the legal team representing the claimants. Sex abuse in the BSA was an "unspoken norm," according to Van Arsdale, one of the lead attorneys who says he has communicated with thousands of alleged survivors over the past 19 months. "Based on what we are hearing from survivors, sexual abuse was a rite of passage in troops across the country, similar to other tasks where children had to ... perform certain duties to earn their coveted merit badges," he said. The cases against the Boy Scouts are no normal court proceeding. The organization filed for bankruptcy in February as hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits were filed across the country -- some of which alleged repeated fondling, exposure to pornography and forced anal or oral sex. Alleged survivors will now have to pursue their claims in bankruptcy court rather than via civil proceedings, Michael Pfau, a Seattle-based attorney representing hundreds of alleged victims, told CNN. "Their lives won't be scrutinized, but they lose their right to a jury trial. For a lot of abuse survivors, telling their story in a court of law and forcing the organizations to defend their actions can be cathartic. That won't happen with a bankruptcy," he said. Pfau estimated ... that the number of claims would surpass those targeting the Catholic Church.
Note: Doctors at the University of California and USC have also been accused of sexual abuse by hundreds of patients. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Ghislaine Maxwell's answers to questions about the sex-trafficking operation she allegedly ran with the late Jeffrey Epstein were made public Thursday as a federal court released Maxwell's 2016 deposition. The transcript is finally being unsealed after a back-and-forth legal battle between Maxwell and Virginia Giuffre, who has accused Maxwell, Epstein and others of sexually abusing her when she was a minor. In it, Maxwell repeatedly denies "recruiting" girls for Epstein or taking part in orgies and other activities. Persistent allegations that Epstein sexually abused young women under the guise of receiving massages prompted an investigation by Palm Beach police in the early 2000s. Giuffre's attorney asked, "Are you aware there were underage girls, 30 of them, in this police report that were assaulted by Jeffrey Epstein in the Palm Beach house during the time you are working there?" In her reply, Maxwell said she couldn't testify about that, accusing one of Epstein's alleged victims of lying and saying that she spent only limited time at Epstein's house in 2004, the year in question. For years, accusations against Maxwell and Epstein were obscured by legal maneuvers – most famously, a controversial nonprosecution agreement Epstein reached in 2007 with federal prosecutors in Florida. That plea deal with then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta led to state charges against Epstein, but it also prevented him and any co-conspirators – including, allegedly, Maxwell – from being prosecuted in federal sex crimes in southern Florida.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking ring from reliable major media sources.
A former friend of Jeffrey Epstein confidante Ghislaine Maxwell said Tuesday she had a “secret stash” of tapes and photos allegedly showing Epstein engaging in sexual activity with various underage girls. The friend said they expect Maxwell to use the stash as her “insurance policy” to possibly avoid jail time. The friend, whose name has not been released, spoke with Daily Mail about the collection. “Ghislaine has always been as cunning as they come. She wasn't going to be with Epstein all those years and not have some insurance,” the friend said. “The secret stash of sex tapes I believe Ghislaine has squirreled away could end up being her get out of jail card if the authorities are willing to trade.” The friend said Epstein not only recorded everything he did, but also recorded several “rich and powerful men who took advantage of his sick largesse.” This gave Epstein something to “hold over” anyone else who partook in the alleged circle of trafficking and abuse between Florida and New York. Maxwell is accused of recruiting and grooming several victims of Epstein’s alleged scheme since the early 1990s. Several victims, including Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said Maxwell would pay them to work at Epstein’s homes in either New York or Florida when they were teenagers. The pair would then begin grooming the victims for “sexual services,” which would allegedly be offered to many of Epstein’s associates and friends among the world’s elite.
Note: For more on this story which was hardly reported in the US, see this informative article. This New York Post article is an exception. 60 Minutes Australia has produced an excellent segment on Jeffrey Epstein and his recently arrested sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell. How did Epstein get away with sexually abusing hundreds of teenage girls for decades? The government and multiple police departments knew what was happening, yet key officials in high positions of power protected him.
Deutsche Bank (DBK.DE) has agreed to pay $150m (Ł119m) over compliance failings in part linked to dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. New York’s Department of Financial Services said in a statement on Tuesday it had imposed the penalty on Deutsche Bank’s New York branch for “significant compliance failures in connection with the Bank’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” the accused child sex trafficker who died in police custody last year. The penalty also covers anti-money laundering failings linked to Danske Bank Estonia and Middle Eastern bank FBME. Epstein, who is believed to have been a billionaire, became a client of Deutsche Bank’s in 2013, five years after he pleaded guilty to procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 in Florida. Despite coverage of the settlement and subsequent allegations against Epstein, investigators found Deutsche Bank failed to properly monitor his account. “Hundreds of transactions totalling millions of dollars” that raised red flags were missed, the New York Department of Financial Services said. These included payments to Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators, settlement payments with victims totalling $7m, payments to Russian models, payments for women’s school tuition and expenses, and payments to “numerous women with Eastern European surnames” that were “consistent with public allegations of prior wrongdoing.” Repeated “suspicious” cash withdrawals by Epstein — totally over $800,000 over four years — also failed to raise concerns.
Note: 60 Minutes Australia has produced an excellent segment on Jeffrey Epstein and his recently arrested sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell. How did Epstein get away with sexually abusing hundreds of teenage girls for decades? The government and multiple police departments knew what was happening, yet key officials in high positions of power protected him. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and financial industry corruption from reliable major media sources.
Back in the Nineties, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was known in New York as the “female Gatsby” for her lavish entertaining. Today ... she is behind bars. The daughter of the disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine was his ninth and ... his favourite. When her father died, his publishing empire collapsed after it was found that he had been pillaging the pension fund to prop up his businesses. However, a trust fund provided an income of £80,000 a year for Ghislaine. She lived the high life. Ghislaine was never more at home than with the super-rich, bumming a ride on Donald Trump’s private jet and dating billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Ghislaine was in love with Jeffrey the way she was in love with her father. Marriage didn’t happen, but she was always by his side, choreographing his world. “My job included hiring many people,” she said in a court deposition. She admitted hiring masseuses as young as 17. A source close to Ghislaine said in [a] Vanity Fair article: “When I asked what she thought of the under age girls, she looked at me and said, ‘They’re nothing, these girls. They are trash.’” She was driven to only respect high status and wealth. Things started to unravel for Ghislaine ... when under-age girls accused Epstein of paying them to perform sexual acts. Ghislaine fought to keep the court papers from [a] 2017 defamation case closed – and failed. On August 9, the first batch was released. The following day, Epstein was found dead in jail, presumed suicide, and Ghislaine vanished. On Thursday, Maxwell was finally arrested and charged with six federal crimes.
Note: Key Epstein witness Maria Farmer claimed in a highly revealing interview with crack reporter Whitney Webb that she was in the car with Ghislaine and Trump's ex-wife Ivana when they enticed young girls to come give a massage for large amounts of money. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government.
Federal authorities arrested Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, on Thursday in New Hampshire in connection with the late, accused sex trafficker. She was taken into custody at about 8:30 a.m. in Bedford, officials said, and hours later appeared, via video feed, before Magistrate Judge Andrea Johnstone in Concord. Johnstone ordered Maxwell, who did not enter a plea, to be sent to New York City and kept in federal custody there. Maxwell was charged with six counts for acts committed between 1994 and 1997 and then allegedly lying to investigators in 2016. Four counts are related to allegedly helping transport minors for sexual activity and two for perjury, according to the criminal complaint. "Maxwell played a critical role in helping Epstein identify, befriend and groom minor victims for abuse," Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss [said]. "In some cases, Maxwell participated in the abuse herself.” Multiple young women have accused Maxwell ... of complicity in Epstein's alleged sex trafficking ring. They say she either recruited them directly or provided logistical support, like scheduling visits to Epstein's home. The abuse allegedly happened at Palm Beach, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and at Epstein's home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, officials said. "Maxwell was the center of that sex trafficking ring. Now that the ring has been taken down, I know that I can’t be hurt anymore," Epstein victim Jennifer Araoz said in a statement.
Note: Watch the revealing documentary "Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?" For more on Maxwell, see this CNN article. More on her famous connections can be found in this article. A probing 16-episode program has incredibly revealing interviews with dozens who worked directly with Epstein. Incredibly detailed, it reveals the huge blackmail operation, connections with Israel, and much more. This series goes where others have not dared go. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
In 2016, famed crime novelist James Patterson and co-authors Tim Malloy and John Connolly published Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal that Undid Him. Patterson had heard about the story of the mysterious billionaire who’d gotten a sweetheart deal after having been charged with sex with underage girls, and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Yet after the book came out, laying out the breadth of Epstein’s crimes and how a cadre of enablers and hangers-on enabled him for years, it got relatively little attention. By 2019, of course, that had obviously changed. The Miami Herald had published its bombshell investigation into the 13-month deal then-Florida attorney general Alexander Acosta had offered Epstein, allowing him to serve little hard jail time. A new Netflix series, Filthy Rich, based on Patterson’s book, documents all of the lurid details familiar to those who’ve been following the story — the Trump/Clinton connections, the bizarre relationship with British heiress and alleged procurer Ghislaine Maxwell. But it also includes heartbreaking interviews with the young women who say they were victimized by Epstein, adding humanity to the familiar tabloid story. "Initially, people just didn’t see this is as big a story as I thought it was," [said Patterson]. "I just couldn’t imagine anybody that is involved with news that wouldn’t say, 'Oh my God, this is a story.' This is unbelievable to me. Imagine if somebody out in the middle of the county had been with 50 underage girls. I mean ... are you kidding me?"
Note: Watch the revealing documentary "Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein?" A probing 16-episode program has incredibly revealing interviews with dozens who worked directly with Epstein. Incredibly detailed, it reveals the huge blackmail operation, connections with Israel, and much more. This series goes where others have not dared go. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
On April 10, Microsoft uploaded a film to its YouTube account about Marina Abramovic, the Serbian performance artist known for pushing her body to the limit. Ms. Abramovic's work can be violent, sometimes bloody, but the Microsoft video was more innocuous: It was focused on "The Life," in which museumgoers wear special headsets so that Ms. Abramovic seems to appear before them. The video was essentially some P.R. fluff for the tech company's role in the artwork. But in one corner of the internet, it was seen as ... evidence of a Satanist conspiracy. The YouTube clip racked up more than 24,000 dislikes. Microsoft took it down on April 14. Ms. Abramovic said ... that she had rarely spoken about her treatment by conspiracy theorists because she did not want to encourage them. She is breaking that silence now, she said, because she is fed up. The conspiracy theory goes back to October 2016, when WikiLeaks released hacked emails from the account of John Podesta, then the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The emails included one from Ms. Abramovic, in which she discussed Mr. Podesta's invitation to a "Spirit Cooking" dinner at her home. Some internet users saw this as evidence that tied Ms. Abramovic to a wider conspiracy known as #PizzaGate, in which Mr. Podesta was said to be involved in a child-trafficking ring run out of a pizza parlor. Since then, Ms. Abramovic has received many emailed death threats – sometimes three a day, she said.
Note: Watch a very disturbing video on the "Spirit cooking" of Abramovic. Then read verifiable information on how she is tied in to the Podesta brothers and pizzagate theories. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Cardinal George Pell walked out of prison on Tuesday after Australia’s highest court reversed his 2018 conviction for molesting two choirboys decades earlier — liberating the most senior Roman Catholic cleric to ever face trial over child sexual abuse. The world may never be able to assess whether the court’s reasoning was sound. The central evidence — the testimony of the main accuser, on which the case “was wholly dependent,” the judges wrote — has never been released, not in video, audio nor even redacted transcripts. It is just one glaring example of the secrecy and lack of accountability that have shaped the Pell prosecution from the beginning. The case has been a model of opaque operations, starting with judges who dismissed related allegations early on, followed by gag orders preventing media coverage and a refusal to release evidence — even when a jury verdict is dismissed as unreasonable. Legal experts said that the case made clear just how much power judges in Australia have to suppress public oversight and overrule jury verdicts. At every stage, critics argue, Australia’s courts exhibited a penchant for secrecy and insular decision-making that resembled the Catholic Church’s flawed and damaging response to sexual abuse within its ranks. For many of those who have been living with the legacy of abuse in the church, the High Court’s decision is a blow to their faith in a justice system they had just started to trust.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Eleven-year-old Allie sways back and forth. She rolls her eyes into her head and collapses onto the bed behind her. After lying there motionless for a moment, she pops back up. "Um, I wasn't really sure what else to add, 'cause all that was requested was to faint while putting my eyes backwards," she says to the camera, thanking a user who goes by "Martin" for the suggestion. Allie's channel is full of skits that she has eagerly filmed at the request of strangers on YouTube. She's learned that her audience particularly enjoys watching her pretend to pass out and hypnotize herself; those kinds of requests come in all the time. For Allie ... the attention is exciting. To the girl's great delight, her dizzy-themed videos randomly blow up sometimes, pulling in thousands of views despite her small following. She refers to her viewers as "fans" and promises to film whatever they'd like to see. That often means unwittingly acting out sexual fetishes for predators, who flock to her content like flies. This didn't happen by accident. YouTube's automated recommendation engine propels sexually implicit videos of children like Allie from obscurity into virality and onto the screens of pedophiles. Executives at the Google-owned company are well aware of this. Over the years, YouTube has claimed repeatedly that keeping children safe on its platform is a top priority. But ... the company has actually continued to amplify such videos into virality and to specifically steer them toward users seeking sexual content and footage of partially clothed kids.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Berlin's city hall deliberately placed troubled children in the care of paedophiles. From 1969 to 2003 the authorities put at least nine boys in the hands of convicted sex offenders on the advice of a disgraced social scientist. The idea behind the Kentler experiment – named after Helmut Kentler, an academic who argued that paedophilia could have "positive consequences" – was that unruly and "feeble-minded" children would benefit from adult sexual attention. In the late 1960s Kentler persuaded West Berlin's ruling Senate that the homeless boys would jump at the opportunity to be fostered by paedophiles. One of the boys, referred to in legal proceedings as Marco, had been taken into care after suffering physical abuse at the hands of his father. In 1989, aged six, he was placed with a convicted child abuser. A year later this foster father, Fritz H, began going into Marco's room for a "cuddle". For ten years he was repeatedly beaten and raped by Fritz H. It is not known how many children were subjected to the Kentler experiment. Four years ago the Berlin Senate commissioned an inquiry into the scandal from experts at Göttingen University. Their final report has yet to be published. At the beginning of the experiment, Kentler, who died in 2008, was regarded as one of Germany's foremost sexologists and often appeared as an expert witness in court cases. He boasted of having secured the acquittal of several alleged paedophiles. In 1970 he urged the Bundestag to decriminalise sex between adults and children in West Germany.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Bahamian pleasure palace featured a faux Mayan temple, sculptures of smoke-breathing snakes and a disco with a stripper pole. The owner, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion executive, showed off his estate on TV shows ... and threw loud beachfront parties, reveling in the company of teenage girls and young women. Next door, Louis Bacon, an American hedge fund billionaire, presided over an airy retreat. Lawyers and investigators funded in part by Mr. Bacon claim that Mr. Nygard raped teenage girls in the Bahamas. This month, a federal lawsuit was filed by separate lawyers in New York on behalf of 10 women accusing Mr. Nygard of sexual assault. The lawsuit claims that Mr. Nygard used his company, Nygard International, and employees to procure young victims and ply them with alcohol and drugs. He also paid Bahamian police officers to quash reports, shared women with local politicians and groomed victims to recruit "fresh meat," the lawsuit says. Over months of interviews with The New York Times, dozens of women and former employees described how alleged victims were lured to Mr. Nygard's Bahamian home by the prospect of modeling jobs or a taste of luxury. "He preys on poor people's little girls," said Natasha Taylor, who worked there for five years. Mr. Nygard ... had employees sign confidentiality agreements and sued those he suspected of talking. Multiple women said he had handed them cash after sex, helping to buy silence.
Note: Read an excellent, well researched essay on this disturbing case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
As word came that the Boy Scouts of America had filed for bankruptcy protection, one alleged abuse survivor was moved to come forward. The man told NBC News he was a 14-year-old Boy Scout in Louisiana working on an astronomy merit badge when a scoutmaster invited him to go by the lake to look at the stars. “I was very naďve,” he said. “But when he grabbed my groin, I immediately reacted.” So did the scoutmaster. “He threatened me with a machete,” the 73-year-old said, asking not to be identified. But now that the Boy Scouts are seeking Chapter 11 protection, the alleged abuse survivor said he’s ready to join the more than 3,000 men who are suing the nonprofit for allowing pedophiles inside the organization to prey on the boys. Michael Mertz, a Chicago-based lawyer who has represented Boy Scouts victims, said that by declaring bankruptcy, the organization is trying to limit the damages. Mitchell Garabedian, whose efforts to go after predatory Roman Catholic priests were dramatized in the Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight” and who also represents Boy Scouts victims, said the move to bankruptcy court could force the organization to open all its so-called “perversion files.” Those files, which were collected by the Boy Scouts and go back to 1944, contain the names of 7,819 Scout leaders who allegedly preyed on boys, as well as the names of 12,254 victims, experts and attorneys involved in the cases have said. So far, only the files from 1965 to 1985 have been made public.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Peter Nygard, meet Jeffrey Epstein. The Canadian fashion kingpin has fallen into sordid company amid explosive allegations he sexually assaulted a slew of underage women – including three 14-year-olds. Ten unidentified women have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing Nygard, 77, of rape and sex trafficking. The allegations are eerily similar to the twisted web woven by hedge fund pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. "Nygard lured and enticed young, impressionable, and often impoverished children and women with cash payments and false promises of lucrative modelling opportunities in order to assault, rape, and sodomize them. Many were drugged to force compliance with Nygard's sexual desires," the plaintiffs said in a press release. Many of the women were underage at the time of the alleged assaults, between 2008 and 2015. Nygard allegedly ordered underlings to "procure" the girls and take them to what he called "pamper parties." At the parties, they were allegedly fed drugs and booze. Many of the payouts were allegedly run through his string of companies, the suit charges. The lawsuit also alleges the style impresario bribed cops and government officials in the Bahamas to turn a blind eye to his antics. Nygard allegedly has a database of more than 7,500 underage girls and women. Most of the incidents allegedly occurred at Nygard's mansion on Lyford Cay in the Caribbean paradise. And most of the alleged victims were young "impoverished" Bahamian girls.
Note: Read an excellent, well researched essay on this disturbing case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is under fire after a whistleblower complaint revealed that the department had given over $1 million in anti-human trafficking grants to two groups, Hookers for Jesus and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation, rather than highly recommended, established groups. A September 12 internal DOJ memo recommended that the grant money go to the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Palm Beach and Chicanos Por La Causa of Phoenix. The recommendations were based on reviews from outside contractors. Instead, the grant money went to two organizations the contractors gave lower ratings: Hookers for Jesus and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation. Hookers for Jesus is a Christian organization founded by former sex worker and sex trafficking victim Annie Lobert in 2007. The organization operates Destiny House, a one-year safehouse program for sex-trafficking victims. Lobert's organization, which was given $530,190 over three years, is controversial due to its strict rules in the safehouse, banning "secular magazines with articles, pictures, etc. that portray worldly views/advice on living, sex, clothing, makeup tips," and mandatory attendance of the organization's religious services. Its staff manual also says homosexuality is immoral. The group's policies could violate federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, reviewers said Hookers for Jesus had little experience with male victims, minors or foreign victims of human trafficking.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Cybercriminal Eric Eoin Marques pleaded guilty in an American court this week. Marques faces up to 30 years in jail for running Freedom Hosting, which temporarily existed beyond reach of the law and ended up being used to host drug markets, money-laundering operations, hacking groups, and millions of images of child abuse. Investigators were somehow able to break the layers of anonymity that Marques had constructed, leading them to locate a crucial server in France. This discovery eventually led them to Marques himself. Marques was the first in a line of famous cybercriminals to be caught despite believing that using the privacy-shielding anonymity network Tor would make them safe behind their keyboards. The case demonstrates that government agencies can trace suspects through networks that were designed to be impenetrable. Marques has blamed the American NSA’s world-class hackers, but the FBI has also been building up its efforts since 2002. And, some observers say, they often withhold key details of their investigations from defendants and judges alike—secrecy that could have wide-ranging cybersecurity implications across the internet. The FBI had found a way to break Tor’s anonymity protections, but the technical details of how it happened remain a mystery. “Perhaps the greatest overarching question related to the investigation of this case is how the government was able to pierce Tor’s veil of anonymity,” Marques’s defense lawyers wrote in a recent filing.
Note: For more on this important case, see this informative article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
The number of reported photos, videos and other materials related to online child sexual abuse grew by more than 50 percent last year. Nearly 70 million images and videos were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a federally designated clearinghouse for the imagery that works with law enforcement agencies. Over 41 million videos were reported; the number five years ago was under 350,000. The center identified ... the companies that had detected the imagery, the first time detailed company information had been released. The companies flagged many of the same images and videos multiple times as they were shared among users. Facebook reported nearly 60 million photos and videos, more than 85 percent of the total. About half of the content was not necessarily illegal, according to the company, and was reported to help law enforcement with investigations. Instagram, owned by Facebook, was responsible for an additional 1.7 million photos and videos. Snapchat, Twitter and other social media companies also submitted reports of imagery. So did ... Google and Microsoft. Apple, Dropbox and the chat platform Discord also detected the illegal content. In all, 164 companies submitted reports. Some companies that made a small number of reports ended up finding a large volume of imagery. Dropbox, for instance, made roughly 5,000 reports last year but found over 250,000 photos and videos.
Note: Listen to a disturbing, yet vitally important New York Times podcast showing this huge problem that few are willing to look at. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A man once described by an FBI agent as the world's largest "facilitator" of child abuse websites pleaded guilty on Thursday to operating a web hosting service that allowed users to anonymously access hundreds of thousands of images and videos depicting child abuse. Eric Eoin Marques, 34, faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 years after his guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to advertise child abuse images. A plea agreement will ask the US district judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland to sentence Marques to 15 to 21 years in prison, but the judge is not bound by the recommendation. Marques created and operated a free, anonymous web hosting service, called Freedom Hosting, on a network allowing users to access websites without revealing their IP addresses. In 2013, FBI agents in Maryland connected to the network and accessed a child abuse bulletin board with more than 7,700 members and more than 22,000 posts. Agents downloaded more than 1 million files from another website on the network, nearly all of which depicted sexually explicit images of children. Images on the service depicted the rape and torture of infants and older children. Authorities seized nearly $155,000 in US currency from Marques, who said during an August 2013 extradition hearing that his business had been "very successful" and profitable. FBI special agent Brooke Donahue has described Marques as "the largest facilitator of child pornography websites on the planet", according to court records.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Millions of dollars that were sent from the estate of disgraced billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein into a dormant bank he had opened in 2014 has raised questions from a judge overseeing a court case over his remaining assets. In court documents obtained yesterday regarding the billionaire's Virgin Islands assets, a judge found that in August last year, when Epstein was found hanged in his jail cell, the financier's bank in the territory ... had no more than $693,157. In December, Epstein's estate transferred $15.5 million to the bank. The bank sent back $2.6 million, leaving $12.9 million. There was then a withdrawal of almost all funds before the end of the year, leaving the balance at around $500,000. In January, a lawsuit filed by the US Virgin Islands posthumously accused Epstein of sexually abusing and trafficking hundreds of girls and young women on his private Caribbean island as recently as 2018 and had a database to keep track of their availability. The lawsuit, filed against the millionaire pedophile's estate last month claimed Epstein used his two private islands in the U.S. territory to engage in a nearly two-decade conspiracy to traffic and abuse girls as young as 11 or 12. Many of the victims were allegedly aspiring models from South America and he used fake modelling visas to fly them across international borders to his two islands - known as Little Saint James and Great Saint James - the lawsuit claims.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
President Donald Trump plans to expand the White House domestic policy office by appointing an individual to focus exclusively on combating human trafficking. Trump is expected to create the position by executive order. A candidate has yet to be identified for the new post on the Domestic Policy Council. A partner in the effort is Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser. During a visit to Atlanta this month, she compared trafficking to “modern-day slavery” and said the White House is committed to ending it. Under the executive order, according to the White House official, the State Department will be tasked with creating a website to serve as a clearinghouse where law enforcement officials, victims, advocates and others can get information on government-wide efforts to combat human trafficking. Federal departments and agencies will also be asked to propose legislative and executive actions to help law enforcement officials track the sharing – in real time – of child sexual abuse material on the internet. The Justice and Homeland Security departments will also be directed to work with the Education Department to fund prevention education programs for the nation’s schools. Some groups criticized the summit. Other groups that have been invited said they will not attend. Eric Schwartz, president of Refugees International, said in a statement that the Trump administration has pursued policies that endanger trafficking victims by chipping away at their legal protections.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Duke of York has provided "zero co-operation" to an inquiry into late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation has said. Prosecutors and the FBI have contacted his lawyers but have received no reply, said US attorney Geoffrey Berman. Prince Andrew says he did not see, or suspect, any suspicious behaviour when visiting homes of his then friend. Buckingham Palace said the prince's legal team was dealing with the issue. It said it would not be commenting further. Mr Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the FBI and Southern District of New York had requested to interview the duke as part of their inquiry into Epstein's crimes, but "to date, Prince Andrew has provided zero co-operation". Prince Andrew has come under fire for his friendship with the US financier, who was jailed in Florida in 2008 for procuring a minor for prostitution. He told BBC Newsnight in November that he first met Epstein in 1999 and did not regret their friendship - which led to Epstein attending events at Windsor Castle and Sandringham - because it had "some seriously beneficial outcomes". Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's accusers, says she was trafficked to London by Epstein in 2001, when she was 17, and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Ghislaine Maxwell’s private emails have been hacked by cyber criminals in a new twist in the scandal surrounding Prince Andrew’s friendship with a convicted paedophile. The British heiress was targeted after she was publicly accused of procuring young girls for Jeffrey Epstein, legal papers seen by The Telegraph reveal. The security breach raises the prospect that emails between Ms Maxwell and prominent individuals including the Duke of York could be made public, or sold to the highest bidder. Ms Maxwell has barely been seen in public since August, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unsealed allegations that she conspired with Epstein to recruit and groom underage girls. Her US lawyers are currently battling the release of around 8,600 further documents from the same civil case, said to contain damaging new sex claims about Epstein’s vast network of celebrity friends. In December it was revealed that Ms Maxwell exchanged emails with Prince Andrew in 2015 about Virginia Giuffre, who accuses the Duke of having sex with her three times when she was aged 17. He has always emphatically denied the allegations. A US judge will decide in the coming weeks whether to unseal the new evidence about Epstein’s alleged crimes. The documents include depositions from 29 people, including a number of new witnesses and reportedly Epstein himself. The Duke of York’s name appears in the evidence along with a number of prominent politicians and businessmen.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Epstein’s name was uttered just once in the federal courtroom but his memory hovered like a cloud over Wednesday’s hearing for an ex-cop who shared a cell with him on the day last July when the accused sex trafficker allegedly tried to kill himself. Nicholas Tartaglione faces a possible death penalty if convicted of the gangland-style killing of four men in a soured drug deal. He has become entangled in the Epstein saga — because many found it curious that the most high-profile inmate in the nation would be kept in the same jail cell as an alleged quadruple killer. As Epstein’s cellmate at the time of the July incident ... Tartaglione [is] requesting the surveillance video from outside the jail cell, to prove that he helped save Epstein during the financier’s abortive suicide try. Defense lawyer Bruce Barket said video of the incident would back up Tartaglione’s story that he alerted guards to Epstein’s plight. That fact could be used before a judge and jury. The problem is that the Bureau of Prisons says it no longer has the video. It was accidentally destroyed. The fact that the video is gone, which was reported earlier this month to great consternation, was yet another embarrassment for the Bureau of Prisons. Epstein died weeks later, on Aug. 10, in what was classified as a suicide by hanging, although some, including Epstein’s brother, have suggested it could have been murder. By the time of his death, Epstein had no cellmate and was inexplicably no longer on suicide watch despite the earlier incident.
Note: This New York magazine report has a wealth of information on Jeffrey Epstein's very strange death. Explore a complex yet very informative timeline of Epstein and his relationship to the Mossad and much more. Many links are made here with verifiable information that the major media has failed to report. A drone video also explores the island owned by Epstein and a strange "temple" found there. Lots more available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The surveillance video taken from outside Jeffrey Epstein's jail cell on the day of his first apparent suicide attempt has been permanently deleted, federal prosecutors said. Epstein, the disgraced financier who was facing federal sex-trafficking charges, was found semiconscious in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, or MCC, in New York around 1:27 a.m. on July 23. But that video is now gone because MCC officials mistakenly saved video from a different floor of the federal detention facility. The FBI made the discovery last week while reviewing a copy of the video provided by MCC officials. "After reviewing the video, it appeared to the government that the footage contained on the preserved video was for the correct date and time, but captured a different tier than the one where [the cell housing Epstein and his cellmate] was located.” The filing was made in a case involving Nicholas Tartaglione ... who was Epstein's cellmate on the day of the incident. The July incident was investigated as a possible suicide attempt, assault or ruse by Epstein to get himself transferred to a different facility. Tartaglione's attorney, as part of an effort to exonerate his client, asked the jail to preserve video from outside the cell. The MCC agreed, but "the MCC computer system listed a different, incorrect cell for Tartaglione," prosecutors said in the court filing. A backup video system was in place, but the requested video wasn't available because of unspecified "technical errors," the court filing says.
Note: Just a little bit suspicious... For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The French writer Gabriel Matzneff never hid the fact that he engaged in sex with girls and boys in their early teens or even younger. He wrote countless books detailing his insatiable pursuits and appeared on television boasting about them. “Under 16 Years Old,” was the title of an early book that left no ambiguity. Still, he never spent a day in jail for his actions or suffered any repercussion. Instead, he won acclaim again and again. Much of France’s literary and journalism elite celebrated him and his work for decades. But the publication, last Thursday, of an account by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora, has suddenly fueled an intense debate in France over its historically lax attitude toward sex with minors. It has also shone a particularly harsh light on a period during which some of France’s leading literary figures and newspapers — names as big as Foucault, Sartre, Libération and Le Monde — aggressively promoted the practice as a form of human liberation, or at least defended it. A day after the publication of Ms. Springora’s book, “Le Consentement,” or “Consent,” ... the fallout continued. Prosecutors in Paris announced that after “analyzing” its contents, they had opened an investigation into the case and would also look for other victims in and out of France. In “Le Consentement,” Ms. Springora recounts being seduced at the age of 14 by the famous writer. She also relates the depression and other psychological problems she suffered from the relationship, and the years it took her to recover.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
In July 2019, Jeffrey Epstein, already a convicted sex offender, was arrested and charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors. On August 10, Epstein was found dead in his federal jail cell at Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC). The New York City Medical Examiner's Office ruled Epstein's death a suicide by hanging, but a forensic pathologist who observed the four-hour autopsy ... tells 60 Minutes the evidence released so far points more to murder than suicide in his view. Dr. Michael Baden's key reason: the unusual fractures he saw in Epstein's neck."There were fractures of the left, the right thyroid cartilage and the left hyoid bone," Baden said. "I have never seen three fractures like this in a suicidal hanging." The night before his death, Epstein's cellmate was released. According to court documents, "no new cellmate was assigned" before he died, even though he was required to have one. That night, federal prosecutors say, "Epstein was escorted into his cell by Tova Noel at approximately 7:49 p.m." Noel and Michael Thomas, the two guards who were working the overnight shift in Epstein's unit, allegedly didn't check on him again until "shortly after 6:30 a.m." the next morning. "So Epstein's taken off suicide watch, the day before he kills himself, his roommate is removed from the cell. The cameras on his tier are not working. The guards fell asleep. It seems almost impossible to think all of those things could happen in that way," [60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn] Alfonsi said.
Note: Not mentioned is that surveillance video from Epstein's first suicide attempt was "accidentally" erased, as reported on NBC News. A revealing five-minute 60 minutes video is available here or at the link above. More photos and information are available on this CBS News webpage. An even deeper analysis can be found on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Richard J. Poster served time for possessing child pornography, violated his probation by having contact with children, admitted masturbating in the bushes near a church school and in 2005 was put on a sex offender registry. And yet the former Catholic priest was only just this month added to a list of clergy members credibly accused of child sexual abuse — after The Associated Press asked why he was not included. Victims advocates had long criticized the Roman Catholic Church for not making public the names of credibly accused priests. Now, despite the dioceses’ release of nearly 5,300 names, most in the last two years, critics say the lists are far from complete. An AP analysis found more than 900 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse who were missing from lists released by the dioceses and religious orders where they served. Of the 900 unlisted accused clergy members, more than a tenth had been charged with a sex-related crime — a higher percentage than those named publicly by dioceses and orders, the AP found.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Several websites popular with sexual predators were thwarted last month after a determined campaign by groups dedicated to eliminating the content. It was a rare victory in an unending war. In late November, the moderator of three highly trafficked websites posted a message titled “R.I.P.” It offered a convoluted explanation for why they were left with no choice but to close. The unnamed moderator thanked over 100,000 “brothers” who had visited and contributed to the sites before their demise, blaming an “increasingly intolerant world” that did not allow children to “fully express themselves.” In fact, forums on the sites had been bastions of illegal content almost since their inception in 2012, containing child sexual abuse photos and videos, including violent and explicit imagery of infants and toddlers. In a world exploding with the imagery — 45 million photos and videos of child sexual abuse were reported last year alone — the open web is a freewheeling expanse where the underdog task of confronting the predators falls mainly to a few dozen nonprofits with small budgets. Several of those groups, including a child exploitation hotline in Canada, hunted the three sites across the internet for years but could never quite defeat them. But [a] Canadian hotline developed ... a sophisticated tool to find and report illegal imagery. The three sites were overwhelmed by the Canadian tool, which had sent more than 1 million notices of illegal content to the companies keeping them online. And last month, they were compelled to surrender.
Note: Listen to a disturbing, yet vitally important New York Times podcast showing this huge problem that few are willing to look at. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Britain's royal family was reeling from yet another damning interview. This time it was an American woman who accuses the queen's son, Prince Andrew, of having sex with her when she was just 17 years old. Virginia Roberts Giuffre spoke out in the interview with the BBC about what she says the prince did to her, and what he may know about Jeffrey Epstein. The American woman described being forced to have sex with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, three times while she was still a teenager. "It didn't last very long. It was disgusting. He wasn't mean or anything, but he got up and he said, 'thanks,' and walked out," she told the BBC. Roberts Giuffre said she met Prince Andrew at properties owned by Epstein, the American financier and convicted sex offender who was found dead in his New York jail cell earlier this year. She said she was made to dance with the duke at a London nightclub. "It was horrible, and this guy was sweating all over me, his sweat was like it was raining," she said. Last month Prince Andrew denied ever meeting Roberts Giuffre — despite being photographed with her — and claimed that due to a "peculiar medical condition" he was physically unable to sweat "at the time." He did admit to spending time at Epstein's homes. Now, five more American women have said Prince Andrew witnessed abuse at Epstein's home. Meanwhile, an email has emerged this week ... that was sent by the prince in January 2015 to his long-time friend Ghislaine Maxwell... "Let me know when we can talk. Got some specific questions to ask you about Virginia Roberts."
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse rings reach to the highest levels of government. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which also leads directly to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The federal judge who oversaw Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex trafficking case says “it is unthinkable” that any jail inmate — let alone one with such a high profile as Epstein — would die in custody, as the wealthy investor did this summer. Judge Richard Berman also is calling for reforms to be carried out in the U.S. prison system in light of Epstein’s death in a Manhattan federal jail. Berman, in a letter to The New York Times, said the indictment last week of two guards there for allegedly covering up their failure to check on Epstein in his cell in the hours before he died Aug. 10 “is not the full accounting to which Mr. Epstein’s family, his alleged victims and the public are entitled.” “We all agree that it is unthinkable that any detainee, let alone a high-profile detainee like Mr. Epstein, would die unnoticed at the Metropolitan Correctional Center,” Berman wrote in his letter to the Times. Berman added, “There is at the very least anecdotal evidence that chronic understaffing, subpar living conditions, violence, gang activity, racial tension and the prevalence of drugs and contraband are the norms in many of our prisons.” Federal prosecutors last week said that two M.C.C. guards, Michael Thomas and Tova Noel, failed to conduct scheduled head counts on all inmates in that special housing unit or do other required rounds for up to eight hours before Epstein was found dead. Instead, prosecutors charged, Thomas and Noel browsed the Internet, strolled around a common area in the unit and appeared to sleep for about two hours.
Note: How is it that the lawyer defending some of Jeffrey Epstein's victims, David Boies, was also the lawyer defending convicted sexual offender Harvey Weinstein, as mentioned in this NY Times article? Does it make sense for the lawyer of a major sex offender to be defending Epstein's victims? Is this a way for power elite to control the situation? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and prison system corruption from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Epstein’s foundation looked for all the world like a charitable powerhouse: On its websites and in its press releases, the foundation was described as a patron of hospitals, universities and film festivals, run by a global philanthropist. The organization — known by various names, but usually called the J. Epstein Virgin Islands Foundation — wasn’t officially a charity for much of its existence, having lost its tax-exempt status in 2008 ... the same year Mr. Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor. In the years between that case and his suicide in August as he faced federal sex-trafficking charges, Mr. Epstein was unshackled from the rigorous financial disclosures that charities are supposed to file every year with the government — allowing him to exaggerate his philanthropy as he sought to rebuild his reputation. The most glaring exaggeration appeared on Wikipedia. A user name apparently connected to Mr. Epstein edited the page for the foundation and put its annual outlay at $200 million a year. In reality, the foundation was worth a small fraction of that amount, according to documents obtained by The New York Times through a public records lawsuit in the Virgin Islands. Eighteen years of financial statements show that just under $20 million flowed into the foundation since it was founded in 2000. Roughly $16.6 million was spent on donations and grants; most of the rest paid unspecified “general and administrative” expenses and $1.5 million in interest for what appears to be an undisclosed debt.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Prince Andrew announced on Wednesday that he would step back from public life, seeking to contain a firestorm over his ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. “It has become clear to me over the past few days that my association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work and the valuable work going on in the many organizations and charities that I am proud to support,” Prince Andrew said in a statement. “Therefore, I have asked Her Majesty if I can step back from public duties for the foreseeable future, and she has given her permission,” said the prince, who is also known as the Duke of York. The duke, 59, had hoped that the interview, broadcast Saturday by the BBC, would put to rest lingering questions about his ties to Mr. Epstein, as well as accusations that he had sex with a teenage girl who had been supplied to him by his friend. Instead, after the duke submitted to 50 minutes of polite but relentless grilling by the BBC journalist Emily Maitlis, his unsavory association with Mr. Epstein ... mutated into a full-blown scandal. Viewers expressed shock and anger at Prince Andrew’s lack of sympathy for Mr. Epstein’s victims, as well as his unpersuasive denials of sexual misconduct, which included peculiar assertions, such as that he has been medically unable to perspire since his combat tour in the Falklands War. In August ... Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused the prince of having sex with her three times when she was 17 years old and had been offered to him by Mr. Epstein.
Note: Prince Andrew is finding himself increasingly isolated because of comments he's made about Epstein. Explore an article in the UK's Telegraph titled "Prince Andrew named in secret new evidence against Jeffrey Epstein." For more, see summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
Maria Farmer, who has accused Jeffrey Epstein and his friend Ghislaine Maxwell of assaulting her in 1996, said Maxwell threatened her life after the assault. Farmer ... was a young artist when she met Epstein and Maxwell at an art show in New York City in 1995. Epstein had bought one of Farmer's paintings ... and eventually offered her a job. The 26-year old soon found herself working the front desk in his palatial New York City townhouse. "All day long. I saw Ghislaine going to get the women. She went to places like Central Park. I was with her a couple of times in the car ... She would say ,'Stop the car.' And she would dash out and get a child." Epstein ultimately led her to his bathroom. "And there was a marble, like, altar thing over here, and he said that's where he gets his massages," Farmer said. Epstein told her the whole house was wired with pinhole cameras and took her into the media room where they were monitored. In the summer of 1996, Farmer said Epstein sent her to ... the vast estate of Les Wexner, the CEO of L Brands, which owns "Victoria's Secret." Farmer alleges in her complaint that Maxwell and Epstein sexually assaulted her there. When she tried to flee the following day, she wasn't allowed to leave. She claims a member of Wexner's staff warned her. "His exact words were: 'You're not going anywhere. You are never leaving,'" she said. Farmer reported the assault to the FBI, but it wasn't for another decade, just before Epstein's first arrest in 2006, that an agent finally appeared at her door, she said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The FBI is investigating whether a “criminal enterprise” played a role in the controversial jailhouse death of well-connected sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, the head of the federal prison system told a Senate committee Tuesday. But Bureau of Prisons Director Kathleen Hawk Sawyer also testified that there is “no indication, from anything I know,” that the wealthy investor’s demise on Aug. 10 “was anything other than a suicide.” At the time Epstein died, the former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton was awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges. Sawyer’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee came on the same day that two guards from a Manhattan jail operated by the BOP were criminally charged with falsifying official records to cover up the fact that they never conducted mandated safety checks on Epstein and other inmates in the hours before he was found unresponsive with a noose around his neck. The New York City medical examiner’s office has ruled Epstein’s death was a suicide by hanging. But Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s brother, has said that the injuries found on Epstein’s neck were more consistent with those found in homicides. During Tuesday’s hearing, one senator underscored to the prisons boss how skeptical many people are about the official ruling that Epstein killed himself. “Christmas ornaments, drywall and [Jeffrey] Epstein. Name three things that don’t hang themselves,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
One of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers is providing chilling new insight into his alleged sex trafficking operation. Maria Farmer told "CBS This Morning" that Epstein sexually assaulted her more than 20 years ago. She is now suing the Epstein estate. In her first TV interview, Farmer alleges that Epstein had extensive surveillance inside his home, including tiny pinhole cameras. Farmer [said] that Epstein showed her cameras throughout his house. "The main thing he did when I walked in, and I thought was interesting, he showed me where the cameras, the men monitoring everything, were. So, if you're facing the house, there's a window on the right that's barred. That's the media room, is what he called it. And so, there was a door that looked like an invisible door with all this limestone and everything. And you push it, and you go in. And I saw, all the cameras, it was, like, old televisions basically, like, stacked." "They were monitors inside this cabinet. And there were men sitting here. And I looked on the cameras, and I saw toilet, toilet, bed, bed, toilet, bed. I'm like, 'I am never gonna use the restroom here and I'm never gonna sleep here,' you know what I mean? It was very obvious that they were, like, monitoring private moments." She believes there are tapes - the question is, who has them?
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse rings reach to the highest levels of government. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which also leads directly to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Lady Colin Campbell today said Jeffrey Epstein should not be called a paedophile during a panel discussion about Prince Andrew's BBC Newsnight interview. The royal biographer made the comments while discussing the Duke of York's interview, which aired on Saturday and in which he discussed his links to the disgraced financier. Host Piers Morgan was addressing the prince's visit to Epstein's home when Lady Colin Campbell interrupted to claim that the financier's convictions did not make him a paedophile. "You all seem to have forgotten that Jeffrey Epstein, the offence with which he was charged and for which he was imprisoned, was 'soliciting prostitution from minors'. "That is not the same thing as paedophilia," she said. The conversation turned heated as Morgan replied: "Well, what would you call it? If you solicit a 14-year-old for prostitution then you're a paedophile." But Lady Campbell ... responded by claiming that the term 'minor' did not refer to a child. She was then corrected by the host. Morgan was referring to allegations that Epstein abused dozens of girls some as young as 14-years-old. Epstein, 66, died in jail on August 10 while facing sex trafficking charges of under-age girls, some as young as 14. He faced sex trafficking accusations in Florida in 2007 but signed a deal that year with prosecutors. The controversial arrangement allowed him to avoid federal charges and plead guilty to lesser state prostitution charges, for which he spent 13 months behind bars.
Note: If the above link fails, this article is also available here. Prince Andrew is finding himself increasingly isolated because of comments he's made about Epstein. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
A paedophile ring involved in the abuse of at least 546 boys from six schools has been discovered in Afghanistan’s Logar province. Some of the victims of the abuse have since been murdered according to the campaigners who first discovered videos of abuse posted to a Facebook page. Civil society organisation, The Logar Youth, Social and Civil Institution, which has been working in the region for 16 years, revealed the extent of the abuse after discovering more than 100 videos on the social media site. The institution is investigating other high schools in the region, believing thousands more children may have been abused. Mohammed Mussa, a lead social worker at the institution, alleges that teachers, headteachers and local authority officials are implicated in the abuse ring. According to Mussa, some of the teachers were reported to the police but were released shortly after and have not been charged. “The rapists are teachers, older students, authority figures and even extended family members,” he said. He and his team have received death threats since exposing the abuse. He added that many of the abused boys have also been threatened. “Many of the victims are blackmailed. They are forced to sell drugs or engage in illegal activities in exchange for their rape videos to not be released,” Mussa said. Patricia Gossman ... at Human Rights Watch, added: “There is impunity for child rape because very often the perpetrators are powerful men in the military, police, or other official institutions.”
Note: The Afghani secret service detained the whistleblowers who revealed this abuse. What's up with that? The Afghani president has even rebuked his own intelligence service around this. The truth is coming out. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The two sisters live in fear of being recognized. Ten years ago, their father did the unthinkable: He posted explicit photos and videos on the internet of them, just 7 and 11 at the time. Many captured violent assaults in their Midwestern home, including him and another man drugging and raping the 7-year-old. The men are now in prison, but in a cruel consequence of the digital era, their crimes are finding new audiences. This year alone, photos and videos of the sisters were found in over 130 child sexual abuse investigations involving mobile phones, computers and cloud storage accounts. The digital trail of abuse — often stored on Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive — haunts the sisters relentlessly, they say, as does the fear of a predator recognizing them from the images. The scope of the problem is only starting to be understood because the tech industry has been more diligent in recent years in identifying online child sexual abuse material, with a record 45 million photos and videos flagged last year. But the same industry has consistently failed to take aggressive steps to shut it down, an investigation by The New York Times found. Approaches by tech companies are inconsistent, largely unilateral and pursued in secret, often leaving pedophiles and other criminals who traffic in the material with the upper hand. There is no common standard for identifying illegal video content, and many major platforms — including AOL, Snapchat and Yahoo — do not even scan for it.
Note: Listen to a disturbing, yet vitally important New York Times podcast showing this huge problem that few are willing to look at. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A CBS News employee, fired after ABC executives informed CBS she'd had access to a leaked hot mic video that revealed the Disney-owned network killed a Jeffrey Epstein scoop, says she did not leak the tape and was unfairly axed without being able to defend herself. Ashley Bianco was a producer on ABC’s “Good Morning America” before joining “CBS This Morning” last month. Earlier this week, the controversial group Project Veritas published the damning video in which ... anchor Amy Robach complained that her bosses killed a story that would have exposed the now-deceased child sex offender Epstein three years ago. Bianco said she was fired by CBS after the network received a call from ABC informing her new boss that she once had access to the leaked video. “I did not" leak the tape, Bianco told journalist Megyn Kelly in an interview posted Friday on YouTube. “I’m not the whistleblower. I’m sorry to ABC, but the leaker is still inside.” CBS News declined to comment on Bianco's claim. Bianco denied ever communicating with anyone from Project Veritas and said she simply made a clip of the video and saved it in ABC's internal system. “I never heard of Project Veritas until this,” she said. Bianco, who deleted various social media accounts before speaking out, said she did not inform her manager that she clipped it, but “everyone in the office was freaked out” by Robach’s comments. “Everyone was watching it,” Bianco said, noting that the purpose for “clipping” it was to watch it back later for “office gossip.” Bianco told Kelly that she doesn’t know who leaked the tape because “everyone” at ABC was aware it existed.
Note: The silence of other most major media around this huge story is deafening. Watch an interview with the fired woman. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Mainstream media outlets have largely ignored the Project Veritas bombshell that ABC News killed a story that would have exposed the now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein three years ago. Fox News found no coverage on CNN, MSNBC, CBS News, or NBC News from noon through midnight ET on Tuesday while the story was lighting up social media. During that same time frame, Fox News covered the scandal on five different programs. Mainstream media essentially has an unspoken rule not to cover anything Project Veritas does, as the group’s controversial founder, James O'Keefe, describes himself as a “guerrilla journalist”. But the ABC video has been verified by ... ABC itself as authentic, and has therefore created quite a conundrum for mainstream media. Project Veritas’ most recent project, before releasing ABC News anchor Amy Robach's explosive hot mic tape, was publishing undercover recordings made by a now-former CNN employee who secretly documented staffers criticizing the network. The recordings also captured CNN president Jeff Zucker telling top news executives to focus solely on the impeachment of President Trump, even at the expense of other important news. “The traditional media surely do not like Project Veritas snooping around into their behind-the-scenes operations, but the Project Veritas videos of Amy Robach's and Jeff Zucker's comments do lend insight to the workings of these news organizations," [DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey] McCall said.
Note: Don't miss this most telling leaked video. Listen also to a one-hour interview by Project Veritas of WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and media manipulation. from reliable major media sources.
Amy Robach of ABC News: “I tried for three years to get it on, to no avail, and now it’s all coming out. And it’s like these new revelations and I freaking had all of it. I am so pissed right now. ... What we had was unreal.” Those remarks come courtesy of James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas. The “unreal” story [was] related to Jeffrey Epstein, the shadowy financier who died in prison in August of an apparent suicide as he awaited trial for sex trafficking conspiracy and sex trafficking. In August, NPR’s David Folkenflik documented how three news outlets - Vanity Fair, the New York Times and ABC News - “fell short” in tugging on various strands of the Epstein story. ABC News managed to conduct an interview with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who at the age of 17 had “become part of Epstein’s household.” She has alleged that Epstein “trafficked” her to his friends, including Prince Andrew. “I viewed the ABC interview as a potential game-changer,” Giuffre wrote in an email to NPR. As it turns out, Robach also viewed the interview with Giuffre as a game-changer. “Then the Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us in a million different ways,” says Robach. “We were so afraid we ... quashed the story. She told me everything. She had pictures, she had everything. She was in hiding for 12 years, we convinced her to come out.” Robach also mentions ... Alan Dershowitz, who represented Epstein in 2008 and also stepped in as ABC News was working on the Giuffre-Epstein story.
Note: Don't miss this most telling leaked video. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and media manipulation from reliable major media sources.
ABC News' Amy Robach, best known as co-anchor of 20/20, claimed that ABC killed her story about convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking of minors three years ago in sensational hot microphone footage leaked Tuesday. In the footage, reportedly taken in August and published online Tuesday by the right-wing activist group Project Veritas, Robach, 46, says: "I've had this story for three years. I've had this interview with [Epstein accuser] Virginia Roberts. We would not put it on the air. First of all I was told, 'Who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.'" "Then the palace found out we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us in a million different ways," Robach continues, referring to the British royal that Roberts alleged in a 2015 court filing Epstein trafficked her to when she was 17. "[Roberts] told me everything," Robach says in the clip. "She had pictures. She had everything. She was in hiding for 12 years. We convinced her to come out. We convinced her to talk to us. It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton. Everything." Epstein was arrested on federal charges of sex trafficking of minors and conspiracy to sex traffic minors in July. He was found dead in his New York prison cell in August. Epstein's death has been ruled suicide by hanging, however, Epstein's family believe he was murdered. A private pathologist hired by the Epstein estate said last week that Epstein's autopsy showed injuries more consistent with "homicidal strangulation" than suicide.
Note: Watch the incredible interview of this revelation. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
A newly surfaced video of an ABC News anchor's unguarded remarks about the network's coverage of the late Jeffrey Epstein has thrown ABC on the defensive. In a leaked video posted Tuesday by the right-wing activist group Project Veritas, news anchor Amy Robach expresses her frustration to a colleague over ABC's failure to broadcast her interview with a key accuser of Epstein. Robach complains that the network "quashed" her interview, suggesting that ABC had yielded to threats from powerful forces, including Buckingham Palace. Prince Andrew is among those men whom the accuser alleges Epstein trafficked her to for sex. Robach's comments in late August 2019 came just two days after an NPR story disclosed the existence of Giuffre's interview and ABC's failure to broadcast it. In the video, Robach is ... speaking remotely through her microphone with an unseen colleague. "I've had the story for three years," Robach says in the video. "We would not put it on the air. Um, first of all, I was told, 'Who was Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.' Then the palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways." Robach goes on to say that Giuffre alluded to others in the interview, including former President Bill Clinton, Harvard University law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Giuffre has made similar accusations against all of them also in court documents.
Note: Don't miss this most telling leaked video. Read also an article showing how a variety of independent news websites have condemned ABC and CBS over this matter. Meanwhile Newsweek has posted an article titled,"'Epstein Didn't Kill Himself,' Former Navy Seal Blurts Out on Fox News." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
NBC News President Noah Oppenheim and his boss NBC News Chairman Andy Lack are still running the show. They remain at the helm despite the explosive reporting in Ronan Farrow’s new book “Catch and Kill,” which reveals how Oppenheim and Lack not only shut down the investigation into Harvey Weinstein’s predatory and abusive treatment of women, but how NBC News silenced or ignored multiple allegations of sexual misconduct inside the company ― including overlooking the behavior of “Today” show host Matt Lauer for years before finally firing him in 2017. In an article for Vanity Fair in October, Rich McHugh, the NBC producer who worked with Farrow on the Weinstein investigation, called out Oppenheim and Lack’s handling of the story. “They not only personally intervened to shut down our investigation of Weinstein, they even refused to allow me to follow up on our work after Weinstein’s history of sexual assault became front-page news,” he writes. MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes have criticized NBC management on-air. Current and former employees say they want a true independent investigation of what happened at NBC News regarding Lauer, the Weinstein story, and any other incidents of internal sexual misconduct. The Weinstein story wasn’t the only time Oppenheim’s news organization declined to air a story about a powerful man preying on women. NBC famously sat on the “Access Hollywood” tape in which now-President Donald Trump bragged about assaulting women.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The woman alleged to have been a procurer for accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly a guest in 2018 at an exclusive literary retreat hosted by Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon. Vice.com, citing two sources, reported Friday that the woman, Ghislaine Maxwell, attended the “Campfire” retreat last year. One of those sources said that Maxwell had attended three such Campfire retreats hosted by Bezos and Amazon. Maxwell, 57, went to the 2018 iteration of the highly secretive retreat with Scott Borgerson, a tech-firm CEO. That visit would have occurred before Epstein’s most recent arrest, in July of this year, on federal child sex trafficking charges. Maxwell, daughter of the late media tycoon and fraudster Robert Maxwell, has been accused by multiple women of acting as one of the procurers of girls and women for Epstein. One employee of Epstein’s called Maxwell the “lady of the house,” referring to his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Some accusers have also said Maxwell at times participated with Epstein in abusing them sexually. In court documents released in August, a woman named Virginia Giuffre said Maxwell directed her as a teenager to have sex with Prince Andrew of Britain, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, hedge funder Glenn Dubin, late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, modeling company founder Jean-Luc Brunel, the owner of a large hotel chain, and another prince.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
A forensic pathologist hired by Jeffrey Epstein’s brother disputed the official finding in the autopsy of his death, claiming on Wednesday that the evidence suggested that he did not take his own life but may have been strangled. The New York City medical examiner’s office concluded in August that Mr. Epstein had hanged himself in his jail cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. But the private pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden, said on the morning TV show “Fox & Friends” that Mr. Epstein, 66, experienced a number of injuries - among them a broken bone in his neck - that “are extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation.” Dr. Baden, a former New York City medical examiner and a Fox News contributor, added, “I’ve not seen in 50 years where that occurred in a suicidal hanging case.” The findings by Dr. Baden were strongly disputed by the city’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson. Dr. Baden said Mr. Epstein had “three fractures in the hyoid bone, the thyroid cartilage.” The autopsy also showed Mr. Epstein had several bones broken in his neck. The city medical examiner said Mr. Epstein’s death was “hanging” and the manner was “suicide.” Before that determination was made public, an article in The Washington Post noted Mr. Epstein’s injuries included a broken hyoid bone. Mr. Epstein’s death led to several investigations into how a high-profile inmate apparently killed himself just weeks after he was placed on suicide watch.
Note: Newsweek has also posted an article titled, "'Epstein Didn't Kill Himself,' Former Navy Seal Blurts Out on Fox News." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
NBC News just can’t seem to escape the talk of scandal. For weeks, the network has been rebutting allegations by a former correspondent, Ronan Farrow, that it suppressed his reporting on sexual assault allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein and covered up harassment and assault accusations against its former star, Matt Lauer. The story has been propelled by Farrow’s best-selling book, “Catch and Kill,” which asserts ... that NBC stopped Farrow’s reporting on Weinstein in mid-2017 after Weinstein threatened to reveal Lauer’s misconduct. Farrow published a blockbuster story about Weinstein in the New Yorker seven weeks later. In an extraordinary segment on her MSNBC show, Rachel Maddow urged NBC News to undertake an independent investigation of the network’s conduct. “The allegations about the behavior of Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer are gut-wrenching,” said Maddow, MSNBC’s biggest star and the second, after MSNBC host Chris Hayes, to call out her bosses on an NBC-owned platform. Brooke Nevils [is] a “Today” show producer who in Farrow’s book accuses Lauer of raping her. Network officials deny any pattern of harassment complaints or “hush-money” settlements, and say Lauer was fired just hours after Nevils came forward with her accusation in late 2017. But NBC has resisted calls for the kind of independent investigation that other news organizations have undertaken in the wake of harassment scandals.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
After Jeffrey Epstein's death, federal prosecutors in Manhattan pledged to continue investigating his alleged sex-trafficking ring, suggesting they would pursue his co-conspirators. But ... prosecutors have struggled with the question of whether some of those alleged co-conspirators were themselves victims of Epstein. Atop the alleged pyramid of Epstein associates was his ex-girlfriend turned social companion, Ghislaine Maxwell, a contemporary of Epstein's. Allegedly reporting to her and to Epstein was a coterie of assistants in their early 20s, and prosecutors are examining whether their experience with the accused predator should categorize them as an accomplice or as one of the abused. According to police reports, civil lawsuits and other court filings, these women approached girls in various places including near their schools, offering them the opportunity to make money by giving what they described as massages to an older man. The starkest example appears to be Nadia Marcinkova, an Epstein assistant who is accused in civil lawsuits of having perpetrated abuse alongside Epstein, aiding him to "satisfy his criminal sexual desires by, on occasion, directly participating in sexual abuse and prostitution of the minor girls," according to one of the lawsuits. One victim who alleged she was forced to have sex with Marcinkova told police Epstein bragged that he had "purchased" Marcinkova and brought her to the US to be his "Yugoslavian sex slave."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
On August 19, Buckingham Palace put out a statement signed by Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, that was emphatic in distancing the British Royal from the late disgraced financier, Jeffrey Epstein. The statement came days after The Mail On Sunday published grainy video footage that the British paper said showed the prince at the door of Epstein's Manhattan townhouse in 2010. By then Epstein was a registered sex offender who had avoided a federal trial at the time and served only 13 months in jail for state prostitution charges over his involvement with underage girls. In 2015, one of Epstein's accusers, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, said in a federal court filing that she was forced to have sex with the prince while underage. The more than decade-long friendship between Prince Andrew and Epstein, who died by suicide in his jail cell on August 10, ended in the Spring of 2011, when Epstein threatened legal action against Prince Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. On March 7, 2011, Sarah Ferguson admitted publicly that she had accepted GBP 15,000 ($24,000) from Epstein to help pay an employee to whom she owed money. The Duchess gave an interview ... in which she expressed extreme contrition for her lack of judgment by accepting the funds from Epstein. With the interview, she put a clear divide between herself and Epstein. "I abhor pedophilia," she said, adding that she'd had no knowledge of Epstein's alleged relationships with under-age girls when she took the money.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Computer scientist Richard Stallman has severed his connections with MIT after he claimed that Virginia Giuffre, one of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking victims, presented as "entirely willing." A leading voice in the free software movement, Stallman on Monday resigned as a visiting scientist at the Institute’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and as president of Free Software Foundation. In a message circulated to an MIT CSAIL mailing list and revealed last week by MIT grad Selam Jie Gano, Stallman wrote that Giuffre, who has testified that she was forced to have sex with MIT professor Marvin Minsky on Epstein's private island aged 17, most likely “presented herself to him as entirely willing.” The email was in a response to a Facebook event calling for MIT students to protest over Epstein’s secret donations to the institution, which were revealed by the New Yorker this month. In the emails Stallman claimed that the term “sexual assault” in relation to Minsky, as used in the Facebook post for the event, was “absolutely wrong.” He added that the term “presumes that [Minsky] applied force or violence.” Stallman also implied that being 17 and therefore underage, was a “minor detail.” The MIT Media Lab has been racked by the revelations that it solicited cash from the disgraced financier and had sought to present his donations as coming from anonymous donors to duck the university’s ban on receiving money from Epstein.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
A group of women who say they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein suffered a setback Monday in their decade-long legal fight over a plea deal that allowed the financier to avoid a lengthy prison term. A federal judge in West Palm Beach, Florida, ruled that the women were not entitled to compensation from the U.S. Justice Department, even though prosecutors violated their rights by failing to consult them about the 2008 deal to end a federal probe that could have landed Epstein in prison for life. "In the end they are not receiving much, if any, of the relief they sought," U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra wrote. Several of Epstein's victims sued the Justice Department in 2008 over their handling of his plea negotiations, in which his victims were purposely kept in the dark by state and federal prosecutors in South Florida. They kept the legal case alive for years ... arguing that prosecutors had violated the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act. The drawn-out litigation ultimately fueled a Miami Herald investigation into the plea negotiations, which in turn led to a new wave of public outrage over perceived favorable treatment for Epstein. Federal prosecutors in New York revived the case, arguing they weren't bound by the original deal, and charged Epstein with sex trafficking. Former Miami U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta, who oversaw the plea deal, stepped down as U.S. labor secretary amid the renewed scrutiny. And Marra ruled in February that prosecutors had violated the rights of dozens of Epstein accusers.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The names of at least 1,000 people appear in sealed court documents associated with Jeffrey Epstein, a court heard on Wednesday. The revelation came after attorneys for a “John Doe” asked a federal judge in New York not to release the names of people who were not directly involved with the 2015 defamation lawsuit filed by Epstein accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre against Epstein’s longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell. The case was settled in 2017, but the details are only just now emerging. A day before Epstein’s death in August, a massive cache of documents from the suit was unsealed - revealing accusations against prominent figures, including former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former Sen. George Mitchell. Within the files, Giuffre alleged Maxwell acted as Epstein’s “madame” and was “one of the main women” whom Epstein used “to procure under-aged girls for sexual activities.” Maxwell’s attorney, Jeffrey S. Pagliuca, said that ... there are “literally hundreds of pages of investigative reports that mention hundreds of people.” Pagliuca also pointed to a piece of evidence he called “an address book,” and said it probably includes 1,000 names. What could be the legal implications for anyone who is named? It depends, says Mimi Rocah, a MSNBC legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. Individuals could be implicated in the sex trafficking conspiracy “if they were even minimally aware of the age of the girls being exploited and participated or furthered that exploitation in some way,” she explains.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Epstein forged deep ties with some of the nation’s elite universities and their scholars, showering them with millions of dollars in donations. The financier’s donations supported important research and helped scientists work toward discoveries, but they also provided a veneer of credibility to a convicted sex offender. The ensuing fallout ... illuminates enduring questions for academia about the money that fuels research, and how institutions nurture relationships with donors in the race to excel. Epstein gave repeatedly to MIT and Harvard University. At MIT, the president, L. Rafael Reif, apologized to Epstein’s victims in a message to campus. The school accepted about $800,000 of Epstein’s money over 20 years, Reif wrote, with gifts to the MIT Media Lab and to a mechanical engineering professor. “With hindsight,” Reif wrote, “we recognize with shame and distress that we allowed MIT to contribute to the elevation of his reputation, which in turn served to distract from his horrifying acts. No apology can undo that.” The largest gift to Harvard University from Epstein was $6.5 million in 2003, for the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Martin Nowak, director of that program, said there was only one gift from Epstein in support of his research, and that money was spent by 2007. In 2006, when Epstein was facing sex-crime charges, the Harvard Crimson reported that the school would not return the gift, although some prominent recipients of Epstein’s donations had done so.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Haley Robson was a 16-year-old South Florida high school student. When Jeffrey Epstein tried to grope her ... she brushed his hand away, Ms. Robson said in a 2009 deposition for a civil case. But she continued to visit Mr. Epstein’s mansion dozens more times, in a lucrative new role: a recruiter of other teenage girls from her school. After Mr. Epstein’s suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in early August, federal authorities have refocused their investigation on the more than half-dozen employees, girlfriends and associates whom prosecutors say he relied on to feed his insatiable appetite for girls. Ms. Robson, now 33, is among them. This small cadre of women helped Mr. Epstein lure girls into his orbit and managed the logistics of his encounters with them. None of Mr. Epstein’s associates have been charged or named as co-conspirators in Manhattan. But federal authorities are eyeing possible charges that include sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy. Four women were apparently so instrumental to Mr. Epstein’s operation that they were named as possible “co-conspirators” and were granted immunity from prosecution in a widely criticized plea bargain Mr. Epstein struck with federal prosecutors in Florida more than a decade ago. The four women — Sarah Kellen, Lesley Groff, Adriana Ross and Nadia Marcinkova — could still be subject to criminal charges in Manhattan. The United States attorney’s office has said it is not bound by the Florida agreement.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
A defense lawyer for Jeffrey Epstein on Tuesday expressed deep skepticism that the wealthy financier died by hanging himself in a Manhattan federal jail while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges, as a medical examiner has ruled. The injuries suffered by Epstein are “far more consistent with assault” than suicide, the lawyer, Reid Weingarten, told Judge Richard Berman in U.S. District Court in Manhattan during a hearing. Weingarten cited the defense’s own medical sources. Broken bones were found in Epstein’s neck during an autopsy after he died Aug. 10. Such fractures are somewhat more common in cases of strangulation than in hanging. Weingarten told the judge that when he and other defense attorneys spoke to Epstein shortly before his death “we did not see a despairing, despondent, suicidal person.” Weingarten’s comments came during a proceeding where prosecutors were seeking the dismissal of child sex trafficking charges against the Epstein as a result of his death. More than 20 alleged victims of Epstein spoke or had statements read during the hearing. Weeks before his death, Epstein was found semiconscious in his cell in the Manhattan Correctional Center with marks on his neck. That incident led to him being placed on suicide watch, but he was taken off of that status about a week later. Weingarten also pointed out that “we’ve heard that” the surveillance video at the jail around Epstein’s cell “were either corrupted or not functioning.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Epstein's body has reportedly been laid to rest in an exclusive, leafy memorial chapel in Florida, after his remains were snuck in via mini-van on the Sabbath. According to reports from The Daily Mail, Epstein, the high-risk, registered sex offender, who took his own life after being jailed on international child sex trafficking charges, has had his remains placed in a crypt next to his deceased parents. Next to Epstein's unmarked remains are the names of numerous other deceased Jewish people, who have now been laid to rest next to one of contemporary history's most notorious and hated figures. Epstein, a mysterious financier, whose wealth was believed to be in the billions, cavorted with royalty and powerful politicians, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. According to ... The Daily Mail, a memorial plate, formerly in place at the IJ Morris Star of David Cemetery of the Palm Beaches, in Palm Beach, Florida, was removed and replaced with a blank slab. When Epstein's brother, Mark Epstein, was contacted to confirm whether his paedophile brother had been entombed at the Jewish crypt, he said ... "It's a private family matter, you got that? I'm not going to answer your question." The IJ Morris at Star of David Cemetery is a large site for burials, cremations and tributes, housing dozens of crypts and community vaults, according to their website. The Palm Beach Cemetery is a half-hour drive from one of Epstein's many properties, where he is believed to have abused numerous underage victims, according to unsealed court documents.
Note: This news supports the belief of many that Epstein may have been killed or even that he was taken and the body of a double put in. With his body being hidden, an independent autopsy may never be possible to determine if the body was indeed Epstein and if the injuries to the body suggest suicide or murder. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The will that disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein signed just two days before his jailhouse suicide puts more than $577m in assets into a trust fund that could make it more difficult for his dozens of accusers to collect damages. “This is the last act of Epstein’s manipulation of the system, even in death,” said attorney Jennifer Freeman, who represents child sex abuse victims. By putting his fortune in a trust, he shrouded from public view the identities of the beneficiaries, whether they be individuals, organizations or other entities. For the women trying to collect from his estate, the first order of business will be persuading a judge to pierce that veil and release the details. From there, the women will have to follow the course they would have had to pursue even if Epstein had not created a trust: convince the judge that they are entitled to compensation as victims of sex crimes. The judge would have to decide how much they should get and whether to reduce the amounts given to Epstein’s named beneficiaries, who would also be given their say in court. Attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents several Epstein accusers ... said attorneys for the women will go after Epstein’s estate in the US Virgin Islands, where the will was filed and where he owned two islands. Bloom said it was “gross negligence” on the part of Epstein’s lawyers and jail personnel to allow him to sign a new will, given that he had apparently attempted suicide a short time before.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Child sexual abuse material has exploded since the dawn of the internet era, while child sex trafficking also has increased as a result of being made easier for traffickers. The number of child sexual abuse files exchanged online grew from 450,000 in 2004 to 25 million in 2015, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore cofounded Thorn to combat this problem. The non-profits mission is to build technology to defend children from sexual abuse online by eliminating all child sexual abuse material from the internet. Thorn partners across the tech industry, government and NGOs and leverages technology to combat predatory behavior, rescue victims, and protect vulnerable children. The non-profits products are used today in 35 countries and have helped identify more than 30,000 victims of abuse, 10,000 of whom were children. Recently, Thorn was one of eight recipients to share in an over $280 million grant from The Audacious Project by TED. As CEO of Thorn, Julie Cordua manages the Thorn Technology Task Force, the largest organization of its kind, uniting technology companies committed to fighting child exploitation. We saw how technology was being used to exploit our children through child sex trafficking, the spread of child sexual abuse material, and online grooming and coercion. Yet there was no concentrated effort to use technology to fight back and stop this abuse, Cordua says.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
A chilling picture of how hundreds of girls and young women from around the world were trafficked for sex by Jeffrey Epstein, his madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, and — allegedly — a number of powerful business and world leaders emerged Friday in court documents unsealed in New York. [They] offer brutal details about Epstein’s trafficking of teenage girls ... as well as Maxwell’s obsessive and often abusive quest to provide him with new girls. Virginia Roberts Giuffre ... provided testimony and evidence ... through photographs, plane logs and even a medical record from Presbyterian Hospital in New York where Giuffre was taken by Epstein after a particularly abusive sex episode. Johanna Sjoberg ... who was a college student at Palm Beach Atlantic University when she was recruited by Maxwell, said that Maxwell’s primary role in Epstein’s life was to provide him with young girls at least three times a day. “He explained to me that ... he needed to have three orgasms a day,” Sjoberg said in a sworn deposition. The names of some prominent, wealthy men Giuffre says she was directed to have sex with ... include: former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, 71, former Sen. George Mitchell, 85, Hyatt hotels magnate Tom Pritzker, 69, and prominent hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, 62. Epstein's ... butler, in a sworn statement, said [one] girl, visibly traumatized, told him that Epstein and Maxwell had physically threatened to harm her and seized her passport. Giuffre’s lawyer, David Boies, said ... “What the lawsuit was about is this massive sex trafficking operation which went on for years. Every institution in our society failed these girls. Many people knew about this and did nothing. ”
Note: Watch an intriguing video linking Jeffrey Epstein to a global sex trafficking ring reaching to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.
For anyone familiar with Bureau of Prisons [BOP] standard operating procedures, Jeffrey Epstein’s apparent suicide is more than mysterious; it is unfathomable. The 66-year-old accused sex trafficker was found dead in his prison cell at the Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) Saturday morning, apparently after having hanged himself. The Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency that runs the MCC, has said the FBI will investigate. It had better. Epstein’s death almost certainly means that astounding blunders occurred, perhaps by multiple personnel. If any prisoner in the federal system should have been a candidate for suspicion of suicide, it was the high-profile and disgraced Epstein. All administrative and structural measures should have been in place to ensure it could not happen. And yet it apparently did. Epstein was found last month unconscious in his MCC cell with marks on his neck. If he was not on suicide watch, it would be astonishing. Yet if he were on suicide watch, his death would be virtually inconceivable. BOP personnel, especially at MCC, are the best professionals in the corrections industry, and they receive special training in administrating suicide prevention. How exactly did Epstein manage to kill himself, and why exactly was it that he had access to the tools? Is there a video of Epstein’s cell at the crucial time? There should be, and it will reveal exactly how and when Epstein killed himself. And none of this begins to address the royal mess it leaves in the efforts to take stock of Epstein’s crimes and their prior slap-on-the-wrist treatment, nor the shambles in which it leaves Epstein’s victims.
Note: See also this New York Times article on this highly suspicious death. There are many reasons why those in power who have close ties to Epstein would want him dead. It looks like he was "suicided" as so many others have been who threatened the power structure of our world. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.
The more we learn about the late Jeffrey Epstein’s 13 months in so-called custody at the Palm Beach County Stockade, the clearer is the lesson: It definitely helped to be rich. Last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Epstein’s coddled life while serving 13 months of an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty in 2008 to two felony counts of prostitution. One of those crimes involved soliciting sex from a minor, serial behavior of Epstein’s that had caught the attention of the FBI. A 53-page federal indictment resulting from that probe was spiked by then-U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, paving the way for the multimillionaire’s mysteriously lenient plea deal. For Epstein, jail wasn’t an incarceration so much as an inconvenience. Deputies were given permission to leave his cell unlocked. During his daily road trips, he was followed by off-duty deputies who were paid $126,000 for their respectful supervision. Attorney Bradley Edwards, who represents some of Epstein’s female accusers, said he knows of women who were brought to Epstein for sex while he was away from the stockade during the day. Toward the end of his term, Epstein was even allowed to hang out at his mansion. Another aspect of the 2008 case begging to be examined is ex-State Attorney Barry Krischer’s decision not to prosecute the well-connected businessman on more serious child-sex charges, despite the urging of Palm Beach detectives.
Note: Read a revealing article written by a close relative of media mogul Conrad Black on how Jeffrey Epstein easily manipulated top publishers and politicians because of his relationship to intelligence agencies. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking, had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch. Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his scheme ... although there is no evidence that it ever came to fruition. Mr. Epstein, who was charged in July with the sexual trafficking of girls as young as 14, was a serial illusionist: He lied about the identities of his clients, his wealth, his financial prowess, his personal achievements. But he managed to use connections and charisma to cultivate valuable relationships with business and political leaders. He used the same tactics to insinuate himself into an elite scientific community. Mr. Epstein attracted a glittering array of prominent scientists. They included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark; the theoretical physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking; the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould; Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author; George M. Church, a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be altered to create superior humans; and the M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, a Nobel laureate. The lure for some of the scientists was Mr. Epstein’s money. He dangled financing for their pet projects. Some of the scientists said that the prospect of financing blinded them to the seriousness of his sexual transgressions.
Note: A probing 16-episode program titled "EPSTEIN: Devil in the Darkness" has incredibly revealing interviews with dozens who worked directly with Epstein. Incredibly detailed, it reveals the huge blackmail operation, connections with Israel, and much more. This series goes where others have not dared go. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein and corruption in science from reliable major media sources.
In May 1997, Alicia Arden, a model in California, was introduced to a man who identified himself as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret. He invited her to his Santa Monica hotel room to audition for the brand’s catalog. When she arrived, Ms. Arden said, the man grabbed her, tried to undress her and said he wanted to “manhandle” her. Ms. Arden, then 27, fled in tears. In the mid-1990s, two senior executives had discovered that the same man, a close adviser to the company’s chief executive, Leslie H. Wexner, was trying to pitch himself as a recruiter for Victoria’s Secret models. Mr. Wexner was alerted. It is unclear what if any action Mr. Wexner took in response. But the man - Jeffrey E. Epstein, a New York financier - had developed an unusually strong hold on Mr. Wexner, one of the country’s most influential corporate titans. Within years of meeting Mr. Epstein, Mr. Wexner handed him sweeping powers over his finances, philanthropy and private life, according to interviews with people who knew the men as well as court documents and financial records. [Ms. Arden] said she went to the police the day after Mr. Epstein attacked her, worried that he could be using his connection to Victoria’s Secret to hurt other women. A week later, when she could not stop thinking about what had happened, she returned to the police station to put her report on the record. That police report ... is one of the earliest known police records of an allegation of sexual misconduct against Mr. Epstein.
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Jeffrey Epstein’s lenient 2008 conviction for his sexual assaults on adolescent girls may be described as one of the greatest travesties of justice in recent history. Brad Edwards, an attorney for many of Epstein’s victims, announced last week that Epstein continued to prey on young women while serving his sentence in Palm Beach. Unlike other sex offenders in Florida, Epstein had his own wing of the Palm Beach County jail and liberal work release policies. Due to this new information, the Miami Herald reported, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) has suddenly opened an internal affairs investigation of Epstein’s incarceration. The sheriff’s office personnel who provided security for him had to create logs for when they watched him at the Florida Science Foundation (a foundation he apparently set up for his work-release). This appears to have involved two shifts (from 7am to 3pm and 3pm to 11pm). On July 11, 2009 the officer noted that Epstein had one female visitor who signed in. The officer reported that he followed Epstein to his Palm Beach estate at 12pm where Epstein stayed for two and a half hours. The officer did not enter Epstein’s residence and sat outside in his car. At 2:31pm he brought Epstein back to his office. The starting and ending mileage implies that the officer drove 75 miles that day. The distance from the county jail to the Florida Science Foundation, to Epstein’s house is 4 to 5 miles. It is unclear how 75 miles were logged that day.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Detective Michael Fisten hung up his badge after 30 years in law enforcement and started a new career as a private investigator. The subject of his [first] investigation was Jeffrey Epstein, the jet-setting multimillionaire with a criminal sexual interest in young girls. At the time Fisten started investigating the case in 2009, Epstein and prosecutors had already signed a controversial "non-prosecution agreement" that allowed the financier to plead guilty to less serious sex offenses and escape punishment for alleged trafficking crimes that could have landed him in prison for the rest of his life. Epstein spent 13 months in jail for two counts of prostitution. Even then, Epstein was given work-release privileges. Fisten was hired to investigate the case by attorney Brad Edwards, who was suing Epstein in civil court on behalf of many of his accusers. Edwards wanted Fisten to dig deeper. "I started going out and interviewing witnesses that became victims," Fisten said. "One after another, three girls turned into four girls, turned into five, six, seven and so on...I couldn't help but think that this could've been my daughter." He said he found it inconceivable that people who traveled in Epstein's social circles weren't aware of his misconduct, particularly with so many underage girls in his company. "Once these girls lost their braces and their pubescent look and started becoming 16-years old or 17-years old, they were too old for him, so then he started using them as recruiters to bring the younger girls," Fisten said.
Note: Watch a video compilation of excellent information on the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
A former IT contractor for Jeffrey Epstein who said that he ended their business relationship over personal concerns about gaggles of apparently unsupervised young women on the embattled financier's private island told ABC News that his reluctance to continue working there was underscored by what he said was an extensive collection of photos of topless women displayed throughout the island's compounds. “There were photos of topless women everywhere," said contractor Steve Scully, who said he worked for Epstein for six years beginning in 1999. "On his desk, in his office, in his bedroom,” Scully ... said of the private island dubbed "Little St. James." Scully ... was contracted by Epstein to set up a communications network on Little St. James. But it’s what Scully said he saw on the island itself more than six years ago that led him to agree to an interview with ABC News: revolving groups of young girls that appeared to him to be minors who were guests on the island. “They couldn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old," he said. Scully said that he would see them on the island whenever he visited for work, riding ATVs, or at times bathing topless on the island's pools and beaches. Scully said he became increasingly alarmed by the presence of these groups of young girls that appeared to him to be without any visible parental supervision.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
A federal judge on Thursday denied bail to wealthy investor Jeffrey Epstein, citing the potential danger to “new victims” from his apparently “uncontrollable” sexual fixation on young girls, and the risk that Epstein would flee to avoid prosecution for child sex trafficking charges. The decision by Judge Richard Berman means that the 66-year-old Epstein will remain in jail pending trial in the case, where he faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted. Berman, in a damning written order ... said that lewd photos of young women found in Epstein’s mansion are troubling, as is evidence that he tried to influence the potential testimony of accusers and people who allegedly abetted his conduct. “This newly discovered evidence also suggests that Mr. Epstein poses ‘ongoing and forward-looking danger,’” the judge wrote. “Mr. Epstein’s dangerousness is considerable and includes sex crimes with minor girls and tampering with potential witnesses.” In the order, Berman said, “Mr. Epstein’s alleged excessive attraction to sexual conduct with or in the presence of minor girls - which is said to include his soliciting and receiving massages from young girls and young women perhaps as many as four times a day - appears likely to be uncontrollable.” “I doubt any bail package could overcome dangerousness ... to community,” Berman said during the hearing, agreeing with the recommendation by prosecutors to keep Epstein locked up.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
The Jeffrey Epstein case is an asteroid poised to strike the elite world in which he moved. No one can yet say precisely how large it is. But as the number of women who’ve accused the financier (at least, that’s what he claimed to be) of sexual assault grows to grotesque levels - there are said to be more than 50 women who are potential victims - a wave of panic is rippling through Manhattan, DC, and Palm Beach, as Epstein’s former friends and associates rush to distance themselves. Donald Trump’s labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, architect of the original 2007 non-prosecution agreement that let Epstein off with a wrist slap, has already been forced to resign. Why did Acosta grant Epstein an outrageously lenient non-prosecution agreement? (And what does it mean that Acosta was reportedly told Epstein “belonged to intelligence”?) “There were other business associates of Mr. Epstein’s who engaged in improper sexual misconduct at one or more of his homes. We do know that,” said Brad Edwards, a lawyer for Courtney Wild, one of the Epstein accusers. “In due time the names are going to start coming out.” Of course, the two Epstein friends that people are most curious about are Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, both of whom have denied anything untoward. During the 2016 presidential race, Hillary Clinton’s campaign consulted Bill’s post–White House Secret Service logs because they were worried Trump would bring up Bill’s close association with Epstein and wanted to get ahead of the story.
Note: New York Magazine has a detailed article listing the many high-level contacts found in Epstein's little black book. And in this article on salon.com, a former friend of Epstein gives some salacious details of his life. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Epstein, the millionaire financier, registered sex offender and acquaintance of presidents of both parties, was expected to appear in federal court in New York on Monday in connection with federal sex trafficking allegations, multiple law enforcement officials said. Epstein, 66, of Palm Beach, Florida, was being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan after he was arrested Saturday in Teterboro, New Jersey, in a joint investigation by the FBI and New York police. The arrest stems from incidents spanning from 2002 to 2005. Epstein has been in the news for more than a decade since he pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring a person under 18 for prostitution and felony solicitation of prostitution, according to his plea agreement on charges brought in Florida. Epstein is registered as a sex offender in Florida under a non-prosecution agreement he signed with the office of the U.S. attorney for Miami. Epstein's non-prosecution agreement ... limits the scope of the agreement to only the Miami area. If Epstein is alleged to have committed illegal acts in other parts of the country, the agreement would no longer protect him. Federal prosecutors in New York allege that from at least 2002 through 2005, Epstein paid girls as young as 14 hundreds of dollars in cash for sex at either his Manhattan townhouse or his estate in Palm Beach. Epstein is being charged with one count of sex trafficking conspiracy and one count of sex trafficking, and faces up to 45 years in prison if found guilty.
Note: For lots more, see this Miami Herald article and this one. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Alexander Acosta, the US labor secretary under fire for having granted Jeffrey Epstein immunity from federal prosecution in 2008, after the billionaire was investigated for having run a child sex trafficking ring, is proposing 80% funding cuts for the government agency that combats child sex trafficking. Acosta’s plan to slash funding of a critical federal agency in the fight against the sexual exploitation of children is contained in his financial plans for the Department of Labor for fiscal year 2020. In it, he proposes decimating the resources of a section of his own department known as the International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB). The bureau’s budget would fall from $68m last year to just $18.5m. The proposed reduction is so drastic that experts say it would effectively kill off many federal efforts to curb sex trafficking and put the lives of large numbers of children at risk. ILAB has the task of countering human trafficking, child labor and forced labor across the US and around the world. It is seen as a crucial leader in efforts to crack down on the sex trafficking of minors. Acosta is facing mounting pressure from Democrats to resign, over the lenient deal he gave Epstein and in the wake of the billionaire’s new prosecution. Epstein was arrested on Saturday and indicted on two sex trafficking counts by federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York. Under the 2008 deal negotiated by Acosta, an FBI investigation that had produced a 53-page draft indictment involving more than 30 potential underage victims was shut down.
Note: Alexander Acosta announced his resignation shortly after this article was published. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
On Monday, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York unsealed a 14-page indictment against Jeffrey Epstein, charging the wealthy financier with operating and conspiring to operate a sex trafficking ring of girls out of his luxe homes on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and in Palm Beach, Fla., “among other locations.” Even in the relatively sterile language of the legal system, the accusations against Mr. Epstein are nauseating. From “at least in or about” 2002 through 2005, the defendant “sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls,” some as young as 14 and many “particularly vulnerable to exploitation.” The girls were “enticed and recruited” to visit Mr. Epstein’s various homes “to engage in sex acts with him.” To “maintain and increase his supply of victims,” he paid some of the girls “to recruit additional girls to be similarly abused,” thus creating “a vast network of underage victims.” But Mr. Epstein is not the only one for whom a reckoning is long overdue. The allegations in the New York indictment are a depressing echo of those that Mr. Epstein faced in Florida more than a decade ago. In 2008, federal prosecutors for the Southern District of Florida, at the time led by Alexander Acosta, who is now the nation’s secretary of labor, helped arrange a plea deal for Mr. Epstein that bent justice beyond its breaking point. In addition to short-circuiting federal charges, the plea agreement killed an F.B.I. investigation and granted immunity to any “co-conspirators.”
Note: Explore an in-depth article from New York Magazine giving a thorough and balanced view of the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Back in 2002, when Jeffrey Epstein was known only as a mysterious financial whiz with a private island and a roster of A-list friends, being friendly with him was something to boast about. And Donald Trump did. “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine that year for a story headlined “Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery.” “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Now, Epstein is in jail, charged with sex trafficking by federal prosecutors who allege he abused dozens of female minors in New York and Palm Beach, Fla. He is no longer a friend anyone would want to claim. And now, Trump doesn’t. Alan Garten, an attorney for the Trump Organization, has said Trump had “no relationship” with Epstein. Outside of Trump’s own words, there is clear evidence that the two men — both members of the same highflying societies in Manhattan and Palm Beach — socialized together in the past. One of Epstein’s alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, was a towel girl in the Mar-a-Lago locker room when she was “recruited” at the club by Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, according to Giuffre’s attorney. Maxwell asked Giuffre whether she would like to earn money and learn how to give massages, which led to Epstein sexually abusing her at his homes in Palm Beach and New York, according to Giuffre’s lawsuit against Maxwell.
Note: For clear evidence that Trump distanced himself from Epstein years ago, see this video. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
In the past year the Jeffrey Epstein case was catapulted onto the national news radar by one newspaper, the Miami Herald, and by one reporter in particular, Julie K. Brown. The paper's "Perversion of Justice" series came out last November, and Brown has stayed on the story ever since. As soon as The Daily Beast broke the news that Epstein had been arrested on Saturday evening, fellow journalists and other observers credited Brown and thanked her for the tenacious investigation. Law enforcement officials are also giving credit to the reporting. "We were assisted" by "some excellent investigative journalism," Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a Monday morning press conference. William Sweeney, the assistant director-in-charge of the FBI's New York office, added, "We work with facts. When the facts presented themselves, as Mr. Berman hinted at, through investigative journalists' work, we moved on it." While they didn't cite Brown or the newspaper by name, Berman said in response to a question about the Herald, "we are certainly aware of that reporting." Brown was ... actually scheduled to interview another one of Epstein's accusers on Monday. But after he was arrested, she cancelled that flight and booked a ticket to New York. True to form, she sought to shift the spotlight, away from her own work and toward her subjects. "The REAL HEROES HERE were the courageous victims that faced their fears and told their stories," she tweeted Sunday.
Note: Explore an in-depth article from New York Magazine giving a thorough and balanced view of the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources.
Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed. Ms. Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out. Exactly one year before that day, on Feb. 17, 2018, Ms. Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church’s summer camp for children. Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church’s associate children’s minister, had been investigated by the police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Ms. Bragg’s daughter. Ms. Bragg waited for church leaders to explain what had happened and to thoroughly inform other families in the congregation. But none of that ever came. Nearly 400 Southern Baptist leaders, from youth pastors to top ministers, have pleaded guilty or been convicted of sex crimes against more than 700 victims since 1998, according to a recent investigation by The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News. At the Village, one of the most prominent Southern Baptist churches in the country ... Ms. Bragg said leaders had offered prayer. But as months passed, she came to believe their instinct to protect the institution outweighed their care for her daughter or their interest in investigating the truth.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Fifty-eight years ago, Edward Pittson says, the Scoutmaster who had taught him skills like how to use a compass and light a campfire said he was going to teach Pittson about sex. The Scoutmaster invited Pittson, who was 12, to his house and asked him to lie on the bed. “This is the normal way to learn about sex,” Pittson recalls the Scoutmaster telling him. “He said, ‘But don’t tell your parents what I’m doing.’” Now, Pittson is one of hundreds of men and boys hoping for a last chance at restitution if the Boy Scouts of America, in the face of a new wave of abuse allegations, files for bankruptcy. On Thursday, a group of attorneys said they’d collected information from at least 428 men and boys whose accounts of rape, molestation and abuse indicate the Boy Scouts’ pedophile problem is far more widespread than the organization has previously acknowledged. If the Boy Scouts file for bankruptcy, the accusers will have a limited window to file claims against the organization. Hundreds of individual sex abuse cases have been brought against the Scouts ... and in 2010, a judge ordered the organization to make public an internal list of men accused of preying on boys. Within Scout headquarters, the list was known as the “P Files” or “Perversion Files.” In January, a child abuse expert hired by the Boy Scouts to analyze the files testified that she found 12,254 boys had reported experiencing sexual abuse at the hands of at least 7,800 suspected assailants between 1944 and 2016.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Newly exposed court testimony suggests the Boy Scouts of America had considerably more leaders involved in the sexual abuse of minors than previously thought. The Boy Scouts of America's own records show that more than 12,000 children have been sexually assaulted while participating in Scouting programs. The documents came to light through court testimony given by a researcher the Scouts had hired to do an internal review. The records reveal allegations against thousands of Scout leaders, allegations that date from the 1940s. With such a huge number of victims, the organization could be facing bankruptcy. As disturbing as the figures are, the reality that only the Boy Scouts of America knows who these alleged perpetrators are is just as distressing. The Boy Scouts of America have never actually released these names in any form that can be known to the public. And they may have removed them from Scouting. They may have kept them in their perversion files. But they never alerted the community. The Boy Scouts have more than 2 million Scouts, and hundreds of victims are expected to file suit. One prominent sexual abuse attorney has already signed more than 180 clients. The Scouts have extensive landholdings across the country where members hike, camp and play. The prospect that the Boy Scouts may declare bankruptcy has victims and their lawyers crying foul. A bankruptcy filing could allow the 109-year-old organization to continue operating by shielding its assets and information.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For Jerry Cooper and the friends he knows as the White House boys, the memories never fade. The brutal beatings, rapes and other physical and psychological abuse they endured at a notorious Florida reform school were more than half a century ago, but there is always something to trigger the flashbacks. This time, it was the discovery of 27 “possible” graves at the site of the Arthur G Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida. It is no surprise that more victims of systemic, decades-long sexual abuse and violence could still be in the ground. A study that ended in 2016 saw University of South Florida (USF) anthropologists uncover human remains in 55 graves, several with gunshot wounds or blunt force trauma. Yet to the White House survivors, named for a whitewashed cottage in the grounds of the state-run school where the worst of the abuse took place, it was confirmation that the final chapters of a dark episode have yet to be written. “I was sure I wasn’t going to survive,” said Cooper, 74, who spent two years at Dozier as a teenager in the early 1960s. “But there were those of us who didn’t ... there’s a lot more boys dead than the 55 they located. We’ve always known this.” Official records, poorly maintained and incomplete, indicated 31 burials from 1914 to 1973. But USF researchers partnered with local and state law enforcement and the University of North Texas science centre set the figure at a minimum of 98.
Note: Read more about the notorious Dozier School for Boys. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and sexual abuse scandals.
An already bizarre case accusing a secretive self-help group in upstate New York of engaging in sex-trafficking took another strange turn Wednesday thanks to firebrand attorney Michael Avenatti and a courtroom scene caused by a wealthy defendant he's tried to represent. At a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, prosecutors confirmed that Avenatti appeared on behalf of liquor fortune heiress Clare Bronfman at a closed-door meeting last week that also included Mark Geragos, another high-profile lawyer representing Bronfman. Bronfman ... has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing her of bank-rolling NXIVM, an alleged cult-like organization accused of brainwashing and branding women who served as sex slaves for its spiritual leader. When U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis asked Geragos whether he and Avenatti, the lawyer best known for representing porn actress Stormy Daniels, had told prosecutors Avenatti was being brought into the case, he responded, "That's exactly what happened." Under stern questioning by the judge about which lawyers are actually representing Clare Bronfman and whether she knew if Geragos was involved in a criminal case revealed this week against Avenatti, she turned pale, staggered away from the bench and collapsed into a chair. An ambulance was called, but she later left the courthouse on the arm of Geragos. The development came only two days after Avenatti was arrested on charges accusing him of trying to extort millions of dollars from Nike.
Note: For more, see this informative article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A federal court of appeals in New York on Monday took the first step in unsealing documents that could reveal evidence of an international sex trafficking operation allegedly run by multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein and his former partner, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell. The three-judge panel ... gave the parties until March 19 to establish good cause as to why they should remain sealed and, failing to do so, the summary judgment and supporting documents will be made public. The court reserved a ruling on the balance of the documents in the civil case. “We’re grateful that the court ruled the summary judgment papers are open,” said Sanford Bohrer, the attorney representing the Miami Herald, which filed the motion last year to have the entire case file opened. The Herald’s appeal is supported by 32 other media companies, including the New York Times and Washington Post. Epstein, 66, was not a party to the lawsuit, which was filed against Maxwell in 2015 by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Giuffre claimed in the lawsuit that she was recruited by Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, when she was 16 years old. Giuffre had been working at the resort’s spa when Maxwell approached her and asked her whether she wanted to become a masseuse for Epstein. Giuffre claimed that the massages were a ruse for Epstein and Maxwell to sexually abuse her and other underage girls, some of whom were trafficked to other influential people.
Note: Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which also implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
It has been a wrenching season for three of America’s largest religious denominations, as sex-abuse scandals and a schism over LGBT inclusion fuel anguish and anger within the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist and United Methodist churches. There’s rising concern that the crises will boost the ranks of young people disillusioned by organized religion. For the U.S. Catholic church, the clergy sex-abuse scandal that has unfolded over two decades expanded dramatically in recent months. Many dioceses have become targets of investigations since a Pennsylvania grand jury report in August detailed hundreds of cases of alleged abuse. In mid-February, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was expelled from the priesthood for sexually abusing minors and seminarians. The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, confronted its own sex-abuse crisis three weeks ago in the form of an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. The newspapers reported that hundreds of Southern Baptist clergy and staff had been accused of sexual misconduct ... including dozens who returned to church duties, while leaving more than 700 victims with little in the way of justice. The United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant denomination, ended a pivotal conference Tuesday in a seemingly irreconcilable split over same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBT clergy. About 53 percent of the delegates voted to maintain bans on those practices.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Federal prosecutors, including current Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, violated the rights of sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein's victims during their investigation of the once-influential financier a decade ago, a judge ruled on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra slammed the government for failing to notify Epstein's victims that it had reached a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein while leading those victims to believe that federal charges were still a possibility. More than two dozen lawmakers ... called on the Department of Justice to open a probe last year into Acosta's dealings with Epstein while Acosta served as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The calls for an inquiry followed an investigation into the deal between prosecutors and Epstein published by the Miami Herald. Epstein, who has had powerful friends such as Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. But Marra said that prosecutors violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act in their dealings with two unnamed underage victims. "When the Government gives information to victims, it cannot be misleading," Marra wrote. "While the Government spent untold hours negotiating the terms and implications of the [non-prosecution agreement] with Epstein's attorneys, scant information was shared with victims. Instead, the victims were told to be 'patient' while the investigation proceeded."
Note: Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which also implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A report published in two Texas newspapers this past weekend detailing 20 years of sexual abuse allegations within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has sparked calls for authorities to investigate whether leaders covered up abuse and allowed the accused to continue working in churches. The investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News found more than 380 clergy and volunteers had been charged with sexual misconduct over two decades, leaving behind more than 700 victims to deal with the aftermath. The stories set off the sort of shock waves in the 15-million-member Southern Baptist Convention that similar blockbuster investigations have been causing ever since the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team exposed abuse in the Catholic Church in 2002. Most of the instances of abuse identified by the Texas newspapers involve pastors and volunteers who have already been charged with sex crimes. None of the leaders of the denomination have been charged with covering up such crimes. Within the Southern Baptist Convention, however, some had already began the call for a wider investigation. “When we learn of any information that provides evidence that anyone has committed this type of crime or has attempted to cover it up, it should be investigated by the criminal authorities,” said Boz Tchividjian, the grandson of evangelical leader Billy Graham and founder of GRACE, an organization that fights child abuse.
Note: Read a thorough three-part story on this scandal on the website of the Houston Chronicle. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
At first, officials at the U.S. Indian Health Service overlooked the peculiarities of their unmarried new doctor. They desperately needed a pediatrician at their hospital in Browning, Mont. By 1995, after three years, they became convinced Stanley Patrick Weber was a pedophile and pushed for his removal from the government-run hospital. But the Indian Health Service didn’t fire Mr. Weber. Instead, it transferred him to another hospital in Pine Ridge, S.D. He continued treating Native American children there for another 21 years, leaving behind a trail of sexual-assault allegations. An investigation by The Wall Street Journal and the PBS series Frontline found the IHS repeatedly missed or ignored warning signs, tried to silence whistleblowers and allowed Mr. Weber to continue treating children despite the suspicions of colleagues up and down the chain of command. The agency tolerated a number of problem doctors because it was desperate for medical staff, and ... managers there believed they might face retaliation if they followed up on suspicions of abuse. Mr. Weber ... was convicted in September of sexually assaulting two Montana boys ... and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He faces another federal trial later this year in Rapid City, S.D. He lost his medical license. He and his lawyers declined to comment for this article. The IHS provides medical care for 2.3 million Native Americans, many of whom have no other access to health care.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse by doctors.
This year, an estimated 18,000 American children will disappear, but their families will not be looking for them. Neighbors will not canvas the streets. Our Facebook feeds will not show their pictures. And after six months, the records of their existence may close entirely. This is the fate awaiting children who vanish while in the care and custody of Americas child-protection system. No matter the reason for falling off the grid, many of these boys and girls will resurface on the black market as child sex slaves. According to the FBI, more than half of trafficked children in America were in the care of social services when they disappeared. That is a damning statistic for a system whose sole purpose is to keep children safe. Withelma T Pettigrew, one of TIME magazines 100 most influential people, was one of those children in foster care who became a trafficking victim. T testified to Congress: I spent, for the most part, the first 18 years of my life in the foster-care system. Seven of those years, I was a child being sexually trafficked on the streets, Internet, strip clubs, massage parlors ... Traffickers, pimps, exploiters have no fear of punishment because they rely on the lack of attention that occurs when these young people go missing. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that historically, many of these children were not being reported missing. To correct that, federal law enacted in 2014 required that state agencies must report a missing child to law enforcement within 24 hours.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
A top Republican senator [Sen. Ben Sasse, R.-Neb.] is demanding answers about why the U.S. Department of Justice cut a 'sweetheart deal' with politically connected sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein, 65, was being investigated by the federal government for allegedly sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls he paid for "massages" ... in the early 2000s. A 53-page indictment was prepared that could have put him behind bars for life. But Epstein, who was friends with the likes of Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew, wound up pleading guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting a single underage victim after federal prosecutors agreed to shelve their case and not prosecute him or his enablers. [US Attorney Alexander] Acosta's office also agreed not to tell the victims about the nonprosecution agreement, an apparent violation of the Crime Victims Rights Act. Epstein wound up serving 13 months in the county jail and was allowed to leave during the day six days a week to go to work for much of his sentence. The letters from Sasse came after 15 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter last week to the DOJ demanding an investigation into Acosta's handling of the Epstein case. Sasse's letters, which were first reported by Axios, might carry more heft because he's chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on oversight, agency action, federal rights and federal courts.
Note: Read a great interview with Julie Brown, the intrepid reporter who broke the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
A second alleged trafficking victim of Jeffrey Epstein says the billionaire pedophile "directed" her to have sex with Alan Dershowitz — a claim the prominent attorney adamantly denies. The revelation regarding Sarah Ransome ... alleges in her suit that even as Epstein used an army of powerful attorneys — including Dershowitz — to fight a sex trafficking investigation in Florida, he continued "transporting young females" in New York. Virginia Roberts was the first alleged Epstein victim to claim that he directed her to have sex with Dershowitz. Dershowitz insists he also has never met Roberts, who now lives in Australia. Roberts alleged that [Ghislaine Maxwell] recruited her for Epstein in 1998, when she was 15 years old and working a summer job at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. Roberts sued Maxwell for defamation, claiming the media heiress smeared her by denying the disturbing sex scheme. They settled the case last year. Epstein, a hedge fund manager with a mansion on the Upper East Side and a private Caribbean island, was once friends with the likes of Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey and Woody Allen, among other celebs and business titans. "I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side," Trump said of Epstein in 2002. The new scrutiny of the Epstein case prompted Dershowitz to tell Axios that the billionaire had once let him and his family stay at his Palm Beach home.
Note: Read a great interview with Julie Brown, the intrepid reporter who broke the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
The aim of the victims’ rights movement, which arose in the 1970s and has swept through every state in the union and changed federal laws in the years since, is often summed up simply: Crime victims have the right to be “informed, present and heard.” All these rights were trampled by Alexander Acosta, formerly the U.S. attorney in South Florida and currently U.S. secretary of labor, when he struck a secret deal with wealthy sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to shield Epstein from federal investigation and prosecution. Acosta’s representatives misled Epstein’s young victims by telling them the FBI was hard at work on their cases and asking them to “be patient.” Even when a handful of the victims - who may number in the hundreds - learned at the last minute that Epstein was entering a guilty plea and receiving a slap on the wrist, they still weren’t told that the federal case was being dropped. And because these victims were not informed, they were not present in court to oppose the deal and could not be heard by the sentencing judge protesting this disgraceful sham. Paul Cassell, perhaps the nation’s foremost legal authority on victims’ rights, has petitioned a federal judge in Florida to invalidate Epstein’s arrangement on grounds that it violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA) of 2004. Given Epstein’s last-minute settlement on Dec. 4 of a civil case that might have aired this tawdry laundry, Cassell’s suit may be the last chance these victims have for their day in court.
Note: Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which directly implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For six years, between 2001 and 2007, Jeffrey Epstein allegedly ran a sex trafficking ring that preyed on minor girls as young as 13. So why was he given a slap on the wrist by federal prosecutors in Florida? Senators, both Republican and Democrat, are asking the same question. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., wrote a series of letters to the Department of Justice last week, calling for the DOJ’s inspector general to review the handling of the case as well as for a congressional review of the “decision-making” process. While the criminal case has been resolved, many questions remain. According to extensive reporting by the Miami Herald, Epstein recruited, manipulated and lured at least 80 girls to his mansion in Palm Beach, Florida and elsewhere, then sexually abused them. Congress has passed stringent laws for sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors because these are heinous crimes. Epstein, however, was able to escape this punishment, despite alleged crimes that by all accounts were indeed heinous. The known facts in this case cry out for an official, thorough inquiry. Why were the identities of minor victims turned over to Epstein’s attorneys? The government’s agreement to suspend and hold in abeyance any grand jury investigation for other people potentially involved in these crimes is simply baffling.
Note: Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which directly implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Those with the gold make the rules. In an investigative series [the Miami Herald] documents the whitewash of an alleged global conspiracy to traffic underage girls for sexual exploitation. Though [the Herald] identified more than 80 likely victims, [Jeffrey Epstein] was allowed – under a furtive plea deal – to serve just 13 months in country-club conditions. Epstein, a fantastically wealthy creep, ran afoul of the Palm Beach police in 2005 after the parents of a 14-year-old girl reported that he paid their daughter to strip and massage his naked body while he pleasured himself. Investigators soon found evidence ... indicating that troubled girls by the dozens were recruited for molestation and rape. Epstein's wealth – the origins of which are a bit murky – assembled an all-star team of defense lawyers, including Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard scholar. Left unresolved is whether Epstein's extensive array of powerful friends may have helped him out, too. In the same "little black book" where he kept the names of underage girls around the world available for "massage," Epstein also had contact information for Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Michael R. Bloomberg, Prince Andrew, assorted Kennedys and so on. Some of Epstein's accusers [have been silenced]. Silent, too, is Trump, who once claimed a 15-year acquaintance with Epstein, whom he described as "a lot of fun." Trump noted Epstein's interest in women "on the younger side." And Clinton is uncharacteristically mute, though he used to spend so much time on Epstein's private jet – dubbed "the Lolita Express" – that, if it were an airline, he'd have platinum status. Two of our past four presidents have been chummy with a registered sex offender. It makes you wonder.
Note: Read a great interview with Julie Brown, the intrepid reporter who broke the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. And watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
Jeffrey Epstein, a politically connected multimillionaire who molested dozens of underage girls — and is suspected of trafficking countless other girls around the world — issued a public apology Tuesday. It was not to the victims ... but to one of their lawyers. The apology came as a settlement was announced ... between Epstein, 65, and Fort Lauderdale attorney Bradley Edwards, who represents several of Epstein’s victims. Those victims, now in their late 20s and early 30s, had been scheduled to testify in the trial, which was about to get underway. The case only indirectly involved the abuse inflicted on Epstein’s victims and instead focused on a battle between Epstein and Edwards. The trial ended before it began, with a dramatic statement ... that Epstein admitted now he’d used the civil justice system “as a tool for extortion” in order to intimidate Edwards into abandoning his quest for justice for [Epstein’s] victims. Several of Epstein’s victims described how they felt intimidated and shamed into silence by both Epstein and the federal and state prosecutors. The women were deliberately kept in the dark. Prosecutors effectively sabotaged their case in order to help Epstein, whose friends included former President Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew and actors, academics and world leaders. Edwards hoped to use the forum of the trial to allow sex abuse victims to tell their stories ... for the first time. But over the past several months, the judge had narrowed the scope of the case, prohibiting Edwards from producing evidence that Epstein had abused and trafficked hundreds of young girls between 1999 and 2006.
Note: Once again, the U.S. justice system bends the law to protect a convicted pedophile and the top leaders to whom he served young girls for sex. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Epstein's child sex ring from reliable major media sources. Then explore other excellent, reliable news summaries on high level sex abuse scandals around the world.
A decade ago, a billionaire pedophile was able to use his wealth and connections to escape any semblance of a just punishment. The whole system shielded the billionaire from the gravity of his crimes. That its functionaries felt compelled to do so says a lot about our ruling elites. The basic story is this: Jeffrey Epstein is a billionaire financier. He is also a sexual pervert who, until about 12 years ago, preyed serially on teenage children, roughly until they reached the age of consent and became, in his eyes, unattractive. What did authorities do when they found out, back in 2005? They spent a couple of years investigating and drawing up an indictment, then proceeded to quash further investigation, cooperated with Epstein’s lawyers to avoid publicity, violated procedures about plea bargains, made Epstein serve only 13 months in confinement, put him in the county jail rather than state prison ... and concealed most of the terms of the settlement from the public and the victims themselves. Epstein’s enablers weren’t a handful of Palm Beach rogues. Instead, the higher up the chain you went, the more sympathetic to Epstein the players seem to become. Of Epstein’s associates who helped make his crimes possible, none were prosecuted, save one. That was a butler who tried to turn over a so-called “black book” documenting names and dates of Epstein’s escapades to a lawyer for the victims in exchange for $50,000. For this, the butler wound up serving an 18-month sentence, longer than that of his boss.
Note: Epstein's butler feared for his life and ended up dead before he could reveal his secrets. Both Trump and Bill Clinton were good friends of Epstein, as described in this revealing article from Miami's leading newspaper. Learn about how the Miami Herald broke this vitally important story in this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Last Wednesday, The Miami Herald published a blockbuster multipart exposé about how the justice system failed the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, a rich, politically connected financier who appears to have abused underage girls on a near-industrial scale. The investigation, more than a year in the making, described Epstein as running a sort of child molestation pyramid scheme, in which girls — some in middle school — would be recruited to give Epstein “massages” ... pressured into sex acts, then coerced into bringing him yet more girls. What’s shocking is ... the way he was able to use his money to escape serious consequences, thanks in part to [Alexander] Acosta, then Miami’s top federal prosecutor. Acosta took extraordinary measures to let Epstein — and, crucially, other unnamed people — off the hook. The labor secretary, whose purview includes combating human trafficking, has done nothing so far to rebut The Herald’s reporting. In 2007, Epstein was facing a federal indictment that could have put him away for the rest of his life. In a deal with one of Epstein’s attorneys, however, Acosta, a rising star in Republican circles, [let] Epstein plead guilty to two felony prostitution charges in state court. Not only would Epstein serve just 13 months in the county jail, but the deal ... essentially shut down an ongoing F.B.I. probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes. It was ... one of the most lenient deals for a serial child sex offender in history.
Note: Read a great interview with Julie Brown, the intrepid reporter who broke the Epstein case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Jeffrey Epstein from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
Much has been written about Jeffrey Epstein, the wealthy businessman who sexually abused and trafficked underage girls for years. Yet so little had been heard from the victims, dozens of adolescents, some still wearing braces, who were cut out of the lenient deal that sent the town of Palm Beach sex offender to jail for only 13 months. That is the power of Perversion of Justice, an investigation by Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown that for the first time gives a voice and a face to some of the victims of the Epstein case. A decade after a secret plea agreement ... the victims - now women in their late 20s and early 30s - are still seeking an elusive justice. Brown first became interested in the topic of sex trafficking after completing a series on abuses at a Florida women’s prison. In her early research, the Jeffrey Epstein case came up repeatedly. Brown dug as deeply as possible into the behind-the-scenes machinations that characterized the Jeffrey Epstein prosecution. She was able to identify 80 possible victims, labeled Jane Does in lawsuits to protect their identifies as minors. She reached out to 60 of the women and eight agreed to talk about the case. Four victims ... spoke on the record and on camera, three of them for the first time. Efforts to keep details of the case secret ... are underscored not just by sealed court documents in various civil cases, but by emails between the prosecution and the defense, which talked about an “avoid-the-press” strategy and a deliberate campaign to keep the victims in the dark.
Note: Video of Epstein's victims speaking out is available at the link above. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The sordid case against Jeffrey E. Epstein, who was accused of paying dozens of underage girls for sexual massages in Florida, appeared to end a decade ago. The wealthy New York financier struck a deal to avoid any federal criminal charges, enraging some of his victims who got no say in the agreement, which they deemed far too lenient. But the victims and their lawyers have continued to fight in civil court, long after Mr. Epstein ... became a free man. Jury selection is scheduled to begin next week in a West Palm Beach, Fla., courtroom for a civil trial that ... could give Mr. Epstein’s victims, who are now adults, a chance to publicly testify about their attempts to win justice after the sexual abuse they endured as children. Mr. Epstein’s accusers could take the witness stand just days after a local investigative report published new details on how Mr. Epstein preyed on young teenage girls — and how prosecutors appeared to buckle to pressure from Mr. Epstein’s high-powered defense lawyers. Not one of Mr. Epstein’s victims was initially informed of the nonprosecution agreement, whose terms called for it to be kept secret. It was not until afterward that victims and their lawyers learned that no federal prosecutions against Mr. Epstein would be initiated. The secret deal prompted two of the victims ... to sue the government, claiming that the agreement had violated the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act, which grants victims the right to be informed of crucial steps during a prosecution, such as plea negotiations.
Note: Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which directly implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Jeffrey Edward Epstein appeared at his sentencing dressed comfortably. At the end of the 68-minute hearing, the 55-year-old silver-haired financier - accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls - was fingerprinted and handcuffed, just like any other criminal sentenced in Florida. But inmate No. W35755 would not be treated like other convicted sex offenders in the state of Florida, which has some of the strictest sex offender laws in the nation. Epstein - who had a long list of powerful, politically connected friends - didn’t go to state prison like most sex offenders in Florida. Instead, the multimillionaire was assigned to a private wing of the Palm Beach County stockade, where he was able to hire his own security detail. Even then, he didn’t spend much time in a cell. He was allowed to go to his downtown West Palm Beach office for work release, up to 12 hours a day, six days a week, records show. [Courtney] Wild, who was 14 when she met Epstein, is suing the federal government, alleging that prosecutors kept her and other victims in the dark as part of a conspiracy to give Epstein ... one of the most lenient deals for a serial child sex offender in history. That lawsuit - and an unrelated state court case scheduled for trial on Dec. 4 - could expose more about Epstein’s crimes, as well as who else was involved and whether there was any undue influence that tainted the federal case. Some of Epstein’s victims will finally have an opportunity to testify for the first time.
Note: Watch a 15-minute news video which asks hard questions around Epstein and more. The incredibly eye-opening documentary "Imperium" uses major media reporting to show a huge cover-up of child sex trafficking rings which lead to the highest level of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Dozens of local and federal law enforcement officers conducted a surprise search of the offices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston on Wednesday, looking for evidence in a clergy sexual abuse case that has ensnared the local archbishop, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, who also serves as president of the United States Catholic bishops’ conference. The raid in Houston is the latest sign of crisis in the church, with prosecutors growing more aggressive ... and the bishops - led by Cardinal DiNardo - hamstrung by the Vatican in their efforts to carry out reforms. Attorneys general in at least a dozen states have opened inquiries, and the Justice Department has told bishops not to destroy any documents that could relate to sex abuse cases. The attorney general in Michigan executed search warrants on all seven Catholic dioceses in that state. The assistant district attorney in charge of the [Galveston-Houston] investigation said that a search of the church offices was necessary because the Archdiocese ... had turned over only a portion of the evidence. Investigators were searching ... records on the Rev. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, who was arrested in September on four felony counts of indecency with a child. Cardinal DiNardo had assigned [Father LaRosa-Lopez] to work in a parish and appointed him as the vicar for Hispanics ... despite knowing that Father LaRosa-Lopez had been accused in 2001 of molesting a teenage girl. The priest was arrested after a second alleged victim - a man - came forward.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In 2007, Miami’s top federal prosecutor, Alexander Acosta, had a breakfast appointment with a former colleague, Washington, D.C., attorney Jay Lefkowitz. For Lefkowitz ... the meeting was critical. His client, Palm Beach multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein, 54, was accused of assembling a large, cult-like network of underage girls - with the help of young female recruiters - to coerce into having sex acts ... as often as three times a day. [Epstein] was also suspected of trafficking minor girls, often from overseas, for sex parties at his other homes in Manhattan, New Mexico and the Caribbean, FBI and court records show. But on the morning of the breakfast meeting, a deal was struck — an extraordinary plea agreement that would conceal the full extent of Epstein’s crimes and the number of people involved. The deal ... shut down an ongoing FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful people who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes. Epstein and four of his [named] accomplices ... received immunity from all federal criminal charges. The deal included wording that granted immunity to "any potential co-conspirators" who were also involved in Epstein’s crimes. These accomplices or participants were not identified in the agreement. Now President Trump’s secretary of labor, Acosta, 49, oversees a massive federal agency that provides oversight of the country’s labor laws, including human trafficking. Court records reveal details of the ... role that Acosta would play in arranging the deal, which scuttled the federal probe into a possible international sex trafficking operation.
Note: Watch a 15-minute news video which asks hard questions around Epstein's pedophile ring and more. The incredibly eye-opening documentary "Imperium" uses major media reporting to show a huge cover-up of child sex trafficking rings which lead to the highest level of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Catholic Church leaders in Los Angeles for years shuffled predator priests into non-English-speaking immigrant communities. That pattern was revealed in personnel documents released in a decades-old legal settlement between victims of child sex abuse by Catholic priests and the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Now clergy sex abuse victims throughout California are calling on the state's attorney general to investigate clergy abuse. [In] 2002 ... California had just removed the statute of limitations for child abuse victims. [Manuel] Barragan joined a lawsuit against the L.A. Archdiocese that eventually resulted in a $660 million settlement involving more than 500 abuse cases. "Not many regions around the country have had that," says attorney Tony DeMarco, who represented Barragan and has been representing clergy sex abuse survivors since. DeMarco says that settlement forced local Catholic officials to turn over thousands of pages of personnel files on accused priests. Those files showed how higher-ups repeatedly sent predators into communities where they knew people were less likely to speak up. "Blatant statements as to 'there is no need to take corrective action, because folks who were undocumented won't report,'" DeMarco says. "That's in some of these files." There are dozens of examples of immigrant communities thrown under the bus. "This is complete pattern," says Patrick Wall, a legal advocate who coined the term 'the geographic solution' to describe the church's actions.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Thousands of Google staff across the world have staged a series of walkouts. Demonstrations at the company’s offices around the world began at 11.10am in Tokyo and took place at the same time in other time zones. They follow allegations of sexual misconduct made against senior executives, which organisers say are the most high-profile examples of “thousands” of similar cases across the company. An image from the Singapore hub showed at least 100 staff protesting. In London, the majority of employees left their desks and occupied the main auditorium in the company’s King’s Cross office. Once the room was filled, some gathered outside, as did a separate contingent of employees from the company’s AI subsidiary, DeepMind. Employees were urged to leave a flyer at their desk that read: “I’m not at my desk because I’m walking out in solidarity with other Googlers and contractors to protest [against] sexual harassment, misconduct, lack of transparency and a workplace culture that’s not working for everyone.” The Walkout for Real Change protest comes a week after it emerged that Google gave a $90m (Ł70m) severance package to Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile phone software, but concealed details of a sexual misconduct allegations that triggered his departure. In San Francisco, where approximately 2,500 employees work, hundreds gathered in front of the city’s Ferry Building.
Note: Over 20,000 Google employees were reported to have participated in the mass walkout. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Britain's spy agencies will reveal its knowledge of alleged Westminster-related child abuse at a public inquiry amid concerns it aided in an establishment cover-up. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ have given their "full cooperation" with the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, lead counsel Andrew O'Connor QC told a preliminary hearing on Tuesday. Some of the evidence the agencies will give may be heard in private due to national security reasons. All three agencies have already provided files and documents relevant to its investigation into the alleged failure to pursue and prosecute child abusers in Whitehall and parliament. Parliamentary whips have also provided documents and archives to determine its involvement in the suspected cover-up. Mr O’Connor said a number of other notorious cases linked to Westminster - including those of the late former MPs, Cyril Smith, a Liberal, and Victor Montagu and Peter Morrison, both Conservatives - will be investigated. Further allegations ... are also expected to be explored. Allegations stemming from claims that police officers were "warned off" investigating cases of child sex abuse committed by senior politicians and other establishment figures in the 1960s, 70s and 80s will be looked at. The inquiry will also examine why the high ranking diplomat Peter Hayman, who died in 1992, escaped prosecution for sending obscene material through the post. The allegations against Hayman, who is believed to have been an MI6 official, were made public under parliamentary privilege in 1981.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
At Google’s weekly staff meeting on Thursday, the top question that employees voted to ask Larry Page, a co-founder, and Sundar Pichai, the chief executive, was one about sexual harassment. The query was part of an outpouring from Google employees after a New York Times article ... reported how the company had paid millions of dollars in exit packages to male executives accused of misconduct and stayed silent about their transgressions. In the case of Andy Rubin, the creator of Android mobile software, the company gave him a $90 million exit package even after Google had concluded that a misconduct claim against him was credible. While tech workers, executives and others slammed Google for the revelations, nowhere was condemnation of the internet giant’s actions more pointed than among its own employees. The employee rebuke played out on Thursday and Friday in company meetings and on internal message boards. Employees said they were dispirited by how some executives accused of harassment were paid millions of dollars even as the company was fending off lawsuits from former employees and the Department of Labor that claimed it underpaid women. Some Google employees said they had more questions after Mr. Pichai and Eileen Naughton, vice president of people operations, wrote ... that the company had fired 48 people, including 13 senior managers, for sexual harassment over the last two years and that none of them received an exit package.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Text of the apology speech for institutional child sexual abuse as delivered in parliament: Silenced voices. Muffled cries in the darkness. Unacknowledged tears. The never heard pleas of tortured souls bewildered by an indifference to the unthinkable theft of their innocence. Why weren’t the children of our nation loved, nurtured and protected? Why was their trust betrayed? Why did those who know cover it up? While we can’t be so vain to pretend to answers, we must be so humble to fall before those who were forsaken and beg to them our apology. Nothing we can do now will right the wrongs inflicted on our nation’s children. The steady compassionate hand of the commissioners and staff resulted in 17,000 survivors coming forward and nearly 8,000 of them recounting their abuse. We are all grateful to the survivors who gave evidence to the commission. It is because of your strength and your courage that we are gathered here today. Even after a comprehensive royal commission, which finally enabled the voices to be heard and the silence to be broken, we will all continue to struggle. We honour every survivor in this country, we love you, we hear you and we honour you. Elsewhere in this building and around Australia, there are others who are silently watching and listening to these proceedings, men and women who have never told a soul what has happened to them. To these men and women I say this apology is for you too. The crimes of ritual sexual abuse happened in schools, churches, youth groups, scout troops, orphanages, foster homes, sporting clubs, group homes, charities, and in family homes as well. As a nation, we failed them, we forsook them. That will always be our shame.
Note: The importance of the prime minister's mention of ritual sexual abuse should not be downplayed. Organized groups of powerful people, mostly men, are behind huge amounts of child abuse and trafficking. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse from reliable major media sources. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has given a national apology to victims of child sexual abuse. It follows a five-year inquiry which found tens of thousands of children had suffered abuse in the nation's institutions over decades. "Today, we finally acknowledge and confront the lost screams of our children," he said. The inquiry, which concluded last December, heard more than 8,000 testimonies from victims about abuse in organisations such as churches, schools and sports clubs. Many survivors have criticised the government's response to the inquiry - especially its terms for a national compensation scheme. Victims are eligible for payments of up to A$150,000 (Ł80,000; $106,000) each. Some say the compensation is not enough, and onerous to obtain. Mr Morrison said the government had accepted most recommendations from the inquiry, but it was still considering the remaining proposals. Those not yet adopted include recommendations where federal and state responsibilities overlap. The most contentious is a proposal to make reporting abuse mandatory. In August, the Catholic Church formally rejected that call - meaning it will not force priests to break confession rules. In their final report, the commissioners said: "It is not a case of a few 'rotten apples'. Society's major institutions have seriously failed." They said over 15,000 people had contacted the inquiry, raising allegations against more than 4,000 institutions.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For almost 30 years, parents sought out Dr. Reginald Archibald when their children would not grow. They came to his clinic at The Rockefeller University Hospital, a prominent New York research institution. He also may have sexually abused many of them. The hospital sent a letter last month to former patients of Dr. Archibald asking about their contact with him [and] posted a statement online saying it had evidence of the doctor’s “inappropriate” behavior with some patients and that it first had learned of credible allegations against him in 2004. The New York Times spoke with 17 people, most of them men, who said they were abused by Dr. Archibald when they were young boys or adolescents. Most of them learned of the possibility of other victims for the first time when they received the letter. A few, however, said they had filed complaints with the hospital or authorities in the past, but their allegations were not investigated. The men all described similar experiences with Dr. Archibald, who would tell them to disrobe when they were alone in his examination room. He would masturbate them or ask them to masturbate. The doctor took pictures of them, while they were naked, with a Polaroid camera, and measured their penises both flaccid and erect. The alleged abuse would have occurred in an era in which few safeguards existed for those patients. Under current New York law, the statute of limitations for victims to sue the hospital has long passed. A hospital spokesman declined to answer questions about when the hospital first learned of the allegations. [An] inquiry turned up two ... reports dating to the 1990s.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse by doctors from reliable major media sources. Then explore other media articles exposing systemic, institutional sex abuse.
A British paedophile is being sued for damages by five young men who allege they were sexually abused by him when he lived in the Philippines. Douglas Slade’s accusers will give evidence to the High Court in London by video link during a case thought to be the first of its kind. Slade, a founding member of a group which campaigned to legalise sex with children, was jailed for 24 years in 2016 for abusing five boys in the UK between 1965 and 1980. He had been extradited the previous year from the Philippines, where he moved in 1985. During three decades living in the country, he is alleged to have repeatedly enticed young people into his home and sexually abused them. The 77-year-old denies the allegations. Slade’s civil trial ... is believed to be the first time alleged victims from overseas have brought legal action against a British national in UK courts over abuse said to have been committed abroad. Four young men and one boy at the centre of the case are suing Slade for "personal injuries arising out of sexual abuse". The youngest was 10 at the time the abuse allegedly began. One accuser told the BBC: "Many people avoid me and think that I have a disease because of what I did. I'm teased. I am too embarrassed to get out of the house." Slade, formerly of Bristol, was investigated by Filipino police but never faced charges. He was expelled from the country in 2015, and charged with 13 counts of child abuse and rape upon his return to the UK.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. It includes a segment on the Pedophile Information Network. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Former fugitive Pablo Duran, Sr., who sat down in an exclusive interview with FRONTLINE for its investigation Trafficked in America, has pleaded guilty to encouraging illegal entry of Guatemalan nationals, some of them minors, for financial gain. His plea and conviction are part of a major trafficking plot in 2014 that saw Guatemalan teenagers smuggled across the border into America and compelled into grueling labor at egg farms in Ohio against their will. Duran, Sr., also known as Pablo Duran Ramirez, is one of seven people to have been convicted for their role in the case. Duran Ramirez admitted he had been fully aware some of the people brought on at Trillium Farms in Ohio were undocumented minors, and that the process of getting them to Ohio involved bullying and strong-arm tactics. Duran Ramirez co-owned a contracting company, Haba Corporate Services, which Trillium Farms hired and paid approximately $6 million to between 2013 and 2014 to find workers. One family ... owed Castillo-Serrano $15,000 for shuttling their son into the United States. The family put the deed of their house on the line as collateral. Once in the U.S., the young Guatemalans were sent to the egg farm to work off their parents’ debt - and routinely had most of their paycheck confiscated to cover it. If they complained, they became targets. “Many of my friends told me that they received death threats,” one former Trillium employee [said]. “They would kill their father or mother, if they didn’t want to pay or work.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the food system and in the corporate world.
Pope Francis has summoned senior bishops from around the world for the first global gathering of Roman Catholic leaders to address the crisis of clerical pedophilia. The action is long overdue. The latest barrage of revelations and developments - including a gut-wrenching report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania detailing seven decades of sexual abuse of at least 1,000 children, and probably thousands more, by more than 300 Catholic priests - has left no question that Pope Francis’ legacy will be decided by how he confronts this crisis. To be meaningful, any further response must include openly addressing allegations that the pope was himself party to a cover-up. The president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, met with the pope on Thursday to demand a full investigation into how the former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, rose to high rank despite a long and apparently well-known history of sexual predation. The crisis has been further complicated by a scathing public letter from a former Vatican envoy to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganň, accusing Francis of lifting sanctions against Cardinal McCarrick. The Viganň letter, the culture wars it reveals within the church, the McCarrick affair and even the Pennsylvania grand jury report must not deflect attention from the core of the crisis. This is a pattern of widespread and gross violations ... and of cover-ups stretching [to every corner of] the world.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The powerful and now-departed men of CBS - [Les] Moonves, [Jeff] Fager and star interviewer Charlie Rose - helped shape how our society sees women. The network, after all, is the most-watched in the nation. “60 Minutes” for 50 years has been the very definition of quality broadcast journalism: the gold standard. It’s impossible to know how different America would be if power-happy and misogynistic men hadn’t been running the show in so many influential media organizations - certainly not just CBS. What if Mark Halperin, for instance, had not been a network commentator during the 2016 presidential campaign? (James Wolcott of Vanity Fair aptly described him as ... “the most influential” of the men who were felled by sexual-misconduct allegations last year.) What if Bill O’Reilly of Fox News hadn’t been the biggest cable TV star in the nation when a woman had a major-party presidential nomination for the first time? (O’Reilly was forced out after it emerged that he had made a $32 million settlement with an accuser.) What if Roger Ailes hadn’t presided for decades over Fox News, where his own well-documented abuses bled freely into his network’s commentary. A media figure doesn’t have to show up for a business meeting in an open bathrobe to do harm. He can help frame the coverage of a candidate’s supposedly disqualifying flaws. He can squelch a writer’s promising work. He can threaten an underling’s job if she doesn’t stay in line. All these little moments add up.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and media corruption.
Leslie Moonves, the longtime chief executive of the CBS Corporation, stepped down on Sunday night from the company he led for 15 years. His fall from Hollywood’s highest echelon was all but sealed after the publication earlier in the day of new sexual harassment allegations against him. Mr. Moonves ... could still walk away with more than $120 million. However, [he] will not receive any severance payment until the completion of an independent investigation into the allegations. He has been under intense pressure since July, when The New Yorker published an article by the investigative journalist Ronan Farrow in which six women accused Mr. Moonves of sexual harassment. On Sunday, the magazine published another article by Mr. Farrow in which six more women detailed claims against Mr. Moonves. Mr. Moonves is the latest high-powered entertainment figure to be ousted from his perch in the #MeToo era. The movie producer Harvey Weinstein has been accused by scores of women of sexual assault and now faces felony charges. Matt Lauer stepped down as the anchor of NBC’s most valuable news program, “Today,” after several women alleged incidents of sexual harassment. Charlie Rose of CBS and PBS left the airwaves after he, too, was implicated by multiple women. And Fox News saw the departures of the founding executive Roger Ailes and its top-rated host, Bill O’Reilly. The allegations go back years — in some cases even decades.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and media corruption.
In October, when Ronan Farrow published his first article in The New Yorker on the alleged transgressions of Harvey Weinstein, people in the media and entertainment industries wondered how NBC had missed the story. After all, Mr. Farrow had spent months gathering material on the mogul when he was with NBC News. Now a producer who worked closely with Mr. Farrow has accused the network of putting a stop to the reporting, saying the order came from “the very highest levels of NBC.” Rich McHugh, the producer, who recently left his job in the investigative unit of NBC News, is the first person affiliated with NBC to publicly charge that the network impeded his and Mr. Farrow’s efforts to nail down the story of Mr. Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct. He called the network’s handling of the matter “a massive breach of journalistic integrity.” “Three days before Ronan and I were going to head to L.A. to interview a woman with a credible rape allegation against Harvey Weinstein, I was ordered to stop, not to interview this woman,” Mr. McHugh said. “And to stand down on the story altogether.” There was a point in our reporting where I felt there were obstacles to us reporting this externally, and there were obstacles to us reporting this internally,” the producer said. “Externally, I had Weinstein associates calling me repeatedly. I knew that Weinstein was calling NBC executives directly. One time it even happened when we were in the room.”
Note: NBC's chief executive stepped down amid sexual harassment claims 10 days after this article came out. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
A report released this weekend by a former Vatican ambassador to the United States charges that Pope Francis knew about sexual abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, removed a suspension placed on him by Pope Benedict, and proceeded to make the known abuser one of his most trusted advisors. Pope Francis “knew from at least June 23, 2013 that McCarrick was a serial predator, [but] he covered for him to the bitter end,” wrote Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, nuncio to Washington from 2011-2016, before demanding the pontiff resign. That is a damning allegation coming from a very senior church leader. Even more profound is the charge by an Argentinian woman who says the sexual abuse of her son was covered up by this pope, who had her forcibly removed from his office when she tried to report the crime when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and then known as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. The harsh reality that all Catholics need to realize is that ... there are few protections when the predators are the bishops who are empowered to police themselves and instead cover up for each other, from the pope on down. A trope of the last six papacies has been [known] to extol the advances of a supposed “Springtime of Vatican II,” the revolutionary church council from 1962-65 that was called to open the Church to the modern world. Far from a spring flowering, the festering sex-abuse scandal shows that the Church of Rome is actually going through a long, cold, very dark winter.
Note: For more, see this revealing BBC News article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Catholic Church’s decades-long practice of enabling and systematically covering up the rape and molestation of children by priests is by now sickeningly familiar. Yet the scale of abuse; the breadth and depth of trauma inflicted by predators wearing Roman collars; and the coldbloodedness of senior church figures zealous in their resolve to protect the church but indifferent to the suffering of minors, retain their power to shock the conscience. So it was Tuesday when Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court released a massive report on decades of alleged abuse in six of the state’s eight dioceses, where nearly 2 million Catholics live today. The report ... lays out what amounts to a criminal conspiracy, breathtaking in its scope, reaching from parishes and parochial schools to the Vatican. The report names some 300 accused predator priests, who allegedly abused at least 1,000 victims. Yet even as the findings were published, the coverup continues: The report is heavily redacted, owing to ongoing litigation by unidentified clergymen and others seeking to block publication of certain names. That, Attorney General Josh Shapiro noted, is a coverup of a decades-long coverup. The conspiracy — as in Boston and practically every major city in the United States and many overseas — involved bishops, archbishops and even cardinals. Even as apologists for the Vatican ... continue peddling the myth that the Catholic Church’s pedophile scandals simply reflect society’s problems, the weight of evidence is overwhelming proof to the contrary.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
More than 300 Catholic priests across Pennsylvania sexually abused children over seven decades, protected by a hierarchy of church leaders who covered it up, according to a sweeping grand jury report released Tuesday. The investigation ... identified 1,000 children who were victims, but reported that there probably are thousands more. “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades,” the grand jury wrote in its report. The 18-month investigation covered six of the state’s dioceses ... and follows other state grand jury reports that revealed abuse and coverups in two other dioceses. The grand jury reviewed more than 2 million documents, including from the “secret archives” - what church leaders referred to the reports of abuse they hid from public for decades, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. Few criminal cases may result from the massive investigation. “As a consequence of the coverup, almost every instance of abuse we found is too old to be prosecuted,” the report said. The grand jury’s report follows the resignation last month of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a towering figure in the U.S. church and a former archbishop of Washington who was accused of sexually abusing children and adults for decades.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The New Yorker has published a bombshell investigation of the head of CBS Corporation that includes allegations of sexual misconduct. The article by Ronan Farrow alleges that CBS chairman and CEO Leslie Moonves engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior, including unwanted kissing and touching that occurred over 20 years ago. Farrow told ABC News that his latest piece is "about six women who did an incredibly brave thing: overcoming tremendous fear of retaliation to speak about their experiences with Moonves. But it’s also a story about dozens and dozens of sources who told us that a culture of harassment and retaliation had permeated various facets of his company," he said. The women recalled events when they were threatened with retaliation when rebuffing advances and detailed accounts of sexual assault. They "say that they are still afraid of Les Moonves," Farrow said. "They are speaking because they believe there is a broader culture around him in which he has protected other men who have engaged in similar misconduct," Farrow said. Moonves denied any allegations of sexual assault but acknowledged, "I recognize that there were times decades ago when I may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely." A person "familiar with the situation" told The Wall Street Journal that CBS has no plans to sideline Moonves.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
When UN Secretary-General António Guterres visited the Central African Republic (CAR) in October of 2017, his words echoed a theme that he’d been sounding since taking office in January: Stemming the problem of sexual abuse and exploitation by UN peacekeepers was among his top priorities. The same month of Guterres’ visit to CAR, the UN had received a report of a new rape case there. A young woman named Mauricette, who was 17 at the time, said she was raped by peacekeepers on her way home from a funeral. Mauricette went months without hearing from the UN after her initial interview with them. The details of what allegedly happened to Mauricette are grim. “She was vomiting,” says Jean-Gaston Endjileteko, who works at Samaritans’ Medical Center, where Mauricette had been treated. “She told me she had drunk some drugged tea spiked with a powder at the Mauritanian checkpoint. The hospital reported Mauricette’s rape, and she was interviewed by a local UN representative. But then, the UN went silent. “I’ve heard nothing,” Mauricette says. “No news.” That was approximately two months after Mauricette’s initial interview with the UN — so [PBS correspondent Ramita] Navai brought the delay to the attention of Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, Head of UN Mission, Central African Republic. Mauricette still hadn’t heard anything further from the UN — four months after FRONTLINE brought the delay in communication with her about her case to the UN’s attention.
Note: An hour-long episode of PBS FRONTLINE details the sad case introduced by the article above. In 2015, more than a year after allegations of UN peacekeepers sexual abusing children came to light, it was reported that the UN had taken disciplinary action against the whistleblower who exposed wrongdoing, but not against the soldiers accused of abuses. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Mipham Rinpoche ... is the head of one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the West, Shambhala International, a network of more than 200 outposts in over 30 countries where thousands come for training in meditation. He is known as the Sakyong, a Tibetan word that translates roughly as king, and his students take vows to follow him that are binding across lifetimes. Late last month, a former Shambhala teacher released a report alleging that the Sakyong had sexually abused and exploited some of his most devoted female followers for years. Women quoted in the report wrote of drunken groping and forcefully extracted sexual favors. The report said that senior leaders at Shambhala — an organization whose motto is “Making Enlightened Society Possible” — knew of the Sakyong’s misconduct and covered it up. On Friday ... the governing council of Shambhala International, which is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, resigned en masse, “in the interest of beginning a healing process for our community.” The Sakyong ... took leave from running Shambhala as an outside firm investigates abuse allegations against him and other Shambhala teachers. He would, the announcement stated, “enter a period of self-reflection.” The Sakyong is not only another executive or religious leader dethroned by #MeToo, but the sole holder of the most sacred teachings in a custody chain that goes back centuries, the only one who can transmit them, according to the traditions of his lineage.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For a 22-year-old Columbia University student, Joel Davis had built an impressive reputation as an activist for ending sexual violence. He was the founding executive director of the international organization Youth to End Sexual Violence [and] served as a youth ambassador for the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict. Davis traveled around the world, worked alongside high-profile activists such as Angelina Jolie, delivered a TED talk and appeared on media panels. Yet behind this virtuous front, Davis was allegedly committing the same types of crimes he claimed to be fighting, federal prosecutors say. On Tuesday, authorities arrested Davis on charges of attempting to sexually exploit a child, enticing a child to engage in sexual activity and possessing child pornography. Over the course of several weeks ... prosecutors say, Davis exchanged text messages with undercover FBI agents, trying to arrange meetings with a 9-year-old girl, an 8-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy. Davis allegedly sent the undercover agents sexually explicit photos and videos of children as young as infants and made clear that he wanted to have sex with children of any age, according to a federal criminal complaint. He also admitted to meeting a 13-year-old boy on the dating app Grindr, speaking with him on Snapchat and engaging in sexual activity with the boy at Davis’s Manhattan apartment
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Across the United States, evangelical churches are failing to protect victims of sexual abuse among their members. While some church leaders have worked to prevent abuse and harassment, many have not. The causes are manifold: authoritarian leadership, twisted theology, institutional protection, obliviousness about the problem and, perhaps most shocking, a diminishment of the trauma sexual abuse creates — especially surprising in a church culture that believes strongly in the sanctity of sex. “Sexual abuse is the most underreported thing — both in and outside the church — that exists,” says Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of Billy Graham and a former Florida assistant state attorney. As a prosecutor, Tchividjian saw dozens of sexual abuse victims harmed by a church’s response to them. In 2004, Tchividjian founded [a] nonprofit organization ... which trains Christian institutions in how to prevent sexual abuse and performs independent investigations. Tchividjian says sexual abuse in evangelicalism rivals the Catholic Church scandal of the early 2000s. According to research from the evangelical publishing company LifeWay ... pastors drastically underestimate the number of victims in their congregations.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Show Dogs is a slapstick, buddy-cop comedy with talking dogs that seemed perfect for kids. Terina Maldonado, a Mesa, Arizona writer for Macaroni Kid wrote a column, imploring parents to keep their kids far away from the movie. The column struck a nerve. Max the Rottweiler and [Frank], his human partner ... are undercover officers who must crack the case of a kidnapped panda by infiltrating a prestigious dog show. The first troubling scene comes when Frank (Will Arnett) tells the dog Max (Ludacris) he needs to get used to getting his privates touched - which is a part of any inspection in a dog show. "He was telling him he needs to go to his zen place, and I like right away was wait ... what? When it turns into this big pivotal scene in the end and he needs to be allowed to be touched to win the competition ... red flags were going up and around in my mommy head," Maldonado said. A second scene in the movie shows Max having his private parts handled during the finals of the dog show competition. Max goes to his zen place and pictures himself flying through the sky. Finding the stolen panda depends on his ability to let this happen. "If it has just been a casual part of the movie, it wouldn't have been inappropriate." Maldonado said. "But it turned into this pivotal moment and it was teaching him to disassociate from himself while they were touching his private parts." As a survivor of child abuse, Maldonado said that this type of disassociation is what child predators tell children to do when they're upset about being touched.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The resident physician of the NXIVM sex cult has been charged by a state oversight board of conducting illegal human experiments. The New York Post reported ... that Dr. Brandon Porter, 44, forced actress Jennifer Kobelt to watch dismemberment and rape videos for a “fright study” he was conducting. “He continued to film my reaction for at least 10 minutes as I just sat there, dry heaving like I was going to puke and crying very hard,” Kobelt, said in the complaint to the health department. “He failed me, not only as a friend but as the medical practitioner I had trusted on numerous occasions with my health while I was in New York.” The New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct said in a letter to Kobelt in September 2017 that they were not going to investigate Porter because “the issues you have described are not medical misconduct.” The board is now accusing Porter of moral unfitness, gross negligence and gross incompetence. A New York Supreme Court justice signed an executive order asking Porter and Clare Bronfman of the nonprofit Ethical Science Foundation to hand over documents on the human studies that were conducted for research, the Albany Times Union reported in April. Actress Samia Shoaib spoke out against actress Allison Mack after she was arrested on sex trafficking charges in April. Shoaib said Mack attempted to recruit her into the cult that is known to be abusive by blackmailing and branding women.
Note: Read more on the "NXIVM Sex Cult". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing mind control news articles from reliable major media sources.
A new national investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has uncovered 450 cases of doctors who were brought before medical regulators or courts for sexual misconduct or sex crimes in 2016 and 2017. In nearly half of those cases, the AJC found, the doctors remain licensed to practice medicine, no matter whether the victims were patients or employees, adults or children. Even some doctors criminally convicted are back in practice, demonstrating that a system that forgives doctors — first exposed by the AJC in 2016 — has not changed. Dr. Richard Martin Roberts is still allowed to see patients in Texas even though a medical board disciplinary panel in November 2017 found he repeatedly conducted unwarranted genital exams on young girls. “Only doctors get to do this,” he told one, a 7-year-old he was supposed to be examining for a learning disability. Doctors benefit from a system where victims are often not believed [and] criminal charges for physician sex abuse are rare. At a time when powerful men in business and politics are losing careers over sexual misconduct, America’s doctors remain a baffling exception, impervious to the power of the #MeToo movement. The AJC’s new investigation found that medical boards still routinely handle serious sexual misconduct as an illness or lapse in training that should be dealt with through therapy, education and watchful eyes in exam rooms. In 31 states, cases can be hidden from the public through private board actions.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
A television actress best known for playing a young Superman’s close friend was charged with sex trafficking. Allison Mack was accused in an indictment unsealed Friday in federal court in Brooklyn. Mack, 35, starred in The CW network’s “Smallville,” ending in 2015. Prosecutors said she helped recruit women for leader Keith Raniere and his cult-like organization called NXIVM. She told the women they were joining what was purported to be a female mentorship group. But “the victims were then exploited, both sexually and for their labor,” according to federal prosecutors. Prosecutors said she required women she recruited to engage in sexual activity with Raniere, who paid Mack in return. Raniere, 57, was arrested last month. The FBI has filed sex trafficking charges against him, saying that with the help of mostly female assistants, he blackmailed and coerced women into unwanted sex. Raniere sold himself as a self-improvement guru. NXIVM promoted Raniere’s teachings as a kind of mystical, executive coaching. Women who were part of a NXIVM subgroup [came] forward to say that they had been physically branded with a surgical tool against their will. Prosecutors said in court papers that Raniere created a society within NXIVM called “DOS” - an acronym based on a Latin phrase that loosely translates to “Lord/Master of obedient female companions.” Women were required to provide damaging material about their friends and family, naked photos and even sign over their assets as a condition for joining, they said.
Note: Watch the revealing video at the above link. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and mind control.
[Robert] Rook was allowed to keep his family practice open, so long as he’s chaperoned, despite facing multiple criminal charges for rape. Prosecutors subsequently downgraded the charges to more than 20 counts of sexual assault in the second- and third-degree, charges for which Rook says he is innocent. An Associated Press investigation finds that even as Hollywood moguls, elite journalists and politicians have been pushed out of their jobs or resigned amid allegations of sexual misconduct, the world of medicine is more forgiving. Even when doctors are disciplined, their punishment often consists of a short suspension paired with therapy that treats sexually abusive behavior as a symptom of an illness or addiction. The investigation finds that decades of complaints that the physician disciplinary system is too lenient have led to little change in the practices of state medical boards. The #MeToo campaign and the push to increase accountability for sexual misconduct in workplaces don't appear to have sparked a movement toward changing how medical boards deal with physicians who act out sexually against patients or staffers.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Child sex dolls have been pulled from sale by online retail giant Amazon.com Inc after widespread criticism from a watchdog and charities in Britain over concerns that people who use such lifelike dolls may go on to sexually abuse children. More than a dozen child sex dolls were removed from sale, having been listed by third-party sellers, according to Amazon. “All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account,” an Amazon spokesman said in a statement. England Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, said Amazon should explain how the dolls were permitted to be posted on their website, and ensure they cannot be put back up for sale. Britain allows people to manufacture and own child sex dolls yet it is illegal to import them. A British man was convicted last year for doing so in what police said was a landmark case in the fight against a new form of sex crime against children. Opinion is divided over the use of child sex dolls, which have the appearance, weight and anatomy of real children. Some charities argue such dolls should be made available on prescription to help prevent people who are sexually attracted to children acting on their desires. Other organizations, such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), say sex dolls can be dangerous proxies to act out fantasies like rape or child abuse.
Note: Though the US House of Representatives passed a bill in June of 2018 banning sex dolls that look like children, it has yet to be approved by the Senate as of Oct., 2018. And this article shows amazon is still selling child-like sex dolls, though they are not listed as children.
Up to 1,000 children could have been abused in Britain's biggest ever child abuse scandal, an investigation has revealed. Hundreds of children, some as young as 11, are estimated to have been drugged, beaten and raped over a 40-year period in the town of Telford. Lucy Allan, the Conservative MP for Telford, has called for an inquiry into child sexual exploitation. The investigation claims that allegations dating back to the 1980s were mishandled by authorities in Telford, who repeatedly failed to punish a network of abusers. Victims claimed that similar abuse, which has been linked to three murders and two other deaths, has continued in the area. The newspaper's probe alleges that social workers were aware of the abuse in the 1990s, but that it took police a decade to launch Operation Chalice, an inquiry into child prostitution in the Telford area in which seven men were jailed. It is also claimed that abused and trafficked children were considered "prostitutes" by council staff, that authorities did not keep details of abusers from Asian communities for fear of being accused of "racism" and that police failed to investigate one recent case five times until an MP intervened. The estimate of 1,000 potential victims was made with the help of Professor Liz Kelly, from the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University. Twelve victims spoke to the newspaper and accused more than 70 abusers. Two other investigations were launched alongside Operation Chalice after two victims named dozens more abusers, yet victims have claimed that they were put off helping inquiries.
Note: Similar reports of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham were suppressed by officials for years. Over 1400 children as young as 12 were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Plainclothes police officers stormed the village of Madhura in Bihar State. They chased men into fields and detained the bride and groom, already covered in turmeric powder to prepare for the ceremony, for further questioning. Speaking to reporters at the police station later, Ms. Kumari, with downcast eyes, made her position clear: “I will not marry, sir,” she said. “I want to study.” India’s child marriage rate is one of the highest in the world. But as awareness has spread about the detriments associated with underage marriages ... the prevalence has dropped. Child marriage [in India] is finely threaded with other practices, including the exchange of a dowry from the bride’s family to the groom, and sometimes with sex trafficking, making it difficult to tackle any one issue without addressing others. Social workers said there are no easy solutions. Bihar, a poor, agrarian state in northern India, has one of the highest rates of underage marriages in the country. In 2005, 69 percent of surveyed women said they married when they were underage. Ten years later, the number fell to 42.5 percent. Last year, the Bihari government ... dispatched social workers to villages and cities across the state, and announced that priests who officiate weddings would be required to sign declarations affirming that both parties are of legal age to marry. The legal age for marriage for Indian women is 18 years old. For men, it is 21. With the 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Prevention Act, Indian lawmakers criminalized child marriage.
Note: While India has outlawed child marriage as a country, twenty-seven US States set no minimum age for marriage.
Facebook is under fire for publishing a stomach-churning survey that asked users whether pedophiles should be allowed to solicit "sexual pictures" from underage girls. The cringeworthy poll surfaced at the top of Facebook's home page for an unspecified number of users this past weekend, according to a report. "In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook's policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures," one question in the survey reads. The disgusting multiple-choice poll gave users the option to condone the sick behavior, allowing them to vote that the "content should be allowed on Facebook, and I would not mind seeing it." Another possible, nausea-inducing response was that "the content should be allowed on Facebook, but I don't want to see it." The twisted survey was spotted by an editor at the Guardian, who published screenshots. Yet another ... question asked users who should decide whether pedophilic content was allowed on Facebook – users, Facebook and users, just Facebook or an outside entity. On Monday, the social networking giant headed by Mark Zuckerberg admitted that it was a "mistake" to publish the survey, which appeared to suggest that Facebook execs were openly debating whether to allow pedophiles on the site. "We run surveys to understand how the community thinks about how we set policies," Facebook vice president Guy Rosen said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
An NSA staffer deployed to Iraq led a counterterrorism and counterintelligence mission involving forensic investigations on computers seized in raids. The staffer's "Media Exploitation" team found pornographic videos and photos alongside thousands of audio files of the Quran and sermons, and recruitment and training CDs with video of bombings, torture, and beheadings. The team "jokingly" referred to the content as the "three big â€P's – porn, propaganda and prayer." Reports and files were distributed to the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Among the customers of the material ... were the military units interrogating captured insurgents. Special Forces interrogators found the pornography "extremely useful in breaking down detainees who maintained that they were devout Muslims, but had porn on their computers," according to an account by the NSA staffer. As the conflict with insurgents escalated in Fallujah ... NSA staff with "top-secret" clearances were deployed to the combat zone. Marines gave the NSA staff seized computers, CDs, phones, and radios directly from the battlefield, some "covered in blood." This material, too, was used in interrogations. A former interrogator at the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has said ... that pornography was used at the facility to reward some detainees and as a tool against others, who were forced to look at the material. The Associated Press has also reported on the use of pornography at Guantánamo.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
When Deputy Patrick Paquette pulled to a stop on Interstate 20 in Georgia in January 2013, he didn’t anticipate a career-altering experience. A young man and a far younger girl ... had been detained by an officer who had pulled them over for speeding, smelled pot and discovered a bag of marijuana. Inside [the girl’s suitcase, Paquette] discovered ... dozens of condoms, lubricant, sex toys and a small pile of lingerie. The girl and the man, Johnathon Nathaniel Kelly, were still separated. Kelly could not see or hear the girl. But Paquette ... kept his voice low. “Do you need help?” he asked. “Sir,” she said, “please get me some help,” and began to cry. Paquette uncuffed her, loaded her into the car and drove her to the station for an interview with a specialist in sex crimes. The girl, Rebecca ... sobbed. “I’ve been praying,” she told him, “every second I could, to be rescued.” Kelly was arrested and later sentenced to 11 years for interstate transportation of a minor for prostitution. If Rebecca had encountered Paquette just months earlier, she would have been arrested. But Paquette had recently taken a Texas-based training program, called Interdiction for the Protection of Children (IPC), which taught him how to spot indicators of child-sex trafficking. Before the creation of IPC training, Texas DPS kept no record of “child rescues.” But Texas state troopers have made 341 such rescues since the program’s inception; and in formalized follow-up interviews, virtually all of the troopers said the training was key to spurring them to action.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he will deliver a national apology to victims of child sexual abuse. Mr Turnbull's pledge follows the conclusion of a four-year inquiry that found tens of thousands of children had been abused in Australian institutions. The crimes, over decades, took place in institutions including churches, schools and sports clubs. The royal commission inquiry, which concluded in December, made more than 400 recommendations, including calling on the Catholic Church to overhaul its celibacy rules. "It is not a case of a few 'rotten apples'. Society's major institutions have seriously failed," it said. Mr Turnbull said his government would consult abuse survivors about what should be included in the national apology. He also called on state governments and institutions to join a national redress scheme for victims. "We owe it to survivors not to squander this moment," he said. The Australian government has already pledged A$30m (Ł17m; $23m) to the scheme, which would pay victims up to A$150,000 each. It would also provide counselling and other services. The inquiry heard testimonies from more than 8,000 victims, but it said the true number may never be known.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
She was only 15, pregnant and alone on the streets. In this wounded child, [Marcus] Thompson saw a means to make money. Thompson and his wife, Robin, forced the girl on a nightmarish six-week trek across the southern United States. Photographed in suggestive poses and marketed online, she was sold out of hotel rooms and truck stops to any man with the money and the desire to buy sex. The victim was [eventually] rescued and provided with treatment. The traffickers who exploited her were caught, pleaded guilty and were sent to prison. But what of the men who paid to rape this child? Not a single one was ever charged. That same breach of justice is the norm in thousands of trafficking cases. About 10,000 children a year suffer the horrors of commercial sexual exploitation in the United States. Each victim on average is forced to have sex more than five times a day. The buyers who fuel the child sex trade are seldom held accountable. Most just blend back into their families, jobs and neighborhoods. Until the next time. Who buys a 15-year-old child for sex? “They’re in all walks of life,” a 17-year-old survivor from the Midwest, trafficked when she was 15, said about the more than 150 men who purchased her in a month. “Some could be upstanding people in the community. It was mostly people in their 40s, living in the suburbs.” The scale of the trade indicates that it’s not a small number of men who pay to have sex with kids. Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States.
Note: The above is the first of 10 columns in a series titled, "Exploited," which explores the cultural and economic forces that contribute to commercial sexual exploitation. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
After seven days of listening to more than 160 girls, women and parents describe the impact of his sexual abuse, disgraced gymnastics physician Larry Nassar turned to the courtroom Wednesday and quietly attempted an apology, saying, "There are no words that can describe the depth and breadth for how sorry I am for what has occurred." Then Judge Rosemarie Aquilina read from a letter Nassar wrote last week in which he expressed very different sentiments. In the letter, Nassar complained about the length of his sentencing hearing, maintained that his touching of patients was legitimate medical therapy and termed some of the alleged victims' accounts "fabricated." As Aquilina read excerpts, some in the courtroom gasped. "My treatments worked, and those patients that are now speaking out were the same ones that praised me," Aquilina said as she read Nassar's words. "The media convinced them that everything I did was wrong and bad ... Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." The judge then addressed Nassar directly. "It was not treatment what you did; it was not medical," Aquilina replied. Finally, Aquilina delivered her sentence - a minimum of 40 years, a maximum of 175 years in Michigan state prison - effectively guaranteeing a life sentence for the 54-year-old former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics team physician, who also faces a 60-year sentence for federal child pornography crimes.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
As a women's health advocate and practicing OB-GYN for 25 years, I want to point out that some doctors, especially male gynecologists, pediatricians and anesthesiologists and psychiatrists, have raped, fondled and molested patients of all ages. Finally, the conversation is getting started because of Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar. He's the former team doctor for U.S.A. Gymnastics, and he was sentenced to 60 years in prison on child pornography (37,000 images!) charges. I've heard story upon story about sexual misconduct from my patients, including inappropriate touching and sexual misconduct during their gynecologic exams when they were young women. Experiences like these have a long-term negative effect on a woman and the way she takes care of her physical health during her lifetime. Trying to get any hard facts or statistics about doctor sexual misconduct is very difficult. According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, "half of the more than 2,400 doctors sanctioned since 1999 for sexual misconduct involving patients still have active medical licenses." A nationwide investigation by the AJC published in July 2016 found widespread sexual abuse by doctors – from OB-GYNs committing rape and anesthesiologists taking advantage of sedated patients to pediatricians molesting children. We cannot tolerate business as usual. I would like to see a law passed where violating a patient would result in revoking his or her medical license, jail time and being forever identified as a sex offender on state registries.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Rachael Denhollander had the first word and the last one. A former gymnast who became a lawyer and a coach, Ms. Denhollander told The Indianapolis Star in 2016 that Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar had molested her as a child. She had just read a report in The Star about U.S.A. Gymnastics’ mishandling of sexual misconduct allegations against coaches. But no one had yet spoken up about Dr. Nassar, who molested young athletes for about two decades while pretending the abuse was therapy. The Star soon published an article about the doctor, based on reports from two former gymnasts. One remained anonymous. The other was Rachael Denhollander. In a Michigan courtroom Wednesday, before Dr. Nassar received a prison sentence of 40 to 175 years for multiple counts of criminal sexual misconduct, Ms. Denhollander, 33, spoke again. This time, she was not alone. Over a seven-day sentencing hearing, 155 people had delivered victim impact statements to the court. Ms. Denhollander became the 156th, the final voice in a gathering of survivors who grew stronger by the day. Michigan State and U.S.A. Gymnastics, which made Dr. Nassar its longtime doctor for the national women’s team, were culpable in this case, too, Ms. Denhollander said. She mentioned that Dr. Nassar had used his phony medical treatments on her after four other women had complained about Dr. Nassar to employees in the M.S.U. athletic department.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The frequency of child sex abuse is a true epidemic. Since at least 2000, the U.S. Department of Justice has reported that some 67 percent of all sexual assaults are committed against victims under 18 years old. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports confirmed child sexual abuse cases number approximately 58,000 per year in recent years. Unreported child sexual assaults are estimated at 80 percent. Most Americans who are victims of sex trafficking come from our nation’s own foster care system. It’s a deeply broken system that leaves thousands vulnerable to pimps as children and grooms them for the illegal sex trade as young adults. Most people don’t know about our nation’s foster care to sex trafficking pipeline, but the facts are sobering. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) found that “of the more than 18,500 endangered runaways reported to NCMEC in 2016, one in six were likely victims of child sex trafficking. Of those, 86 percent were in the care of social services when they went missing.” As NCMEC’s CEO told Congress in 2013, “Children in foster care are easy targets for pimps ... [they] are the most susceptible to the manipulation and false promises that traffickers use to secure their trust and dependency.” Child welfare systems can, but often do not, prevent that reality for children. Pimps rely on that. I have seen all of this up close as an attorney who represents children abused in foster and group home care.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
She was driving in a park with two male friends when a pair of plainclothes New York City police detectives drove up in an unmarked van. The officers, from the Brooklyn South precinct ... arrested her, put her in the back of the van in handcuffs and ordered her friends not to follow. According to prosecutors, the detectives proceeded to force the 18-year-old woman to perform oral sex on one of them, who then raped her. The 50-count indictment also alleges that the officers, who are facing charges of rape, kidnapping and official misconduct, threatened her with criminal charges if she didn’t cooperate. This young woman’s experience ... is representative of national patterns of sexual violence by officers during traffic stops and handling of minor offenses, drug arrests and police interactions with teenagers. Research on “police sexual misconduct” ... overwhelmingly concludes that it is a systemic problem. A 2015 investigation ... concluded that an officer is accused of an act of sexual misconduct at least every five days. The vast majority of incidents ... involve motorists, young people in job-shadowing programs, students, victims of violence and informants. In more than 60 percent of the cases reviewed, an officer was convicted of a crime or faced other consequences. [Another] study, funded by the National Institute of Justice ... found that half of arrests for sexual misconduct were for incidents involving minors. Sexual misconduct is the second-most-frequently reported form of police misconduct, after excessive force.
Note: A yearlong Associated Press investigation found that the "broken system which lets problem officers jump from job to job" fosters and abets sexual abuse. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
Olympic gold-medal-winning gymnast McKayla Maroney alleges in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on Wednesday that USA Gymnastics paid her to be quiet about abuse by the team's longtime doctor Larry Nassar. The lawsuit ... also names as defendants Michigan State University, the US Olympic Committee and Nassar, the former team doctor who has admitted sexually abusing underage girls. "In December of 2016, after suffering for years from psychological trauma of her sexual abuse at the hands of Nassar, and in need of funds to pay for psychological treatment," Maroney was forced to enter into a confidential agreement with USA Gymnastics, the lawsuit said. John Manly, Maroney's attorney, called the confidentiality agreement "an immoral and illegal attempt to silence a victim of child sexual abuse. The US Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics were well aware that the victim of child sexual abuse in California cannot be forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement as a condition of a settlement," he said. "Such agreements are illegal for very good reasons - they silence victims and allow perpetrators to continue committing their crimes." Maroney entered the settlement to "obtain funds necessary to pay for lifesaving psychological treatment and care," according to the lawsuit. Nassar was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges earlier this month. In November, he pleaded guilty to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and admitted to using his position to sexually abuse underage girls.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
Of all the secret deals cut on behalf of accused members of congress, the one that resulted in the largest settlement yet uncovered may be the most surprising. With new harassment accusations being revealed on a nearly daily basis in Congress, documents obtained by NBC News from this one case shed light on how taxpayer money ends up being used to essentially sweep such incidents under a bureaucratic rug. In 2011, Winsome Packer, a congressional staffer who worked for the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe ... filed a complaint against the commission, alleging that its chairman at the time, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., made unwanted sexual advances toward her and that she was threatened with retaliation. The details ... are recorded in the complaint she also brought in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The [House Ethics Committee] closed the case after finding that while the congressman admitted to having made some unprofessional comments, it had found “no additional evidence supporting [Packer’s] allegations.” The federal court also dismissed the case. So how did Winsome Packer end up getting a $220,000 taxpayer-funded settlement in May 2014? And why was that payment, settling sexual harassment claims against a member of the House of Representatives, not included in a disclosure ... of all such settlement payments in the last five years, provided by Congress’ Office of Compliance, the congressional office that approved the payment?
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The office that receives complaints from Congressional staffers on sexual harassment has refused to release information on settlements in the Senate, keeping secret the amount of taxpayer money spent to quiet such claims. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., asked the Office of Compliance on Dec. 6 to release the number of sexual harassment claims filed against a senator or his or her staff between 2007 and 2017. He also asked for the dollar amounts of the settlements and said he would make the information public. Susan Grundmann, executive director of the OOC, said [that] the statute that created the Office of Compliance prohibits her from releasing the data. "The OOC provided ... a statistical breakdown of settlement amounts involving Senate employing offices from 1997-2017. That information represents the full extent of what we can provide," Grundmann wrote. Kaine ... wasn’t satisfied with Grundmann’s response. In a statement, Kaine said that by not releasing the names of the accused or the accusers, no privacy rights would be violated. The OOC’s response seems to be inconsistent. The office released five years of data in settlements with House offices to the House Administration Committee and is expected to release the first 15 years as well. The only public information surrounding Senate settlements is a $220,000 payment in 2014. Even though the accused was a congressman, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., the case was finally resolved with the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment office.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
Children are still being sexually assaulted in Australian institutions. That was the stark warning of an exhaustive five-year investigation by an Australia Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse that concluded Thursday. Hon Justice Peter McClellan, who has headed the investigation, said the "nation thanks the survivors" who gave testimony about decades of systematic abuse and cover-ups in religious and state institutions such as churches, youth groups, care homes and schools. More than 8,000 people gave evidence in private sessions, and 2,559 referrals were made to authorities. "The sexual abuse of children is not just a problem from the past. Child sexual abuse in institutions continues today," said McClellan. "In some case studies into schools the alleged abuse was so recent that the children are still attending school." McClellan singled out the Roman Catholic Church in particular for often putting reputation above the safety of children in what they found to be decades of systematic sexual abuse. Earlier this year the commission released shocking statistics that 7% of Catholic priests, working between 1950 and 2009, have been accused of child sex crimes. In total, 4,444 alleged cases were recorded. Many cases are continuing to be heard through the courts as a result. Earlier this year 85 recommendations were made ahead of the final findings in a criminal justice report issued by the commission, including the fact priests should be charged for failing to report child sexual abuse spoken of in a confession box.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Former patients of a retired Indianapolis fertility doctor expressed anger that he avoided jail time Thursday for lying about using his own sperm to impregnate as many as dozens of women after telling them the donors were anonymous. Dr. Donald Cline was given a one-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice. No other charges were filed ... because Indiana law doesn't specifically prohibit fertility doctors from using their own sperm. The charges stemmed from two confirmed cases of paternity. Matt White and his mother, Liz White, said Cline deserved far greater punishment. He said DNA tests showed that Cline was his biological father even though Cline told his mother decades ago that he used anonymous sperm donations. "There's dozens of us," said Matt White. Some of the now-adult children of Cline's former patients filed a complaint with the Indiana Attorney General's Office in 2014, after they became suspicious while scouring online records to find biological relatives. Paternity tests performed the Marion County prosecutor's office determined Cline was likely the biological father of at least two of his patients' children. Cline, who retired in 2009, initially denied the allegations when he wrote to investigators, saying the women who filed the complaints were trying to slander him. On Thursday, he acknowledged that he had lied. Matt White said private DNA tests have identified 23 people as Cline's biological children with mothers who were his patients.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Former US House Speaker Dennis Hastert is banned from having contact with anyone under 18 unless an adult is present who's aware that he pleaded guilty in a hush money case related to the sexual abuse of teen boys, according to new restrictions imposed by a federal judge. "You shall not have contact with any person under the age of 18, except in the presence of a responsible adult who is aware of the nature of his/her background and current offense, and who has been approved by the probation officer and treatment provider," the restrictions state. Hastert never faced sexual abuse charges because the statute of limitation had expired, but he pleaded guilty in October 2015 to structuring bank transactions in a way that evaded requirements that he report where the money was going. The money was part of a deal to keep a former student quiet about Hastert's prior sexual abuse of teenage boys when he was a teacher and coach. The former Republican congressman from Illinois was released from federal prison in July after serving 13 months of a 15-month sentence. Once one of the most powerful men in America, Hastert is now banned from having any pornographic material or using any "sex-related telephone numbers." The restrictions also ... forbid him from using the internet without prior approval from a probation officer. US District Judge Thomas Durkin placed those new conditions on Hastert late Tuesday, but it was not clear what spurred the action. The restrictions come a day after a sealed order in the case was filed.
Note: How is it that a child molester became the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a position which is second only to the vice president in succession to the presidency. Watch and/or read a great report by journalist Ben Swann on the huge problem of child trafficking. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A woman has spoken out about the torture she endured for years as a child at the hands of her abusive father. Maude Julien, who is now 60 and a renowned psychotherapist, was forced to hold onto an electric fence for 10 minutes at a time without showing feeling. The ritual, which she endured twice a week, was considered to be a test of her willpower by her father, who wanted to make Ms Julien “superhuman”. Decades later, Ms Julien, who now lives in Paris, has recorded her cruel childhood in her memoir The Only Girl in the World. She says she was subjected to 18 years of controlling and manipulative behaviour by her father. Louis Didier ... was an alcoholic and belonged to an esoteric lodge of Freemasonry which believed in the occult. Didier reportedly believed his daughter had been chosen as his protector, so sought to indoctrinate her and make her withstand torment by making her participate in cruel experiments. Once a month, Ms Julien writes, she was locked overnight in a rat-infested cellar to “meditate about death”. Didier, who died aged 79 in 1981, adopted a six-year-old girl called Jeannine in 1936, who he groomed to become his wife. In 1957, Jeannine gave birth to his child, Ms Julien. The three lived in a remote mansion in northern France, which Ms Julien was forbidden to leave. Ms Julien says she was sexually abused between the ages of three and 13 by a labourer working in the estate. She eventually managed to escape her father when he allowed her to take music lessons.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and secret societies.
At 21, Shandra Woworunti was a financial analyst in her native Indonesia but in 1998, she lost her job in the Asian banking crisis. In 2001, at age 24, she answered an ad for a six-month seasonal job in the United States thinking she would work as a waitress in the hotel industry. She said a man named Johnny Wong picked her up at Kennedy Airport in Queens and delivered her to another man. "I saw the man hand a big envelope of money to Johnny Wong," Woworunti recalled. Woworunti was entering the world of human trafficking. She was turned over to other men and ended up at a house in Bayside, Queens, she said, where the owner put Woworunti and two other young women in the attic. She said he ordered them to undress to make sure they didn't have a skin disease. Woworunti said that when she refused, the man put a gun to her forehead. Woworunti said she quickly realized she would have to comply with the wishes of her customers. "Every 45 minutes, I was sold for $120 to $350," Woworunti said. "I was trafficked in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan. Up and down I-95. I used to get trafficked to Foxwoods Casinos." Woworunti fled ... and ended up on the streets until a sailor in the U.S. Navy noticed her and contacted the FBI. Woworunti told federal agents what she knew, and the FBI eventually raided the house in Sunset Park that she'd escaped from. Now, Woworunti is about to be honored for the organization she founded, Mentari, which helps trafficking survivors mainstream back into society.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
There are many reasons for women to think twice about reporting sexual assault. But one potential consequence looms especially large: They may also be prosecuted. This month, a retired police lieutenant in Memphis, Tenn., Cody Wilkerson, testified, as part of a lawsuit against the city, not only that police detectives sometimes neglected to investigate cases of sexual assault but also that he overheard the head of investigative services in the city’s police department say, on his first day in charge: “The first thing we need to do is start locking up more victims for false reporting.” It’s an alarming choice of priorities. In 2015 we wrote an article ... about Marie, an 18-year-old who reported being raped. Instead of interviewing her as a victim, [detectives] interrogated her as a suspect. Under pressure, Marie eventually recanted - and was charged with false reporting, punishable by up to a year in jail. More than two years later, the police in Colorado arrested a serial rapist - and discovered a photograph proving he had raped Marie. Cases like hers can be found around the country. In 1997, a legally blind woman reported being raped at knife point in Madison, Wis. That same year, a pregnant 16-year-old reported being raped in New York City. In 2004, a 19-year-old reported being sexually assaulted at gunpoint in Cranberry Township, Pa. In all three instances, the women were charged with lying. In all three instances, their reports turned out to be true. The men who raped them were later identified and convicted.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on judicial system corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
Children who were sexually abused by Jehovah's Witnesses were allegedly told by the organisation not to report it. Victims from across the UK told the BBC they were routinely abused and that the religion's own rules protected perpetrators. BBC ... spoke to victims - men and women - from Birmingham, Cheltenham, Leicester, Worcestershire and Glasgow, one of whom waived her right to anonymity. Louise Palmer, who now lives in Evesham, Worcestershire, was born into the organisation along with her brother Richard Davenport, who started raping her when she was four. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for the abuse. The 41-year-old ... said she was told not to go to police. "I asked [the organisation], 'what should I do? Do you report it to the police, [or] do I report it to the police'? "And their words were that they strongly advised me not to go to the police because it would bring reproach on Jehovah." What most of [the victims] keep coming back to is something known as the "two witness rule". It is a procedure set by the main governing body of the religion and means for any sin committed, there must be two witnesses to it in order for the elders of the congregation to take any action. The problem with this is it can be rare to have witnesses in cases of abuse. The victims I've spoken to said the organisation self-polices and teaches members to avoid interaction with outside authorities or to take another member of the religion to court. To do so, they say, could lead to expulsion from the religion.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Maggie Oliver said her professional life was made “torture” after she told senior officers that police were not doing enough to protect girls from a predominantly Asian paedophile ring. The former detective constable resigned from Greater Manchester Police in late 2012 over failures that allowed the Rochdale perpetrators to escape justice for many years. However before she quit she alleges she was bullied for a year and a half while working on Operation Span, the investigation into Rochdale. She has now decided to speak out to support another detective John Wedger who the Sunday Express revealed last week is suing the Metropolitan Police for a psychiatric injury he suffered as a result of bullying. Ms Oliver was tasked with gaining the trust of vulnerable but hostile victims. However, when they began to identify Asian grooming gangs, she said the police cooled their interest in the investigation. She said: “GMP had a specialist interview suite for vulnerable victims. “Yet I remember one senior officer screaming down the phone at me telling me that I had to take vulnerable victims to a suspect interview suite where some of them had been taken previously when they were accused of something they hadn’t actually done.” Ms Oliver claimed the harassment stepped up when she was off work with stress. She said: “Two senior colleagues turned up at my house one day and demanded that I surrender the police phone I’d had for 15 years. “It was ... another attempt to isolate me further and shut me up.”
Note: This 2015 Newsweek article further describes the child trafficking ring in Rochdale that Oliver was investigating. Watch a highly revealing video of courageous police detective Wedger giving testimony on his horrendous experience of trying to expose massive child trafficking often reaching to high levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Be extra careful of the male lawmakers who sleep in their offices - they can be trouble. Avoid finding yourself alone with a congressman or senator in elevators, late-night meetings or events where alcohol is flowing. And think twice before speaking out about sexual harassment from a boss - it could cost you your career. These are a few of the unwritten rules that some female lawmakers, staff and interns say they follow on Capitol Hill, where they say harassment and coercion is pervasive on both sides of the rotunda. There is also the "creep list" - an informal roster passed along by word-of-mouth, consisting of the male members most notorious for inappropriate behavior. CNN spoke with more than 50 lawmakers, current and former Hill aides and political veterans who have worked in Congress, the majority of whom spoke anonymously to be candid and avoid potential repercussions. With few exceptions, every person said they have personally experienced sexual harassment on the Hill or know of others who have. On Tuesday, a House committee held a hearing to examine the chamber's sexual harassment policies, and the Senate last week passed a resolution making sexual harassment training mandatory for senators, staff and interns - two clear acknowledgments of the need for reform. Travis Moore, a former aide to ex-Rep. Henry Waxman, started a signature-gathering campaign last week calling on congressional leaders to reform "inadequate" sexual harassment. His letter has gathered over 1,500 signatures.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
John Wedger said he was forced into early retirement from the Metropolitan Police. The former detective constable has begun a civil claim against Scotland Yard seeking damages for psychiatric injury arising from work-related stress. Mr Wedger, 47, was involved in an investigation into a well known prostitute in 2004 who was suspected of using children. She was linked to organised crime but intelligence from “multiple sources” suggested she also had connections within the local police. The prostitute would ply youngsters, including a 14-year-old girl, with drugs and alcohol and then pimp them out to men in budget hotels. During the course of the operation, Mr Wedger says he found that not only were the police aware the youngsters were being used for sex but he believed at least one officer was supplying the criminal gang with information about the investigation. After filing an intelligence report, he was brought in to see a senior officer at Scotland Yard headquarters. Mr Wedger said: “He told me in a firm and formal manner that I had ‘dug too deep’. He then stated that if I mentioned a word of my findings outside of his office then he would make sure I was ‘thrown to the wolves’. On his last day with the unit he was called in by the same officer. “He said, ‘You must give your word that you will never look into child prostitution ever again.’ The experience left me traumatised and paranoid.”
Note: Watch a highly revealing video of this courageous police detective giving testimony on his horrendous experience of trying to expose massive child trafficking often reaching to high levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
One of Washington's most prominent lobbying firms is on the verge of shuttering after becoming ensnared by special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Kimberley Fritts, the chief executive of the Podesta Group, told employees during a Thursday staff meeting that the firm would cease to exist at the end of the year. The developments come after the Podesta Group was tied last week to Mueller's indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, who pleaded not guilty after being charged with failing to file as foreign agents relating to a decade of work they did for ... a pro-Russia political party in the Ukraine. Mueller's special investigation team has also interviewed multiple people from the Podesta Group, which was recruited by Manafort and Gates to work along with another firm. Talk of potentially closing the Podesta Group marks a dramatic downfall of one of K Street's most iconic and well-connected firms. In its heyday, Podesta Group was the largest non-law firm lobbying organization in Washington. Tony Podesta, the firm's founder and chairman, helped fuel the company with work for foreign governments. He and his brother, John, founded the company almost three decades ago. John Podesta chaired Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. He left the firm in 1993. Mueller is looking into whether the Podesta Group properly identified to federal authorities its foreign advocacy for ... a Brussels-based non-profit group that federal prosecutors have called a mouthpiece for pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians.
Note: The Podesta brothers were deeply implicated in the Pizzagate affair. Though many believe Pizzagate was just a "conspiracy theory," our careful research shows powerful evidence that the Podestas were indeed involved in a child sex abuse ring. Could it be that behind the curtains, some are taking action against the Podestas for their involvement in these child abuse rings? For some intriguing, yet difficult to verify evidence along these lines, see this webpage.
Two Playboy Playmates and a third woman have filed a lawsuit seeking $27 million, alleging a former fund manager for billionaire George Soros raped and beat them in a New York City penthouse described as a dungeon. The three plaintiffs, who were not identified, claim portfolio manager Howie Rubin beat them to the point they needed extensive medical attention, the New York Post reported, citing a lawsuit filed in federal court. “I’m going to rape you like I rape my daughter,” Rubin, a former Bear Stearns trader, yelled out during one of the attacks, according to the lawsuit. It states that Rubin rented out the $8 million penthouse in Manhattan and paid women $2,000 to $5,000 for brutal sex sessions in a side room with ropes, chains and sex toys. The New York Post said it reached out to Rubin, but he declined to comment. John Balestriere, the lawyer who filed the suit, said Rubin gagged, tied up and abused women in the penthouse. Balestriere alleged Rubin punched one woman in the head. In another encounter, Rubin is accused of beating a woman’s “breasts so badly that her right implant flipped,” the lawsuit stated. The suit alleges the woman was paid $20,000 by Rubin to repair the damage. The New York Post report also said Rubin had the women sign non-disclosure agreements. Rubin collaborated with two female fixers and a lawyer who sought to “cover up” his “sexual misconduct and criminal abuse of women and to serve as a cover for his wide-ranging human trafficking scheme,” Balestriere added.
Note: The NY Post article is available here. This may be related to Pizzagate sex abuse rings. For evidence this may be the case, read this speculative article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Two sisters, one 5 years old and the other 3 months old, were rescued in Denver by undercover agents during this year's FBI-led sting operation against sex traffickers, officials said. The alleged trafficker, a friend of the children's family, made a deal to sell them for sex for $600, the FBI said. The friend communicated with an undercover agent, the FBI said in announcing details of Operation Cross Country XI. 82 other juveniles were rescued during last week's nationwide sweep. Some 120 people were arrested. On October 13, the second day of the operation, a minor was rescued by the FBI in El Paso, Texas, when a 16-year-old female victim was advertised online for "entertainment," officials said. The girl was accompanied by a 21-year-old female who offered an undercover agent sexual intercourse with both her and the underage victim for $200. According to the FBI report, the woman as well as the driver, another female, who took the minor and 21-year-old to the undercover officer's location, were arrested. Among the recovered victims across the country was one from Russia. Local and state agencies were involved in the operation, as were police as far away as the Philippines and Thailand. The average age of the victims recovered from this year's operation is 15, the FBI said.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Harvey Weinstein's British former assistant has told how the disgraced movie mogul sexually harassed her when they were alone in hotel rooms. Zelda Perkins signed a non-disclosure agreement with Weinstein in 1998 and was paid Ł125,000 in damages. But she decided to break the agreement and speak publicly about her former boss in the wake of a slew of allegations about him. She told the Financial Times: "He went out of the room and came back in his underwear. He asked me if I would give him a massage. Then he asked if he could massage me." Ms Perkins declined but said Weinstein would frequently be naked in a hotel room and and ask her to stay while he bathed. "This was his behaviour on every occasion I was alone with him," she said. In 1998 at the Venice film festival a colleague came to her "white as a sheet and shaking and in a very bad emotional state" after "something terrible had happened" with Weinstein. Ms Perkins said she tried to get the woman to go to the police but she was too upset. They later made contact with lawyers in London which led to a settlement of Ł250,000, divided between them, and non-disclosure agreements. Ms Perkins called the process of reaching the agreement was "incredibly distressing". She underwent days of questioning including a 12-hour session with Weinstein's lawyers that ended at 5am. Under non-disclosure agreements those who sign them could be forced to repay their financial settlements plus damages and legal fees.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The images of murder, rape and mutilation still haunt Jennifer Kobelt. They were shown to her during an apparently unsanctioned brain-activity experiment in August 2016, inside a nondescript commercial building. She described [the events of that afternoon] in chilling detail. Kobelt, an aspiring actress who was until June part of the NXIVM organization, was picked up at a nearby residence that afternoon by Dr. Brandon Porter, a licensed medical doctor who ... has been associated with NXIVM for many years. Porter had set up a television monitor in front a chair. He ... began attaching electrodes to her scalp before placing what Kobelt said NXIVM associates called the "brain cap" on top of her head. Kobelt said wearing the brain cap was not unusual: She and others had often allowed Porter to monitor their brain activity, usually when they were watching videos of lectures by NXIVM co-founder Keith Raniere. But the experience last year was very different. The physician was typing notes into a laptop computer as Kobelt watched the first video, a ... fictional murder scene. [This] was followed by the brutal rape scene from the ... film "The Accused," followed by what appeared to be footage from an actual mass murder. When it was over, Porter recommended that Kobelt - visibly disturbed and distraught - should reach out to a NXIVM associate for an ... "exploration of meaning" in which a higher-ranking NXIVM official queries a subordinate member in one-on-one counseling, sometimes for a fee.
Note: Read more on the "NXIVM Sex Cult". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing mind control news articles from reliable major media sources.
Women in California politics are speaking out on systemic harassment in the workplace in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, in which dozens of women accused the film mogul of harassment, predatory behavior and rape. More than 140 female lawmakers, staffers, consultants and lobbyists signed an op-ed pledging "not to tolerate perpetrators or their enablers." The letter was first published by The Los Angeles Times. "As women leaders in politics, in a state that postures itself as a leader in justice and equality, you might assume our experience has been different. It has not," the letter published in the L.A. Times reads. "Each of us has endured, or witnessed or worked with women who have experienced some form of dehumanizing behavior by men with power in our workplaces." The letter decries the "pervasive" problem of groping, non-consensual touching, inappropriate comments, insults, sexual innuendo disguised as jokes, and men who undermine "our professional positions and capabilities." Men have made promises, or threats, about our jobs in exchange for our compliance, or our silence," it continues. "Why didn't we speak up? Sometimes out of fear. Sometimes out of shame. Often these men hold our professional fates in their hands. Our relationships with them are crucial to our personal success. The authors also created a Twitter account and website - @WeSaidEnough and WeSaidEnough.com - to encourage others to share their stories and "get involved in finding a solution."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Two simple words became a rallying cry on Twitter to stand against sexual harassment and assault. "Me too." Social media was flooded with messages Sunday, mostly from women, who tagged their profiles to indicate that they have been sexually harassed or assaulted. On Sunday actress Alyssa Milano tweeted a note that read "Suggested by a friend: If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote "Me too" as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem. "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet," she wrote. The movement started in response to the Harvey Weinstein scandal and its ensuing fall out. Weinstein has been disgraced after several women have accused him of sexual misconduct. After Milano posted the message to her Twitter account, an onslaught of women - some famous and many not - tweeted "Me too" and shared their experiences. The declarations also took over Facebook and reportedly French women did something similar by tweeting their experiences of being sexually harassed at work using the hashtag "balancetonporc" or "squeal on your pig." Milano said she is passionate about women's rights. "Sexual harassment and assault in the workplace are not just about Harvey Weinstein," she wrote." We must change things in general." On Monday Twitter confirmed ... that #MeToo had been tweeted more than a half a million times.
Note: Watch the five-minute video at the link above to hear the harrowing personal experiences of woman pressured to be sexual against their will. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An Open Secret, a documentary about the sexual abuse of teenage boys at the hands of Hollywood big-wigs, generated plenty of publicity a few years ago. Now, with new sexual allegations against Harvey Weinstein and others in the movie and TV industry coming practically daily, the producer of An Open Secret has posted his film online for the first time. "It's so funny to keep seeing headlines about how Harvey's abuse was 'an open secret' in Hollywood, and that's the name of our film," said producer Gabe Hoffman. The movie got a limited theatrical release a few years ago, and Hoffman is still seeking more distribution. Much of the movie focuses on the now-defunct Digital Entertainment Network. DEN [is] remembered today for hosting wild parties with drugs, alcohol and underage boys at the former residence of founder, Marc Collins-Rector, now a registered sex offender. Another case explored in An Open Secret involves talent manager Marty Weiss, who pleaded no contest to lewd acts on a child and is heard in the film admitting molestation. Also explored is talent manager Bob Villard, who used to represent Leonardo DiCaprio and also pleaded no contest to lewd acts with a child. "We haven't got any offers from major distributors yet because Hollywood doesn't want to expose its dirty laundry," [said Hoffman]. "Harvey Weinstein, by the way, is not the only one who has used confidentiality settlements. That's why more of Hollywood's behavior hasn't been exposed. This is the tip of the iceberg," he said.
Note: Read a summarized review of this film, or a much more detailed report on the issues it exposes. Then learn how the film's director strangely distanced herself from the film, likely because she was threatened. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Reporter and NBC contributor Ronan Farrow pursued leads about Harvey Weinstein's misconduct for months, but NBC passed on the chance to publish his story. "Ronan was basically told to stop working on this," according to a source. So Farrow contacted David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker. Now the magazine is receiving widespread acclaim for publishing the investigation. What happened at NBC is a media world mystery. Did the network's executives not have the stomach for the inevitable legal threats? Were they trying to protect relationships in Hollywood? Or were there other reasons? The official explanation, from the news division's president Noah Oppenheim, is that "we didn't feel that we had all the elements that we needed to air it," so Farrow "took it to The New Yorker." But some staffers aren't buying that. And they're wondering why Farrow's taped interviews with accusers aren't being broadcast now. The question of how NBC could have let this scoop get away is big enough that it even came up on sister network MSNBC Tuesday night. Host Rachel Maddow asked Farrow, "Why did you end up reporting this story for The New Yorker and not for NBC News?" "Look," Farrow responded, "you would have to ask NBC and NBC executives about the details of that story." Earlier in the interview, he had mentioned that he taped one of his on-camera interviews way back in January.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on mass media corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
When I read the recent allegations that Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed women for decades, I thought — well, of course. Mr. Weinstein was a famously swaggering bully, and while I hadn’t heard about the specific charges of sexual abuse by women working for him, such behavior fits the movie industry’s pervasive, unrepentant exploitation of women. And then on Tuesday, The New Yorker revealed that three women, including the Italian actress-turned-director Asia Argento, said that “Weinstein raped them.” It’s greatly encouraging that women like Gwyneth Paltrow have gone public about Mr. Weinstein. But he is not an aberration. He is an ordinary, malignant symptom of systemic sexism, as is everyone who facilitated him, shrugs it off now or offensively asks why women didn’t say something sooner. What largely separates Mr. Weinstein from other predators, within and without the entertainment world, is that he was once powerful, he got caught and a number of gutsy women are on the record. Together, their voices are creating a forceful rejoinder to an industry that runs on fear and in which silence is at once a defense and a weapon as well as a condition of employment. One problem is that the entertainment industry is extraordinarily forgiving of those who have made a lot of money. Despite pressure, including from the likes of Ava DuVernay and Lena Dunham, the industry resists change. Those in power don’t see an upside in ceding it.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on mass media corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
There have been few movie executives as dominant, or as domineering, as Harvey Weinstein. His movies have earned more than three hundred Oscar nominations. For more than twenty years, Weinstein, who is now sixty-five, has also been trailed by rumors of sexual harassment and assault. His behavior has been an open secret to many in Hollywood and beyond, but ... too few people were willing to speak, much less allow a reporter to use their names, and Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements, payoffs, and legal threats to suppress their accounts. On October 5th, the New York Times ... revealed multiple allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein, an article that led to the resignation of four members of the Weinstein Company’s all-male board, and to Weinstein’s firing. There is more to know and to understand. In the course of a ten-month investigation, I was told by thirteen women that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them. Their allegations corroborate and overlap with the Times’s revelations, and also include far more serious claims. Three of the women ... told me that Weinstein had raped them. Sixteen former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein’s companies ... said that the behavior was widely known within both Miramax and the Weinstein Company. Virtually all of the people I spoke with told me that they were frightened of retaliation.
Note: The recording of Weinstein attempting to seduce a model and admitting to groping her breasts mentioned in this article and available here is quite revealing. And why was an NBC reporter who had the inside scoop "told to stop working on this"? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on mass media corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The owner of the world's first sex doll brothel says he is resisting demands for child sex dolls and rape fantasy scenarios from disturbed customers. Sergi Prieto, co-founder of LumiDolls in Barcelona, is proud his brothel can offer punters a wide range of services with any of their four silicon working girls – but thinks some requests are just unacceptable. LumiDolls' website has a picture of one of the 'women' in school uniform and claims "schoolgirl is one of the most popular fetishes". But every ethical businessman has to draw a line somewhere – and for Pietro, it is an obvious one. He said: "Some customers prefer the service because they have a rape fantasy. Obviously we don't want to promote this kind of activity." Likewise, he acknowledged a sickening demand for child sex dolls, which were recently outlawed in Britain, where a couple of men have already been convicted of importing them. "In this market there are lots of suppliers that sell dolls that look like children. There exist dolls that are small and look like children," Prieto [said]. "That's an ethical option for us not to provide this kind of service. We could do that, but we don't want to promote this kind of behaviour." Some academics have controversially argued that child sex dolls could be used to prevent paedophiles from attacking real children.
Note: Read more about the controversy surrounding these products. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
Renate Langer, a 61-year-old former German actress, has reported to the Swiss police that the film director Roman Polanski raped her at a house in Gstaad in February 1972, when she was 15. Ms. Langer is the fourth woman to publicly accuse Mr. Polanski of sexual assaulting her when she was a teenager. The police in St. Gallen, Switzerland, confirmed that they met with Ms. Langer on Sept. 26. Ms. Langer provided The New York Times with a copy of an email - sent by a Swiss police officer - saying that another office would make the determination as to whether she could pursue a criminal complaint. Switzerland has eliminated its statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases. Ms. Langer said ... she had approached the Swiss police because she believed the statute of limitations would allow her complaint to be investigated. Harland Braun, a lawyer for Mr. Polanski, the 84-year-old award-winning French-Polish film director, declined to comment. Mr. Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer when she was 13. In August, a woman in Los Angeles, identified only as Robin M., came forward at a news conference to report that Mr. Polanski had sexually assaulted her in 1973 when she was 16. In 2010, the British actress Charlotte Lewis also accused Mr. Polanski of abusing her sexually when she was 16. Mr. Polanski has been living in exile from the United States since fleeing the country in 1978 on the eve of his sentencing in the Geimer case.
Note: According to many former child actors, pedophiles have long operated with impunity in Hollywood. Don't miss the incredible film "An Open Secret" which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. The entire "Secret Societies in Hollywood" series is available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For a quarter of a century, the concept of “false memories” has provided a scientific fig leaf for sceptics of child sexual abuse allegations. The “false memory” argument is deceptively simple: children and adults are prone to invent false memories of child sexual abuse that never occurred, particularly if encouraged by a therapist. So-called “recovered memories”, in which adults recall sexual abuse in childhood after a period of amnesia, have been a particular focus of disbelief. In fact ... studies find that children are far less suggestible than we have been led to believe. Brain imaging studies have identified the neurological mechanisms involved in the process of forgetting and then recalling sexual abuse as an adult. However, for those uncomfortable with the social and legal reforms required to address child sexual abuse, the idea that large numbers of allegations are the product of “false memories” remains attractive. This argument underpins recent reporting in the Australian, which has called into question the findings of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, on the basis that sexual abuse survivor testimony cannot be trusted. Allegations of sexual abuse are always a challenge to authority. In response, many are driven to reject the allegations outright, rather than examine the uncomfortable truths they reveal. Attacks on the credibility of abuse survivors and advocates, and on the findings of the royal commission ... are not justified by research on sexual abuse and traumatic memory; far from it.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
Sinead O’Connor is opening up about the horrifying sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother in an emotional interview on Dr. Phil. The “Nothing Compares 2 U” singer ... detailed how her mother Marie O’Connor “ran a torture chamber” and tormented her until she ran away from home at 13. “She was not well. She was very, very, very not well. I would say she was possessed. Although I’m not sure I believe in such things,” O’Connor, 50, said.“I ran away,” the singer added. “She used to make me say over and over ‘I am nothing. I am nothing’ or else she’d beat me.” Marie O’Connor died decades ago in a car crash when Sinead was 19 years old. O’Connor has made headlines in recent years for her erratic behavior. Despite this, she denied that she is mentally unstable, telling Dr. Phil, “I am fed up of being defined as the crazy person; the child abuse survivor.”
Note: Watch excerpts from Sinead O’Connor's interview with Dr. Phil. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A national sex abuse inquiry will investigate claims in a police report that former British Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which was set up after reports surfaced of sex abuse cases in public institutions including the BBC and NHS, will review the outcome of Operation Conifer, the Wiltshire police probe into sex abuse allegations against Heath. Operation Conifer [is] led by Wiltshire Chief Constable Mike Veale. More than 30 people have come forward and accused the former prime minister, who died in 2005 at the age of 89, of sex abuse. Heath ... served as British Prime Minister from 1970 to 1974. One of the accusations is that Heath raped a 12-year-old boy in 1961. He has also been accused of abusing a prison officer in North Yorkshire. Veale is allegedly "120%" convinced that the allegations are true, according to a source close to the investigation. "There are very close similarities in the accounts given by those who have come forward. The ... same type of incidents keep coming up. What stands out is that the people giving these accounts are not connected but the stories and the details dovetail," the source [said]. Veale faced pressure to call off the investigation after the Metropolitan Police was forced to close its inquiry into the so-called Westminster VIP paedophile ring. Tory MP Andrew Bridgen urged Veale to continue with his probe and said there were "powerful voices who would like to silence Operation Conifer."
Note: Read an article from the UK's Independent on Oct. 5, 2017 relating that seven sex abuse allegations the former prime minister would have faced if he were still alive. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In May 2003, Thomas O’Brien, then bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix, admitted to sheltering at least 50 priests accused of sexual abuse, often shuffling them around to parishes across the state. O'Brien's admission ... acknowledged he "allowed Roman Catholic priests under my supervision to work with minors after becoming aware of allegations of sexual misconduct." Thirteen years later, in a lawsuit filed last September, O'Brien - now bishop emeritus - was accused of sexually abusing a grade-school boy. In recent months, [reporters] have uncovered scores of allegations involving 14 Catholic priests on Guam, where a former altar boy's accusation last summer that Archbishop Anthony Apuron sexually abused him in the 1970s has prompted other revelations. Abuse cases also have roiled Catholic parishes elsewhere in the nation, sometimes decades after evidence of the crimes first emerged. In the O'Brien case, an Arizona man sued, claiming repressed memories resurfaced two years ago. The lawsuit accuses O'Brien, now 81, of sexual abuse from 1977 through 1982. The suit names 60 other Roman Catholic priests or church employees, dating back to the 1950s and alleges a cover-up. The diocese itself eventually exposed some priests as part of an agreement with Arizona prosecutors in the early 2000s. At least two of the priests fled the U.S. and remain at large, and a substantial number are now dead.
Note: The above article outlines lawsuits in seven US states involving hundreds of victims of alleged abuse by clergy. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
Bishops in Ireland have created detailed guidelines to address an issue the Roman Catholic Church has tried to keep under wraps for centuries: the plight of children born to Catholic priests and the women who bear them. The policy, approved in May and made public recently ... says the mother must be respected and involved in decision-making, and that the priest "should face up to his responsibilities — personal, legal, moral and financial." The guidelines are believed to represent the first comprehensive public policy by a national bishops' conference on the issue, which has long been shrouded in secrecy. The policy is, in many ways, the fruit of a campaign by an Irish psychotherapist, Vincent Doyle, who discovered late in life that his father was a priest. Doyle launched Coping International ... to help eliminate the stigma he and others like him have faced, and educate them and the church about the emotional and psychological problems that can be associated with the secrecy often imposed on them. There are no figures about the number of children fathered by Catholic priests. The Vatican must report to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child on steps it has taken to assess the number of priests' children in the world and ensure that their rights are being respected. In a 2014 report, the Geneva-based committee called for an end to the confidentiality requirements that the Catholic Church often imposes on mothers as a condition for receiving financial assistance.
Note: Vatican secrecy policies have reportedly also been used to cover up sexual abuse.
A charity has been criticised after suggesting paedophiles should be given life-like child sex dolls on prescription. The controversial comments ... came after a judge ruled that sex dolls made in Asia to look like young children were "obscene". The landmark ruling related to former primary school governor David Turner, who tried to import a 3ft child doll into the UK – one of more than 100 seized at the border by UK law enforcement. But the charity StopSo, which offers therapy to sex offenders, said the dolls could help those attracted to children manage their behaviour safely. The organisation's chairman, Juliet Grayson, [said]: "If someone comes forward and says, 'I am attracted to young children, and I want help to ensure that I never act on that attraction, so that I never harm a child,' then maybe society should consider the use of dolls in a carefully regulated way. "Society needs to reach a point where a teenager can say to his mum, 'I am a paedophile', and she will get him the right kind of help to manage his behaviours in pro-social ways." The unorthodox approach to reducing child sex offences was not shared by the NSPCC ... however. A spokesman for the NCA said: "We believe that these dolls could normalise a sexual interest in children. "As is often the case, importers of dolls have been prosecuted for associated offending such as possession of indecent images of children. "The dolls are a flag of interest in children. If they hadn't been discovered we would not have been able to prosecute for other aggravating offences."
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
David Turner is awaiting sentence after admitting to a court that he imported an obscene child sex doll into the UK. The 72-year-old ... is one of seven people to have been charged with the importation offence, which has been deemed a "relatively new phenomenon" by the National Crime Agency. More than 100 child sex dolls have been seized in the UK as part of a special operation set up by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and Border Force. Investigators believe the dolls, which are made to be as life-like as possible, are being imported by people who have a "sexual interest" in children. Advertised as "adult dolls" on sites including EBay and Amazon, they are manufactured in the Far East and sent to Britain. Each doll costs around Ł800, is made of a silicon-like material and weighs as much as a child. The NCA, which set up Operation Shiraz, says paediatricians have assessed the dolls seized to be "anatomically correct". Since March 2016, 123 dolls have been seized, destined for 120 importers. Seven people have been charged with importation offences, two of whom, Andrew Dobson and Dean Hall, have been convicted and sentenced. Dobson, 49 and from Crewe, was jailed for two years and eight months. He also admitted possessing indecent images of children. Hall, 42, from Bury St Edmunds, was given a two-year suspended term. He was also in possession of indecent images.
Note: Read more about the controversy surrounding these products. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
At least 547 members of a prestigious Catholic boys' choir in Germany were physically or sexually abused between 1945 and 1992, according to a report released Tuesday. Allegations involving the Domspatzen choir in Regensburg that was run for 30 years by pope emeritus Benedict XVI's elder brother, Rev. Georg Ratzinger, were among a spate of revelations of abuse by Roman Catholic clergy in Germany that emerged in 2010. In 2015, lawyer Ulrich Weber was tasked with producing a report on what happened. The report said 547 boys at the Domspatzen's school "with a high degree of plausibility" were victims of physical or sexual abuse, or both. It counted 500 cases of physical violence and 67 of sexual violence, committed by a total of 49 people. At the choir's preschool, "violence, fear and helplessness dominated" and "violence was an everyday method," it said. "Alongside individual motives, institutional motives — namely, breaking the will of the children with the aim of maximum discipline and dedication - formed the basis for violence." Ratzinger, who is now 93, has acknowledged slapping pupils after he took over the choir, though such punishments were commonplace in Germany at that time. He also said he was aware of allegations of physical abuse at the elementary school and did nothing about it, but he was not aware of sexual abuse. The report faulted Ratzinger "in particular for 'looking away' or for failing to intervene."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
More than 200,000 children were married in the US over the past 15 years, new figures have revealed. The minimum age for marriage across most of the US is 18, but every state has exemptions – such as parental consent or pregnancy – which allow younger children to tie the knot. In May, the ... governor for New Jersey declined to sign into law a measure that would have made his state the first to ban child marriage without exception. At least 207,468 minors married in the US between 2000 and 2015, according to data compiled by Unchained At Last, a group campaigning to abolish child marriage. Eight-seven per cent of the minors who married across the country between 2000 and 2015 were girls, with the majority either 16 or 17. The youngest wedded were three 10-year-old girls in Tennessee who married men aged 24, 25 and 31 in 2001. The youngest groom was an 11-year-old who married a 27-year-old woman in the same state in 2006. Children as young as 12 were granted marriage licences in Alaska, Louisiana and South Carolina, while 11 other states allowed 13-year-olds to wed. More than 1,000 children aged 14 or under were granted marriage licences. Only 14 per cent of the children who wedded were married to other minors. In rare cases children were permitted to wed someone decades older. A 14-year-old girl married a 74-year-old man in Alabama, while a 17-year-old wed a 65-year-old groom in Idaho. Child brides usually come from poor backgrounds, said Dr Nicholas Syrett, author of American Child Bride.
Note: This New York Times article tells the story of an 11-year-old girl forced to marry a 20-year-old member of her church who had raped her. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Australia’s senior Roman Catholic prelate, and one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, has been charged with sexual assault, the police in the Australian state of Victoria said on Thursday. The prelate, Cardinal George Pell, became the highest-ranking Vatican official in recent years to face criminal charges involving accusations of sexual offenses. The case will test the credibility of Francis’ initiatives to foster greater accountability after abuse scandals that have shaken the church around the world. Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s de facto finance chief, had been accused in hearings before Australia’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse of mishandling misconduct cases against clergy members while he served as the leader of the Archdioceses of Melbourne and Sydney. Then allegations surfaced that he had sexually abused minors himself beginning early in his priesthood and continuing until he became archbishop of Melbourne. In recent decades, more than 50 Roman Catholic bishops worldwide have been accused of sexually abusing children, according to BishopAccountability.org, an advocacy group ... that documents sexual abuse in the church. Few, however, have faced criminal charges. It is rare for a cardinal, a prince of the church, to be accused of sexual abuse, though one of the most notorious cases involved Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër of Vienna, who resigned in 1995 over accusations that were deemed credible by his successor.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
Georgia has concluded a year-long review of physician sexual misconduct cases brought to light by an Atlanta newspaper with a plan to educate doctors. The state's plan focuses on educating doctors, rather than seeking new patient protections as some states have done. Two-thirds of Georgia physicians disciplined for sexually violating patients were permitted to practice again by the Georgia Composite Medical Board. The board announced last year that it would review its handling of those cases. But instead of producing a comprehensive report, the board recently released a one-page statement. The board vowed that it will protect patients from Georgia doctors who "use coercion or power for sex" by educating doctors about the importance of reporting colleagues. It also said it would investigate all allegations and involve law enforcement when appropriate; and that it will discipline doctors with public consent orders and license revocations when allegations are proven. The board did not call for any changes in its rules or in state law even though the state lacks key patient protection measures. Among the gaps: Georgia has no law requiring doctors to report possible violations by their fellow doctors, nor is the medical board legally required to notify law enforcement of potential criminal acts.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
In North Carolina, a person cannot withdraw consent for sex once intercourse is taking place. Because of a 1979 state supreme court ruling that has never been overturned, continuing to have sex with someone who consented then backed out isn’t considered to be rape. The North Carolina law is an example of how the US legal system has not always kept pace with evolving ideas about rape, sex and consent. Just last year, an Oklahoma court ruled that the state’s forcible sodomy statute did not criminalize oral sex with a victim who is completely unconscious. The toughest charge available to prosecutors was unwanted touching. But the North Carolina law appears to be unique. And it has shocked even those who are used to dealing with such legalistic vagaries. “It’s absurd,” said John Wilkinson, a former prosecutor and an adviser to AEquitas, a group which helps law enforcement pursue cases of sexual violence. “I don’t think you could find anyone today to agree with this notion that you cannot withdraw consent. People have the right to control their own bodies. If sex is painful, or for whatever reason, they have the right to change their mind.” The ruling has devastated victims and frustrated prosecutors in North Carolina for years. State senator Jeff Jackson ... has introduced legislation to amend the law. “North Carolina is the only state in the country where no doesn’t really mean no,” he said in a statement. “We have a clear ethical obligation to fix this obvious defect in our rape law.”
Note: A local North Carolina newspaper, the Fayetteville Observer, drew widespread attention to this bizarre law by reporting on a case of sexual abuse involving US military personnel. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of news articles on judicial system corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The American Medical Association will no longer tolerate sexual misconduct by physicians – at least if their victims are other doctors, and if the abuse occurs at an AMA event. But the association is doing nothing to crack down on predators who violate other victims: their patients. Almost a year after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed widespread sexual misconduct in the medical profession, the AMA has scheduled neither formal proposals nor public discussions on doctors who abuse their patients. The organization’s silence forfeits an opportunity to address a problem that has stirred public interest. “They seem more likely to address someone else’s problems than their own,” said Lisa McGiffert, manager of the Safe Patient Project. The newspaper identified more than 2,400 doctors who had been disciplined for sexual violations involving patients; half are still licensed to practice medicine. But the numbers fail to capture the scope of misconduct. Many state medical boards deal with sex cases in private and issue no public findings. Others use vague language or euphemisms to hide the true nature of disciplinary matters. By some estimates, 7 percent of American doctors have engaged in sexual misconduct – meaning that tens of thousands may have engaged in harassment, molestation, even rape. The AMA plays no direct role in licensing or disciplining doctors, a function of state medical authorities. But the association is a powerful voice for the medical profession.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Two weeks before Devani's second birthday, she was taken away from her parents in Tucson by a state child-welfare caseworker. The little curly-haired girl seemed to be well-fed and cared for, but the caseworker cited drugs in the home and alleged domestic violence in deciding that Devani would be safer, at least temporarily, in foster care. Instead, over the next four years – as her mother fought to get her back – Devani suffered an odyssey of mistreatment in a succession of foster homes. She was physically abused. She was placed with David Frodsham, a man subsequently convicted of child molestation, who investigators suspect repeatedly sexually assaulted her and other foster children while he ran a pedophilia ring. And that would not be the worst that Devani would face. Foster parents who harm children the state leaves in their care are tracked in only the broadest terms. The state handles verified allegations of neglect or abuse in foster families much as it does those in other families. But officials admit they don't really analyze the data for patterns of foster-care problems that could be prevented. And data shows caseworkers often don't talk privately with children to identify what happens to them in foster care. Those children's families say the problem is real. Of 42 families interviewed for this story who had children removed, 11 alleged that their children were physically or sexually abused, exposed to drugs or harmed in some other way while in foster care.
Note: More in this case available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The first hearing in the Scottish child abuse inquiry has heard apologies from organisations which ran children's homes around the country. More than 60 institutions, including several top private schools and church bodies, are being investigated. The inquiry, which is being chaired by Lady Smith, is looking in detail at historical abuse of children in residential care. It is expected to report in late 2019 - four years after it was set up. The opening session in Edinburgh heard apologies from groups who said they "deplored that physical sexual abuses could occur". The High Court judge revealed the number of survivors who had already spoken to the inquiry team was "very far in excess" of 200. The inquiry states its purpose as being "to investigate the nature and extent of abuse of children whilst in care in Scotland", while considering "the extent to which institutions and bodies with legal responsibility for the care of children failed in their duty", in particular seeking any "systemic failures". The inquiry has been plagued by problems since it was set up in October 2015. Around Ł6m has been spent on it during this period. Its original chairwoman, Susan O'Brien QC, resigned from her post in July 2016, citing government interference. A second panel member, Prof Michael Lamb, also resigned, claiming the inquiry was "doomed".
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
When she was a scrawny 11-year-old, Sherry Johnson found out one day that she was about to be married to a 20-year-old member of her church who had raped her. She had become pregnant, she says, and child welfare authorities were investigating - so her family and church officials decided the simplest way to avoid a messy criminal case was to organize a wedding. Today she is ... part of a nationwide movement to end child marriage in America. Meanwhile, children 16 and under are still being married in Florida at a rate of one every few days. In fact, more than 167,000 young people age 17 and under married in 38 states between 2000 and 2010. Among the states with the highest rates of child marriages were Arkansas, Idaho and Kentucky. The number of child marriages has been falling, but every state in America still allows underage girls to marry, typically with the consent of parents, a judge or both. Twenty-seven states do not even set a minimum age by statute. A great majority of the child marriages involve girls and adult men. Such a sexual relationship would often violate statutory rape laws, but marriage sometimes makes it legal. Johnson ... says that her family attended a conservative Pentecostal church and that other girls of a similar age periodically also married. Often, she says, this was to hide rapes by church elders. She says she was raped by both a minister and a parishioner. A judge approved the marriage to end the rape investigation, she says, telling her, “What we want is for you to get married.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The young women, many of them from poor families in Thailand, were promised trips to the United States. They would also receive visas. But the promises, the federal authorities say, came with an enormous toll: The women were required to work as prostitutes in cities all over this country until they could pay off exorbitant “bondage debts.” Law enforcement authorities on Thursday announced federal sex-trafficking conspiracy charges against 21 people, part of what they described as one of the most elaborate ... sex-trafficking operations they had seen. The operation had gone on for at least eight years, netted tens of millions of dollars, and involved hundreds of women. “The women ... were modern-day sex slaves,” an indictment unsealed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Minnesota said, laying out criminal counts against a long list of defendants, including conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in money laundering. [United States attorney] Gregory Brooker ... described the ring as “a multimillion-dollar, modern-day organized crime operation.” While still in Thailand, the women were usually told that they would work as prostitutes, the indictment said, but the terms of the deals shifted substantially once they arrived in the United States. Threats were made. Bondage debts suddenly skyrocketed. Some women were even told to have plastic surgery to make them more “appealing” to customers, then ordered to reimburse the cost of surgery as part of their ever-growing debt.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The new Netflix series “The Keepers” focuses on the slaying of Sister Catherine Cesnik in 1969, but also examines allegations of sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests and covered up by the church. On Tuesday, Baltimore police created an online form for those who think they were victimized long ago and may now want to report it. Cesnik taught at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore and disappeared in November 1969. Her body was found ... in January 1970. Her killer was never found. In the 1990s, a number of women came forward to allege that the chaplain at Keough, the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell, had sexually molested them. One woman told the Baltimore Sun that Maskell had taken her to Cesnik’s body. Other women said that they confided in Cesnik about sexual abuse by Maskell and that she may have been preparing to confront the priest about this. Maskell denied committing any sex crimes or murder and was never charged before his death in 2001. A seven-part documentary about the case was released by Netflix on Friday. Baltimore police spokesman T.J. Smith said after the series was released, “We’ve heard from people who previously hadn’t reported their offense. We just wanted to streamline the process. This is a crime that occurred to them, they don’t need to constantly relive the nightmare, telling the story over and over again.” Smith said he did not know how many calls his department had received but noted that victims in the case were probably teenagers at the time.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A new federal lawsuit against Baylor University accuses football players of drugging and gang-raping young women as part of a hazing or bonding ritual - and the university of failing to investigate the pervasive sexual assault. The suit ... was filed by "Jane Doe," who says she was raped by four to eight Baylor players in February 2012. Her Title IX suit says the school's "deliberately indifferent response" effectively denied her educational opportunities. The alleged assaults and other criminal activities took place during former head football coach Art Briles' tenure at the school in Waco, Texas. Briles and former university President Ken Starr were both removed from their posts last year after a wave of sexual assault allegations against Baylor players. Earlier this year, a lawsuit by "Elizabeth Doe" alleged that ... at least 52 rapes and at least five gang rapes were carried out by more than 30 Baylor players. The suit also describes a culture of sexual assault woven into hazing rituals: "Members of the Baylor football team ... developed a system of hazing their freshman recruits by having them bring or invite freshman females to house parties hosted by members of the football team. At these parties, the girls would be drugged and gang raped. "The gang rapes were considered a 'bonding' experience for the football players. "Photographs and videotapes of the semi-conscious girls would be taken during the gang rapes and circulated amongst the football players."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
Several officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency have come forward with bombshell allegations against their colleagues at Newark Airport in New Jersey. Three officers told NBC New York they were sexually assaulted as part of disturbing rituals that involved being duct-taped to a table other officers called the “rape table.” While no one ever removed their clothes, other officers would forcibly rub their genital areas on the victims strapped to the table, as well as grab them. This practice has been happening for years. “Hazing wouldn’t do this justice,” CBP officer Vito Degironimo told NBC. “This is complete assault. They take you in a room and your fellow officers are all watching as officers grab you.” Diana Cifuentes and Dan Arencibia told the station they managed to avoid the table, but experienced other horrific harassment from colleagues. At one point, Cifuentes said, someone pointed a gun at her in the office. CBP agent [Charlie Smith] corroborated the trio’s allegations in an interview with the Daily Beast, saying he’s heard stories of 17 similar assaults. Smith, who began working at Newark in 2015, said he was “recently” transferred out for his own protection after he reported the assault against Degironimo to whistleblower hotlines. He also [said] that Degironimo had already reported the attack to his own supervisors, but instead of launching an internal investigation, management simply removed the table.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The suspected pedophile could see people banging on his front door. The Philippines National Bureau of Investigation smashed their way [in]. Children's underwear, toddler shoes, cameras, bondage cuffs, fetish ropes, meth pipes and stacks of hard drives and photo albums cluttered [David Timothy Deakin's] townhouse. In his computer were videos and images of young boys and girls engaged in sex acts. Deakin's arrest ... reveals one of the darkest corners of the internet, where pedophiles in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia pay facilitators on the other side of the world to sexually abuse children, even babies, directing their moves through online livestreaming services. Webcam sex tourism is spreading rapidly. The FBI says ... that at any given moment, 750,000 child predators are online. Almost every case stems from the Philippines, where good English speakers, increased internet connections and widespread international cash transfer systems combine with widespread poverty and easy access to vulnerable kids. There have been as many as three busts a week there this spring. The youngest victim ... was an infant, two months old. Most are under 12. Because it's a newer crime, legal systems grapple with how to prosecute. In the U.S., the buyers are typically charged with possessing, distributing or producing child pornography. In the Philippines, it's a human trafficking crime. Deakin's bust turned out to be one of the largest seizures of its kind in the Philippines.
Note: A recent University of Portsmouth study found that sites with paedophile material account for 83% of all "Dark Web" traffic. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
A global child sexual exploitation ring has been taken down by the FBI and Europol, leading to the arrest of hundreds of suspected paedophiles. Florida man Steven W Chase, 58, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for creating what is believed to have been “the world’s largest child pornography website” with more than 150,000 users. In total some 870 people were arrested or convicted worldwide, including 368 in Europe alone, and so far at least 259 sexually abused children have been identified or rescued from abusers outside the US. Chase created the website, called 'Playpen', in August 2014 on the Dark Web network Tor, where people can communicate and access material anonymously through "hidden service" websites. Special Agent Dan Alfin ... pointed out the initial difficulty in investigating the case. “Given the nature of how Tor hidden services work, there was not much we could do about it," he said. However, in December 2014, Chase accidently revealed Playpen’s IP address in Florida, prompting a foreign law enforcement agency to contact the FBI. A copy of the website was seized by US law enforcement; search warrants were issued for email accounts and eventually, said Mr Alfin, “everything led back to Steven Chase”. One month later the FBI, along with support from European and local law enforcement, launched Operation Pacifier to find Playpen’s thousands of members.
Note: A recent University of Portsmouth study found that sites with paedophile material represent just 2% of the estimated 45,000 hidden services websites online at any one time, but account for 83% of all "Dark Web" traffic. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
Choate Rosemary Hall, the elite Connecticut boarding school, said on Thursday that at least 12 former teachers had sexually molested - and, in at least one case, raped - students in a pattern of abuse dating to the 1960s. A report prepared by an investigator for the board of trustees [said that] the parents of a Choate student complained to the school in the early 1980s after their daughter contracted herpes from an English teacher. And in another case, the report describes a student’s rape on a school trip to Costa Rica. None of the teachers’ actions were reported to the police. Choate ... is the latest in a string of prestigious private academies that have faced accusations of sexual abuse by faculty members, including St. George’s School, in Rhode Island, and Horace Mann and Poly Prep in New York City. In a letter to members of the school community that accompanied the report, Michael J. Carr, the chairman of the board of trustees, and Alex D. Curtis, the headmaster, apologized and thanked the victims who came forward. The report names 12 former faculty members who it says abused students, both male and female. In some cases, faculty members had sexual relationships with students for months. For years, the school kept allegations of sexual misconduct from getting out, according to the report. “Sexual misconduct matters were handled internally and quietly,” it said. “Faculty was ... was cautioned to say nothing about the situation if asked.”
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An Associated Press investigation of U.N. missions during the past 12 years found nearly 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other personnel around the world. More than 300 of the allegations involved children. Only a fraction of the alleged perpetrators served jail time. In Haiti, at least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeepers exploited nine children in a sex ring from 2004 to 2007, according to an internal U.N. report. 114 peacekeepers were sent home. None was ever imprisoned. In March, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced new measures to tackle sexual abuse. But the proclamation had a depressingly familiar ring: More than a decade ago, the United Nations commissioned a report that promised to do much the same thing, yet most of the reforms never materialized. For a full two years after those promises were made, the children in Haiti were passed around from soldier to soldier. And in the years since, peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse the world over. The AP found that some 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation by U.N. peacekeepers and other personnel were reported in Haiti alone between 2004 and 2016. Aside from the Sri Lankan sex ring in Haiti, some perpetrators were jailed for other cases. Alleged abusers came from Bangladesh, Brazil, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uruguay and Sri Lanka. More countries may have been involved, but the United Nations only started disclosing alleged perpetrators' nationalities after 2015.
Note: In 2015, UN officials unsuccessfully attempted to cover up an internal report alleging sexual abuse of children by peacekeeping troops in Africa. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
There was a time when truck driver Kevin Kimmel knew little about the scourge of human trafficking. That all changed when he pulled into a gas station [and] a "kind of unusual" family recreational vehicle parked nearby caught his eye. Kimmel ... saw what he thought was a "minor female" appear from behind [a] curtain before abruptly disappearing. He immediately [called] the local sheriff. Police cars were soon on the scene. He later saw on the news that the woman he spotted was a 20-year-old sex trafficking victim. She had been lured away from her home in Iowa, held against her will and subjected to ... forced prostitution. Yet without the concern or quick thinking of Kimmel, she may never have been found. Truckers ... are increasingly seen as operating on the front line in the fight against human trafficking. Kimmel, who still drives a truck and speaks about his experiences at anti-trafficking events around the country, says that truckers tend to spend a lot of time in the places that victims pass through given the transient nature of their job. "[Traffickers] are constantly moving these people," he explains. "But when you're moving them, then you come into my world. If we know the signs and are vigilant then we can make a big piece of this problem go away." This is a point echoed by Kendis Paris of anti-trafficking charity Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT). Her organization seeks to educate truckers about what to look out for, how to report suspected incidences of trafficking and why it is important to do so.
Note: Learn about the inspiring Truckers Against Trafficking movement and watch the excellent video there.
Child trafficking referrals in the UK have hit a record high after rising by 30 per cent in a year, statistics have revealed. The number of children referred to the UK Government’s National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which identifies victims of human trafficking, increased to 1,278 in 2016, the highest figure on record, according to the latest figures from the National Crime Agency. More than a third of all potential victims of trafficking were children aged 18 and under, with a majority of children drawn into exploitative labour, including forced criminality. Trafficking covers children moved within the UK, as well as move to the country from abroad. The largest increase was the number of UK national children reported to have been abused in sexual exploitation, which showed a staggering 104.8 per cent rise on the previous year - a rise that it is hoped reflects a growing awareness that child sexual exploitation often manifests in the form of trafficking. Also featuring highly in the figures were countries affected by conflicts ... indicating that children fleeing war and instability are also vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. A large number of these cases are thought to have travelled ... in the back of lorries facilitated by traffickers or people smugglers - indicating that they can remain at risk of exploitation by the same networks after they have arrived in the UK. Alarmingly, while numbers of potential victims of trafficking increased, positive conclusive decisions - which enable victims to access support - decreased to the lowest point in NRM history.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Europe is becoming the global hub for the hosting of child sexual abuse images and videos, suggests a report. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) found that 60% of worldwide abuse material was now in Europe - an increase of 19%. The Netherlands topped the list of European nations hosting the illegal content, said the IWF. Improved reporting and policing by net firms in North America are believed to have driven the shift. The IWF is the UK body that acts to find and remove abuse content from UK networks. In 2015, about 57% of the web pages containing abuse content could be found in North America. In 2016, this had dropped to 37% with the majority now in Europe. About 34,212 web pages were found to be displaying abuse content in Europe - which also includes Russia and Turkey. Arda Gerkens, a Dutch MP who helps to oversee the nation's anti-abuse hotline, said it too had seen an "overall" rise in the number of reports to ISPs about material both in 2016 and 2015. A spokeswoman for the UK's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said ... "We must never forget that there is a victim behind every child sexual abuse image. Every time these horrific pictures are viewed a child is re-abused. Anyone who wilfully seeks out this material is complicit in fuelling this appalling industry."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Authorities say they’ve uncovered a massive international sex trafficking ring in Southern California. Prosecutors announced the arrest of four people connected to the Orange County-based enterprise that allegedly placed thousands of ads for sexual services in 29 states over the past two years. The ring was based locally in Irvine. Women and girls from China were forced to sell themselves for sex and sometimes forced to work 14 hours a day in homes purchased specifically for the purposes of prostitution. Investigators tracked the ring through thousands of ads selling sex on Backpage.com. “There’s a townhouse in Cottage Grove [Minnesota], that was bought and paid for with cash. And when police entered, they saw two beds. That’s it. But they also saw a line of guys waiting on a couch, waiting for their turn,” said Pete Orput, an attorney with Washington County. The actual bust took place in Minneapolis but ... two of the ring leaders live in Irvine. Advocate Jim Carson helps rehabilitate victims of human trafficking in Orange County, and says Irvine might be consistently named as one of the safest cities in the U.S., but not for the young women he helps. “I think the tip of the iceberg, we hear about [trafficking data], we go, ‘my God these numbers are so huge’, but I honestly think it’s much, much bigger than people realize,” said ... Carson. He says on just one day recently between 1-9 p.m., he saw 51 ads on Backpage.com for escorts in Irvine. “Every ad on that internet, they’re seeing five to twenty dates a night,” said Carson.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The former president of Penn State University was convicted Friday of keeping a lid on the scandal surrounding notorious child-abusing coach Jerry Sandusky. A jury [found] Graham Spanier guilty of one count of child endangerment. The charge stemmed from Spanier's handling of a complaint against Sandusky, a once-popular assistant football coach whose career at Penn State spanned three decades. The trial centered on how Spanier and two other university leaders handled a complaint by a graduate assistant who said he reported seeing Sandusky sexually molesting a boy in a team shower in 2001. The administrators told Sandusky he could not bring children on to the campus any longer, but they did not report the matter to police or child welfare authorities. Sandusky was not arrested until 2011 after an anonymous tip led prosecutors to investigate the shower incident. He was convicted the next year of sexually abusing 10 boys and is serving a decades-long prison sentence. Four of the eight young men testifying at Sandusky’s trial said the abuse occurred after 2001. “Evil in the form of Jerry Sandusky was allowed to run wild,” Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte told the jury. The scandal ... resulted in the school paying out more than $90 million to settle civil claims by over 30 accusers. Two of Spanier’s former lieutenants, athletic director Tim Curley and vice president Gary Schultz, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment charges a week ago and testified against Spanier.
Note: Read more about how senior Penn State officials covered up Sandusky's crimes due to fears of bad publicity. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
There was once a time - before the investigations, before the sexual abuse conviction - when rich and famous men loved to hang around with Jeffrey Epstein, a billionaire money manager who loved to party. President Trump called Epstein a “terrific guy” back in 2002, saying that “he’s a lot of fun to be with. He likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Now, Trump is on the witness list in a Florida court battle over how federal prosecutors handled allegations that Epstein, 64, sexually abused more than 40 minor girls, most of them between the ages of 13 and 17. The lawsuit questions why Trump’s nominee for labor secretary, former Miami U.S. attorney Alexander Acosta ... cut a non-prosecution deal with Epstein a decade ago rather than pursuing a federal indictment that Acosta’s staff had advocated. Epstein pleaded guilty to a Florida state charge of felony solicitation of underage girls in 2008 and served a 13-month jail sentence. Epstein’s unusually light punishment - he was facing up to a life sentence had he been convicted on federal charges - has raised questions about how Acosta handled the case. In [a] 2011 letter explaining his decision in the Epstein case, Acosta said he backed off from pressing charges after “a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors” by “an army of legal superstars” who represented Epstein.
Note: For more on this disturbing story, see this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A Florida mother first brought billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s peculiar caprices to the attention of Palm Beach police in 2005. Eventually, federal investigators and prosecutors built a case against Epstein ... that involved 17 witnesses and five other underaged women. But in September 2007, a Florida federal prosecutor named R. Alexander Acosta cut a secret plea deal with Epstein’s lawyers giving him ... an unusually lenient part-time, eight-hours a day county jail sentence, rather than the ten years or more in prison that a less powerful person might have gotten for repeated sex with minors. Acosta also deviated from legal norms when he granted the deal without first notifying the young women who had spoken to investigators about their experiences with the billionaire. Details of the deal were not made public until a federal judge unsealed it as part of a civil lawsuit brought by four women in 2015. Epstein was allowed to plead guilty to a single charge of soliciting prostitution from girls as young as 14. He ultimately served only 13 months in prison. On Wednesday, Acosta ... testified in front of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee as Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Labor. Asked about the Epstein deal, he characterized it as within the bounds of normal prosecutorial behavior. “Acosta is pretending the failure to prosecute was routine,” [a] former prosecutor told Newsweek, asking for anonymity. “But that’s bullshit. What happened here was completely and totally out of the main.”
Note: For more on this disturbing story, see this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Two former high-level Penn State administrators pleaded guilty Monday to misdemeanor charges of child endangerment, for their roles in covering up child sex abuse by disgraced assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. Former Vice President Gary Schultz and former Athletic Director Tim Curley each took a plea bargain that - if accepted by the judge - will carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. As part of the plea bargain, the felony charges they originally faced were reduced to misdemeanors. The pleas also open the possibility they may testify against former university President Graham Spanier ... who has been charged with a conspiracy felony and a child endangerment misdemeanor. The charges against all three men pertain to how they handled the multiple allegations of sexual abuse against Sandusky, who in 2012 was convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year span. "Prosecutors said Spanier, Curley and Schultz knew of complaints involving Sandusky showering with boys in 1998 and 2001," The Associated Press reported in 2012. A series of 2001 emails — now key to the government's case — show that the men at least considered the situation serious enough to possibly warrant police intervention. They ultimately rejected the idea of calling authorities. "This was not an oversight," then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said in 2012. "It was not misjudgment on their part. This was a conspiracy of silence by top officials to actively conceal the truth."
Note: Read more about how senior Penn State officials covered up Sandusky's crimes due to fears of bad publicity. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Lawyers in Pennsylvania say their client was sexually exploited at a motel for years, alleging the teen girl was a victim of human trafficking. “This child was forced into sex slavery,” attorney Nadeem Bezar told reporters. The teen’s lawyers are using Pennsylvania’s human trafficking law to sue the motel where they say their client was sexually exploited, marking the first civil suit under the law since it was enacted in 2014. Lawyers allege employees at the Roosevelt Inn in northeast Philadelphia knew that a 14-year-old girl was being held against her will for two years. She was forced to have sex with more than 1,000 men. The girl, now 17, wants the hotel to pay for what happened to her. She’s suing the motel’s owners, the motel’s management company and the manager himself. According to the [Philadelphia] Inquirer, the girl managed to escape and reconnect with her family after two years at the motel. Those responsible for trafficking the teen were convicted and sentenced to prison. The motel is well-known to Philadelphia prosecutors as “the epicenter of human trafficking” in the city. An assistant district attorney, Erin O’Brien, told the Inquirer that [motel manager Yanga] Patel had cooperated with police in previous investigations, but said “almost every trafficking investigation we have, we see the victim is at Roosevelt Inn.” “You can’t have a line of johns out the front door and around the room waiting without them knowing,” [Attorney Tom] Kline said. “The front desk would direct the traffic to the room of this child.”
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
When Angus Crawford, a journalist at the British Broadcasting Corporation, started reporting on sexualized images of children on Facebook, he knew he had to proceed with caution. Mr. Crawford ... began investigating the presence of obscene images of children on Facebook last year, [and] found that pedophiles were using secret pages to share images of children. A subsequent police investigation led to one man being imprisoned. This year, [Mr. Crawford] followed up and found that there were still images on the website that appeared to break Facebook guidelines, which state that the social media company will remove any content that promotes sexual violence or exploitation. Mr. Crawford reported the images using Facebook’s internal system, but the company took down only 18 of the 100 that he flagged. He then contacted the social network directly ... and was asked to provide examples of images that he had reported. When he provided examples ... the company reported Mr. Crawford and the BBC to the police. The company filed its report with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center. Facebook has said it is improving its system for reporting offensive content, but the incident has raised questions about exactly how it polices its site. Mr. Crawford ... noted an apparent contradiction between the view of Facebook’s moderation system, which determined that the photos were not in breach of the social network’s guidelines, and the company’s decision to report the BBC to the police.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Oscar-winning actress Jane Fonda has revealed she is a rape survivor and suffered sexual abuse as a child. In an interview with fellow Oscar winner Brie Larson ... the 79-year-old also said she had once lost a job because she refused her boss's sexual advances. The star added she thought being a young actress now was "terrifying" because of female sexualisation. "You have to get naked so much. There is even more emphasis on how you look." Fonda said she "felt diminished" growing up because the men in her life were "victims of a [patriarchal] belief system". "To show you the extent to which a patriarchy takes a toll on females - I've been raped, I've been sexually abused as a child and I've been fired because I wouldn't sleep with my boss and I always thought it was my fault; that I didn't do or say the right thing. "I know young girls who've been raped and didn't even know it was rape. They think, 'It must have been because I said no the wrong way'. "One of the great things the women's movement has done is to make us realise that [rape and abuse is] not our fault. We were violated and it's not right." Fonda has been a long-time activist and advocate for women's rights and supporter of the Rape Foundation and Rape Treatment Centre in Los Angeles. She revealed at a benefit in 2014 that her mother, Frances Ford Seymour, was sexually abused as a child aged eight. She eventually took her own life at 42, when Fonda was 12.
Note: Jane Fonda's revelations about sexual abuse in Hollywood highlight a longstanding problem. Other well-known actors have suggested that organized abuse networks operate freely in the entertainment industry. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A prominent survivor of clerical sex abuse has resigned from a special Vatican commission that was created by Pope Francis to tackle the problem, saying the church’s most senior clerics continue to put “other concerns” before the safety of children and vulnerable adults. Marie Collins, who was molested by a priest when she was 13 years old, said in a written statement she had made a final decision to resign after she learned that a Vatican department was failing to comply with a basic new recommendation that all correspondence from victims and survivors should receive a response. “I learned in a letter from this particular [congregation] last month that they are refusing to do so,” Collins wrote in a searing statement to the National Catholic Reporter. “I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters.” She added: “It is a reflection of how this whole abuse crisis in the church has been handled: with fine words in public and contrary actions behind closed doors.” Collins’s decision to leave the commission comes one year after the only other abuse survivor who was appointed to the commission, Peter Saunders, was forced to take a leave of absence after he complained the commission was doing far too little to tackle abuse.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
The unthinkable is happening at facilities throughout the country: Vulnerable seniors are being raped and sexually abused by the very people paid to care for them. It's impossible to know just how many victims are out there. But through an exclusive analysis of state and federal data and interviews with experts, regulators and the families of victims, CNN has found that this little-discussed issue is more widespread than anyone would imagine. In cases reviewed by CNN, victims and their families were failed at every stage. Nursing homes were slow to investigate and report allegations because of a reluctance to believe the accusations - or a desire to hide them. Police viewed the claims as unlikely at the outset, dismissing potential victims because of failing memories or jumbled allegations. State regulators failed to flag patterns of repeated allegations against a single caregiver. It's these systemic failures that make it especially hard for victims to get justice - and even easier for perpetrators to get away with their crimes. Using inspection reports filed between 2013 and 2016 [a CNN analysis] found that the federal government has cited more than 1,000 nursing homes for mishandling or failing to prevent alleged cases of rape, sexual assault and sexual abuse at their facilities during this period. And nearly 100 of these facilities have been cited multiple times during the same period. These numbers likely represent only a fraction of the alleged sexual abuse incidents in nursing homes nationwide.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For several decades, the UK sent children across the world to new lives in institutions where many were abused and used as forced labour. It happened to thousands of British children ... following World War Two. The astonishing scandal of the British child migrants will be the first subject for which the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will hold full public hearings. It's first because the migrants are now nearing the end of their lives. Sources close to the current public inquiry have told the BBC it will produce new and startling revelations about the scale of sexual abuse abroad, and attempts by British and Australian institutions to cover it up. This will include an examination of the claims of some child migrants that they were sent abroad weeks after reporting sexual abuse at their children's home in the UK. The allegation is that they were hand-picked. Either to get them out of the way, or because they were of interest to paedophiles. Three former Fairbridge boys have claimed that the then-Australian Governor General, Lord Slim, sexually molested them during rides in his chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce while visiting the home. It is understood these allegations could be considered by the inquiry. The inquiry could also definitively answer a crucial historical question. Did the British government know it was sending children to be mistreated in a foreign country?
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
President Donald Trump says he will bring the "full force and weight" of the U.S. government to combat an "epidemic" of human trafficking. The president is meeting at the White House with senior advisers and representatives of organizations that deal with trafficking. His daughter, Ivanka Trump, is among those in attendance. Trump calls human trafficking a problem that is "not talked about enough." He says he will order the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to take a hard look at the resources they are devoting to addressing the issue.
Note: Many believe Trump is aware of the pedophilia rings leading to the highest levels of government, as has been exposed in the suppressed documentary "Conspiracy of Silence." In this CNN video, Trump calls the problem "an epidemic." Immediately after his swearing in ceremony, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' first act was to sign an executive order on stopping and preventing international trafficking, including "trafficking and smuggling of human beings." 9/11 hero Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has also exposed this major problem.
The head of the police force investigating reports of child sexual abuse by [former U.K. Prime Minister] Sir Edward Heath reportedly believes in the allegations “120 per cent”. Chief Constable Mike Veale, of Wiltshire Police, is reportedly convinced by testimony from alleged victims of the former Conservative Prime Minister because they have given similar accounts to investigators. Sir Edward, who was Prime Minister between 1970 and 1974, died in 2005. Wiltshire Police appealed for information about claims he was involved in abusing children after the Independent Police Complaints Commission began investigating whether a similar claim, made in the 1990s, had been handled properly. A retired senior officer alleged that Wiltshire Police deliberately caused a criminal prosecution to fail in 1994 after the defendant, a brothel owner, threatened to tell the press she supplied Sir Edward with underage boys for sex if the trial went ahead. But the trial was dropped because witnesses refused to testify, the IPCC said, and it found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A British charity offering treatment to paedophiles before they become child molesters could be forced to close next month after being hit by a “funding crisis”. The Specialist Treatment Organisation for the Prevention of Sexual Offending, known as StopSO, is the country’s only nationwide agency offering the treatment option to non-offending paedophiles. StopSO founder Juliet Grayson says her organisation is about child protection – ensuring “the attraction never becomes an action”. She says working with perpetrators to reduce the amount of sexual abuse against children is more effective than “trying to constantly pick up the pieces after the abuse has happened”. Ms Grayson ... said research shows most paedophiles know they are attracted to children by the time they are 20, but don’t act on their urges until they are 30. “That means there is a 10-year window for society to make it safe enough for people to come forward and say, ‘I know I need some help to never act on my desires and I’m asking for that help.’” Between June 2013 and October 2016, StopSO treated 425 offenders and demand is said to be increasing for their services. “If you think about the number of people who haven’t been sexually abused because of that 425 people [who came forward]. It’s possible that today someone isn’t sexually abused because of what StopSO therapists have done,” said Ms Grayson. The organisation could be forced to close its doors in early march if its appeals for donations is unsuccessful.
Note: This organization is an important way to keep people from becoming pedophiles. To learn about and support this worthy cause, see this webpage.
The healing process from sexual assault is deeply personal and varies by individual, but a rape survivor and the man who raped her have teamed up to share their story in order to bring light to the social issue. Thordis Elva was raped in 1996 at 16 years old by Tom Stranger, her boyfriend at the time. After over 20 years, the pair has teamed together to talk candidly about their individual experiences of the rape during a TED Talk in San Francisco in October. The two of them are also co-authors of a book being released in March titled "South of Forgiveness," which tells the tale of what they both call "the darkest moment of their lives." Before they begin their story, they are careful to say their journey of reconciliation and forgiveness is not meant to be set as an example for others to follow, but to demonstrate that healing and forgiveness are possible. It's jarring ... to see a self-professed rapist take the mic, and the audience questioned Elva on why she decided to give Stranger a voice in the matter. She responded, "I understand those who are inclined to criticize me as someone who enabled a perpetrator to have a voice in this discussion," Elva says during a Q&A follow-up. "But I believe that a lot can be learned by listening to those who have been a part of the problem - if they're willing to become part of the solution - about what ideas and attitudes drove their violent actions, so we can work on uprooting them effectively. Just imagine all the suffering we could alleviate if we dare to face this issue together."
Note: The TED video available at the link above is quite moving.
Officers are investigating 255 allegations of historical sexual abuse involving 77 football clubs in London, including five from the Premier League, the Metropolitan police have said. All the capital’s top flight teams – Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United – are understood to be involved. A Met spokesman said: “The allegations are connected with individuals at 77 named clubs or teams.“The breakdown for those clubs is: five in the Premier League, three against Championship clubs, three against clubs in Leagues One and Two, and there have also been 66 other named clubs, which would include non-league or non-professional or amateur teams.” DCS Ivan Balhatchet of the sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command said: “The Met take all allegations seriously and specialist officers will work through the information passed to them. “Anyone who has been the victim of sexual assault should contact their local force, or call the NSPCC helpline. Earlier this month, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which is coordinating the nationwide police investigation Operation Hydrant, said more than 500 complainants and 184 potential suspects had been identified. Latest figures put the number of potential victims at 526.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
More than 500 suspects were arrested and 56 people were rescued during a statewide human-trafficking crackdown, officials said. The Los Angeles County Regional Human Trafficking Task Forces announced the arrests of 510 suspects during the three-day sweep. 45 adults and 11 girls were rescued. Among the 510 suspects arrested, 30 are suspected traffickers and 178 are alleged "johns." The task force is housed by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department and is a collaboration of more than 85 federal, state, county and local law enforcement and nonprofit community organizations. In one very disturbing incident in Milpitas, California, a man dressed in full police uniform - including a side arm - was arrested on felony charges after he sexually assaulted a human-trafficking victim, [Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim] McDonnell said. The suspect was found to be already on felony probation and wanted by police for additional, similar crimes. The sheriff said the operation targeted those who use the internet to exploit victims. In one such instance, McDonnell said an undercover deputy posing as a young female on social media was contacted by a suspect, who recruited her to work for him in the commercial sex trade. After arranging a meeting, the pimp drove from Riverside County to meet with his victim. He demanded $500 from the victim for him to manage her. The task force was established in November 2015 and since that time, 948 suspects have been arrested in connection to human trafficking.
Note: And this is but the tip of the iceberg. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Pizzagate was the false claim that the Comet Ping Pong pizza place in Washington D.C. was at the center of a pedophilia ring linked to the Hillary Clinton campaign. But on Tuesday night, Meredith-owned CBS46 ran a report full of recycled Internet rumors about the restaurant. Reporter Ben Swann cited the WikiLeaks release of hacked emails from Clinton campaign chief John Podesta heavily throughout his segment. “In all, WikiLeaks dumped around 50,000 email messages, and it was from those emails that the claims that John Podesta may be part of a child sex-trafficking ring come from,” Swann said. However, moments later he added: “To be clear, not one single email in the Podesta emails discusses child sex trafficking or pedophilia.” Swann claimed “strangely worded emails” could be “code language used by pedophiles,” and repeated much of the conspiracy theories featured by conservative radio host Alex Jones and various online forums. “For all that is here, there has not been one single public investigation of any of this,” Swann said. “Not from local police, not from the FBI, no one. And that has to be the big question.” Swann’s boss defended his latest report. “I know he was meticulous with his search for facts,” CBS46 news director Frank Volpicella told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Note: Ben Swann was removed from the show shortly after this report, and his social media accounts went strangely silent. Watch his controversial Pizzagate report on this webpage. The media has slammed Pizzagate as fake news, yet if you look without bias, there is tremendous solid evidence suggesting something very fishy is going on. See this webpage for lots more.
A former child sex slave sold into a Belgian aristocratic paedophile ring where boys and girls were raped, tortured and murdered has revealed the horrors of her five years of abuse. Anneke Lucas, 53, was sold into the murderous paedophile network in Belgium when she was just six years old in 1969. Recalling her sickening abuse, she said: 'I was raped many, many, many times. 'Usually it was a full night and weekend and so I gathered I was raped for about six hours a week - more than 1,700 hours before I reached the age of 12.' Speaking to MailOnline, she said: 'I was first taken to the paedophile ring when I was six by a woman who worked as a cleaning lady for my mother. 'Later on, my mother got involved and then she started to take me herself.' She said: 'The adult men that were part of the network were there for various reasons. 'There was a lot of alcohol and a lot of drugs. The children were a commodity ... and used for sex. 'Children were killed. Boys were more often tortured but girls were killed.' At the age of 11, having spent five and a half years inside the twisted aristocratic sex ring, it was decided she was 'of no use anymore' and was to be killed. However she was saved when one of her abusers made a deal with the politician in charge of the peadophile network while she was tortured. The man who tortured her was one of the defendants in the Dutroux case, which, when it broke in 1996, was believed it would blow up the Belgian pedophile network. Eight years later, only Marc Dutroux received a life sentence.
Note: Read an excellent essay on several cases of pedophilia rings involving top politicians. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Important Note: WantToKnow.info manager Fred Burks watched the CBS news video at the link above one day after it was posted. Two days later, Fred clicked on the same link only to find the video there had been replaced with one titled "Why Reports on Trump Are Fake News." The original video was gone. This is unprecedented and suggests someone did not want you to see this video. Fred managed to download the video before it disappeared. You can watch it now on this webpage.
What exactly is Pizzagate? [It began with] the WikiLeaks release of hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. [Some emails suggest] Podesta may be part of a child sex trafficking ring. Podesta talks about his close relationship with Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the House who was recently sentenced to 15 months in prison for abusing boys. To be clear, not one single email … discusses child sex trafficking. But there are dozens of ... strangely worded emails dealing with pizza. Those words [may be] code language used by pedophiles. Comet Ping Pong Pizza [is referenced] at least a dozen or so times. The owner of that place, James Alefantis, is a friend of John Podesta. He was actually named ... by GQ magazine as one of the top 50 most powerful people in Washington. Comet Ping Pong ... is a place where a number of performance artists perform [including] a group called Heavy Breathing and another called Sex Stains. Heavy Breathing has songs that do joke about pedophilia. [Alefantis] has made his Instagram profile private, but an archive search of Instagram reveals a number of strange photographs and words with ... disturbing images. According to the Washington Post, visitors to [John's brother] Tony Podesta's home in Falls Church "got an eye full when they walked into a bedroom ... hung with multiple color pictures by Katy Grannan, a photographer known for documentary style pictures of naked teenagers in their parents’ suburban homes." That just begins to scratch the surface of how strange some of the stuff is.
Note: Explore the retrieved Instagram account of James Alefantis and you will understand why this is so important. Read what may be the most level-headed exploration of Pizzagate. For undeniable evidence of powerful child prostitution rings leading to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence." An excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" also covers a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. See also news articles on sex abuse scandals.
Odette and her sisters Rosemary and Lucy (pseudonyms they chose) are among the victims of what a new international survey conducted by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection suggests is a widespread tragedy — child exploitation rings led by parents of the abused. Responses from 128 child abuse survivors across North America and Europe found 52 per cent were victimized by a network of abusers, overwhelmingly involving their own parents, who shared images and even their children themselves with others. In most cases — nearly 70 per cent — images were then shared with millions more strangers online. About 90 per cent said their abuse affected both their education and professional success. About 30 per cent said they had been recognized by someone who saw their images online. Of those, 64 per cent said they were “targeted” — either blackmailed or propositioned. “We were definitely most shocked about the extent of organized child sexual abuse in our survey,” says executive director Lianna McDonald. “We learned that often those closest and most trusted by children were responsible for not only abusing their children, but sadly, also orchestrating and facilitating the abuse by many others.” The survey defines organized sexual abuse as involving multiple offenders, primarily parents and relatives, creating and sharing child sexual abuse images, exchanging children for sexual purposes or engaging in “sadistic, torture-related and ritualistic abuse.”
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In Australia, a boy of 10 is raped by an Anglican clergyman, who cuts his victim with a small knife and smears blood over his back. This happened in the 1960s ... but only now has this and other decades-old stories of sexual violence and degradation been heard, catalogued and, crucially for many victims, believed. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is an unprecedented investigation into an epidemic of depravity across Australia. The ... inquiry began in 2013 and has heard from thousands of survivors of paedophiles who worked, or volunteered, in sporting clubs, schools, churches, charities, childcare centres and the military. It has the power to look at any private, public or non-government body that is, or was, involved with children. The Commission's task is to make recommendations on how to improve laws, policies and practices to protect the young. To date, it has held more than 6,000 private sessions, along with several high-profile public hearings. The chief royal commissioner, Justice Peter McClellan ... is one of six commissioners; two women and four men, and they include a former Queensland police chief, a consultant child psychiatrist and a retired federal politician. When it hands down its final report at the end of 2017, this painstaking inquiry will have lasted for almost five years. Already, more than 1,700 cases have been referred to the authorities, including the police. More prosecutions will almost certainly follow
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
There are now 83 potential suspects and 98 teams involved in the inquiry into historic child sexual abuse in English football, the National Police Chiefs' Council revealed. The investigation involves all levels of football, from top-level clubs to amateur teams. Police forces across the UK continue to receive calls from victims and people offering information. In total, 639 referrals have been received from both the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) helpline and police forces. Of the victims identified so far, 98% are male and their ages range from seven to 20. "Allegations received by police forces across the country are being swiftly acted upon," said Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the NPCC's lead for Child Protection. The investigation began when former professional footballer Andy Woodward became the first to publicly tell his story in November. Fellow lower-league player Steve Walters and ex-England internationals Paul Stewart and David White also came forward soon after, before a hotline was set up for people who were sexually abused while playing football in Britain.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
One of the most notorious scenes in cinema history, the Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider butter rape scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, is making headlines once again. In a recently resurfaced video interview ... Bertolucci confirms that Schneider, who died in 2011, did not know the details of the rape scene ahead of time, and that the graphic nature of the scene was improvised on set. "I had been, in a way, horrible to Maria because I didn't tell her what was going on," [said] Bertolucci. Nothing in the resurfaced video is news as the director has been very vocal about his filming of the scene and how it affected Maria Schneider in multiple interviews over the years. Schneider said in a 2007 Daily Mail interview [that], "Marlon said to me: 'Maria, don't worry, it's just a movie,' but during the scene, even though what Marlon was doing wasn't real, I was crying real tears. I wanted to be recognized as an actress and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown." Schneider added, "I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci." It's also well known that Schneider, who struggled with drug addiction and mental health issues, has blamed the infamous film for the downhill trajectory of her life. She went on to star in renowned films including Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger, but said she was unable to get past the notoriety that came with starring in Bertolucci's film.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An inquiry into child sex abuse claims involving ex-Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath is exploring a "significant number" of lines, police say. Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Mike Veale ... said officers had received "allegations spanning a significant number of individuals". It emerged last month that two people had been arrested and bailed. Former Conservative prime minister Sir Edward died at his home in Salisbury in July 2005, aged 89. In an open letter, Mr Veale said he would not be "buckling under pressure to not investigate or to conclude the investigation prematurely". He said he wanted to "set the record straight" amid press reports the inquiry was floundering. "The decision to undertake this ... investigation was not taken lightly particularly knowing, or at least expecting, that we would be placed under intense scrutiny," he said. Mr Veale also confirmed reports that satanic ritual sex abuse was a feature of the investigation, although he said it was a small part and did not relate to Sir Edward. Operation Conifer began in 2015 after claims against Sir Edward were raised in an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
What began as a harrowing account of child abuse suffered by a former professional English soccer player last month has lifted the lid on what could be one of the worst pedophile scandals Britain has ever known. Andy Woodward, 43, who played in the lower divisions of English soccer, told the Guardian newspaper ... how his life had been ruined because he had been molested as a boy by a youth team coach. His frank revelations of the sexual abuse he endured three decades ago prompted more than 20 other former professionals to come forward with their own distressing stories of suffering at the hands of sexual predators in the sport. In a sign of how widespread the abuse might have been, British police said on Thursday that about 350 victims had come forward to report sexual abuse within soccer clubs and indicated the number was likely to rise. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) charity said that a helpline dedicated to the soccer abuse scandal had received 860 calls in its first week. The charity's staff had made 60 referrals to police or social services in the first three days, triple the number made in the wake of a similar scheme set up for victims of [Jimmy] Savile. The NSPCC has not ruled out suggestions the abuse is still ongoing. "It would be naive to assume that all of the concerns that are being disclosed and being talked about are in the past," said Jon Brown, the NSPCC lead on tackling sexual abuse.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Over the course of about six decades, more than 1,000 members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were accused of sexually abusing Australian children, according to a new report. Victims were ordered to keep quiet. Not one of the alleged perpetrators were reported to the police. Now, a royal commission in Australia has found the church demonstrated a “serious failure” to protect children from the risk of sexual abuse. A 107-page-long report released Monday detailed a number of ancient policies that exhibited what the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse referred to as a “serious lack of understanding of the nature of child sexual abuse.” The church’s responses to sexual abuse allegations, and its desire to handle them internally, often mirror those of the Catholic church or of some Orthodox Jewish communities. But unlike the priests of the Catholic Church, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have no paid clergy. Alleged perpetrators are mostly regular congregants, who are shielded from official prosecution by the church’s code of moral conduct. The church’s rules, which are based on a strict interpretation of the Bible, call for separation from other members of society. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ responses to abuse allegations are not limited to Australia. The religion’s parent organization, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, for 25 years has instructed its elders to keep cases of child sexual abuse secret from law enforcement and members of their own congregations.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Cruel and charismatic, Anne Hamilton-Byrne was the Australian leader of a doomsday cult who thought she was the Messiah. As leader of The Family, ... she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman. One of the few female cult leaders in history - and apparently one of the cruellest - Hamilton-Byrne operated in almost total secrecy over two decades. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. Over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and “gifts” from followers. She subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture. “Anne wasn’t giving love,” says [a parent] whose young son was one of Hamilton-Byrne’s victims. “She was offering it and then taking it back. She broke people’s spirit.” The glamorous guru used the same tactic on her adult followers, handpicking them from Melbourne’s wealthy professional elite. Preaching a mishmash of Christianity, eastern mysticism and apocalyptic prophecy, she allegedly forced followers, including children, to take dangerous amounts of LSD and other hallucinogenics as part of prolonged initiation rites. Once they had submitted, she’d dictate every aspect of their lives. The cult leader amassed an estimated AU$150m (Ł90m) through property, land and cash donated by followers. She hid overseas and was eventually arrested in 1993 on relatively minor fraud charges. She received an AU$5,000 fine, but no jail time.
Note: A feature documentary on this cult has recently been released in the UK. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing mind control news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.
Thousands have taken to the streets of Istanbul and other cities in Turkey to protest against a bill that would allow child rapists to walk free if they marry their victims. The country’s government insists the law would help resolve legal challenges caused by widespread child marriage in the country, yet critics argue the bill legitimises rape. If the law passes, men who sexually abuse girls under 18 without “force, threat or any restriction on consent” and marry them could have their convictions quashed or avoid prosecution. The UN children’s fund said it was “deeply concerned” about the draft bill. “These abject forms of violence against children are crimes which should be punished as such, and in all cases the best interest of the child should prevail,” said spokesman Christophe Boulierac. MPs approved the draft law in its initial reading. It will be voted on again on Tuesday. The bill comes after Turkey’s constitutional court in July annulled part of the criminal code which classified all sexual acts with children under 15 as sexual abuse, a change that also prompted uproar. Turkish bar association Izmir Barosu said in a statement: “This proposal is clearly an attack on protecting children from sexual abuse. “We must make clear that any regulation against the protection of sexual abuse of children has no place in the public conscience. “The proposed regulation is intended to institutionalise child abuse. Physical and sexual violence against children and women is a crime.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Norwegian police say they [are] investigating a pedophile network suspected to involve at least 51 people, which includes the abuse of infants and at least one case of a suspect acknowledging abusing his own children. Deputy Police Chief Gunnar Floystad says that in Norway's largest abuse case to date they have arrested 20 men so far, with three convictions, in western Norway. The 31 other suspects are from other regions in Norway. Floystad told reporters Sunday that many of the suspects are highly educated, and include lawyers and politicians. He said he could not reveal more details pending the conclusion of the investigation, known as "Dark Room," which began in 2015. Prosecutors said the perpetrators met in the dark web, using encryption and anonymity to hide their tracks.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In every state, patient protection is supposed to be the prime directive when it comes to licensing and disciplining doctors. But a 50-state examination by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that only a few states have anything close to a comprehensive set of laws that put patients first. “Instead of looking out for victims or possible victims or protecting our society, we’re protecting doctors,” said Rep. Kimberly Williams, a member of the Delaware General Assembly, who sponsored a patient-protection bill last year that was blocked with a veto. The AJC studied five categories of laws in every state in the nation to determine which states are the best - and the worst - at shielding patients from sexually abusive doctors. The statutes examined covered everything from the duty to report bad doctors and the power to revoke the licenses of the worst, to the laws that decide who gets to serve on medical licensing boards and how much information consumers can know about doctors who have gotten into trouble. Not a single state met the highest bar in every category. The AJC’s findings explain how it’s possible for a doctor who has served time on felony charges, molested patients or demanded sex in exchange for prescription drugs to continue seeing patients: In most states, there’s no law against it. It often takes a horrific case or a public expose to get pro-patient legislation passed.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Nearly two decades ago, [Andrew] Dekle was sentenced to four years in federal prison after a jury found him guilty of writing more than 120 illegal prescriptions for women who testified that the drugs were in exchange for sexual favors. “The pimp with a prescription pad” is what one prosecutor called him during a trial in which it was revealed that more than 400 sexually explicit photos of female patients and other women had been discovered in his office. In some states, where legislatures have enacted laws prohibiting doctors who commit certain crimes from practicing, Dekle’s career would be over. But in Georgia, where the law gives the medical board the discretion to license anyone it sees fit, he was back in practice two years after leaving prison. The [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] found more than 450 cases in which doctors had sexual contact with patients while also prescribing controlled and addictive substances for them. In more than half, the physicians were allowed to continue practicing. Although it’s rare for medical regulators to allow doctors convicted in drugs-for-sex cases to keep their licenses, the AJC found instances in Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky where physicians with convictions similar to Dekle’s were allowed to remain in practice.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
A UK-based charity has warned that British tourists and expats in Dubai and across the United Arab Emirates (UAE) should not report incidents of rape after a woman who was allegedly gang raped was arrested and charged with “extramarital sex”. Detained in Dubai, an organisation that assists people who have become victims of injustice in the UAE, has warned against reporting rape or other crimes in the country because of the “manipulation when it comes to criminal accusations” and the “racist” preconceptions held against Western tourists. Radha Stirling, founder of the charity, said that following the recent case – as well as a number of other shocking incidents in recent years where rape victims have been detained in the UAE – she advises British tourists not to report crime. The latest case involves the arrest of a 25-year-old woman who was on holiday in Dubai in October when she was allegedly attacked by two British men, who allegedly befriended her and lured her to their hotel room before pinning her down and raping her while recording it on a phone. When the woman reported the rape at a police station, she was arrested for breaking Emirati laws against extramarital sex, while her attackers have since flown home to the UK. Her passport has reportedly been confiscated and she is prohibited from leaving the country. The prescribed punishments for extramarital sex in the UAE include imprisonment, deportation, floggings and stoning.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Most complaints of child sexual abuse in Malaysia do not lead to successful prosecutions. According to classified data Malaysian police compiled and shared with Reuters, 12,987 cases of child sexual abuse were reported to police between January 2012 and July of this year. Charges were filed in 2,189 cases, resulting in just 140 convictions. No details were disclosed in the cases where there were convictions. Child rights advocates have long pushed the government to publicly disclose data on child sexual abuse to increase awareness so action can be taken to address what they call a growing problem. A veil was lifted in June when a British court handed Richard Huckle 22 life sentences for abusing up to 200 babies and children, mostly in Malaysia, and sharing images of his crimes on the dark web. Child sexual abuse data ... is protected under Malaysia’s Official Secrets Act. The government provides data on child abuse only at the request of a member of parliament. In 17 years of operation, PS the Children, Malaysia’s biggest NGO dealing with child abuse, has seen zero convictions on the cases it has handled, its founder Madeleine Yong told Reuters. Malaysia does not have a law specifically prohibiting child pornography and defines rape narrowly as penile penetration. Australian detectives who investigate paedophiles in the region believe Malaysia has become one of Southeast Asia’s biggest centres for the transmission of child pornography on the Internet.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A British man who traveled to Poland to give a lecture on conspiracy theories and was found dead in his Warsaw apartment was conducting an investigation into alleged pedophilia that took place in a US Army-run facility. Prior to his death, [Max] Spiers texted his mother to say 'If anything happens to me, investigate'. He was ruled to have died from natural causes despite no post-mortem examination being carried out on his body. Friends have claimed he died ... after he 'vomited a black liquid'. Now it has emerged that Spiers was inquiring about allegations of widespread sexual abuse against children that was committed at a military base in California by employees acting under the influence of a satanic cult. In 1987, the US Army demolished a child care center at its Presidio base in Northern California just one year after as many as 60 children were sexually abused there. One civilian employee of the center, Gary Willard Hambright, was indicted for molesting 10 children. Charges against him were ultimately dropped. One US Army officer at the base, Lt. Col. Michael Aquino, was alleged to have taken part in the abuse. Aquino was known as the self-confessed founder of a Satanic movement known as The Temple of Set. Despite rumors of his involvement and a police investigation, he was never charged. Spiers was looking into the Presidio affair and Aquino's role, which he believed to be part of a larger underground movement that entailed ritual sexual abuse of children in San Francisco in the late 1980s.
Note: For lots more on the Presidio affair, see this excellently researched piece. Read a great essay on several cases of pedophilia rings involving top politicians. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
James Patterson, that human fiction factory, has churned out another book, only this time it’s a real-life whodunit. Or perhaps, [this book] is more of a “why-did-he-get-off-so-lightly?” Jeffrey Epstein ... is, indeed, filthy rich. One supposition on how he got so, based on unnamed sources in "Filthy Rich," is that he crafted tax-avoidance schemes for filthy rich clients. Epstein hung out with a diverse cast of characters, among them Prince Andrew, Stephen Hawking and bra-billionaire Les Wexner. He also spent time with impecunious teenage girls who were engaged to “massage” him. Mary (not her real name) ... was 14 when she was invited into Epstein’s lair. The testimony of Epstein’s “masseuses” to police meanders from soft porn to more graphic fare and goes on page after page. Most of the women who told their stories to the police never got to testify in the half-hearted (at best) prosecution of Epstein, including “Alison, who claimed that she had been raped.” Backed by a “dream team” of lawyers - among them Alan Dershowitz (who defended O.J. Simpson and Claus von Bülow) and Ken Starr (whose investigation of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky led to his impeachment) - Epstein pleaded guilty to state felony offenses for solicitation of prostitution and the procurement of minors for prostitution. By doing so Epstein avoided the possibility of facing much more serious charges. Epstein received an 18-month sentence, but served barely a year.
Note: Read more about the child sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In 2005, the world was introduced to reclusive billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, friend to princes and an American president. He was also a pedophile, accused of recruiting dozens of underage girls into a sex-slave network, buying their silence and moving along, although he has been convicted of only one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Visitors to his private Caribbean island, known as “Orgy Island,” have included Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Stephen Hawking. Flight logs show that from 2001 to 2003, Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed “The Lolita Express” by the press, 26 times. After Epstein’s arrest in July 2006, federal tax records show Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation that year. Epstein was also a regular visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, and the two were friends. In 2003, New York magazine reported that Trump also attended a dinner party at Epstein’s honoring Bill Clinton. In a 2006 court filing, Palm Beach police noted that a search of Epstein’s home uncovered two hidden cameras. The Mirror reported that in 2015, a 6-year-old civil lawsuit filed by “Jane Doe No. 3” ... alleged that Epstein wired his mansion with hidden cameras, secretly recording orgies involving his prominent friends and underage girls. The ultimate purpose: blackmail, according to court papers. “Jane Doe No. 3” also alleged that she had been forced to have sex with “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.”
Note: Read more about the child sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The scale of sexual harassment and gender violence by UK university staff has been likened to the scandals involving the Catholic church and Jimmy Savile in accounts shared by more than 100 women with the Guardian. Their stories – including those of verbal bullying, serial harassment, assault, sexual assault and rape – expose an alarming pattern of abuse and harassment in British universities which remains largely hidden. Many women said they had not pursued complaints for fear of jeopardising their academic careers. Those who did complain said they felt isolated and unprotected, while the more powerful men they accused appeared to be untouchable. The women’s accounts follow an exclusive Guardian report on the use of non-disclosure agreements in university sexual harassment cases. Jennifer Saul, professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield and an expert on sexual harassment in higher education, said she was not surprised by the ... stories: “There’s a systemic problem. Too often, victims are afraid to come forward for fear of retaliation. “When they do come forward, often they are brushed off or not believed. When they are believed, their allegations are still often dismissed as unprovable. Even when things are taken more seriously, harassers are generally allowed to leave quietly, which enables them to move some place else and do the same thing.” Many of the women who made complaints ... felt they were the ones on trial.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
Father Brian Lucas ... put everything he had this week into convincing the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse that his handling of the case of Father John Farrell – who was abusing children from the moment he was ordained in 1981 – was absolutely proper. Lucas was the go-to man when paedophiles had to be persuaded to leave the church. Rules set in Rome made it essentially impossible to dismiss these men. They could be suspended from duties, given no work, forbidden to celebrate mass – but they had to consent to their own sacking. How many cases he had handled before he confronted Farrell he couldn’t exactly say. Perhaps 35. He never turned them over to the police. And he never took notes. Lucas was not alone when he met Farrell in September 1992. With him were two senior churchmen: Monsignor John Usher, director of the Catholic charity Centacare, and the judicial vicar of the Armidale diocese, Father Wayne Peters. Peters made a document. Lucas had a policy then of not encouraging victims to go to the police: not dissuading, but not encouraging. Lucas ... still maintains no useful admissions were made by Farrell and that Peters’ letter is not accurate. Once the first charges were laid in October 2012, Farrell was protected by non-publication orders and the pseudonym Father F. They were lifted in May this year when he was sentenced for 62 historical sex crimes against children, with a further 17 offences taken into account.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and sexual abuse scandals.
Medical regulators pledge that patient protection is their central mission. As part of that focus, their websites provide information to the public about doctors. But in most states, patients will have a difficult time finding out if their doctors have been disciplined for sexual abuse or other violations. No state provides complete and accurate information on every doctor. Some obstacles to that are intentional. They are the result of state laws that tie regulators’ hands, agreements negotiated with doctors’ attorneys, or concerns about harming a doctor’s practice. Maryland investigated Dr. Joshua R. Mitchell III in 2005 after a complaint that he had sexually violated a patient. The board learned that the Baltimore police sex-crimes unit had investigated a similar complaint from another patient. The medical board wrapped up its 2005 investigation with a private letter advising Mitchell to offer a chaperone during breast and pelvic exams. Then in January 2010, a patient reported Mitchell raped her. The board’s website didn’t provide any information to the public until May 2010. Illinois and Wyoming post only summaries of disciplinary actions, which may not detail violations. Arkansas and both of Oklahoma’s boards require the public to file requests for disciplinary orders, and Oklahoma requires a fee. In contrast: Maine not only posts orders but provides a phone number for patients to find out if non-disciplinary action has been taken against a doctor.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Dr. Mark Knight calls himself an artist, one whose “gifted hands” sculpt bodies to perfection. Sometimes, though, Knight’s hands strayed. So last year regulators placed the plastic surgeon ... on probation for sexual misconduct with patients. He will be subject to restrictions on his practice and close monitoring until 2020. But when patients come to his office ... Knight doesn’t have to tell them about his disciplinary status. And he doesn’t have to explain why an extra person is supposed to always be in the room: to make sure Knight doesn’t violate patients again. Knight’s freedom to see patients without disclosing his tarnished record underscores the opaqueness of the physician discipline system across the United States, a national investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found. The AJC identified more than 2,400 doctors disciplined for sexual misconduct involving patients since 1999. Half are still licensed. No state routinely requires doctors to tell patients when they have faced disciplinary action. Four states post no disciplinary records online, and at least nine purge case files after as little as five years. Twenty-one states sometimes handle misconduct cases secretly and allow doctors to continue practice with no public hearings or public scrutiny. In 2015, advocates working with the Safe Patient Project petitioned California’s medical board to require ... a doctor on probation [to] give each patient a one-page form that briefly stated his offense. At a hearing in October, board members unanimously rejected the petition.
Note: If you live in the US, see how well your state does in protecting patients from sexual abuse using this chart. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Caught in the act, Dr. Earl Bradley needed to think fast. “What the hell are you doing, you bastard?” his patient’s mother had screamed when she found Bradley with his hand in her daughter’s diaper. Now the police were coming. Bradley would say the mother - poor, young, unwed - must have been trying to extort money from him. It worked. A detective wrote that, compared to the doctor, the mother was “not credible.” A medical board investigator found that Bradley “specialized in welfare ... patients,” so a shakedown was “a distinct possibility.” The case was closed. And the doctor who would become one of the nation’s most prolific sexual predators moved on. For 15 more years, Earl Bradley raped, molested and sodomized a generation of his pediatric patients along the Delaware seashore. He recorded 13 hours of the assaults on video. Before he finally went to jail in 2009, he victimized 1,200 children, maybe more. Reported cases of doctors sexually assaulting children are unusual; vulnerable victims are not. Most are adult women, especially those who are poor or dependent on narcotic painkillers or lacking the credibility or social standing to pursue legal action. Still ... Bradley’s case underscores how American medicine so often puts doctors’ interests ahead of patient protection. The AJC documented eight instances in which Bradley was the subject of accusations between 1994 and 2008. Each time, in ways that echo through hundreds of other cases the newspaper examined, Bradley avoided punishment.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse by medical professionals.
Doctors are supposed to touch during an exam, but not fondle. Psychiatrists should listen to a patient’s darkest secrets, but never parlay the intimacy into a kiss. Anesthesiologists put patients under for surgery, but shouldn’t have their way with them. When physicians barge through the sacred boundaries of the doctor-patient relationship, the damage to patients can last for years – if not forever. Frequently, patients who are abused start to avoid doctors altogether. Some resort to seeing only female doctors. Many can’t get help because they can’t get comfortable with a therapist. Making matters worse, victims often aren’t believed if they do report a doctor, or the complaint is brushed off to preserve the physician’s career. That response, some experts say, can be as damaging as the sexual violation. “First there’s the betrayal by the actual predator himself. Then there is the betrayal by the colleagues and supervisors,” said David Clohessy, the executive director of SNAP, a support and advocacy organization for people sexually abused by clergy, doctors, therapists and others. “You’ve got people who are deeply wounded in the first place by a predator, and they turn to the appropriate officials for help and they get ignored at best or rebuffed and attacked at worst.” Many patients keep silent for fear they won’t be believed. That’s one reason no one knows the pervasiveness of physician sexual misconduct.
Note: The above article details the stories of five abuse victims. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse by medical professionals.
The Oakland, California, police department has fired four officers and suspended seven in a major sexual misconduct case, but critics have questioned why officers haven’t faced criminal charges and why an exploitation victim at the center of the case remains behind bars. The disciplinary actions ... stem from a case involving a teenage girl who was sexually exploited by more than a dozen officers across the northern California region. In 2015, officer Brendan O’Brien reportedly killed himself and left a note that launched an investigation into widespread misconduct allegations. The Oakland newspaper East Bay Express uncovered that three officers had allegedly had sexual relations with a teenage girl when she was underage. The girl ... said she was a sex worker at the time. By law, however, those relationships would be considered statutory rape and human trafficking. A total of at least 14 officers in Oakland as well as eight from other nearby law enforcement agencies are accused of taking advantage of the teenager. Months later, there are still no criminal charges. On the contrary, the woman recently went to a rehab center in Florida where she was arrested. She remains incarcerated at a local jail. Critics of the police department ... said they were particularly disturbed that the exploited woman was behind bars while the officers who have allegedly engaged in misconduct have remained free – many of them still employed by the city.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
A former Jehovah's Witness has offered a rare insight into the religious group, describing it as a cult that "tries to control emotions, thought, information and behavior of a person". The man ... shared his experience of growing up as a Jehovah's Witness in Poland in an Ask Me Anything post on Reddit. Using the username "Ohmyjw", the former Jehovah's Witness (JW) elder speaks out against the group's rules, such as prohibiting blood transfusion "even if that costs them their life" or believing the world "will end in Armageddon 'very soon'". However, he said he tried to "never give an impression that JWs are dumb or intelligent", adding that "many of them are actually quite intelligent, albeit deluded people". He also described how his family now refused to acknowledge him and his wife after they left the group. When asked how women were regarded in JW society, the former elder said they were thought of as "a complement for a man", adding: "She should be submissive to her husband, who is the head of their family and ... makes all the important decisions. He also criticised the group for having a "big problem with child abuse," saying "they believe child abuse is only a sin, not really a crime, the elders in almost all cases don't report to the authorities, instead they try to handle it inside the congregation". The group allegedly requires "two witnesses to the event" and regularly decide to "leave the matter in the hands of Jehovah". "They basically value the 'good name of the organisation' more than the safety of the children," he adds.
Note: Read more about the techniques used by Jehovah's Witnesses to systematically silence abuse victims. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
After medical regulators said he fondled patients, exposed himself and traded drugs for sex, Dr. David Pavlakovic easily could have lost his license. Law enforcement thought his acts were criminal. Instead of losing his job, Pavlakovic was placed in therapy. He was allowed to return to practice. And he didn’t even have to tell his patients. Society has become intolerant of most sex offenders, placing some on lifelong public registries and banishing others from their professions or volunteer activities. But medical regulators have embraced the idea of rehabilitation for physicians accused of sexual misconduct. It is left to private therapists ... to unearth the extent of a doctor’s transgressions. There is little pretense of the check and balance of public scrutiny. Even doctors with egregious violations are allowed to redeem themselves through education and treatment centers, which have quietly proliferated over the past two decades. These education and treatment programs are being used by regulators in virtually every state. The Catholic Church once secretly sent sex offender priests for psychiatric treatment, then returned them to service. The abuse, the church reasoned, was a spiritual failing requiring repentance and forgiveness. Most medical authorities have embraced a similar approach, but through the lens of sexual abuse as the sign of a mental disorder. Public board orders on regulators’ websites reveal dozens of physicians who were found to have re-offended after taking part in education or treatment programs.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Medical regulators say they have an ethical duty, and some have a legal requirement, to alert law enforcement when a doctor may have committed a sex crime against an adult patient. But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s examination of thousands of cases found that regulators failed to consistently live up to that responsibility. Instead, regulatory agencies, often dominated by physicians, can and do find reasons to avoid notifying police. The result is that some abusive doctors can continue practicing and harm other patients, and others are allowed to quietly retire, without a full investigation into whether they committed crimes that could mean jail time for those in other walks of life. Across the country, it is legal for medical panels to act as gatekeepers. Thirty-nine states and the District of Columbia do not have laws requiring medical regulators to notify police or prosecutors about potential criminal acts against adults. Some states have decided reporting shouldn’t be optional. In Delaware, it took a public outcry. State Rep. Helene Keeley and Sen. Patricia Blevins tried to get a mandatory reporting law passed after being tipped that doctors who committed heinous sex crimes were only being reprimanded. But Keeley said resistance from the Medical Society of Delaware killed the legislation. That changed after the arrest of pediatrician Earl Bradley, estimated to have assaulted as many as 1,000 young patients in Delaware and Pennsylvania.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros claims in an explosive new lawsuit that disgraced ex-network chairman Roger Ailes sexually harassed her and that high-ranking executives fostered a newsroom culture in which abusive behavior flourished. Fox News masquerades as defender of traditional family values, but behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny, the suit reads. Ailes was the primary culprit, according to the suit, but his actions were condoned by his most senior lieutenants who engaged in a concerted effort to silence Tantaros by threats, humiliation, and retaliation. Tantaros' suit is the second leveled against Ailes, but the first to name the network itself and several current executives as co-defendants. Last month, former Fox & Friends host Gretchen Carlson opened the floodgates of sexual harassment accusations against Ailes, a legendary TV executive who built and ran Fox News for two decades after serving as a leading Republican operative and former adviser to three presidents. Ailes is reportedly now advising Republican nominee Donald Trump. Less than two weeks after Carlson made her claims, Ailes stepped down as Fox News chairman. In the suit, Tantaros claimed that Fox News' ... public relations department leaked unflattering information about her, didn't adequately promote her, refused legitimate media requests, and used 'sock puppet' social media accounts to post or direct negative comments about her.
Note: For more on this, see this informative Vanity Fair article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing corporate corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Merchant Marine Academy has the highest rate of sexual assault and harassment of any U.S. military school. While the school received just one report of sexual assault in the 2014-2015 academic year, student surveys taken by the government reveal that 63 percent of women and 11 percent of men experienced unwanted advances or other sexual harassment. And 17 percent of women and 2 percent of men endured some kind of sexual assault, defined as unwanted contact, from groping to rape. Those numbers exceed the combined rates at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Naval, Air Force and Coast Guard academies, where 48 percent of women and 10 percent of men described sexual harassment in similar surveys. Under pressure from Congress, Kings Point hired its first sexual assault coordinator four years ago and beefed up online and face-to-face prevention training. But officials were shocked to find so few victims reporting when surveys told them otherwise. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education - which does 10-year accreditation reviews for the U.S. Education Department - placed the Merchant Marine Academy on warning in June. The commission described a “campus climate and incidence of sexual harassment and sexual assault that have been a serious and recognized problem for over 10 years. The report [criticized] the academy’s efforts to prevent misconduct as “insufficient and ineffective.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and military corruption.
America has been enmeshed in a wrenching discussion about how the police treat young black men. But this week’s blistering report from the Justice Department on police bias in Baltimore also exposed a different, though related, concern: how the police in that majority-black city treat women, especially victims of sexual assault. In six pages of the 163-page report documenting how Baltimore police officers have systematically violated the rights of African-Americans, the Justice Department also painted a picture of a police culture deeply dismissive of sexual assault victims and hostile toward prostitutes and transgender people. It branded the Baltimore Police Department’s response to sexual assault cases “grossly inadequate.” Baltimore officers sometimes humiliated women who tried to report sexual assault, often failed to gather basic evidence, and disregarded some complaints filed by prostitutes. Some officers blamed victims or discouraged them from identifying their assailants. And the culture seemed to extend to prosecutors, investigators found. In one email exchange, a prosecutor referred to a woman who had reported a sexual assault as a “conniving little whore.” A police officer, using a common text-message expression for laughing heartily, wrote back: “Lmao! I feel the same.” Other “pattern or practice” investigations of police departments - including in New Orleans; Puerto Rico; and Missoula, Mont. - have also identified gender bias.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
The devastating trauma and abuse inflicted on children held by Australia in offshore detention has been laid bare in the largest cache of leaked documents released from inside its immigration regime. More than 2,000 leaked incident reports from Australia’s detention camp for asylum seekers on the remote Pacific island of Nauru – totalling more than 8,000 pages – are published by the Guardian today. The Nauru files set out as never before the assaults, sexual abuse, self-harm attempts, child abuse and living conditions endured by asylum seekers held by the Australian government, painting a picture of routine dysfunction and cruelty. Children are vastly over-represented in the reports. More than half of the 2,116 reports – a total of 1,086 incidents, or 51.3% – involve children, although children made up only about 18% of those in detention on Nauru during the time covered by the reports, May 2013 to October 2015. The findings come just weeks after the brutal treatment of young people in juvenile detention in the Northern Territory was exposed. Allegations of sexual assault ... are a persistent theme of the files. In one report an asylum seeker described being told she was “on a list” written by local Nauruan guards naming single women they were “waiting for”. In [another] report a “cultural adviser” for Wilson Security, the company that employs guards at the detention camp, allegedly told an asylum seeker who had been sexually assaulted in camp that “rape in Australia is very common and people don’t get punished”.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and sexual abuse scandals.
One of the most senior police officers in the UK has called for greater debate about treating paedophiles rather than sending them to prison, amid concerns there is not enough space in prisons to jail them all. Currently, there are close to 45,000 names on the sex offenders register. The list contains details of people convicted of sexual offences and is used to monitor offenders following their release from prison. It has been steadily increasing since it was established in 1997. Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas, president of the Police Superintendents Association of England and Wales ... said: One of the major concerns from our members is managing the register already, and its growing. He added that there is not enough room in prisons to jail all child sex offenders and called for discussion of alternatives: Should we be going down the criminal justice route or, based on a proper assessment, should we be going down the health route? At the moment I am not seeing alternative thinking on how we deal with this issue as it grows and grows and grows. The number of people being convicted of sexual offences has soared in recent times, partly due to high profile cases such as Jimmy Savile encouraging other abuse survivors to come forward. Of 86,200 people who are currently in jail, around 11,500 have been convicted of a sexual offence.
Note: According to a recent article in the Sunday Express, the only British charity which specializes in preventing non-offending paedophiles from abusing currently faces closure due to a funding crisis. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from media sources.
A stunning, detailed investigation published Thursday by the Indianapolis Star found that USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body in this country, did little to investigate numerous claims of sexual abuse levied against gymnastics coaches across the country, routinely dismissing the allegations as hearsay. This approach runs counter to best practices when dealing with reports of sexual abuse against minors and is possibly illegal, as every state in the country has a law requiring people to report suspected sexual abuse of a minor to authorities. But instead of investigating or reporting the allegations, USA Gymnastics ... compiled complaint dossiers on more than 50 coaches and filed them in a drawer in its executive office in Indianapolis. The most damning incident involves a coach named William “Bill” McCabe. USA Gymnastics received at least four complaints about him starting in 1998. USA Gymnastics never reported the allegations to police and, according to federal authorities, he began molesting an underage girl in 1999. McCabe continued to coach children for nearly seven more years, until Lisa Ganser went to the FBI with concerns about emails to her then-11-year-old daughter. McCabe was charged with molesting gymnasts, secretly videotaping girls changing clothes and posting their naked pictures on the internet. He pleaded guilty in 2006 in Savannah, Georgia, to federal charges of sexual exploitation of children and making false statements. He is serving a 30-year sentence.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Police are investigating multiple child abuse allegations levelled directly against Australia's most senior Catholic cleric Cardinal George Pell, the ABC's 7.30 program has revealed. Victoria Police's Taskforce SANO, which investigates complaints coming out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has been examining the allegations by complainants from Ballarat, Torquay and Melbourne for more than a year. They include allegations about incidents which allegedly happened during Cardinal Pell's time as Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s. A further complaint about George Pell ... relates to the period in the 1990s when George Pell was setting up the Melbourne Response - the Australian Catholic Church's first attempt to seriously address child abuse. It involves two teenage choirboys who asked their parents to leave the choir soon after the alleged abuse had occurred. One of the boys died in tragic circumstances two years ago and the other is working with Taskforce SANO detectives. 7.30 has met that young man and the family of his former friend who died. The royal commission advises that these sorts of allegations are outside its terms of reference, because it only investigates institutional responses to child abuse, and it refers any new complaints of clergy abuse to police. The alleged behaviour raises serious questions about whether George Pell was ever an appropriate person to drive the Church's response to child sexual abuse.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Dozens of people who were child patients at a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s and 70s claim they were experimented on with a so-called truth serum. "I was your typical 60s teenager," says Marianne. At the age of 14, she [was] sent to Aston Hall, a "mental deficiency hospital". Many claim they were experimented on by the hospital's medical superintendent Dr Kenneth Milner using a drug called sodium amytal. It is known as a "truth serum" for its supposed ability to retrieve ... memories. Former patients ... remember being locked in a small treatment room with a mattress on the floor. Some say their hands were tied with bandages before they were injected. Marianne says she had an internal examination in the room, which was embarrassing and unnecessary, and other patients have alleged sexual abuse by Dr Milner. [She] recalls a session with the doctor where she was stripped, made to wear a stiff white gown and told she would be asked some questions. Then he injected her with a drug that heavily sedated her. "I can remember equating it to being drunk." Her account is similar to those of other former patients at the time, who remember being locked in a small treatment room with a mattress on the floor. Some say their hands were tied with bandages before they were injected. Nearly all the patients we spoke to agreed Dr Milner asked very personal sexual questions during treatment. While former patients search for answers about what really happened to them, they may have to live with the harmful effects of the treatment for the rest of their lives.
Note: For lots more on this, listen to this BBC report. Many people have been used as guinea pigs in government, military, and medical experiments over the last century. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing mind control news articles from reliable major media sources.
Sex trafficking wasn't a major concern in the early 1980s, when Beth Jacobs was a teenager. If you were a prostitute, the thinking went, it was your choice. Jacobs thought that too ... until [a] violent pimp forced [her] to work as a sex slave. The awareness of sex trafficking has changed a lot since then. Just last year, an old motor home parked at a truck stop caught the eye of trucker Kevin Kimmel. "I saw a guy go in it," Kimmel says. "And then I saw what I thought was a young girl peek out and be abruptly pulled back from the window." Kimmel called the police - and ended weeks of ... forced prostitution for the victim. Kylla Lanier says that Kimmel's actions "epitomizes the mission" of her group, Truckers Against Trafficking. She founded the group with her mother and three sisters a few years ago. "Trafficking happens everywhere," Lanier says. "It's happening in homes, in conference centers, at schools, casinos, truck stops, hotels, motels, everywhere. You know, it's an everywhere problem, but truckers happen to be everywhere." And these days TAT stickers, wallet cards and posters - showing a phone number for a sex trafficking hotline - are becoming ubiquitous in the trucking industry. TAT teaches drivers to try to spot sullen, hopeless-looking children, teens and young adults. Jacobs managed to escape her life of forced prostitution. Now she counsels other survivors and works with TAT. Calls to the hotline [promoted by TAT] have freed hundreds of trafficking victims.
Note: Watch this inspiring video to see how these truckers are saving lives.
In 2014, a man testified that Penn State football coach Joe Paterno ignored his complaints of a sexual assault committed by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky in 1976 when the man was a 14-year-old boy, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday. Four other former assistant football coaches at the school also were aware of Sandusky acting inappropriately with boys before law enforcement was first notified in 1998, according to testimony contained in the documents. The allegations suggest that Paterno may have been made aware of Sandusky’s actions far earlier than has previously been reported, and that knowledge of Sandusky’s behavior may have been far more widespread among the Penn State football staff than previously known. The trove of documents unsealed Tuesday came from a legal dispute between the university and an insurance company over the responsibility for nearly $93 million the school paid in settlements with victims. Additionally, the Paterno family is suing the NCAA for defamation and commercial disparagement; the NCAA is considering using some of the information released Tuesday in its defense. In the Penn State community, an alumni group is pushing for a bronze statue of Paterno to be restored on campus, and for the university to repudiate a 2012 report by former FBI director Louis Freeh that blamed Paterno, other university leaders and a “culture of reverence for the football program” for Sandusky’s rampant sexual abuse.
Note: Read more about how senior Penn State officials covered up Sandusky's crimes due to fears of bad publicity. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The co-founder of the vigilante border patrol group known as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was sentenced on Monday to 19 1/2 years in an Arizona prison for molesting a five-year-old girl who was the friend of his daughter, prosecutors said. Christopher Allen Simcox, 55, who helped form the Minuteman militia group in 2005, received the sentence following a hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix stemming from his contact with the girl between April 2012 and May 2013. Simcox, whose group devoted itself to patrolling the United States-Mexico border in search of immigrants trying to cross illegally into Arizona and reporting them to authorities, was convicted in June on two felony counts of child molestation. He also was found guilty of a single felony count of providing obscene material to a minor. Authorities said he molested the girl during parental visits with one of his daughters and showed the victim pornographic movies. Simcox, who acted as his own attorney during his trial, was acquitted of three counts of the more serious offense of engaging in sexual conduct with another girl, who was six years old. Those charges carried a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Simcox helped form a border watch group that for several years ... patrolled in southern Arizona, reporting suspected illegal border crossers to the U.S. Border Patrol before disbanding in 2010.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Dawn Marie Basham answers the phone in tears. Less than a week earlier, prosecutors had dropped charges against the Delray Beach doctor she said sexually assaulted her during an office visit. Basham feels alone, but she is far from it. Other women say they are sexually victimized by their physician. And while some South Florida doctors eventually lose or give up their licenses, others continue to practice even after they admit to sexual misconduct on a patient, a Palm Beach Post investigation led by its sister newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, found. A convoluted complaint system in Florida can end up protecting these doctors, giving them every opportunity to mitigate discipline. “I feel I failed somehow. I didn’t get any justice,” Basham says of her criminal sexual battery case against Dr. Manuel Abreu. The case fell apart when Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Charles Burton barred other alleged victims from testifying. Now she waits ... to see whether the Florida Department of Health acts on her complaint against Abreu, hoping, she says, he loses his ability to practice. Potential patients researching Abreu on the state Board of Medicine’s website would see his license listed as clear and active. They would have no idea whether the state acted when Abreu was arrested on sexual battery charges in March 2015 after Basham and eight other women sued the doctor for sexual battery. It can be years before an administrative complaint shows up on an accused doctor’s disciplinary record.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
More than 2,400 U.S. doctors have been sanctioned for sexually abusing their patients, according to a new report that, for the first time, surveyed records from all 50 states and reveals the nationwide scope of a problem that may be almost as far-reaching as the scandal involving Catholic priests. State medical boards, which oversee physicians, allowed more than half the sanctioned doctors to keep their licenses even after the accusations of sexual abuse were determined to be true, according to a yearlong investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We found a culture of secrecy,” said Carrie Teegardin, a reporter on the paper’s investigative team. Even after being convicted of sex crimes and losing their licenses, doctors are often able to reapply to practice again. The Journal-Constitution investigation began with a story about one Georgia doctor that led to efforts to document the problem nationwide. By combing through news reports, state medical board records and court files going back 16 years, the Journal-Constitution's reporters compiled a list of physicians who were either convicted in criminal cases or disciplined by state medical boards. Many of the doctors were accused by large numbers of their patients, in most cases females being seen by male doctors. “One thing we found that was shocking to us is some of these doctors are the most prolific sex offenders in the country, with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of victims,” Teegardin said.
Note: For more on this, see this excellent article from Atlanta's leading newspaper. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In a national investigation, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined documents that described disturbing acts of physician sexual abuse in every state. Rapes by OB/GYNs, seductions by psychiatrists, fondling by anesthesiologists and ophthalmologists, and molestations by pediatricians and radiologists. A few physicians — with hundreds of victims — are among the nation’s worst sex offenders. The Roman Catholic Church, the military, the Boy Scouts, colleges and universities ... have all withered under the spotlight of sexual misconduct scandals and promised that abuse will no longer be swept under the rug. The medical profession, however, has never taken on sexual misconduct as a significant priority. And layer upon layer of secrecy makes it nearly impossible for the public, or even the medical community itself, to know the extent of physician sexual abuse. The AJC launched its national investigation a year ago after reaching a surprising finding in Georgia: two-thirds of the doctors disciplined in the state for sexual misconduct were permitted to practice again. Some states are apparently more forgiving than others when disciplining doctors in sexual misconduct cases. Georgia and Kansas, for example, allowed two of every three doctors publicly disciplined for sexual misconduct to return to practice. In Minnesota, it was four of every five. Nationwide, the AJC found that of the 2,400 doctors publicly disciplined for sexual misconduct, half still have active medical licenses today.
Note: If you live in the US, see how well your state does in protecting patients from sexual abuse using this chart. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
In public, Louis William Bair was brilliant, warm and engaging. In private ... women would later tell of groping, of vulgar comments and of aggressive, closed-door sex in his office. Bair was a doctor, and the women were his patients. Sexual contact between doctors and patients in Colorado, as in other states, is prohibited. But when Bair drew the attention of the Colorado Medical Board in 2002, it wasn’t because of violations. It was because the governor chose him to serve on the board, where he could help judge disciplinary cases for other physicians. Bair’s dual existence illustrates one of the most surprising findings of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation of sexual misconduct by doctors. Among those found to have sexually abused patients are some of the most accomplished and admired – revered, even – physicians in the country. Their violations range from subjecting patients to lewd remarks ... to rape. Often, despite significant evidence to the contrary, doctors balk at acknowledging they have done anything wrong , whether they have victimized a sole patient or hundreds. They may say they were helping their victims, or that they weren’t even doing anything sexual. Bair ... liked to revel in his sexual exploits, sipping scotch with his friend Kent Black, bragging about how good he was in bed. Black recounted to the investigator that he once warned Bair that someday, someone would turn him in. But ... Bair had a ready response: That was "'the benefit of sitting on the board,'" Bair quipped. "'You can quash this stuff'."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
Sexual abuse scandals at American institutions like the Boy Scouts and the military have made headlines, and forced reforms. Now, with the publication of a year-long investigation by reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the medical community is facing similar scrutiny. But perhaps no such scandal has drawn as much attention as the one that rocked the Catholic Church, after the Boston Globe uncovered the true extent of the Church leadership's long cover-up of its problem. As AJC reporters looked into sexual abuse within the medical community, they saw parallels with the church scandal. More significantly, the two cultures have one chief issue in common: secrecy. Secrecy underlies almost all of the proceedings surrounding complaints of sexual misconduct by physicians. The justice system is geared to let the public know when a potentially dangerous problem arises in their community. If the accused is later cleared, then that gets reported, too. In contrast, the medical disciplinary system, like church procedure before it, is usually geared to protecting the identities of everyone concerned. In Colorado, for example, even a patient may not come back to the medical board after filing a complaint and request information about his or her own complaint. One reason the AJC undertook this project was to let all patients know that there are things they can do to protect themselves. The first is to know how an intimate medical exam is supposed to proceed: read about it here.
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
The nation’s largest medical society says it has zero tolerance for doctors who sexually abuse patients. But ... the association does not favor the automatic revocation of the medical license of every doctor who commits sexual abuse of a patient. It does not expel every offender from its membership rolls. It has never independently researched the prevalence of sexual abuse in clinical settings. Twenty-six years ago it declared sexual misconduct a breach of medical ethics, but since then it has remained all but mute on the issue. It has, however, fought to keep confidential a federal database of physicians disciplined for sexual misconduct and other transgressions. When a proposal to open the database emerged in Congress, a former House staff member said, the AMA “crushed it like a bug.” Patient advocates say the AMA and other medical organizations have shown reluctance to confront the scope and impact of sexual misconduct, further exacerbating the problem. “At some point the profession has to take responsibility to accept that there are things that need to be done in regard to protecting patients,” said Lisa McGiffert, manager of the Safe Patient Project for the advocacy group Consumers Union. “It’s always been puzzling to me that doctors don’t collectively say, ‘We don’t want these bad apples in our profession. They give us a bad name.’”
Note: See a list of powerful articles revealing egregious and rampant sexual abuse by doctors around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
During a career spanning nearly 30 years in Georgia, Dr. William Almon has reinvented himself in numerous ways in numerous places. What hasn’t changed is his ability to practice medicine. In three different settings, Almon faced allegations that he sexually violated extremely vulnerable female patients — a suicidal soldier, jail inmates, a mentally ill woman and a child of 14 — and every time was effectively given a pass. Of the thousands of cases reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in its investigation of physician sexual misconduct, few show the forces that protect offending doctors more dramatically. At Fort Gordon outside Augusta ... he admitted that he had sex with a hospitalized patient. The patient, a private, was found immediately afterward on the floor of her hospital room, curled up and crying. The Army ... allowed him to resign in lieu of facing a court-martial. At the Augusta jail ... he was charged with sexually abusing three inmates. prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges. And at WellStar’s East Paulding Primary Care Center, where Almon was hired even though corporate officials knew of his background, he was accused of molesting two patients. One was a woman who is schizophrenic. The other was a 14-year-old girl. The charges could have brought a prison sentence, but prosecutors allowed the doctor to plead no contest to misdemeanor counts of battery and sexual battery and receive probation. Then the Georgia Composite Medical Board negotiated an agreement that let him continue practicing.
Note: Watch a video produced by AJC for more details on this egregious case. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
No red flags were apparent when the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine checked Dr. Jaroslav “Jerry” Stulc’s background in 2007. But within months of joining a hospital staff, the surgeon was accused of sexual misconduct. The hospital ... suspended him with pay. Then, while he was out, the hospital and medical board learned that Stulc previously had been suspended by a Kentucky hospital following allegations of sexual misconduct. Skirting federal rules, the Kentucky hospital hadn’t reported his suspension or subsequent resignation to the nationwide database established for hospitals and medical boards to share information on physician misconduct. Instead, just before Stulc applied for his Maine license, he and the hospital had agreed that he would voluntarily resign. The hospital wouldn’t mention the suspension ... to anyone who inquired. Such private agreements, along with legal loopholes and outright flouting of the law, are among the reasons the nationwide repository - the National Practitioner Data Bank - can leave patients and medical staff vulnerable, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found. Even when hospitals and medical boards file reports, they may classify violations in a way that conceals the scope of physician sexual misconduct. Because of such gaps, the AJC - in reviewing board orders, court records and news reports - found about 70 percent more physicians accused of sexual misconduct than the 466 classified as such in the public version of the data bank from 2010 to 2014.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and health.
A key member of the Scottish government's child abuse inquiry has resigned, saying it is "doomed" by government interference. Psychology professor Michael Lamb said there had been "repeated threats" to the independence of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry. The major review is scheduled to last four years, but has been criticised by survivors of abuse. The inquiry, which concerns historical allegations of child abuse in Scotland, will examine the extent of abuse of children in care, and identify any systemic failures. It launched a formal call for evidence in March, but has already heard from some seriously ill or very elderly survivors. Mr Lamb - one of three members of the panel, alongside chairwoman Susan O'Brien QC and Glenn Houston - said the project had "noble and worthy goals", but that it was ultimately "doomed". In a letter to Education Secretary John Swinney, he said: "It has become increasingly clear over the last nine months that the panel cannot act independently and that the Scottish government intends to continue interfering in ways large and small, directly and indirectly. Continuing interference threatens to prevent the inquiry from investigating thoroughly and taking robust evidence of the highest quality. The Scottish government has delayed or prevented the appointment of crucial members of staff for prolonged periods of time while its officials have questioned the decisions made by the supposedly independent inquiry."
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
Tailyn Wang was two months pregnant when federal police officers broke into her house in Mexico City, ripped off her nightgown and threw her to the ground. They groped her breasts while punching and kicking her in front of her terrified children, before taking her blindfolded to a police base – without an arrest warrant. Wang is one of scores of innocent women illegally arrested and tortured by Mexican security services looking to boost arrest figures to justify the war on drugs, according to damning new research by Amnesty International. Of the 100 women interviewed for the report, 72 said they were sexually abused during or soon after the arrest. Ten of the women were pregnant when arrested; eight subsequently suffered a miscarriage. The vast majority were young, poor, single mothers. Most spend years in prison awaiting trial, without access to adequate healthcare or legal advice. Wang, who has reported the torture to judges, prosecutors, doctors, and the National Commission for Human Rights, was falsely accused by an acquaintance, a local police officer, after he was also tortured. Reports of torture have increased exponentially in Mexico since former President Felipe Calderón first deployed tens of thousands of armed forces on the streets to combat warring drug cartels and organised crime. The navy, which has been deployed in some of the most violent states ... appears to have a particularly serious torture problem. Among the women interviewed by Amnesty, eight out of the ten arrested by the navy were raped.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing police corruption and sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Teenage recruits were raped by staff and forced to rape each other as part of initiation practices in the Australian military going back to 1960, a public inquiry heard on Tuesday. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse is hearing evidence from men and women who say they were sexually abused when they were as young as 15, in certain divisions of the Australian defense force. This commission is focusing on alleged abuse at the naval training center HMAS Leeuwin in Western Australia and the army apprentice school Balcombe in Victoria during the 1960s, '70s and '80s and also among cadets with the Australian defense force since 2000. In total, 111 victims came forward to report abuse. More than a dozen of them will give evidence to the inquiry. "On multiple occasions, I was snatched from my bed in the middle of the night by older recruits and dragged to a sports oval," said one male witness who wasn't named. The witness said he was forced to rape other recruits, and was raped himself by older recruits and staff. "The environment made it useless to resist," he said. "One could stand only so much abuse before realizing that saying 'no' was pointless." Many survivors say that when they reported the abuse, they were ignored, punished, or told it was "a rite of passage" in their initiation period. The inquiry also will hear evidence from former and current staff members, and examine the handling of complaints and the responses to claims for compensation.
Note: Watch videos providing powerful evidence rape has also been used to initiate future officers in the US Marine Corps. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Pennsylvania’s Attorney General Kathleen Kane is used to going up against criminals, not her own colleagues. But after she helped expose an email scandal in the state government, her career has been in jeopardy. In 2014, Kane’s office released close to 400 pages of emails between state government employees, including some high-ranking state officials, exchanged on the state’s email server that were full of racism, sexism and pornography. The scandal was dubbed Porngate, and Kane said it involved a number of judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials. “I couldn’t believe there was violence involved, and I couldn’t believe this wasn’t just some Playboy photos ... 398 pages, much of it hard-core porn,” Kane told “Nightline.” When she exposed the state email scandal ...Pennsylvania’s political good old boys club was furious [with Kane] and came after her. Amid calls for her resignation from Gov. Tom Wolf, the Montgomery County prosecutor charged Kane in August 2015 with perjury, obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy. The state Supreme Court has suspended her law license over these charges, and she could face jail time. Kane said it’s revenge from those good old boys in the email scandal.
Note: Ms. Kane was found guilty on all charges, which is no surprise considering the good old boys all rallied behind this. Yet the fact the all major media reported her conviction and resignation while not even mentioning that this was retaliation is proof of the sad way our mass media is controlled. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing judicial corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Catholic church in Pennsylvania has been accused of employing “mafia-like” tactics in a campaign to put pressure on individual Catholic lawmakers who support state legislation that would give victims of sexual abuse more time to sue their abusers. The lobbying campaign ... is being led by Philadelphia archbishop Charles Chaput, a staunch conservative who recently created a stir after inadvertently sending an email to a state representative Jamie Santora, in which he accused the lawmaker of “betraying” the church and said Santora would suffer “consequences” for his support of the legislation. The email has infuriated some Catholic lawmakers, who say they voted their conscience in support of the legislation on behalf of sexual abuse victims. At stake ... is a state bill that would allow victims of sexual abuse to file civil claims against their abusers, and those who knew of abuse, until they are 50 years old. Critics of Chaput’s strategy say the archbishop used the same tactics to successfully derail similar legislation in Colorado, where he previously served as archbishop. Joan Fitz-Gerald, the former Democratic head of the state senate in Colorado who had introduced the bill, recalled it was the most vicious and difficult experience of her life, with Chaput allegedly telling one of his lobbyists that he did not believe Fitz-Gerald would be going to heaven. “He is the most vehement supporter of the secrecy of the Catholic church over pedophiles,” Fitz-Gerald said.
Note: ABC News recently reported that one Roman Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania is under investigation for racketeering due to its organized effort to cover up sex crimes by corrupting and wielding influence over government officials. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
The Roman Catholic Church in New York has spent millions of dollars in recent years to stop a law that would make it easier for victims of child sex abuse to sue their attackers. The state’s Catholic Conference has hired some of New York’s most influential lobbying firms. They spent more than $2.1 million from 2007 through 2015 lobbying against the Child Victims Act and for or against other bills, according to state records. The Child Victims Act ... would eliminate the statute of limitations that currently requires victims to file civil lawsuits by age 23. The bill has been gaining bipartisan support in the New York Legislature, but it does not yet have enough votes, and time is running out as the legislative session is set to end June 16. The Catholic Church in the U.S. and around the world has been dealing with accusations of sexual abuse for years, and other archdioceses around the country have also spent money lobbying against child sexual abuse accountability laws, the Guardian reported. “They are willing to spend limitless money in order to basically keep bad guys from being accountable for their actions,” Melanie Blow, chief operations officer of the Stop Abuse Campaign, told the Daily News.
Note: The New York Daily News reported that one politician refused a $5,000 bribe from a bishop in exchange for dropping her support for the reform of a state law preventing victims of child sexual abuse from seeking justice. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
Corey Feldman, who has opened up in the past about being molested by multiple Hollywood bigwigs, said he believes the problem of producer pedophiles is bigger today in age of social media. He’s also said one of his abusers is “still prominently in the business today.” Gabe Hoffman is the executive producer of “An Open Secret,” a 2015 documentary that investigated child molesters in Hollywood, and he echoed Feldman’s sentiments. "Young people, both boys and girls looking to work in Hollywood are at great risk from sexual predators,” he [said]. Psychologist Dr. Judith Zackson concurred. “The Internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for young, vulnerable stars,” she said. “Internet profiles provide an anonymous platform for pedophiles to study their victim’s personal information and patterns to assist in their ‘grooming’ process - pedophiles develop a relationship with their victims through enticing dialogue filled with promises that promote the young stars dream.” Pop culture expert Cate Meighan said the Internet lets abusers reach out to victims more easily. “Back in the ‘80s it really was quite different in that these people had to wait until child stars were brought into their circle to have access to them,” she said. “Now, they have the ability to hand pick potential targets and probably at a much younger age too.” Feldman has been vocal in the past regarding pedophilia in Hollywood. In 2011, he said it was “the number one problem in Hollywood” claiming it to be “the big secret” plaguing the industry.
Note: Don't miss the incredible film "An Open Secret" which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. The entire "Secret Societies in Hollywood" series is available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Elijah Wood called out child exploitation in Hollywood earlier this week. He later made it clear that he was not speaking from personal experience. But Corey Feldman wants people to know that he knows about Hollywood's child abuse problem firsthand. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Feldman said he was molested as a child actor, and that his best friend Corey Haim was raped at the age of 11. He said that he has had to go through "a lot of therapy" to cope with his traumatic childhood; the actor said his molestations came "from several hands." "Ask anybody in our group of kids at that time: They were passing us back and forth to each other," said Feldman, adding that grown men in Hollywood would host parties and invite mostly kids aged 10 to 16 with just a few adults in the mix. "[Alison Arngrim] from 'Little House on the Prairie' said [in an interview], 'Everybody knew that the two Coreys were just being passed around.' Like it was something people joked about on studio lots." Feldman added that he still can't imagine what it was like for Haim to have been raped. "My son is 11 now, and I can't even begin to fathom the idea of something like that happening to him," he said. Feldman said that while he would love to name names, he was afraid to do so because of the legal conundrum it would inflict on him, but he said he has bumped into one of his molesters several times and has never confronted him.
Note: Don't miss the incredible film "An Open Secret" which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. The entire "Secret Societies in Hollywood" series is available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Before Elijah Wood starred as Frodo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, he was a child actor - and now he's making some explosive allegations. The actor ... is accusing [Hollywood] of having a pedophilia problem. "Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organized. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind," he said. "There is darkness in the underbelly. What bums me about these situations is that the victims can't speak as loudly as the people in power. That's the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged. "If you're innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed," he went on. "People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey." As a child, Wood starred alongside Macaulay Culkin in "The Good Son" and appeared in a remake of "Flipper." He said his mother, Debra, protected him from the dangers of Hollywood as a child, and he "never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on." He added that he's been "led down dark paths to realize that these things probably are still happening." Wood's comments come after allegations against Woody Allen resurfaced in the past month.
Note: Actor Corey Feldman said that pedophilia is Hollywood's "No. 1 problem" in a story that appeared on ABC's Nightline in 2012. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The scariest part of Emily Vorland’s relatively uneventful 2009 deployment to Iraq was that the enemy wore Army green. When a higher-ranking male officer sexually harassed her, her commander told Vorland to file a formal complaint. So she did. The investigation ... concluded she had “acted inappropriately,” engaged in consensual sex and was lying about it. A lesbian, she was concerned that her best defense was one that would end her military career. The Army [discharged her] for “unacceptable conduct.” Even as the military scrambles under congressional pressure to prevent future cases of sexual abuse, past victims are suffering for having stood up for themselves. Thousands of victims have been pushed out of the service with less-than-honorable discharges, which can leave them with no or reduced benefits, poor job prospects and a lifetime of stigma. Worse, when they try to rectify their situation, as Vorland did, fewer than 10% of them succeed, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch estimates. “Military personnel who report a sexual assault frequently find that their military career is the biggest casualty,” the group says in a new report. 163 veterans [were] ousted from the military between 1966 and 2015 after complaining about sexual abuse, ranging from harassment to rape. “Our interviews suggest that all too often superior officers choose to expeditiously discharge sexual-assault victims rather than support their recovery and help them keep their position,” the study says.
Note: A 2015 Associated Press article states that: "the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is vastly underreported." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender’s infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express” - even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights. Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 ... was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls. Epstein, who counts among his pals royal figures, heads of state, celebrities and fellow billionaires ... allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends. In 2006, at the request of Palm Beach Police, the FBI launched a federal probe into allegations that Epstein and his personal assistants had “used facilities of interstate commerce to induce girls between the ages of 14 and 17 to engage in illegal sexual activities.” The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida prepared charging documents that accused Epstein of child sex abuse, witness tampering and money laundering, but Epstein took a plea deal. On Sept. 24, 2007, in a deal shrouded in secrecy that left alleged victims shocked at its leniency, Epstein agreed to a 30-month sentence, including 18 months of jail time and 12 months of house arrest and the agreement to pay dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse. In exchange, the U.S. Attorney’s Office promised not to pursue any federal charges against Epstein or his co-conspirators.
Note: Watch an excellent video with transcript about Epstein's secret operation. Read more about the child sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The US Catholic church has poured millions of dollars over the past decade into opposing accountability measures for victims of clergy sex abuse, according to state lobbying disclosures. The lobbying funds have gone toward opposing bills in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland that would extend statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases or grant temporary civil windows for victims whose opportunities for civil action have already passed. In Pennsylvania, house representative Mark Rozzi, who was abused as a child by a Catholic priest, has led a campaign to extend the age before which child abuse victims can bring on cases. In New York, assemblywoman Margaret Markey is pushing to grant a temporary one-year window for those whose statute of limitations has already expired. “Many child sex abuse cases are done gradually, under the guise of love or sex education, and so what happens is most victims don’t even realize until literally decades later,” said David Clohessy, a director with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Since 2007, the New York bishops’ lobbying arms have poured more than $1.1m into “issues associated with timelines for commencing certain civil actions related to sex offenses”. During this same time period, bishops’ conferences spent millions on lobbyists in states where the church is actively opposing similar legislative proposals. Opposition efforts ultimately thwarted statute of limitations reform efforts in those states.
Note: Read more about the Catholic church's effort to prevent victims of child sexual abuse from seeking justice. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
After four years of feuding over the legacy of Joe Paterno, with a few vague details about what he may have known about allegations of sexual abuse by one of his coaches, it is becoming clear there may be much more. There are now two allegations by men who say they were sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky, who also say they reported their abuse to the legendary coach in the 1970s. One of those allegations was made public in a court order related to a lawsuit ... over who should have to pay settlements to the more than 30 men who have come forward as victims of Sandusky. The other [allegation's source] has spoken to CNN, in great detail, explaining how he was a troubled young kid in 1971 when he was raped in a Penn State bathroom by Jerry Sandusky. Then, he says, his complaint about it was ignored by Paterno. "I'd be willing to sit on a witness stand and confront Joe Paterno," he told CNN last year. "Unfortunately he died and I didn't get to." This man ... was just 15 in 1971 when he says Sandusky raped him. Sandusky was 27, a budding public figure ... and was one year into his tenure as an assistant linebacker coach. This was long before he started his now-closed children's charity, The Second Mile, which prosecutors would later call his victim factory. Until now, the only public allegations about Paterno's knowledge of Sandusky's crimes involved a 1998 police report which initially went nowhere, and a 2001 report by Mike McQueary, one of Paterno's assistant coaches.
Note: Read more about how senior Penn State officials covered up Sandusky's crimes due to fears of bad publicity. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Former House speaker Dennis Hastert, who less than a decade ago stood second in line to the presidency, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison Wednesday for a bank fraud case linked to allegations he sexually abused teen boys more than 30 years ago. Federal Judge Thomas Durkin called Hastert, 74, a "serial child molester" and rejected a prosecutor's recommendation of six months in prison on a banking charge that carries a maximum five-year sentence. The court also fined Hastert $250,000 and sentenced him to two years of supervised release after leaving prison. Hastert must register as a sex offender. "Nothing is more disturbing than having 'serial child molester' and 'Speaker of the House' in the same sentence," Durkin said, [acknowledging] he could not sentence Hastert "for being a child molester" and that his sentence would "pale in comparison" to what the former lawmaker would have faced had he been convicted of state charges for sexual abuse of a child. Under current Illinois law, Hastert would have faced between three and seven years in state prison if convicted of a single count of sexual misconduct with a minor. The sentencing completes the spectacular fall of a former small-town high school coach who rose to lead Congress.
Note: Read an article on how the main men behind the impeachment of Bill Clinton, including Hastert, have all been caught having affairs. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Since 2013, lawmakers have tried to pass a bill that would reform key parts of how the military justice system deals with sexual assault, but during key stages of the legislative debate, the Pentagon misled Congress by “cherry picking” information, later disproved, about a hundred cases, according to a report released by a watchdog group Monday and provided to the Associated Press. At issue is the Military Justice Improvement Act, or MIJA, [which] aimed to change how the military treated sexual-assault cases by basically removing unit commands from the judicial process that decided whether cases should move forward. During testimony to Congress, Navy Adm. James Winnefeld, then the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that if the bill passed, fewer sexual-assault cases in the military would go to trial. He claimed that between 2010 and 2013 there were 93 instances of civilian prosecutors refusing to take certain sexual-assault cases, prompting military commanders to insist on taking them to court-martial. Winnefeld’s claims, echoed by at least four senators, were largely untrue. Out of 81 of the 93 cases, “there was not one example of a commander ‘insisting’ a case be prosecuted,” the report says. “In each case, military investigators or military attorneys requested the case from civilian authorities.” The report goes on to say that in two-thirds of the 93 cases, “there was no sexual-assault allegation, civilian prosecutors never declined the case, or the military failed to prosecute for sexual assault.”
Note: A 2015 Associated Press article states that: "the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is vastly underreported." The above article shows that corrupt military officials have lied to Congress to keep it that way. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Sexual violence in war “is as destructive as any bomb or bullet”, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said a couple of years ago. As he was uttering these words, the UN’s own peacekeepers were themselves carrying out the most appalling abuse. In 2014, when Mr Ban was speaking out on behalf of the victims, three girls in the Central African Republic have alleged they were tied up and forced to have sex with a dog by a French military commander. There were no fewer than 99 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by the “blue helmets” – as UN military personnel are nicknamed – last year, and there have been 25 new claims this year. This isn’t the first time such claims have surfaced about the conduct of UN peacekeepers. There was an alleged paedophile ring in the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN police officers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and trafficking young women from Eastern Europe, and Pakistani peacekeepers were found guilty of sexual abuse in Haiti. There’s a track record going back decades. In January, an independent review into the abuses accused the UN of failing to respond to allegations of child abuse against the peacekeepers. The UN’s response? Last month, the Security Council passed its first ever resolution to tackle sexual abuse by its peacekeepers. Military or police units would be repatriated “where there is credible evidence of widespread or systemic sexual exploitation and abuse”. Is that really the best the UN can do?
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A cybersecurity taskforce chief turned child pornography collector seems poised to dodge prison. Before agents arrived at his house across from Ballard’s West Woodland Elementary School ... Brian Haller led the Seattle chapter of an FBI/private-sector group tasked with fighting computer crime. Haller had access to a secure FBI online platform and email system, though he is not alleged to have used either to collect child porn. Haller was one of the smaller fish caught in an expansive FBI sting last year. Agents found the law enforcement insider used a “dark web” service – a Tor network site – to collect 600 files capturing the sexual abuse and exploitation of countless children. Usually, Haller’s crimes could carry a five-year prison term. Instead, federal prosecutors have asked that Haller, 40, be spared even jail time when he is sentenced Friday for possession of child pornography. The standard sentencing range for a defendant like Haller is four to five years in federal prison. [Haller] was identified through a wide-ranging, controversial sting operation [that] has prompted charges against more than 130 others, including a Vancouver special education worker and a Fort Lewis soldier.
Note: It was reported in 2012 that two US states appeared to be "running state-protected child trafficking rings, with evidence of cops, judges, lawyers, clergy and government employees covering for each other." Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
A federal prosecutor may file a racketeering lawsuit against a Roman Catholic diocese where a state grand jury found two former bishops helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 clergy over a 40-year period. The ongoing investigation of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese grew out of the prosecution of the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., U.S. Attorney David Hickton said Friday, [and] concerns whether diocesan officials engaged in a pattern of criminal activity that would fall under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO. Hickton's comments came on the heels of a grand jury report released last month by state Attorney General Kathleen Kane. That grand jury was especially critical of Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. The grand jury found Hogan, in particular, held sway over police and prosecutors in the diocese and often reassigned priests accused of molesting children instead of removing them from duty. Adamec threatened accusers with excommunication and generally worked harder to hide or settle abuse allegations than to discipline the priests accused. Kane's report grew out of allegations that a Franciscan friar ... molested dozens of students at a school in the diocese from 1992 to 2000.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
On the north side of Telegraph Hill is 225 Chestnut St., a swanky modernist building. From 1955 to 1965, this building was the site of “Operation Midnight Climax” - a top-secret mind-control program in which CIA agents used hookers to lure unsuspecting johns from North Beach bars to what they called “the pad,” then dosed the men with LSD and observed the X-rated goings-on through a two-way mirror. As John Marks notes in his 1977 book, “The Search for the ‘Manchurian Candidate’: The CIA and Mind Control,” the CIA’s ... predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services, set up a “truth drug” program whose purpose was to discover a substance that would make subjects reveal their secrets. When the CIA was created in 1947, it ... authorized covert mind and behavior control programs. Drugs were given to people deemed expendable, including North Korean POWs, mental patients, prisoners, addicts and prostitutes. Before the programs were shot down, hundreds of scientists would work on them. [In] 1953, CIA director Allen Dulles approved a program for “covert use of biological and chemical materials” with an initial budget of $300,000. Its name: MKULTRA. CIA operatives began dosing people with acid in restaurants, bars and beaches. They also used other, more exotic drugs. And the agency began using the prostitutes to lure men of all sorts, not just marginal figures, back to the safe house. Because the agency destroyed most of MKULTRA’s files, no one will ever know how many lives and minds [it] damaged or destroyed.
Note: Don't miss the entire, revealing article. For more on CIA mind control experiments, see the extensive documentation on this page. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center.
The U.S. military has stepped up investigations of high-ranking officers for sexual assault. The Defense Department ... has revamped its policies to prevent sexual assault and to hold perpetrators accountable. During the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 116 officers of all stripes were court-martialed, discharged or received some sort of punishment after they were criminally investigated for sexual assault. That was more than double the number from three years earlier. Of last year’s cases, eight were against senior officers holding a rank equivalent to colonel or Navy captain or higher. While that figure may seem small, it represented a fourfold increase from 2012. Overall, the vast majority of troops investigated for sexual assault are enlisted personnel, who accounted for 94 percent of all cases last year. Enlisted troops outnumber officers by a ratio of 4.6 to 1. Under the military justice system, senior officers are responsible for deciding whether individuals under their command should be prosecuted. Some lawmakers and advocacy groups are pushing to strip commanders of that power and to give it instead to uniformed prosecutors. The Pentagon has resisted such proposals, saying they would undermine command authority. When senior officers themselves are charged with sexual assault, it “makes it appear as if the fox was guarding the henhouse,” said [Don] Christensen, the president of Protect Our Defenders, which has lobbied Congress to change the law.
Note: A 2015 Associated Press article states that: "the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is vastly underreported." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Rape in war is as old as war itself. But the intimate nature of sexual assault means that the horrors often go undocumented, sanitized out of history books and glossed over in news accounts. Yet that mass rape is so common in wartime only makes it more corrosive. The U.N. reports that 200,000 Congolese women and children have been raped during Congo’s long-simmering conflict. Estimates for South Sudan are in the thousands. Both numbers are likely too low, says Pablo Castillo-Diaz, a specialist on sexual violence in conflict for U.N. Women. “Rape is one of the most underreported war crimes that there are. Women, if they survive the attack, rarely tell anyone else. We only hear of the most brutal incidences or the public ones that the whole community sees.” But that’s begun to change. Rape may be a common war tactic, but it was only prosecuted as a crime against humanity in 1998, by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, following the discovery of the rape camps used by Serb soldiers during the Bosnian war. At the same time, Rwandan officials were also charged with rape as a war crime during that country’s 1994 genocidal conflict. Widespread media coverage of both trials drew international condemnation. Talking about rape in war became less taboo. Recently ... ISIS’s sale of Yezidi women as sexual slaves in Iraq and Syria, and Boko Haram’s abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls for forced marriages in Nigeria, have pushed survivors and activists to demand a real global response to a war crime with consequences so enduring it all but precludes peace.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A sordid scandal involving a male prostitution ring within Colombia’s national police force has gripped the country in both fascination and disgust. The scandal so far has claimed the head of the police chief, a deputy minister and a prominent journalist and unveiled a web of corruption, sexual harassment and influence peddling that has eroded the public confidence in the police. At the centre of the affair is what has been described as a homosexual male prostitution network run by senior police officials, known as the “Fellowship of the Ring”, which allegedly operated within the police academy between 2004 and 2008. Officers and congressmen allegedly paid for sexual services from cadets with cars, gifts and large sums of money. The existence of the ring first came to light in 2014 when it was revealed that at least 10 former cadets had testified in an investigation into the suspicious death in 2006 of a female cadet at the academy, which was first labeled a suicide. The cadet, Maritza Zapata, had uncovered the existence of the ring and – according to her family – may have lost her life over it. Public interest in the case was renewed late last year when an influential radio journalist, Vicky Dávila, began airing testimonies from police cadets recounting incidents of sexual harassment by senior members of the National Police. After airing some of the testimonies, Dávila complained that her phones were being tapped and laid responsibility squarely on the police ... leading to Dávila’s apparently forced resignation.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption.
There is no evidence that child abuse is any more likely to occur in ultra-Orthodox schools than in public or secular institutions. [But] stories like [Joseph] Reizes’s - an alleged abuser sheltered and victims unwilling to talk for fear of losing the only way of life they know - are common in the Hasidic school system. The many former students, advocates, sociologists, social workers and survivors interviewed by Newsweek, along with recordings, documents, public filings and personal emails that Newsweek obtained, place the blame on a confluence of factors: widespread sexual repression, a strong resistance to the secular world, and, most important, a power structure designed to keep people from speaking up about abuse. When you’re a child in this environment, you don’t question the fact that you can’t identify your own state on a map. And when you are molested, you don’t ask questions about that either. In the ultra-Orthodox world, sexuality is simultaneously denied and monitored to the point of obsession. Starting in childhood, boys and girls are separated; the opposite gender remains a mystery until it’s time to marry, usually in an arranged pairing. Boys are taught to avoid looking at girls, while girls are taught that they are a source of sex and transgression, say former members of the Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox Jewish, community. If children aren’t taught by their parents and teachers about appropriate sexual behavior, they have no way to sense when touching turns into something that is wrong.
Note: An investigation into similar patterns of abuse and cover-up led Australia's top Rabbi to resign in 2015. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Two Roman Catholic bishops who led a central Pennsylvania diocese helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 priests or religious leaders over a 40-year period, according to a grand jury report issued on Tuesday. The 147-page report on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese was based partly on evidence from a secret diocesan archive uncovered through a search warrant executed in August, said Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Kathleen Kane. [Bishop James] Hogan covered up abuse allegations by transferring offending priests, including by sending one accused clergyman to a school for boys. One diocesan official under Hogan, Monsignor Philip Saylor, told the grand jury that church officials held such sway in the eight-county diocese that “the police and civil authorities would often defer to the diocese” when priests were accused of abuse. [Bishop Joseph] Adamec ... worked harder to hide or settle allegations of abuse than to sanction the priests accused of committing them. The bishop created a “pay-out chart” to help guide how much victims would receive from the church. Victims fondled over their clothes were to be paid $10,000 to $25,000; fondled under their clothes or subjected to masturbation, $15,000 to $40,000; subjected to forced oral sex, $25,000 to $75,000; subjected to forced sodomy or intercourse, $50,000 to $175,000. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops estimates that American dioceses have paid nearly $4bn ... to settle claims with victims.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An investigation into the Jimmy Savile sex abuse scandal cleared the BBC of wrongdoing Thursday, even as it painted a damning portrait of an institution where employees were afraid to raise even serious concerns about sexual misconduct for fear of upsetting celebrity talent or making the corporation look bad. Savile, a BBC television presenter and popular charity figure who died in October 2011, is believed to be one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders, often targeting minors. “Celebrities were treated with kid gloves and were virtually untouchable,” said Janet Smith, a former Court of Appeal judge who conducted the inquiry, describing a BBC culture of not wanting to “rock the boat.” Smith said 117 people at the BBC admitted they had heard rumors about Savile, who abused victims on BBC premises, including the venues where his programs “Top of the Pops” and “Jim'll Fix It” were shot. Smith's review said the Savile abuse incidents dated all the way back to 1959. She identified 72 victims of Savile, both male and female. One was only 8 years old. But girls who raised concerns about Savile were treated as a “nuisance.” In one case in 1969, a girl who was molested on the “Top of the Pops” program while standing next to Savile on the podium was “ejected from the building.” The inquiry also concluded that another BBC star, sports presenter Stuart Hall, 86, also used his celebrity to shield his activities, often plying his victims with alcohol. The Hall investigation ... found 21 victims.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
It is just a single line of dialogue from Spotlight. But it could be a movie in itself. It's an allusion to an entire unknown chapter in the history of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandals: the role of the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) in first uncovering the clerical conspiracy to shield abusing priests. “Have you read Jason Berry’s book? He wrote about the Gauthe case,” an abuse survivor asks the team of investigative reporters featured in the film. The survivor ... holds up a copy of Berry’s 1992 book, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children, which expanded on Berry's reporting for the Times of Acadiana in partnership with the NCR. The June 7, 1985, edition of the NCR was earth-shattering. Berry ... published a lengthy piece on Father Gilbert Gauthe’s sexual crimes and their concealment by the highest clerical authorities. In the same issue, reporter Arthur Jones detailed the concealment of pedophile priests throughout America, and NCR wrote an editorial accusing American Catholic bishops of systemic inaction and silence. “The concealment of pedophiles reminded me of the Watergate coverup,” Berry said in a recent essay. By the time The Boston Globe succeeded in bringing the scandal to the attention of the entire world, the NCR had been doggedly covering the story for 17 years, often alone. Secular publications, including The New York Times and The Nation, wouldn’t go near the topic at all. Even the rest of the Catholic press stayed silent.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and the manipulation of public perception.
The head of Colombia's police resigned Wednesday amid accusations of illegal enrichment and sexual misconduct with young cadets that threatened to tarnish the reputation of one of the South American nation's most-prestigious institutions. Gen. Rodolfo Palomino's resignation came a day after Colombia's inspector general opened an administrative probe into the accusations, which surfaced in the media late last year. The accusations against Palomino range from his purchase of a luxury home outside Bogota that was apparently incompatible with his police salary and alleged illegal wiretaps against journalists. But the most damning charges, which have monopolized public attention the past few days, are Palomino's alleged participation in a male prostitution ring, dubbed the "Community of the Ring" by local media, that allegedly forced entry-level cadets to cater to high-ranking officers and even members of congress. Palomino has for months fought accusations by a former colonel that he abused his position for sexual favors years ago. In announcing the probe Tuesday, Inspector General Alejandro Ordonez said authorities obtained testimony and a videotaped conversation from 2008 between a then-senator and police captain that it said corroborates existence of the prostitution ring.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Child sex abuse in the Catholic Church is now widely known. Similar abuses in evangelical communities have not received the same public scrutiny. The February issue of Washingtonian Magazine featured an exposé of long-buried sexual abuse of children in a prominent evangelical church network, Sovereign Grace Ministries. Freelance journalist Tiffany Stanley, a 2015 National Magazine Award finalist, spent 10 months uncovering reports of child rape and molestation in Sovereign Grace churches over the last three decades, particularly in the community of the then-flagship Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Her investigation, “The Sex Scandal that Devastated a Suburban Megachurch,” chronicles the inside story of crimes against children in D.C.-area Sovereign Grace churches, explores how church leaders including founder C.J. Mahaney did and did not respond, and recounts how victims’ mothers joined forces to seek justice. The churches, for the most part, declined to cooperate. Some church leaders expressed that they wanted the story to go away, so the community could move on. Susan Burke, the lawyer for the victims, has said she wants to file another lawsuit in Virginia. That suit wouldn’t involve all the original plaintiffs because some are too old to file suits. It may be too late to get justice for all of the Sovereign Grace plaintiffs, but they want the laws to change for future victims.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A member of a commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on child abuse says the group is a “token body” exercising in “smoke and mirrors” that won’t help children stay safe from abusive priests. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Francis set up with much fanfare in 2014, was supposed to issue guidelines for the Vatican on how to deal with child abuse. But the body was never consulted about the training for new bishops on exactly that topic. The problems come as Pope Francis pays a visit to Latin America, [where] the church is accused of reassigning and protecting many alleged predator priests. GlobalPost recently spent a year investigating the international movement of predator priests. We tracked down several priests who were accused of abuse in the United States or Europe, and later transferred to South America, where they continued to celebrate Mass in poor, remote parishes. Earlier this month, the Vatican released its training guidelines for new priests. Veteran Vatican reporter John L. Allen Jr., an associate editor of the Catholic website Crux, wrote about the guidelines in a column last week. The church official who outlined the rules argued that bishops have “no duty to report allegations [of sexual abuse] to the police,” Allen wrote in his column. Furthermore, the commission - which was set up to advise the church on these matters - wasn’t involved in the creation of the guidelines.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Catholic church is telling newly appointed bishops that it is “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police. A document that spells out how senior clergy members ought to deal with allegations of abuse, which was recently released by the Vatican, emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally. “According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” the training document states. Details of the Catholic church’s policy were first reported in a column by a veteran Vatican journalist, John Allen. Allen noted that a special commission created by Pope Francis, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, had appeared to play no role in the training programme, even though it is supposed to be developing “best practices” to prevent and deal with clerical abuse. The news comes just days after the abuse commission forced one of two abuse survivors who had personally been appointed by Pope Francis to leave the committee following a vote of no confidence. Peter Saunders, a British abuse survivor and vocal critic of the church’s alleged lack of action on abuse, said he was blind-sided by the vote.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Paedophile Trevor Monk paid for the live streaming of child abuse from the Philippines and then travelled there to carry out the abuse himself. His case represents a growing problem of British men ordering abuse over the internet. It is impossible to measure the scale of the problem accurately. But Europol, the European law enforcement agency, says it's no longer "an emerging trend, but an established reality". In 2013 Dutch charity Terre des Hommes decided to find out how bad the situation was. After setting up a fake profile of a Filipina child and even creating a realistic avatar, or web image of the 10-year-old, workers for the charity logged on to internet chat rooms posing as the youngster. In the space of 10 weeks, "she" was contacted by 20,000 men, 1,000 of whom offered "her" money to perform sex acts. Law enforcement is beginning to make inroads into the trade and Filipino police carry out raids and arrests on a regular basis. Operation Endeavour, which began in 2012, has seen the UK's National Crime Agency working with Australian police and the US authorities and has led to 29 international arrests. Monk's case is significant because it shows that though his crimes began in the UK, using live streaming, they then led to him travelling to carry out "contact abuse" in the Philippines with the internet facilitating an escalation to his offending.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Three chances were missed to prosecute late peer Lord Janner over sex abuse claims, an inquiry has found. The independent inquiry, commissioned by the director of public prosecutions, found police and prosecutors missed opportunities to charge Lord Janner in 1991, 2002 and 2007. Before he died in December, the ex-Labour MP ... was accused of 22 counts of sex offences against boys between the 1960s and 80s. The inquiry found the 1991 decision not to charge Lord Janner was "wrong" as there was enough evidence against him. Furthermore in 2002, allegations against Lord Janner were not supplied by the police to the Crown Prosecution Service, and as a result no prosecution was possible, the inquiry said. And in 2007 Lord Janner should have been arrested and his home searched. Since Lord Janner's death a "trial of the facts", which was due to take place in April, has now been shelved by prosecutors. A Leicestershire Police investigation in 1991 failed to cover basic steps such as checking details of whether a 14-year-old boy - known as complainant one - had shared hotel rooms with Lord Janner. A second alleged victim came forward in April 2000 when police in Leicester were investigating abuse in children's homes. He made a statement claiming he had been seriously sexually abused by Lord Janner, but this was not passed to the CPS in a file submitted in 2002, and no further action was taken. Then in 2007 problems with the credibility of a third complainant meant Lord Janner could not be prosecuted.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Sexual assault has become a dominant topic on the nation’s college campuses in recent years. But it has largely remained a hidden issue in elementary, middle and high schools. Twenty-one percent of middle school students reported that they experienced unwanted physical touching on school grounds, according to a 2014 study by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Among high school students, 4 percent of boys and 10 percent of girls say they have been forced to have sexual intercourse against their will, according to a 2013 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Obama administration has taken an aggressive approach to enforcing the anti-discrimination law known as Title IX, which requires K-12 schools and colleges to guard against sexual harassment and sexual violence. The law is based on the idea that children should be protected from hostile environments that make it impossible for them to fully participate in school. The Education Department in fiscal 2015 received 65 civil rights complaints related to K-12 school districts’ handling of sexual violence - triple the number the agency had received the year before. Esther Warkov and Joel Levin, whose daughter was allegedly raped in 2012 during an overnight field trip with her Seattle high school, believe that addressing the problem will take a massive movement of students and families who know what their Title IX rights are and demand that schools meet them.
Note: The above article describes the extreme failure of some schools to protect students from sexual violence, but does not mention the culture of predation found in elite prep schools. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Twelve former residents of children's homes say they were abused by Lord Janner. [Janner], who died before a court could examine claims of child abuse against him, regularly visited homes in Leicester in the 1970s and 1980s. An ex-police officer says he reported suspicions about Lord Janner, a decade before police began a full inquiry. A "trial of the facts", due to take place in April, has now been shelved by prosecutors. However, the BBC has traced and interviewed dozens of men and women who lived at children's homes in Leicestershire in the 70s and 80s. It has also spoken to [several people] involved in investigating the case of Frank Beck, a notorious care home manager who was eventually convicted of child abuse. He was sent to prison in 1991, where he died in 1994. During Beck's trial, he and an alleged victim both sensationally claimed that Lord Janner was a child abuser, and the alleged victim was then interviewed by police. A former detective, Graeme Peene, told the BBC that in the late 1970s he reported Beck, after seeing him rubbing a boy's groin at The Beeches children's home. He was later asked to go back to The Beeches to return another boy who had run away, and was directed to Beck's office, [where] Lord Janner ... was sitting in an armchair "and next to Greville Janner was this young boy". Mr Peene says he considered it "an unusual occurrence" which was "something I felt ought to be reported". His report was sent to divisional headquarters where, he said, nothing was done.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In 2002, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, a group of five investigative journalists, uncovered the widespread sexual abuse of children by scores of the district’s clergy. They also revealed a cover-up: that priests accused of misconduct were being systematically removed and allowed to work in other parishes. The journalists’ story, and those who suffered at the hands of the clergy, are the subject of Spotlight, a Hollywood movie. Phil Saviano was battling to get his story heard long before the Spotlight team’s stories were published. Saviano ... was abused by his parish priest from the age of 12. Now in his 60s, [he] was one of the victims who refused a settlement from the church and retained, unlike others, his right to speak freely about his experience. He’s the founding member of the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. After the Spotlight investigation, Snap’s membership swelled to more than 22,000 as victims came forward, according to its executive director, David Clohessy. “Before Spotlight’s work, Snap members were usually ignored,” he says. “They were unsuccessfully trying to warn parishioners, parents, police, prosecutors and the public about this massive, ongoing danger to kids. After Spotlight’s work, people started to pay attention.” Since the Spotlight investigation, the Vatican has moved to establish a tribunal to hear cases of bishops accused of perpetrating or covering up child abuse.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Authorities need to quickly determine whether a string of New Year's Eve sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne blamed largely on foreigners may be linked to similar offenses in other cities, Germany's justice minister said in comments published Sunday. Authorities and witnesses say the attackers were among about 1,000 men gathered at Cologne's central train station, some of whom broke off into small groups that groped and robbed women. "If such a horde gathers in order to commit crimes, that appears in some form to be planned," Justice Minister Heiko Maas told the newspaper Bild. Police in Hamburg are also investigating similar sexual assaults and thefts in the St. Pauli district, which occurred on a smaller scale in the northern city on New Year's Eve. Authorities in Sweden and Finland are also investigating similar incidents in their countries. Cologne police are investigating 379 criminal complaints filed with them, about 40 percent of which involve allegations of sexual offenses. So far, of 31 suspects detained by police for questioning, 18 were asylum seekers but there were also two Germans, an American and others, and none of them were accused specifically of committing sexual assaults.
Note: It's entirely possible that these attacks were coordinated in order to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. There were news reports that the police stood by and let these assaults happen. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and the manipulation of public perception.
Cologne’s police chief has been removed from his post amid criticism of his force’s handling of a string of sexual assaults and robberies carried out by groups of men in the German city on New Year’s Eve. His enforced departure came as a witness to the violence told the Guardian the events appeared to have been coordinated. Lieli Shabani, 35, said she saw three Arabic speaking males who were “clearly giving instructions”. A leaked police report [describes] how officers were initially overwhelmed by events outside the city’s train station, after which more than 100 women filed criminal complaints of sexual assault and robbery, including two accounts of rape. Cologne mayor Henriette Reker suggested on Friday that police had held back information from her, and said in a statement that her “trust in the Cologne police leadership is significantly shaken”. The leaked police report, obtained by the German newspaper Bild, said women were forced to “run a gauntlet ... beyond description” to reach or leave the station. The incidents in and around the square in front of the main train station have led to accusations of a police and media cover-up. Evidence has emerged that similar attacks had taken place in seven other German cities.
Note: It's entirely possible that these attacks were coordinated in order to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and the manipulation of public perception.
United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping personnel must lose their status as “a privileged class,” according to a former senior U.N. official, after fresh allegations of sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) emerged. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in CAR - known as MINUSCA - said on Tuesday that it was investigating allegations concerning sexual exploitation and abuse of minors, as well as other misconduct, by peacekeepers and international forces. The peacekeepers came from Gabon, Egypt and Morocco, and AFP reported that the allegations brings the total number of sexual abuse cases against U.N. peacekeepers in CAR to 26. According to Paula Donovan, who served as a senior advisor to the U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2003 to 2006, the latest allegations mean that the U.N.’s “sex abuse crisis is now more exposed than ever before, but there’s no evidence that the U.N. has changed the way it’s dealing with the problem. The U.N. treats reports of sexual abuse by its personnel as administrative matters to be handled internally and in secret, rather than as serious violent crimes,” says Donovan.
Note: A personal friend of WantToKnow.info manager Fred Burks served with the Peace Corps in Africa where she saw learned of horrendous sexual abuse, but was told by all of her superiors in Peace Corps not to touch that one. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In total, incidents involving sexual assault in which the children of service members are victims occur hundreds of times each year, data the Defense Department provided ... show. The figures offer greater insight into the sexual abuse of children committed by service members, a problem of uncertain scale due to a lack of transparency into the military's legal proceedings. With more than 1 million military dependents, the number of cases appears statistically small. An AP investigation ... found more inmates are in military prisons for child sex crimes than for any other offense. But the military's opaque justice system keeps the public from knowing the full extent of their crimes or how much time they spend behind bars. Responding to AP's findings, three Democratic senators have urged Defense Secretary Ash Carter to lift what they called the military justice system's "cloak of secrecy" and make records from sex-crimes trials readily accessible. The senators also raised another concern. Child sex-assault cases are not included in the Defense Department's annual report to Congress on sexual assaults, which focuses primarily on adult-on-adult incidents, they said. The senators ... told Carter in a Dec. 8 letter they are concerned the department may be underestimating how many sexual assaults are occurring in the military.
Note: When it comes to sexual abuse, the US military has reportedly fostered a culture of coverup. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Over the past 15 months, beleaguered Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane has released a steady stream of messages retrieved from a state email server that show state officials and employees trading pornographic, racist and misogynistic messages. There are jokes about rape and sexual assault, photos mocking African Americans and other minorities, and insults leveled at people because of their weight, their sexual orientation or their religion. The scandal that has been dubbed "Porngate" ... is a disaster for the state’s justice system. Kane, the first woman and first Democrat elected to that office, faces a criminal indictment for felony perjury and multiple misdemeanors in an unrelated case. [Her] office ... has long maintained she’s innocent of the charges. She has cast herself as a victim of a powerful, political “old boys network,” angry that she’s shared their darkest emails. About 10,000 messages have been shared at this point. There could be as many as 100,000. Thus far, the scandal has resulted in the firing of at least six state employees and the resignation of a state Supreme Court judge. Another justice will go before a judicial ethics board later this month on charges of misconduct. If found guilty, he too could be removed from the bench. At least 60 people working for the attorney general’s office were reprimanded because of sexually explicit content found on their state computers.
Note: This is clearly a case where an old boys network involved with child sex abuse rings is coming down as hard as possible to get rid of the courageous attorney general who is exposing their dirty deeds. For more on this, see http://truthaboutkathleenkane.com. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject.
For the past two years, the Pentagon has acknowledged having a severe problem with sexual assault in the ranks. Soldiers entrusted with key roles in the campaign against sexual assault and harassment have ... been accused of committing those very offenses. The Army Reserve’s 80th Training Command summoned about 350 personnel to an Orlando hotel in 2013 for a four-day conference on sexual-assault prevention. One session highlighted how excessive drinking is often at the root of sex crimes committed by those in uniform. Soon after the conference began, sheriff’s deputies were called to the hotel to investigate a report that a female guest had been raped by one of the participants - an inebriated soldier she had met at the hotel pool. Overall, the Defense Department received 6,131 reports of sexual assault last year, a figure that has more than doubled since 2007. In March, a sexual-assault-prevention officer for an Army battalion at Fort Hood, Tex., pleaded guilty to acting as a pimp by luring cash-strapped young female soldiers into a prostitution ring. Last year, the Army disciplined its former top sex-crimes prosecutor after receiving a complaint that he had kissed and groped a female officer - while attending a conference on sexual assault. The system shows that the military doesn’t really take sexual assault seriously.
Note: When it comes to sexual abuse, the US military has reportedly fostered a culture of coverup. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The United Nations' "gross institutional failure" to act on allegations that French and other peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic led to even more assaults, according to a new report. One young boy who initially reported an attack on his friends more than a year ago now says he has been raped, too. [An] independent panel found that the accounts by children as young as 9 of trading oral sex and other acts in exchange for food in the middle of a war zone in early 2014 were "passed from desk to desk, inbox to inbox, across multiple U.N. offices, with no one willing to take responsibility." Among those said to have looked the other way were the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, as well as human rights staffers. The panel, led by Canadian judge Marie Deschamps, found that U.N. staffers failed or hesitated to pass the children's allegations to more senior officials, sometimes because of political concerns with France involved; showed "unconscionable delays" in protecting and supporting the children; failed to further investigate the allegations; failed to properly vet peacekeepers for past abuses; and, overall, appeared more concerned with whether one U.N. staffer had improperly alerted French authorities. "The welfare of the victims and the accountability of the perpetrators appeared to be an afterthought, if considered at all," the report says. As of now, more than a year and a half after U.N. staffers first heard the children's allegations of sexual abuse, no one has been arrested.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Tim Ballard's career with the CIA and Homeland Security may not be what you'd expect. With years of leading rescue efforts to free victims of human trafficking, especially those used as prostitutes, he founded Operation Underground Railroad to liberate captive slaves. Ballard explains the need for his work. "There are an estimated 27 million enslaved human beings in the world: more slaves than ever existed during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Many are sex slaves, as sex trafficking represents the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. Many reputable organizations exist to disseminate information about this problem, and others function as aftercare organizations for victims. Very few, if any, dedicate themselves to the pro-active rescue and direct extraction of the victims, and to the capture and prosecution of their captors. Operation Underground Railroad fills this void." Operation Underground Railroad's work is already logging success. "In just our first two years, O.U.R. has already rescued over 350 victims of human trafficking," Ballard reports. "Foreign governments often seek out O.U.R. to assist in sting operations against child sex traffickers. We keep the respective U.S. Embassies informed of our activities, and have been fortunate to count on their support and participation in a number of our rescues.
Note: Don't miss an incredibly inspiring video interview of Tim Ballard with Tony Robbins.
A damning submission to the royal commission on child sexual abuse has recommended 77 adverse findings against the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia. The church fostered distrust of secular authorities and its response to child sexual abuse fell short of best practice, counsel to the commission Angus Stewart QC found in his submission. Since 1950 the church has received 1,066 allegations against its members and did not report any of them to police. Stewart ... was critical of the church for requiring abuse victim BCB, who gave evidence at the July hearing, to confront her abuser and for not allowing the involvement of women when her complaint was being investigated. The evidence in July was that although elders in the Western Australia congregation – where BCB was abused by elder Bill Neill – believed her, Neill was allowed to keep his job. BCB – who was in her mid-teens and had been groomed by Neill for a number of years – was made to continue to attend Bible classes with him and discouraged from discussing the abuse with anyone, Stewart found. Among the other findings open to the commission was that there was no justification for the Jehovah’s Witnesses not to report to police when the victim was a minor and others were still at risk, Stewart said.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Nearly 7,000 Peace Corps currently serve in about 65 countries. Roughly one in five of them is sexually assaulted during that service, according to the results of a recent anonymous Peace Corps safety questionnaire, obtained exclusively by CBS News. The report also shows that nearly half don't report the assaults. More than 500 volunteers have reported experiencing a sexual assault in a little over two years. CBS News spoke with nearly a dozen who questioned how their recent cases were handled. They told us they ... were threatened they would be fired. Five years ago, the Peace Corps - a government agency - faced intense scrutiny over its response to sexual assaults. The agency's director at the time vowed change. "I hired a nationally recognized leader in victims' rights to be our first agency's victim advocate," former Peace Corps director Aaron Williams said during a congressional hearing in 2011. That leader was Kellie Green. "I pushed the agency to really do what they have the capability of doing," Green said. Earlier this month, the Peace Corps suspended her without pay for allegedly creating a hostile work environment. But Green says she was punished for standing up for the victims she was hired to protect. Inspector General reports show multiple cases of Peace Corps personnel - accused in sexual assaults - resigning ahead of administrative action, then being allowed to re-apply to the agency. Green is pursuing whistleblower protection. The Peace Corps disputes ... that it retaliated against her.
Note: In 2011, BBC began asking if the U.S. government was "at war with whistleblowers". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Not long ago, Tuesday morning’s revelations at the royal commission into institutional responses to child abuse would have made headlines round the world. Priest after priest in the Melbourne archdiocese of the Catholic church was caught abusing children. And for decades bishop after bishop ignored these crimes. But Melbourne fits the now familiar pattern of the Catholic world. In Melbourne over the past 35 years, 454 people made claims or substantiated complaints about child sexual abuse by priests, religious employees or volunteers. Of those, 335 made claims against priests. Seven accused priests accounted for 54% of all claims. What sets the city apart from cities in Europe and America is how little the church has had to pay. Absent but everywhere was George Pell. Though other bishops living and dead will have their reputations raked over by the commission, the hearings over the next month will essentially assess the record of the man who now sits in Rome as the treasurer of the Catholic church. Father Peter Searson [abused] children in the poor parish of Doveton. Parents, parishioners and teachers all wanted the priest gone. Pell appears to have done little.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
About 50,000 cases of sexual abuse were recorded by police and local authorities in the two years to March 2014. Official figures vastly underestimate the true scale of child sexual abuse. The actual number of children abused in that period is thought to be as many as 450,000. [A new] report, by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner (OCC), found that about 85% of sexually abused young people are not receiving help and treatment. The majority of victims remain unidentified because the services that should protect them, including police and social services, rely on children to speak out, says the report. Two-thirds of cases, both known and unknown to the authorities, are believed to be victims of abuse in the family. Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, said: “In recent years the terrible experiences of sexual abuse that some children have suffered in institutions or at the hands of groups of perpetrators have come to light and preventing and tackling these been made a priority.” It was time to “wake up”, Longfield said, and urgently address the most common form of child sexual abuse – that which takes place within families or their trusted circle.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
"Spotlight" ... is the saga of how the Boston Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for uncovering not only decades of sexual abuse by Catholic priests but also systematic maneuvers by the church's Boston archdiocese to shield the more than 70 perpetrators. The story "Spotlight" tells is significant twice over. First for its depiction of the uncovering of what proved to be an international scandal, and also for the way it quietly but potently illustrates society's need for old-fashioned investigative journalism, the kind of labor-intensive telling-truth-to-power work that's increasingly in jeopardy. As "Spotlight" opens in July 2001 ... a new man, the imperturbable Marty Baron, the rare Globe editor not to grow up in Boston, is about to take over the paper. In fact, practically the first thing Baron does is ... focus on the accusations of clergy sexual misconduct. The [news] team (all of whom are lapsed Catholics), as well as the staff in general, symbolized by dubious assistant managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr. are well aware of the enormity of what they're taking on. For one thing, 53% of the Globe's subscribers are Catholic and, for another, as someone says, "the Church thinks in terms of centuries." Because it has done its homework ... "Spotlight" is especially good at the dynamics of interviewing, on what happens when reporters say things like, "Do you want to be on the right side of this story when it breaks?" Honest enough to zing the Globe for neglecting this story for years before it took it on, "Spotlight" is both damning and inspiring.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A yearlong Associated Press investigation into sex abuse by cops, jail guards, deputies and other state law enforcement officials uncovered a broken system for policing bad officers, with significant flaws in how agencies deal with those suspected of sexual misconduct and glaring warning signs that go unreported or get overlooked. The AP examination found about 1,000 officers in six years who lost their licenses because of sex crimes that included rape, or sexual misconduct ranging from propositioning citizens to consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse. That number fails to reflect the breadth of the problem, however, because it measures only officers who faced an official process called decertification and not all states have such a system or provided records. In states that do revoke law enforcement licenses, the process can take years, enabling problem officers to find other jobs. And while there is a national index of decertified officers [containing] the names of nearly 20,000 officers who have lost their licenses for problems that include sex abuse ... contributing is voluntary, and only 39 states do so. Michael Ragusa - now serving a 10-year prison sentence after being convicted of sexually assaulting three women - admitted during the hiring process with the Miami Police Department that he'd solicited a prostitute, committed theft, sold stolen property and abused a relative. The investigator in charge of his background check had himself been disciplined 26 times and was once arrested for falsifying documents.
Note: The article above describes many heart-wrenching examples of how government corruption can foster and abet sexual abuse. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject.
In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens. The number is unquestionably an undercount because it represents only those officers whose licenses to work in law enforcement were revoked, and not all states take such action. California and New York ... offered no records because they have no statewide system to decertify officers for misconduct. And even among states that provided records, some reported no officers removed for sexual misdeeds even though cases were identified via news stories or court records. Victims of sexual violence at the hands of officers know the power their attackers have, and so the trauma can carry an especially crippling fear. Jackie Simmons said she found it too daunting to bring her accusation to another police officer after being raped by a cop in 1998 while visiting Kansas for a wedding. So, like most victims of rape, she never filed a report. Diane Wetendorf, a retired counselor who started a support group in Chicago for victims of officers, said most of the women she counseled never reported their crimes - and many who did regretted it. She saw women whose homes came under surveillance and whose children were intimidated by police. Fellow officers, she said, refused to turn on one another when questioned.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
Amos Kamil, the Horace Mann alum who first exposed the shocking story of sexually abused students at the elite prep school, knew only about half of what happened. In the aftermath of the furor ignited by his 2012 article in The New York Times Magazine, many more victims stepped forward. Only then did the human toll of the abuse become clear. The Bronx school and its powerful backers adopted a ruthless stance with the sex-abuse survivors. While the sexual abuse lasted from the 1960s into the 1990s, the school ignored repeated warnings. One guidance counselor was said to listen sympathetically before putting his own sexual moves on a student. As the survivors emerged, [they formed] support groups to share their stories. One former student, Jon Seiger, [claimed to have been] victimized by eight different teachers, suggesting the predators procured the victims and protected one another. When Kamil called the Bronx district attorney’s office, he was informed that Seiger’s seemingly far-fetched account was credible. As many as 64 students were abused by 22 faculty and staff members. When 25 of the survivors ... agreed to mediation, Horace Mann’s board played hardball. New York State’s strict statute of limitations precluded the victims’ getting their day in court, so a financial settlement was the school’s only opportunity to address the wrong. Horace Mann, its board populated by international hedge fund managers and real estate titans, settled for between $4 million and $5 million.
Note: Amos Kamil has published the book "Great is the Truth: Secrecy, Scandal, and the Quest for Justice at the Horace Mann School" about this horrifying institution. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A former Australian prime minister is on a list of "alleged paedophiles" that Liberal senator Bill Heffernan claims forms part of a police document. Senator Heffernan used a Senate estimates committee hearing on Tuesday to discuss the list of 28 people. Many ... named in the documents were "prominent". Senator Heffernan had shown the documents to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse but was told they were not part of its terms of reference. The commission, which was established in 2014, has inquired into child abuse in a wide range of institutions, including sporting groups, churches and after-school care services. It has power to look at abuse that occurs in an institutional context. Senator Heffernan called for the commission's terms to be changed to include the "institution of the law". He accused former royal commissioner Justice James Roland Wood of refusing to investigate lawyers who had allegedly attended a Kings Cross "boy brothel". "I did ask the commissioner why. He said he'd deny if I ever mentioned it," Senator Heffernan said. "[The commissioner] said, 'We've decided not to revisit that issue because the public would lose confidence in the judiciary.'" The senator said he had a list of all of the lawyers who allegedly attended the club, some of whom were still practising.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert is expected to plead guilty in a hush-money case stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct. Federal prosecutors have accused him of agreeing to pay $3.5 million to an unidentified person from his hometown of Yorkville, Illinois, to conceal past misconduct. He was a teacher at Yorkville High School in the 1960s and 1970s. That person has not surfaced publicly, but anonymous law enforcement sources have told several media outlets that Hastert was trying to cover up sexual abuse of a male student when he worked as a high school teacher and wrestling coach. Hastert's agreement, to change his plea to guilty from not guilty in the case, is expected to be submitted to U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin on Monday, attorneys for Hastert said. "One of the best side effects of taking the plea is that material regarding reported sexual abuse will not come out," said [attorney Amy] Richardson, of the firm Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis. According to the indictment, Hastert withdrew $1.7 million in cash from his bank accounts from 2010 to 2014. He is charged with structuring $952,000 of the withdrawals, taking the funds out in increments of under $10,000 to evade a requirement that banks report large cash transactions. Hastert then told the FBI that he was keeping the cash for himself, which the indictment said was a false statement.
Note: Read more about this powerful politician's sexual misconduct cover up. If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse. “The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said. The video, filmed by an Argentine tourist in May, was obtained by a Chilean television station and broadcast Friday, quickly instilling doubts here about the pope’s commitment to protecting victims of sexual abuse. Bishop Barros was appointed by the pope to head the Diocese of Osorno this year, despite reports that he had covered up sexual abuses committed by the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a prominent priest in Santiago, the capital. Bishop Barros spent over 30 years alongside Father Karadima, who was found guilty of sexual abuses by the Vatican in 2011 and ordered to a life of seclusion, prayer and penitence. According to some of Father Karadima’s victims, Bishop Barros was witness to and complicit in the abuses.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Sir Edward Heath would have been questioned over sex abuse claims if he was alive when they came to light, police have said. Wiltshire Police launched Operation Conifer in 2015 when the former PM was accused of historical child sex abuse. The Conservative politician would have been interviewed under caution over seven claims, including the alleged rape of an 11-year-old, they said. The allegations include one of rape of a male under 16, three of indecent assault on a male under 16, four of indecent assault on a male under 14, and two of indecent assault on a male over 16. The earliest, dating from 1961 when Sir Edward was Lord Privy Seal, alleged he had raped and indecently assaulted an 11-year-old boy in London "during a paid sexual encounter in private in a dwelling." Another two of the seven claims relate to "paid sexual encounters." Sir Edward ... died in 2005. Operation Conifer - which spanned 14 UK police forces - said a total of 42 claims related to 40 different individuals, with alleged offences from 1956 to 1992 - while Sir Edward was an elected MP. Child abuse in the past is extremely difficult to investigate. When those accused are famous or powerful ... it becomes even harder. Operation Conifer has gathered a vast amount of evidence - pursuing a total of 1,580 lines of inquiry and it has made public the most serious allegations against the former prime minister, but it can't tell us whether they are true. More than anything else, this report prompts more questions than it answers.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
John Lydon has claimed he was banned from the BBC after speaking out against Jimmy Savile. The former Sex Pistol was referring to an interview he’d given in 1978, during which he had said that Savile was “into all sorts of seediness. We all know about it but we’re not allowed to talk about it." Speaking to Piers Morgan for his Life Stories show, he said: “I’m very, very bitter that the likes of Savile and the rest of them were allowed to continue. I did my bit, I said what I had to. But they didn’t air that.” He continued: “I found myself banned from BBC radio for quite a while, for my contentious behaviour. They wouldn’t state this directly; there’d be other excuses.” The band were already in the BBC’s bad books before Lydon’s Savile comments: God Save The Queen received a total ban on radio play from the corporation in May 1977. Lydon didn’t go into the specifics of what the ban entailed, although he said: “Weren’t I right? I think most kids wanted to go on [Savile's popular show] Top of the Pops, but we all knew what that cigar muncher was up to.”
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The ability of Pennsylvania’s embattled attorney general to carry out her job was thrown into question Monday as the State Supreme Court issued a temporary suspension of her law license. Kathleen G. Kane ... was elected in 2012, after a campaign in which she accused her predecessor of moving too slowly to indict and arrest Jerry Sandusky, the Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach who was convicted that year on dozens of counts of child abuse. But she quickly became mired in vicious disputes with some former top prosecutors. As she re-examined the handling of the Sandusky case, her investigators also discovered that numerous officials in the attorney general’s office and other state agencies had shared pornographic and racially offensive emails; a Supreme Court justice was forced to resign as a result. But in August, the Montgomery County district attorney charged Ms. Kane with illegally leaking information to the news media about grand jury proceedings. That case had involved former state prosecutors with whom she was feuding. In refusing to leave office, Ms. Kane has said she is the victim of a vendetta by an “old boys’ network” of political and legal rivals. The State Supreme Court ... said that its order “should not be construed” as removing Ms. Kane “from elected office.”
Note: This is clearly a case where the old boys network involved with child sex abuse rings is coming down as hard as possible to get rid of the courageous attorney general who is exposing their dirty deeds. For more on this, see http://truthaboutkathleenkane.com. To understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available at this link.
The incidents of sexual assault on children described by American service members who served in Afghanistan are sickening. Boys screaming in the night as Afghan police officers attacked them. Three or four Afghan men found lying on the floor of a room at a military base with children between them, presumably for sex play. No less offensive is that American soldiers and Marines who wanted to intervene could not. The Pentagon’s indulgent, even complicit, attitude toward pedophiles among the Afghan militias that it funded and trained is indefensible, at odds with American values and with international laws Washington has taken the lead in promoting. Sexual abuse would appear to violate the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit violence, cruel treatment and “outrages upon personal dignity” against people taken into custody. International human rights law outlaws rape. The Geneva Conventions and federal law also impose an obligation on the United States to investigate and prosecute violations of the laws of war under its jurisdiction, including military bases in Afghanistan. “There are no gray areas here,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. Fourteen long years of war and billions of dollars invested have proved that the United States cannot remake Afghanistan. But there should be no question that the American military cannot allow such practices on its bases. Nor should service members like Captain Quinn and Sergeant Martland be penalized for refusing to turn a blind eye when a boy is kept as a sex slave.
Note: If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Almost a quarter of undergraduate women surveyed at some of the top universities across the country said they were victims of sexual assault and misconduct as college students, according to a new report released Monday. Overall, 23 percent of undergraduate women at 27 universities said they had been physically forced or threatened with force into unwanted sexual contact, according to the Association of American Universities' Campus Climate Survey. For undergraduate men, the percentage was 5 percent. AAU defined sexual assault as actions ranging from "sexual harassment, stalking and intimate partner violence" to "nonconsensual penetration." The survey ... was sent to nearly 780,000 students. About 150,000 women participated in the online questionnaire. The findings support often-disputed results released in 2007 by the National Institute of Justice that 1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted during their college years. The survey found the most serious sexual assaults were against freshmen women. In a statement Monday, Drew Faust, president of Harvard, invited the university community to join her at 7 p.m. for a discussion about the survey results and approaches on how to change people's behavior.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father ... recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape. American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene. The policy has endured as American forces have recruited and organized Afghan militias. Instead of weeding out pedophiles, the American military was arming them in some cases and placing them as the commanders of villages. Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave, [said], “We were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.” The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it. After the beating, the Army relieved Captain Quinn of his command and pulled him from Afghanistan. He has since left the military.
Note: If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Earlier this year, Mr Blenkiron relived the horror of his school days, telling an inquiry into child abuse about how ... his teacher physically and sexually abused him. "If there was no sexual abuse after the belting, then you knew you'd had a good day," the 53-year-old told a hearing of Australia's landmark Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Royal Commission ... "has to uncover the horrors of the past, it has to help those who were affected to get the best possible ongoing support today, and it has to make sure all our children are safe in future," he says. That's a measure of the huge challenge facing the Royal Commission, set up in 2013. The signs are hopeful, with the Commission acting on a scale and scope that few expected, and with a sensitivity to those abused that the UK's fledgling Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has indicated it may follow. Over the past two and a half years, six commissioners have held 32 public and 4,000 private hearings at sites across the country. It has documented abuse by teachers, priests, nuns, foster carers and fellow students. The Commission, which will report at the end of 2017, has exceeded expectations by highlighting abuse "from almost every area of society, every walk of life", and by showing that such abuse continues today, says Sydney University Law Professor Patrick Parkinson. "They've been very wise and shown beyond reasonable doubt the level of the problem in Australian society and the level of cover-up," he says.
Note: If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Seven members of a paedophile gang involved in the rape and abuse of babies and young children have been jailed for a total of 78 years ... following an investigation led by the National Crime Agency (NCA). They were convicted of 29 child sex abuse offences, including conspiracy to rape and the multiple rape of a child aged under 13. The gang hid behind a veil of respectability, with careers and families, to habitually target children under the age of five. Police said an “incredible” amount of planning went into gaining access to victims. Ian Glover, senior investigating officer, said: “We’ve encountered grooming where the family have been groomed prior to birth of the baby. They go in that early with the sole intention of abusing that baby once it’s born.” Extensive planning went into enabling the abuse to be screened over the internet to co-conspirators and other paedophiles around the world. Images of abuse relating to the case are believed to have been seen on every continent and police have circulated evidence about other suspected paedophiles to authorities in Europe, South America and Australia. There was no business element to the activities, with no evidence of any payment being received. The NCA said 26 people had been arrested so far in connection with the ongoing investigation. Of those, six were in positions of trust – three teachers, two charity or fundraiser workers and one who was employed by a local authority. More arrests and charges are expected in the UK and abroad.
Note: A major Australian sting operation recently uncovered a similar criminal network. And a college professor exposed a widespread ring of child abuse cults before being silenced for his revelations. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A former MP is to be interviewed under caution by police over claims that he was part of a paedophile ring who repeatedly sexually assaulted a young girl in the 1980s and 1990s. The man has been in communication with Staffordshire police, who are investigating. The alleged victim, Esther Baker, waived her right to anonymity to make the claims public in May. She has said her abusers possibly included a peer and a judge, and that the abuse went on for four years from the age of six, in the woodland and at other locations, often while police officers stood guard. Baker has also alleged that she was sexually abused at a flat in London, which she now believes to be Dolphin Square – the location at the centre of the Metropolitan police’s Operation Midland inquiry into the alleged murders of three children by high-profile individuals in a paedophile ring. The former politician, who has not been named ... is one of 1,400 high-profile individuals who have been or are under police investigation across the country for child abuse dating back decades. They include 76 politicians, alive and dead, 135 celebrities and 43 people from the music industry. The case has been referred to Operation Hydrant, a national team coordinating the investigations taking place across the country, which was set up in the wake of the Jimmy Savile revelations and the increase in reporting of child sexual abuse which followed.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject.
A graduate of an exclusive New England prep school was cleared of felony rape but convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses Friday against a 15-year-old freshman girl in a case that exposed a campus tradition in which seniors competed to see how many younger students they could have sex with. A jury of nine men and three women took eight hours to reach its verdict in the case against 19-year-old Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vt., who was accused of forcing himself on the girl in a dark and noisy mechanical room at St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., two days before he graduated in 2014. Labrie ... was acquitted of the most serious charges against him - three counts of felony rape, each punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison - but was found guilty of three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault and other offenses. Each count carries up to a year behind bars. The 159-year-old boarding school ... has long been a training ground for politicians, Nobel laureates, corporate executives and other members of the country's elite. The rape was part of Senior Salute ... described to detectives as a competition in which graduating seniors tried to have sex with underclassmen and kept score on a wall behind a set of washing machines. Alumni of St. Paul's include Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who graduated in 1962 alongside former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Three Pulitzer prize winners ... also attended the school, as did at least 13 U.S. ambassadors.
Note: Graduating seniors of this elite prep school compete to have sex with as many girls as they can. They then go on to assume positions of power. It's time for this culture to change. To help in this vital effort, please educate yourself by watching the 60 Minutes documentary "Spies, Lords, and Predators" and the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence." Then spread the word far and wide. Thank you! For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The former Australian head of the second-largest Catholic order ... Father Julian Fox, 70, is today behind bars, 16 years after being accused of child sex crimes while teaching at Melbourne schools in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1999, shortly before the first known complaints were made to his superiors, he fled to Rome where he worked at the Salesian headquarters. In 2000, the Salesians made a confidential $36,000 payment to one victim. Despite claims by the Salesians that Fox was banned from working with children, he was later caught giving lectures to overseas students about social media. He finally returned to Melbourne in 2013. Detectives had been negotiating with the Catholic Church for his return since July 2012. Fox was sentenced to four years’ jail and fined $10,000 today for sexually and physically assaulting five students. Following eight County Court trials, he was found guilty of three charges of indecently assaulting two students, and now has pleaded guilty to charges of common assault of three victims. Fox is one of a long list of priests and brothers from the Salesian order who have now been convicted of terrorising Victorian kids between the 1960s and 1990s. Despite his crimes he rose to become head of the Salesian order. In 2004, the Australian chapter was engulfed in global scandal after it was alleged local superiors moved priests accused of sexual assaults across international and state borders to evade authorities.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Subway sandwich chain is working vigorously to emphasize that it has cut its ties to its longtime ad pitchman, Jared Fogle, whose plea deal for having sex with underage girls and possession of child pornography was announced on Wednesday. Yet the case, just as it did in July when federal agents raided Fogle's home, put Subway back in a spotlight. Fogle, of Zionsville, Ind., appeared in court in Indianapolis Wednesday on charges of having had sex with minors and distributing and receiving child pornography. Under the deal, Fogle agrees to to a prison sentence of not less than five years. When media reports about impending deal surfaced Tuesday night, Subway sent out a tweet: "We have already ended our relationship with Jared and have no further comment." One crisis management public relations expert, Jonathan Bernstein, credits Subway for yanking their sponsorship of Fogle in July when search warrants were served by federal agents. But, he adds the sandwich chain would have been wiser to have parted ways when trouble first started surfacing last spring, when the head of Fogle's charitable arm, the Jared Foundation, was arrested in the case. "They probably didn't do it soon enough," says Bernstein, president of Bernstein Crisis Management. Before parting company with Subway, Fogle served as the face of the chain for many years to give it a healthy fast-food orientation.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
If you were freaked out by the news in June that an anesthesiologist had talked trash about her patient while he was unconscious on the table in front of her, you'd better brace yourself. There's more and it's ... much worse. In an anonymous essay published in the Annals of Internal Medicine this week, one physician describes — in graphic detail — what happened to two women when they were asleep in operating rooms. The stories are horrifying. "I bet she's enjoying this," one doctor reportedly said while prepping a woman for a vaginal hysterectomy. In another case, an obstetrician performed an obscene dance after saving the life of a woman who was bleeding out after having a baby. In a letter accompanying the essay, the editorial team agonized over whether to publish the piece. Everyone agreed that [it] was "disgusting and scandalous" and could damage the profession's reputation. But some argued that this was why they shouldn't publish it while others felt that was why they should publish it. In the end they said they decided to do so in order to "expose medicine's dark underbelly." They said the first incident "reeked of misogyny and disrespect — the second reeked of all that plus heavy overtones of sexual assault and racism." The journal's editors ... hope that medical educators and others will use the essay as a "jumping-off point for discussions that explore the reasons why physicians sometimes behave badly. If the essay squelches such behavior even once, then it was well worth publishing," they wrote.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing medical industry news articles from reliable major media sources.
The abuse was meticulously catalogued. From 1950 to 2014, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society amassed 5,000 files detailing sexual abuse of Australian children by 1,006 of its members, who believe that only they - the Jehovah’s Witnesses - proclaim the truth about God. Young girls were assaulted by neighbors. Teenagers were raped by their fathers. Victims were forced to pray with their abusers. When the children reached out for help, the church’s obsession with secrecy and hostility to outsiders kicked in. Victims, ordered to keep quiet, were forced to confront their abusers in person. All complaints were carefully recorded. No one was reported to the authorities. Child abuse was recorded and hidden away. Now, sordid details from the closed world of the Jehovah’s Witnesses are being exposed. Two years ago, the Australian government established a royal commission - similar to a presidential commission in the United States - to investigate institutionalized child sexual abuse. The inquiry’s primary target was the Catholic Church, whose record of protecting pedophiles was almost as rampant in Australia as in the United States. To avoid singling out one religion, government officials gave the inquiry wide legal powers to examine any organization that may have covered up abuse. Of the religious and nonreligious groups being investigated, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are exceptional, experts say. The church ... has emerged as the least able or willing to deal with sexual abuse within its ranks.
Note: Read more about Jehovah's Witnesses' institutionalized silencing of abuse victims. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Five police forces are investigating claims of historical child sexual abuse involving former PM Sir Edward Heath. Wiltshire Police halted an inquiry into a brothel keeper in the 1990s after she said Sir Edward was involved in child sexual abuse. Claims made by the brothel keeper, Myra Ling Ling Forde, that Sir Edward was a client, meant that she had left herself open to prosecution. However, the case against her was allegedly discontinued between 1990 and 1995. She was later convicted of controlling prostitutes, [and] jailed for six years after a trial that included allegations that she had supplied children as young as 13 to her clients. The Independent Police Complaints Commission said on Monday that it would look at whether Wiltshire officers failed to pursue allegations of child abuse made against Sir Edward, who was Conservative prime minister from 1970 to 1974. A retired detective has alleged claims were made in the 1990s but not followed up. Kent Police told the BBC it had received a report on Tuesday of a sexual assault having been committed in east Kent in the 1960s [that] "named Sir Edward Heath in connection with the allegation. Meanwhile, Labour MP Tom Watson said he had referred two allegations of child sexual abuse by Sir Edward to the police since 2012. He said police had confirmed that at least one of those allegations was being investigated.
Note: For more evidence of Heath's involvement, see this Guardian article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Scores of children have been saved from abuse after an elaborate sting by Queensland Police led to the identification and arrest of key members of a global online sex abuse network. Queensland's anti-paedophile taskforce Argos targeted an internet bulletin board which had 45,000 members. Users were ranked according to the volume and originality of the child exploitation material they uploaded to the site. The site, the name of which remains suppressed by the South Australian District Court, was administered by ... Adelaide childcare worker Shannon McCoole. This month, the Families SA employee was sentenced to 35 years in jail for sexually abusing at least seven children in his care and for transmitting child pornography on the internet. McCoole's victims were in state care, and were as young as 18 months old. With McCoole in custody, Queensland's Taskforce Argos then activated phase two of the operation. "Phase two was to take over the network," Detective Inspector Jon Rouse said. "Ultimately, you had a child sex offender network that was being administered by police." Two officers from Taskforce Argos secretly assumed the online identity of Shannon McCoole, working around the clock for 10 months to dismantle the paedophile ring and identify abusers. Detective Inspector Rouse said the sting resulted in the identification of paedophiles around the world. "US, Europe, United Kingdom. [It was] global," he said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The United Nations has spent half a billion dollars on contracts with a Russian aviation company since discovering one of its helicopter crews in the Democratic Republic of the Congo drugged and raped a teenage girl in a sexual attack. The girl was dumped naked and unconscious inside the helicopter base. Internal UN documents, marked “strictly confidential” and leaked to the Guardian, reveal how the UN’s internal complaints unit uncovered evidence the woman was abused ... by the manager in charge of UTair’s base in Kalemie, eastern DRC. The main investigative report, from March 2011, warned of a possible “culture of sexual exploitation and abuse” at UTair. Copies of that report were circulated among top officials at the UN. The company was permitted to continue doing business with the UN on the condition it introduce a new training regime overseen by a monitor. The disclosures come at a critical moment for the UN secretary general, who has struggled to contain the fallout from recent revelations concerning the sexual abuse of children by French and other peacekeeping troops in the neighbouring Central African Republic. “It wasn’t just one or two bad apples,” said a senior UN official familiar with the report and its fallout. “It was clear the problems of sexual exploitation were wider.” In total, the company ... has been granted contracts worth $543.3m for services provided in 11 countries since the UN became aware it had a problem with sexual exploitation.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
"Trafficking" often conjures images of people from other countries being smuggled over land and across the sea and then forced to work against their will in foreign lands. People are trafficked into America from Mexico, Central and South America. But the vast majority of children bought and sold for sex every night in the United States are American kids. Neglected, abused, exploited and often ignored starting from a young age - sometimes even prosecuted by the very people who should have protected them. In Minnesota [former sex workers] sought support through an advocacy group called Breaking Free. Half of the women in the group were under the age of 18 when they first were sold for sex. One woman says she was bought by her aunt at the age of 14. "She gave my mom $900. Told me I was going shopping at the mall." The aunt would bring her to drug dealers' houses, where she was raped and given drugs. "She would leave me...and then [was] like 'You were messed up, you wanted to stay'," she recalls. She soon believed the abuse was her fault and her choice. Another ... was 14 when she was kidnapped by "a guy I thought I liked". She didn't return home for two years. Jenny Gaines, who leads the group discussion at Breaking Free, says many "manipulate and take advantage of underage girls". One woman we spoke to in Minnesota was not at Breaking Free. She was on the streets, still working at five months pregnant. She says was groomed from age 12 by a neighbour.
Note: Read another revealing BBC article on human trafficking.
In 1986, the director of Britain's premier domestic spy agency told Margaret Thatcher's cabinet secretary the risk of "embarrassment" from publicizing a politician's suspected child abuse was greater than the "danger" he presented. CBS News partner network Sky News reported the new twist in Britain's long and still-unfolding child sexual abuse scandal on Thursday, saying then-MI5 director Sir Antony Duff had told Prime Minister Thatcher's staffer "the risks of political embarrassment to the government is rather greater than the security danger." The name of the Member of Parliament Duff had been asked to investigate, over allegations he had a "penchant for small boys," has not been revealed, but Sky reported Wednesday that four former senior politicians were named in previously unseen government documents on abuse. All four have been dead for years, but they were senior members of Thatcher's cabinet. Over the course of several years the sex abuse scandal has snowballed, revealing - at best - a pervasive lax attitude among British law enforcement, politicians and celebrity culture toward the abuse of children during the 1970s and 80s. The ongoing police investigation has already landed some big names from British culture ... in jail for abuses committed during the height of their popularity. Others have been posthumously revealed as serial abusers. Sky's investigation, however, is the first time any suggestion of a possible cover-up of abuse by senior government officials has emerged.
Note: The Thatcher government was reported to have covered up a VIP pedophile ring. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
From when Karen Morgan was 12, until she was well into her teens, she was sexually abused by her uncle - a ministerial servant with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Christian churches, as well as other religions, have faced claims of child abuse. But what is striking about the Jehovah's Witnesses is their explicit policy of dealing with abuse in-house, [and that] they insist there must be two witnesses to a crime. In Karen's case a second witness did come forward: Wendy, a family friend and fellow [church] member ... had been raped by the same man. Despite a pattern of predatory sexual behaviour, it took more than two decades to bring Wendy and Karen's abuser to justice. He is now serving a 14-year prison sentence. His punishment from the Jehovah's Witnesses? There wasn't one. When the case came to court, the organisation was reluctant to co-operate. Jehovah's Witnesses are not the only religious organisation to try to deal with allegations of sexual abuse in-house. For many decades, that was the preferred method of the Roman Catholic Church. Only this month, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish scholar from Manchester - who fled to Israel after he was exposed as a paedophile - was jailed for 13 years. The court had heard that both women who testified ... in the case had been "ostracised" by their community as a result of speaking out.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Government papers about the former home secretary Leon Brittan are among a fresh batch of documents which have come to light months after the conclusion of an official review into whether allegations of child abuse were covered up by the Home Office in the 1980s. The documents also reveal that the then director general of MI5 corresponded with the Cabinet Secretary in 1986 about an unnamed MP who was alleged to have “a penchant for small boys”. The letter from Sir Anthony Duff to Sir Robert Armstrong added: “At the present stage ... the risks of political embarrassment to the government is rather greater than the security danger.” “The risk to children is not considered at all,” Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, and barrister Richard Whittam, said in a supplement to their review. The papers ... will be passed to an ongoing independent inquiry into child abuse within state and non-state institutions. Previously unreleased files also concern figures including Margaret Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary, the late Sir Peter Morrison, former diplomat Sir Peter Hayman and former minister Sir William van Straubenzee. The papers also contain material on allegations by a former British army intelligence agent, Colin Wallace, about the Kincora boys’ home in Northern Ireland, which has long been at the centre of abuse claims. The Wanless review, published in November after the investigation of 114 missing Home Office files, could not rule out the possibility of files being destroyed as part of a coverup.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
"An Open Secret" is an unsettling look at pedophilia in Hollywood. The film's distillation of firsthand testimony and archival material has haunting implications. Amid the sickening recollections of victims and the even more sickening justifications of abusers, alleged and convicted, a picture emerges of a business devoid of oversight, where starry-eyed kids and trusting parents are easy prey. The [documentary by Amy Berg] advocates for transparency and an active watchdog apparatus, and it points to instances where convicted child molesters continue to work with children in the industry. Mainly, the film explores the shadows where managers, agents, producers and other power players take their predatory bonding with boys to criminal extremes. Five young men step forward to share their accusations of abuse. One of them, Michael Egan, filed headline-making allegations against Hollywood figures in 2014 — claims that he later dropped, an outcome that changed the trajectory of the film. However, an ongoing dispute between Berg and performers' union SAG-AFTRA, which threatened legal action over references to it, doesn't appear to have affected the finished product. With a healthy sense of outrage, it illuminates a long-standing culture in which lines of moral responsibility are blurred and accountability is all but nil.
Note: Don't miss this incredible film which follows five boys and their families who were gradually ensnared by a secret Hollywood pedophile ring which ruins their lives. It is available for free viewing on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Alexis Jay officially retired two years ago – not that you’d notice. In 2013 she stepped down from her role as Scotland’s chief social work adviser [and started] digging up horrific claims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. She moved on to sort out Northern Ireland’s safeguarding children boards. Last week ... she joined the panel of what has been described as Britain’s most complicated and wide-reaching statutory inquiry ever. The independent inquiry into child sex abuse (IICSA) is expected to take five years investigating claims of abuse in faith and religious organisations, the criminal justice system, local authorities and national institutions such as the BBC, NHS and Ministry of Defence. Jay was one of the first names confirmed as part of the panel. The inquiry had ... a rocky start, losing the support of victims very early on, along with its first two chairs, who were found to be too close to the establishment figures they would be investigating. But Jay [is], "passionately committed to it taking place and to the victims and survivors, and to get justice and truth out of the process,” she says. Almost a year on from the televised press conference at Rotherham football club that made her name, Jay still can’t believe the rumpus her report caused. “I knew it was going to be significant, but not quite on the scale it was,” she admits. For victims, she represents the hope that the statutory inquiry will not be another whitewash.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals.
Politicians, lawyers, activists and survivors of child abuse crowded into a committee room in the Palace of Westminster ... demanding a thorough and transparent government inquiry into historic child sex abuse allegations. Rumours have swirled in recent years about a cover-up in the British establishment involving senior politicians and police that has seen prominent figures engaging in child abuse and murder. Police have described evidence from one survivor relating to abuse at the Dolphin Square estate in London and at least three murders "credible and true". Yesterday's event, arranged by the WhiteFlowers group, was designed to keep up the pressure on home secretary Theresa May. The group has recently been vocal in challenging May's decision to exclude representatives of victims' groups from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which has been dogged by controversy after both Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf were forced to resign from chairing it due to their links to establishment figures. A New Zealand judge was appointed to chair the inquiry earlier this year. She has said that "the appointment of victims or survivors to the panel will not, in my view, be consistent with the objectivity, independence and impartiality that is required of members of an independent panel" - comments that have left campaigners furious. John Mann MP ... spoke, demanding that the Official Secrets Act be lifted. One survivor who was placed in care in homes in Rotherham, Warrington, North Wales and Rochdale, told the audience in an earlier meeting that abuse had taken place in each home.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Today’s conspiracy theory is tomorrow’s news headlines. The truth is not only out there, but it’s more outlandish than anything we could have made up. So, what are some of our biggest conspiracies? The Iraq War. America is attacked by terrorists and so, declares war on a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks, while ignoring an oil rich ally which had everything to do with them. The result is a disaster. And yet, we can’t really bring ourselves to hold anyone accountable. Fifa [is] the conspiracy du jour. We always knew Fifa was shonky and bribey, but ... it now looks like every World Cup in the last three decades ... could have been fixed. For those who say "it’s only a stupid sport", well, recently we’ve heard accusations of arms deals for votes involving ... Saudi Arabia. The banking crisis [is a] nice financial counterpoint to Iraq. Virtually destroy the western financial system. Get bailed out by the taxpayers who you’ve been ripping off. Oh, and while we’re at it, the banks played a part in the Fifa scandal. Paedophiles. At first it was just a few rubbish light entertainers. Then we had people muttering about the political establishment – and others counter-muttering don’t be ridiculous, that’s a conspiracy theory. But it wasn’t. Now, it’s a slow-motion train crash and an endless series of glacial government inquiries.
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Two bishops in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis resigned their posts Monday, the second time this spring that American church leaders have stepped aside after complaints over their handling of sexual abuse claims involving priests. In Minnesota, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt and an auxiliary bishop, Lee A. Piché, announced their departures less than two weeks after prosecutors in St. Paul accused the archdiocese of willfully ignoring warning signs of a pedophile priest. Their resignations followed the April exit of Bishop Robert W. Finn from the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri, who had been convicted of a misdemeanor for failing to report a priest who took pornographic pictures of girls. Under Pope Francis, the Vatican has stepped up efforts to hold bishops accountable for covering up or failing to take action in sexual abuse cases, including the announcement last week of a tribunal to weigh such cases. John J. Choi, the prosecutor in Ramsey County, Minn., said the resignations would not affect his office’s criminal and civil cases against the archdiocese, which accused church leaders of failing to intervene against a priest despite repeated complaints of misconduct. That priest ... has since been defrocked and imprisoned on sexual abuse charges. Since ... 1978, 16 other bishops have resigned or been forced from office under a cloud of accusations that they mishandled abuse cases, according to research by BishopAccountability.org, an advocacy group.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
You may miss a few moments of “An Open Secret,” either while looking away during its unsettling stories or closing your eyes in frustration. The film centers on a handful of young men who say that as child actors they were sexually assaulted by older men in the entertainment industry. Manipulations, cover-ups and exploitations are recounted, and in several cases accountability was weak; some of the culprits, we’re told, still work in Hollywood. The victims and their parents defy the stereotype of hard-driving dream-seekers. They come across as merely trusting, which led them to rely on those who promised successful careers. Such faith was exploited by men who later turned out to be predators. “He just told me it’s normal, like, this goes on all the time, this is what you have to do,” one young man says he was told after being molested by his manager. “Everybody does this.” Shame and fear of reprisals initially led him to stay silent, and may be keeping more victims from speaking out. [Director Amy] Berg connects that manager, Martin Weiss, who pleaded no contest to two counts of child molestation in 2012, to a string of other men in Hollywood who have also been accused or convicted of similar crimes. Further aggressive reporting is needed. This topic deserves a tenacious call for answers. Still, “An Open Secret” is affecting, particularly when the victims recount their experiences in voices that crack with emotion or pause with pain. Even if you do look away, hearing them speak is enough.
Note: Read a much more detailed report. Then learn how the film's director strangely distanced herself from the film, likely because she was threatened.
Pope Francis has created a church tribunal to judge bishops who fail to protect children from sexually abusive priests, the Vatican announced Wednesday, a move long sought by abuse victims and their advocates. The new court will be part of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church's chief watchdog. Since 2001, the congregation has judged priests accused of sexual abuse, but there has been no Vatican office with a similar role to judge bishops. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said the Pope will appoint a secretary and permanent staff for the tribunal. Longtime critics of the Vatican called Wednesday's move a "sea change" within the Catholic Church. "Priests abuse children, and so do bishops," said Terence McKiernan, president of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org. "Bishops who offend are inevitable enablers, and the commission's plan must confront that sad fact." Advocates for sexual abuse victims gave the new tribunal qualified approval. "Time will tell whether these moves actually result in holding bishops accountable for cover-ups of crimes," Boston-based church reform group Voice of the Faithful said. "But these steps are the most promising the Vatican has yet taken." The new court was advocated by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who has long pushed the Vatican to discipline bishops who failed to protect children.
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Campus sexual assault scandals have practically become routine. A new study ... suggests that sexual assault by college men is an even more widespread problem than the scandals imply. In an online survey about sexual activity and attitudes, more than half the men who played an intramural or intercollegiate sport reported coercing a partner into sex. Of the sexually coercive behaviors listed on the survey, including "I used threats to make my partner have oral or anal sex," almost all met the legal definition of rape. The scientists also found an association between admitting to coercive sex acts and endorsing two distinct attitudes: the belief in rape myths, such as "If a woman doesn't fight back, it isn't rape," and traditional views of gender roles, such as "Women should worry less about their rights and more about becoming good wives and mothers." "It was the attitudes toward women and acceptance of the rape myth that explained the difference between athletes and non-athletes," said Sarah Desmarais, a forensic psychologist at North Carolina State University. Advocating for change and educating for prevention, however, takes research into the problem, which can be hard to come by, [lead author Belinda-Rose] Young said. She suspects that colleges and universities simply don't want to expose their students, and athletes in particular, to research that could potentially have legal consequences if they admit to criminal acts.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A study has found rules that required Canadian aboriginals to attend state-funded church schools were responsible for "cultural genocide". The report released on Tuesday found that First Nation children were often physically and sexually abused. "They were stripped of their self-respect and they were stripped of their identity," said Murray Sinclair, one of the study's authors. More than 130 residential schools operated across Canada. The Canadian government forced more than 150,000 First Nation children to attend these schools from the 19th Century until the mid-1990s. The schools sought to integrate the children into mainstream Canadian society, but in doing so rid them of their native culture. The policies have been cited as a major factor in an epidemic of substance abuse on reservations. Students said they were beaten for speaking their native language and were separated from their parents and customs. Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a historic apology in parliament in 2008, acknowledging the physical and sexual abuse that took place in the schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which wrote the report, was created in 2006 as part of a $5bn (Ł3.3bn) class action settlement between the government, churches and the 90,000 surviving First Nation students. The report issued 94 recommendations including an investigation into missing and murdered aboriginal women and an apology from Pope Francis on behalf of the Catholic Church.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals and violations of basic civil rights.
Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was paying a former student to keep quiet about allegations of sexual abuse from the time when Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach in Illinois, two sources with knowledge of the federal government investigation told CNN on Friday afternoon. Hastert was a teacher and wrestling coach in Yorkville, Illinois between 1965 and 1981 before entering politics. Federal prosecutors indicted Hastert on Thursday for lying to the FBI about $3.5 million he agreed to pay to an undisclosed person to "cover up past misconduct." A federal law enforcement official confirmed to CNN early Friday evening that the former student was a male and a minor when the alleged abuse took place. Federal law enforcement officials also said that investigators decided not to pursue a possible extortion case in the matter. Much remains unclear in the seven-page indictment federal officials lodged against the former Republican House speaker. The indictment lists relevant facts as including Hastert's time working as a teacher and coach in Yorkville for 16 years. But Hastert was not approached by "Individual A" until 2010. From 2010 until 2014, Hastert first negotiated with and then made secret payments to the unknown subject. Charges were not filed against Hastert until Thursday, a half century after the first relevant date listed in the indictment.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Cardinal George Pell is "a dangerous individual" and "almost sociopathic" in his response to child sexual abuse victims, Pope Francis' specially-appointed commissioner for the protection of children, Peter Saunders, says. Pope Francis last December appointed Mr Saunders, a British survivor of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, to the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to ensure the Catholic Church acted with greater accountability and transparency in relation to child sexual abuse. Mr Saunders said that ... Cardinal Pell was "making a mockery of the Papal Commission, of the Pope himself, but most of all, of the victims and the survivors". "I think anybody who is a serious obstacle to the work of the commission and to the work of the Pope in trying to clean up the church's act over this matter, I think they need to be taken aside very, very quickly and removed from any kind of position of influence." Cardinal Pell was appointed to manage the Vatican's finances in February last year, making him one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church. Questions have been raised over whether Cardinal Pell had supported notorious paedophile priests, including Gerald Ridsdale, instead of protecting victims and their families. Cardinal Pell has previously apologised to the commission for accompanying Ridsdale to court in 1993, but has denied he tried to bribe a victim to keep quiet as part of a cover-up and that he was dismissive of victims and their families.
Note: Watch a revealing 60 Minutes video on Pell's case. These accusations were originally made back in 2002, but were later dismissed. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Child sex abuse is so rife in Britain that there is not enough land in the country to build the number of prisons needed to house the perpetrators, the Deputy Childrenfs Commissioner for England has warned. Sue Berelowitz, who is currently chairing the governmentfs inquiry into the problem said the public would be shocked by the sheer scale of the problem when she reports in November. "I want us to keep in mind that people who sexually abuse children ... are here and in our midst. If the CPS were to prosecute everyone we would need a rolling prison programme. I would say there probably isn't the land to build enough prisons." Mrs Berelowitzfs report comes in the wake of abuse scandals in areas including Rotherham, where it was reported that 1,400 children were abused between 1997 and 2013. A previous inquiry into sex abuse by gangs revealed that from August 2010 to October 2011 at least 2,409 children were sexually exploited by gangs and groups across England. Scotland Yard is also being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) over claims that it covered up child sex abuse because of the involvement of influential MPs and police officers between the 1970 and 2000s. Mrs Berelowitz claimed that there were still cover ups happening in local authorities and police stations.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
For months, the U.N.'s top human rights officials knew about allegations of child sexual abuse by French soldiers in Central African Republic. But they didn't follow up because they assumed French authorities were handling it ... even as France pressed the U.N. for more information about the case. The deputy high commissioner for human rights also says that her colleague who first informed French authorities last July did it because he didn't think the recently created U.N. peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic would act on the allegations. A year after the U.N. first heard allegations from children as young as 9 that French soldiers had sexually abused them, sometimes in exchange for food, it seems that the only person who has been punished is the U.N. staffer who told French authorities. The Paris prosecutor's office this month, however, blamed the U.N. "hierarchy" for taking more than six months to supply answers to its questions. The U.N. finally handed over written answers on April 29, the Paris prosecutor's office said — the same day that the Guardian newspaper first made the French and U.N. inquiries public. French soldiers had been tasked with protecting civilians in Central African Republic from vicious violence between Christians and Muslims. Thousands of scared people had crammed into a camp for displaced people. Residents have told the AP that soldiers offered cookies, other food or bottles of water in exchange for sodomy or oral sex. It is still not clear where the accused soldiers are now.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
The decapitated body of a missing blogger who was investigating a child prostitution ring has been found by police in Brazil. Evany José Metzker's body was found outside the town of Padre Paraíso, in ... Brazil's southeastern Minas Gerais state. Metzger, who maintained a blog named 'Coruja do Vale' (The Owl of the Valley), was reportedly investigating a child prostitution ring operating in the area. Metzger had travelled to Padre Paraíso three months earlier. His body was found on Monday. He had been missing for several days. Metzger's wife, Hilma Chaves Silva Borges, was quoted by The Committee to Protect Journalists as saying that Metzker was working in a dangerous part of the country. "There are lots of murders here. I think that the motive, given the barbarity of his murder, was because he hit on something," she was quoted as saying. Brazil is the third most dangerous country for journalists in Latin America, after Mexico and Colombia, according to Reporters Without Borders. In his blog Metzger often reported on corrupt officials and politicians. Extra, a local daily newspaper, quoted Metzker's family as saying the police were led to the body following an anonymous tip-off.
Note: Those running child prostitution rings make huge amounts of money and are protected by politicians at high levels. Many will not hesitate to kill if anyone threatens to expose their sex trade in children. If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here.
British police investigating allegations of historical child sex abuse said more than 1,400 people had been named as suspects including 261 described as "people of public prominence" including dozens of politicians and TV stars. Child abuse scandals over the last few years have prompted the government to launch a major public inquiry. Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the officer leading that inquiry named "Operation Hydrant", said 1,433 people were being investigated of whom 216 were now dead. The suspects included 135 figures from TV, film or radio, 76 politicians involved in both local and national politics, 43 from the music industry and seven from the sporting world. "This investigation is massive and a testimony to how the attitude to victims is changing," said Sheila Taylor, chief executive of the National Working Group Network, a charity which tackles child sexual exploitation. The issue of child abuse came to widespread prominence in 2012 when the late BBC TV presenter Jimmy Savile was shown to have abused hundreds of victims for decades. Since then, other household names have been convicted, allegations have been made against a number of former or deceased politicians, while detectives are also looking into claims powerful figures forced police to drop inquiries into paedophile rings involving high-profile people. Bailey said that 666 of the offenders being investigated were alleged to have carried out abuse at institutions including schools, children's homes and religious institutions.
Note: In 1984, UK security services raided major newspapers to prevent the publication of articles on paedophile rings run by prominent politicians. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
More than 1,400 suspects, including politicians and celebrities, have been investigated by police probing historical child sex abuse allegations. The figures were revealed by Operation Hydrant, set up by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC). It explores ... child sex abuse by "prominent public persons". Of the 1,433 suspects identified, 216 are now dead and 261 are classified as people of public prominence, with 135 coming from TV, film or radio. The figures are taken from police forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They relate to reports of abuse, or investigations of abuse, which police forces were dealing with in the summer of 2014. Norfolk Police Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the NPCC's lead on child protection, said the referrals were increasing "on an almost daily basis". He also said police were projected to receive about 116,000 reports of historical child sex abuse by the end of 2015 - an increase of 71% from 2012. He added: "There is no doubt [Jimmy] Savile has had an effect on us. We are dealing with more and more allegations." Ex-DJ Jimmy Savile was revealed after his death to be one of the UK's most prolific sexual predators. Jon Brown, head of the NSPCC's programme to tackle sexual abuse, described the figures as "astonishing" and said they showed abuse "permeates all parts of society". He added: "What we're beginning to see is a much more realistic picture now of the scale of the problem."
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Brian Way officially became Canada’s most prolific and infamous child pornographer on Tuesday. The 43-year-old Torontonian, who has been behind bars for four years on charges of possessing, publishing and selling videos of naked, pre-pubescent and pubescent boys, received a clear verdict from Ontario Superior Court Judge Julie Thorburn: “guilty.” From a nondescript warehouse on the Queensway, Way sold thousands of videos and images to customers around the world. When Toronto Police raided his offices in 2011 and gathered 187,000 images and more than 8,000 videos, it triggered the largest child pornography bust in Canadian history and one of the largest anywhere, involving police in 90 countries. Before the so-called Project Spade bust was over, police arrested and charged hundreds of Way’s customers internationally - including doctors, lawyers, coaches, teachers and priests. The global tentacles of Way’s child pornography business are striking. More than a hundred arrests were made in Canada, plus 76 in the U.S. and 350 in other countries. The resulting police investigations led to the rescue of more than 400 children at risk who were featured in the images and videos, police say. The scandal also triggered a political upheaval and changes to child pornography laws in Germany, after a high-profile politician was publicly identified as a customer of Azovfilms.com.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An appeal tribunal has ordered the United Nations to immediately lift the suspension of a whistleblower who disclosed the alleged sexual abuse of children by peacekeeping troops in Africa to the French authorities. A judge said on Wednesday the decision to suspend Anders Kompass, the director of field operations for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, was “prima facie unlawful”. He ordered his employers in the UN to lift his suspension immediately to prevent further damage to his reputation. Kompass leaked an internal UN report on the alleged sexual abuse of children by French troops in Central African Republic to French prosecutors last summer. The French immediately mounted an investigation and revealed last week they were investigating up to 14 soldiers for alleged abuse, [and] wrote to thank Kompass for passing on the internal report detailing the abuse. In his statement to the dispute tribunal, Kompass said he had suffered damage to his reputation as a result of the suspension and allegations being made against him by the UN. His lawyers state: “The applicant [Kompass] has an unblemished employment record and his competence and integrity, which have never been questioned throughout his career, are cast into doubt by the contested decision; the publicity of the process resulting from him having been placed on administrative leave leads to an exacerbation of the reputational damage … each day the administrative leave continues.”
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Senior members of South Yorkshire police were warned twice of the serious child abuse being carried out in Rotherham around a decade before it was discovered 1,400 children had been raped, trafficked and groomed over a period of 16 years – but no action was taken at the time. The Sheffield Star has obtained reports from 2003 and 2006 detailing the organised child sexual exploitation being carried out in Rotherham and Sheffield. Dr Angie Heal, the author of the reports, stated at the time it was “very evident” that “significant abuse” was taking place in Sheffield and Rotherham, in 2003, and in 2006 found that that the perpetrators of sexual abuse had been able to “carry on with impunity”. The reports were sent to both South Yorkshire Police district commanders, chief superintendents and CID and community safety superintendents at the time, but no action was taken. As the news of the warnings emerge, South Yorkshire’s current police and crime commissioner has [stated], “We saw these girls not as victims but as troublesome young people out of control, and willing participants. We saw it as child prostitution rather than child abuse, and I think that was broadly accepted and that’s why it all went wrong.” Dr Heal told the Sheffield Star that child sexual exploitation had been put in the “too hard to deal with tray” and a senior police officer informed her at the time that “burglary and car crime were policing priorities set by the government”.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
In a scathing critique of the Defense Department's efforts to curb sexual assaults, a U.S. senator warned Monday that the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is "vastly underreported" and that victims continue to struggle for justice. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a report that the Pentagon refused to provide her with all the information she requested about sexual assaults at several major bases. The material she did receive revealed that the spouses of service members and civilian women who live or work near military facilities are especially vulnerable to being sexually assaulted. Yet they "remain in the shadows" because neither is counted in Defense Department surveys to determine the prevalence of sexual assaults, the report said. In its annual report on sexual assaults in the military released Friday, the Defense Department reported progress in staunching the epidemic of sexual assaults. It estimated that sex crimes are decreasing and more victims are choosing to report them — a sign there is more confidence offenders will be held accountable. To Gillibrand ... the case files contradict the Pentagon's assertion that military commanders will be tough on service members accused of sex crimes.
Note: The cases described in Sen. Gillibrand's report reveal a pattern of widespread sexual abuse around U.S. military bases that is routinely covered up. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and military corruption from reliable major media sources.
Nearly two-thirds of women in the military who filed sexual assault complaints last year said they faced retaliation, according to a Pentagon report released on Friday. The study found that the number of sexual assaults in the military declined last year, echoing the conclusion of a Defense Department report released in December. Even as sexual assaults were reported to have declined, the Pentagon said that more service members filed assault complaints, and that about a third of attacks were now being reported. “Despite our efforts to date, the fight against sexual assault is far from over,” [Defense Secretary Ashton B.] Carter wrote in a memo that was released with the new study. “I am concerned that far too many of those who report the crime perceive some kind of retaliation.” Using the standard of unwanted sexual contact, the Pentagon estimated that just under 19,000 service members were assaulted last year, a drop of about 27 percent from 2012. The number of attacks actually reported last year was 6,131, an 11 percent increase over the previous year and a 70 percent jump over 2012.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and military corruption from reliable major media sources.
A senior United Nations aid worker has been suspended for disclosing to prosecutors an internal report on the sexual abuse of children by French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic. Anders Kompass passed the document to the French authorities because of the UN’s failure to take action to stop the abuse. The report documented the sexual exploitation of children as young as nine by French troops stationed in the country as part of international peacekeeping efforts. The abuses took place in 2014 when the UN mission in the country, Minusca, was in the process of being set up. The Guardian has been passed the internal report. It was commissioned by the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights after reports on the ground that children, who are among the tens of thousands displaced by the fighting, were being sexually abused. Entitled Sexual Abuse on Children by International Armed Forces ... the report details the rape and sodomy of starving and homeless young boys by French peacekeeping troops who were supposed to be protecting them at a centre for internally displaced people in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic. The UN has faced several scandals in the past relating to its failure to act over paedophile rings operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo and Bosnia. It has also faced allegations of sexual misconduct by its troops in Haiti, Burundi and Liberia.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
One of Scotland’s leading schools is facing claims by former students that they were abused by paedophiles. Gordonstoun, a famously severe Scottish institution ... was touted as a place for spoilt or wealthy children who needed toughening up – Sean Connery and David Bowie’s sons went, and so did Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter. Physical punishment, strict discipline and cold showers were key ... to keeping children in line. The school was notorious not just for being tough, but for bullying. As part of his initiation at Gordonstoun, Prince Charles, aged 13, is said to have been caged naked in a basket and left under a cold shower. The regime at Aberlour House [a preparatory school for Gordonstoun] was not much softer. A series of complaints ... covering 40 years reveal a dark alternative history. Too often to be excused, Gordonstoun and its junior school appear to have let down the trust of parents and failed to respect the rights and needs of children. Predatory paedophiles are a part of the [schools'] history. In 2013 some [former pupils] began a private Facebook group, discussing things that had happened at the school, “that you don’t see in the brochures and the class photographs”, as one of them put it. Rapes, of boys and girls, were mentioned. [One rape survivor] started to receive messages from girls she had known, apologising for the gossip and rumours, for the bullying, and for not having done more to help. The group eventually involved more than 100 ex-pupils.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Global horror over child abuse and its concealment by the Establishment, hitherto focused squarely on the UK, now needs to be widened to France as well. Thousands of children in French schools have been sexually abused by paedophile teachers, an international NGO has claimed, accusing the French education authorities of a decades-long “cover-up”. The French education system is set to become the focus of a national scandal after minister for education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem was forced to admit last week that 16 teachers were allowed to work in schools last year despite holding previous convictions for paedophilia. Homayra Sellier, founder of Innocence en Danger, an NGO dedicated to child abuse victims, says: “The ministry of education has covered this up for years. The government has never been inclined to listen to these stories.” Sellier forecasts thousands of cases will emerge, a concern echoed by another French NGO, Lueur d’Enfance, which works to support and defend the rights of children. Teachers who try to speak out about child abuse at the hands of other teachers are silenced by school directors and local officials, and even threatened with legal action – usually defamation. Others have lost their jobs. As for the teachers the children accuse, they usually stay at the same school, or are quietly transferred to another.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Last week, FAIR noticed that not one major media organization in the United States has covered the charge, reported in Colombia, “that US military soldiers and contractors had sexually abused at least fifty-four children in Colombia between 2003 and 2007 and, in all cases, the rapists were never punished–either in Colombia or stateside–due to American military personnel being immune from prosecution under diplomatic immunity agreements.” One of the rapes ... was allegedly committed by Army sergeant Michael J. Coen and an employee of a private security contractor, César Ruiz. The victim was a 12-year-old girl. They abducted her, they drugged her, they took her to the air base near the town of Melgar and raped her, they took videos of her. Colombian prosecutors issued arrest warrants [that] were “not executed because of the immunity of Coen and Ruiz.” Under a series of treaties ... members of the US military stationed in Colombia are immune from prosecution. That immunity has since been extended to private security firms. Another serious sexual assault that, like the rape described above, was covered by the Colombian press, both in print and on TV, but ignored in the United States: in 2004, “53 underage girls were sexually abused by mercenaries, who filmed and sold the tapes as pornographic material.” The private security firm involved [was identified as] DynCorp, a Virginia-based contractor.
Note: Dyncorp is only slightly less infamous than Blackwater, having been involved in numerous international outrages, including a child sex slavery ring in Bosnia in 1999. Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The Metropolitan Police is being investigated over further allegations of corruption in relation to child sex offences dating back to the 1970s, including the claim that evidence gathered against MPs, judges, media entertainers, police, clergy and actors was dropped due to police intervention. The fresh allegations are in addition to the 14 cases being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), revealed earlier this month, dating from the 1970s to the 2000s. The three new investigations relate to allegations about police suppressing evidence, hindering or halting investigations, and covering up offences due to the involvement of members of parliament and police officers. One case addressed the allegation that a child abuse investigation in central London, which gathered evidence against MPs, judges, media entertainers, police, actors, clergy, and others, was dropped. It has been claimed that two months after the file had been submitted to start proceedings against those identified, an officer was called in by a senior Met officer and told to drop the case. The two further allegations relate to a child abuse investigation conducted in the 1980s, with one relating directly to police actions in the case. The IPCC said it was also assessing a further six referrals it had received from the Met relating to similar matters.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Top British detectives are questioning an unlikely suspect in a high-stakes child abuse investigation: their boss. Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is getting grilled by his own detectives over an alleged police cover-up connected to former Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration. Hogan-Howe was an Assistant Chief Constable for the Merseyside Police in 1998, when the department uncovered claims that one of Blair’s ministers was a suspected pedophile. Hogan-Howe now says he “does not recall details about the investigation” or any suspects, according to a statement from the Metropolitan Police Service. But a source close to the investigation [said] it is “inconceivable” that Hogan-Howe and his cohorts weren’t aware of the accusations. "The senior investigating officer at the time would have been expected to have reported to his senior officers the fact a serving government minister had come under suspicion," the source said. Even as he is apparently being questioned within his own department, the MPS said in a statement that Hogan-Howe "absolutely refutes any suggestion he would have stopped or inhibited a criminal investigation of the nature suggested, including politicians. It would be wrong to suggest otherwise." MPS opened an investigation into the cover-up claims just two years ago. The minister was one of several men suspected of sexually abusing children at a Brixton home in the early '80s.
Note: It's quite interesting that few mainstream media in the UK or US have picked up this important article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
The UK police watchdog has announced that it is investigating the Metropolitan Police following allegations that the force was involved in a cover-up over child abuse offenses. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has launched the investigation after the Met referred themselves over 16 separate allegations - 14 of which are to be investigated. The IPCC will look into claims of corruption within the force and whether they purposefully ignored evidence and halted investigations due to the involvement of MPs and other members of the establishment. This most recent development comes as a result of Operation Fairbank, first launched by Scotland Yard in 2012, to probe suggestions that high profile figures were involved in historic Westminster paedophile rings. Since then detectives have also opened up inquiries into the murder of three boys who it’s alleged were killed by those involved in such rings, claims which ... have resulted in the police calling for witnesses as they have been unable to identify the victims. One of the 14 referrals for the IPCC says that “a proactive operation targeting young men in Dolphin Square was stopped because officers were too near prominent people”, while another is about “allegations that a politician had spoken with a senior Met Police officer and demanded no action was taken regarding a paedophile ring and boys being procured and supplied to prominent persons in Westminster in the 1970s”.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Child sex abuse is "woven, covertly, into the fabric" of British society, Theresa May has warned. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the home secretary said the public were yet to grasp the full scale of the problem. Her comments come after a new panel was announced for the parliamentary inquiry into historical child abuse. Mrs May said the inquiry marked a "new beginning", but warned allegations made so far were only the "tip of the iceberg". The inquiry was set up in July 2014 to find out whether public bodies had covered up or neglected allegations of abuse, following claims that a paedophile ring had operated in Westminster in the 1980s. Mrs May said: "We already know the trail will lead into our schools and hospitals, our churches, our youth clubs and many other institutions that should have been places of safety but instead became the setting for the most appalling abuse. "However, what the country doesn't yet appreciate is the true scale of that abuse." The inquiry will have statutory powers to compel witnesses to appear to determine whether institutions took seriously their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse in England and Wales. Mrs May said she felt it was a "once-in-a-generation" chance to uncover institutional abuse, which she called "the darkness in our midst".
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Police investigating a historic sex abuse ring in Westminster are attempting to uncover whether a man was murdered in the Nineties because he planned to expose child abuse at a London council. An unpublished internal investigation into abuse by staff within Lambeth council ... reveals claims that a civil servant was planning to expose how council property was used to carry out sexual assaults. Bulic Forsythe was beaten to death at his flat in 1993 after he reportedly told a colleague that he knew about a sex ring operating at children’s homes. Police appealed for help in tracking down three smartly dressed men who left the flat the day after the murder, but the case remains unsolved. It was feared he was killed as a possible outcome for anyone who “asked too many questions.” Other shocking allegations detailed in the document include senior Lambeth civil servants using council premises to carry out rapes, with one female staff member claiming she was raped alongside children and animals by senior council staff. Although the report recommends a criminal investigation, its findings were not formally investigated by police at the time. The revelations come after Labour MP John Mann last year called on police to investigate the suspicious deaths of Forsythe and an unnamed whistleblower who was said to have obtained videos of child sex “parties”. The inquiry was announced last summer in the wake of a series of child-abuse scandals and claims a paedophile ring operated at Westminster in the 1980s.
Note: If you think this is only a problem in the UK, watch a revealing five-minute video presenting solid evidence that Child Protective Services is involved in organized U.S. child sex trafficking rings. See this webpage for more information. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An inquiry into allegations of child sex abuse rings, murder, and cover-ups has been launched by the British government. Victims [claim] they were systematically abused as young boys at sex abuse parties attended by judges, politicians, intelligence officers, and staff at the royal palaces. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, [Liz Davies] was a social worker ... with an unusual problem: Teenage boys, usually so reluctant to seek help, would line up outside her office on Hornsey Road waiting to come inside. She would later discover that the international office of the Paedophile Information Exchange was just a few hundred yards from her desk, and her patch was home to a host of prolific child attackers linked into a network of powerful abuse rings that stretched from Westminster to Northern Ireland, Wales, and the island of Jersey in the Channel. [By 1991] she had amassed evidence of abuse perpetrated against 61 victims. Council officials [told] her to stop causing trouble. A year later she finally quit social services when she says she discovered that the boys she had been trying to save were being sent back into the Islington care home system only to suffer yet more sexual abuse. “I was networking these children into another network which was running within the care homes. I was handing over the most vulnerable, sexually exploited children to more pedophiles,” she said. Davies took a suitcase stuffed with evidence, including graphic photographs, to the Metropolitan Police. She said the well-intentioned superintendent looked at her haul and mournfully confessed that powerful figures still controlled what might be exposed. “I won’t be able to investigate here at Scotland Yard,” he said.
Note: The above article provides a comprehensive history of attempts to expose a child abuse ring that the Home Secretary, head of MI-6, and other top officials participated in and covered up. If you think this is only a problem in the UK, watch a revealing five-minute video presenting solid evidence that Child Protective Services is involved in organized U.S. child sex trafficking rings. See this webpage for more information. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Many of the child sex abuse scandals that have shocked Britain in recent years involve victims who were supposed to be under the protection of the state. Each year the government loses track of around 2,000 vulnerable children in care, even as reports of human trafficking inside the country are on the rise. “Children ... just go missing, and we don’t know what’s happening to them,” says John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat in Parliament. Hemming believes that better tracking of children who leave care might have made a difference in Rotherham and another abuse case, in Rochdale. In 2012 ... abusers were brought to justice in Rochdale over a child sex ring that went ignored for years despite victims repeatedly seeking local authorities’ help. “[This] is all about abuse of power by employees of the state,” says Hemming. “The fact that it involves the maltreatment of children for sexual gratification makes this all the worse." Jon Bird, operations manager at London’s National Association of Adults Abused in Childhood, says nearly half of the survivors ... of human trafficking were at one time inside the U.K.’s care system. The U.K.’s Human Trafficking Centre’s latest assessment shows a total of 2,744 people, including 602 children, reported as trafficked for exploitation in the U.K. in 2013, up 22 percent from 2012. Victims were forced to work in brothels, hotels, private homes or on the street as sex workers, and also forced into domestic servitude or to work on building sites or in farms and factories. The government-run National Crime Agency declined to discuss potential links between the child-care system and trafficking.
Note: If you think this is only a problem in the UK, read this disturbing article about the likely murder of Bill Bowen, a man who was about to complete a documentary exposing blatant, horrible abuses by the US's Child Protective Services that were covered up at high levels. Watch a revealing five-minute video presenting solid evidence that Child Protective Services is involved in organized U.S. child sex trafficking rings. See this webpage for more information. For solid evidence of a pedophile ring reaching to the highest levels of government, don't miss this powerful documentary and these sexual abuse new summaries.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said tackling child sexual abuse was a national priority on a par with organised crime on Tuesday, announcing measures to prevent systematic abuse. Britain has been rocked by a series of child sex abuse revelations, including a case in Rotherham, northern England, where some 1,400 children, some as young as 11, were abused by gangs of men. "I've just spent half an hour with some of the survivors of abuse in Rotherham and these are stories that are going to stay with me forever. They are absolutely horrific," Cameron said at a meeting of victim groups, police and child protection experts held in his official London residence. "Young girls [are] being abused over and over again on an industrial scale." Classifying child sexual abuse as a national threat will create a duty for police forces to collaborate across regions to safeguard children, Cameron's office said. Cameron also announced other measures to improve coordination between public bodies and a helpline to encourage whistleblowers. In addition, Cameron proposed criminal sanctions for senior public workers who fail to protect children from abuse. Referring to the Rotherham case he said: "This has happened with too many organisations and too many people walking on by and we have got to really resolve that this stops here, it doesn't happen again and we recognise abuse for what it is."
Note: If you think this is only a problem in the UK, watch a revealing five-minute video presenting solid evidence that Child Protective Services is involved in organized U.S. child sex trafficking rings. See this webpage for more information. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
I used to go door-to-door on my own with a big, strong, well liked man in my congregation, named Jonathan. I was just 9 and 10 when he repeatedly sexually abused me. It is really hard for kids to speak up when they’re abused. But the Jehovah’s Witnesses make it a lot harder. They have a “2 Witness” rule, which says that anyone who accuses an adult of abuse must have a second witness. If there is no second witness, the accuser is punished for a false accusation - usually by ordering that no Witness may talk with or associate with the “false” accuser. This is called dis-fellowshipping. For a kid raised only with other Witnesses, it was horrifying. Even your parents would have to ignore you. It was more terrifying than Jonathan. It was the elders of my congregation who had assigned Jonathan to team up with me. Like everyone else in the congregation, my parents liked “Brother” Jonathan and trusted him in our family. What my parents didn’t know, was that Jonathan had sexually molested another girl in our congregation. The elders knew this and had kept it a secret. They were following orders from Watchtower leaders, based in the world headquarters in New York, who in 1989 had issued a top-secret instruction to keep known child sex abusers in the congregations a secret. This instruction became Exhibit 1 at my civil trial. A recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting revealed that they have continued to issues directives urging silence around child abuse. Last November, elders were instructed to avoid taking criminal matters like child abuse to the authorities. Instead, they were told to handle them internally in confidential committees.
Note: The above Guardian article was written by Candace Conti, the first child sexual abuse victim to win a jury trial against Watchtower. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
More than 300 young people have been groomed and sexually exploited by gangs of men in Oxfordshire in the past 15 years, a damning report into the failures of police and social services to stop years of sexual torture, trafficking and rape will reveal, the Guardian has learned. The victims, mostly girls, come predominantly from the city of Oxford. A serious case review by the Oxfordshire safeguarding children’s board, to be published on Tuesday, will condemn Thames Valley police for not believing the young girls, for treating them as if they had chosen to adopt the lifestyle, and for failing to act on repeated calls for help. Oxfordshire social services – which had responsibility for the girls’ safety – will be equally damned for knowing they were being groomed and for failing to protect them despite compelling evidence they were in danger. One social worker told a trial that nine out of 10 of those responsible for the girls [were] aware of what was going on. The case echoes the child exploitation scandals in Rotherham, Rochdale and Derby. In Oxford, however, the grooming, sexual torture and trafficking took place on the streets of the Cowley area of the city, in churchyards, parks, a guesthouse and empty flats procured for the purpose of drugging the girls and handing them around to be gang raped and brutalised. Police officers and social workers did not listen to the girls when they spoke of the abuse they were suffering, did not believe them and dismissed them.
Note: If you think this is only a problem in the UK, read this disturbing article about the likely murder of Bill Bowen, a man who was about to complete a documentary exposing blatant, horrible abuses by the US's Child Protective Services that were covered up at high levels. Watch a revealing five-minute video presenting solid evidence that Child Protective Services is involved in organized U.S. child sex trafficking rings. See this webpage for more information. For solid evidence of a pedophile ring reaching to the highest levels of government, don't miss this powerful documentary and these sexual abuse new summaries.
Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, will apologise to dozens of hospital patients who were abused by Jimmy Savile amid new allegations about the "horrific" scale of abuse. An official report, published by barrister Kate Lampard on Thursday, will disclose allegations that Savile assaulted and raped at least 44 victims at Stoke Mandeville hospital. The victims, some of whom were as young as eight, say that their complaints about Savile's behaviour were ignored by the authorities. A former children's doctor has also been convicted of sexually assaulting young girls at the hospital in the 1970s and 1980s, raising fears that there may have been a paedophile ring operating at the hospital. The report will also examine allegations about Savile's activity at a further 43 hospitals across the country. One woman told the inquiry that she was abused when she was eight-years-old and recovering from cancer surgery. At the time she had 144 stitches across the lower part of her body as a result of an operation. She says that when she raised her complaint with a ward sister, she was met with the response: "Be quiet, you silly girl. Do you realise how much he has done for the hospital." Savile, the former Radio 1 DJ and television personality, began volunteering as a porter at Stoke Mandeville in the 1970s and had free use of a flat on site while he helped to raise Ł40 million for its spinal injuries centre. Many people say ‘times have changed’ but it is still not illegal to cover-up claims of abuse to protect an organisation’s profitability and reputation.
Note: For lots more revealing how deep this sex abuse scandal runs, read another Telegraph article on how hospital staff covered up the abuse, and a BBC report on how Jimmy Savile's brother used his family name to sexually abuse psychiatric patients at a London hospital where abuse was also systematically covered up. For solid evidence of a pedophile ring reaching to the highest levels of government, don't miss this powerful documentary. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
From a Melbourne courtroom, the torment of the Chabad rabbis was streamed live to the world as the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse probed the city’s secretive and powerful Yeshivah community. Sharp divisions in the Jewish world have been exposed. Two rabbis, including one of the nation’s most prominent, have been forced from their posts. Whistleblowers, humiliated and ostracised for years by Yeshivah, have been dramatically vindicated. More victims have come forward. More criminal charges may follow. Yeshivah schools face a nightmare of civil litigation. The cast is Jewish, yet the bones of this story are familiar to anyone who has followed the scandal of child abuse in Christian schools and parishes. The witness stand of a royal commission is a cruel place for men of any faith. Cardinals and preachers are not used to being held to account. In their world, facts don’t necessarily matter. Belief is everything. Up against the law, compelled to answer, they find themselves trapped in daylight. Over 10 long days of hearings in Melbourne, rabbi after rabbi apologised for the failings of the Chabad-Lubavitcher communities of St Kilda and Bondi. Some did so bluntly. Some only when they were cornered by tough questioning. Only Rabbi Moshe Gutnick seized the opportunity. “I and many of my so-called ultra-Orthodox friends and colleagues share the outrage as to what has gone on here,” he told the commissioners.
Note: For more on this disturbing story read this article also in the UK's Guardian. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Australia's most senior rabbi has resigned days after revelations at a royal commission that he called the father of three child abuse victims a "lunatic". The senior vice-president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australasia, Rabbi Yoram Ulman, confirmed to Fairfax Media that Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant had stepped down as president of the organisation. This follows calls for Rabbi Kluwgant to resign from all his public positions after appearing at the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Abuse on Friday, the final day of its hearing on Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Sydney's response to child sexual abuse allegations against convicted offenders David Cyprys, David Kramer and Daniel Hayman. Three of [Zephaniah] Waks' children were abused as students of Yeshivah College in Melbourne, including Manny, the founder of Jewish victims support group Tzedek. Asked by the Waks' lawyer, Melinda Richards: "Did you, Rabbi, send a text message to Mr Lawrence saying 'Zephaniah is killing us. Zephaniah is attacking Chabad. He is a lunatic on the fringe. Guilty of neglect of his own children. Where was he when all this was happening?" "I may have said that, yes," he replied. Both Manny and Zephaniah previously told the commission they had relocated overseas following years of intimidation from the ultra-orthodox Chabad community, in response to going public with abuse allegations.
Note: Read more about this disturbing scandal and cover up in Australia's Orthodox Jewish Community. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
A former Home Office researcher says a bullying culture at Rotherham Council led to her warnings of child sexual exploitation being suppressed in 2002, years before action was finally taken. A report this month by government official Louise Casey concluded the council was not "fit for purpose". The council says it is investigating researcher Adele Gladman's claims. Previously, she has only spoken anonymously. "What I didn't realise was just how many whistle-blowers there had been over the years and how many opportunities to change poor practice," she said. "That has cost young people their health, their happiness and in some cases their lives." Ms Gladman was based at Rotherham Council when she carried out the work for the Home Office. She describes being subjected to bullying and intimidation after her research found a small number of men, mainly of Pakistani heritage, were sexually exploiting a significant number of young people. She says the council sent her on race awareness training and effectively suppressed her report. "I had every aspect of my professionalism questioned," she said. "I had every aspect of my work questioned. I had data removed over a weekend so that I couldn't substantiate my findings." She says the bullying she faced went beyond the local authority and remembers a police officer approaching her outside her office. "He and a colleague said words along the lines of 'Wouldn't it be a shame if these perpetrators found out where you and your family lived'. "And I took that as a direct threat to my personal safety. The message was very clear."
Note: By 'conservative estimates' detailed in a 2014 report, over 1400 children as young as 12 were sexually exploited between 1997 and 2013 in Rotherham. Police and elected officials actively helped the perpetrators, covered up the crimes, and systematically prevented the victims from getting help. For more, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, or read deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Virginia Roberts was so badly assaulted during the attacks by friends of billionaire convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein that she feared for her life, a court in Florida was told. “There were times when I was physically abused to the point that I remember fearfully thinking that I didn’t know whether I was going to survive,” Ms Roberts, now 31, alleged. She accused US authorities of withholding taped evidence showing her engaging in sexual activity against her will in an affidavit filed on Friday. “Based on my knowledge of Epstein and his organisation, as well as discussions with the FBI, it is my belief that federal prosecutors likely possess videotapes and photographic images of me as an underage girl having sex with Epstein and some of his powerful friends,” she said. Ms Roberts said she had only recently dared to come forward because of the “physical abuse that I suffered when Epstein forced me to have sex with other people. By standing up for what is right, I’m worried that Epstein, or others named here, will come after me.” Ms Roberts said she believed the video evidence could be being withheld for future use as blackmail. And she detailed interactions with FBI staff she believed indicated she was the victim of a ‘cover up’ orchestrated by friends of Mr Epstein. The new affidavit was submitted under oath and understood to be part of Ms Roberts’ attempt to have her case joined to another long-running law suit against the Brooklyn-born tycoon filed in a Florida federal court.
Note: Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein has been called "the most dangerous sexual predator America has ever seen." He got caught orchestrating a massive international child sex trafficking ring. He then used his connections to cover it up and silence all but a few of his 40+ victims. For more, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, or read deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Margaret Thatcher told officials not to publicly name a senior diplomat connected to a paedophile scandal despite being fully briefed on allegations made against him, a newly revealed secret file has shown. The file was prepared for the late Conservative Prime Minister in the early Eighties, and details allegations of “unnatural“ sexual activity by Sir Peter Hayman in 1966, when he returned from ... West Berlin to the Foreign Office. It also notified Mrs Thatcher that the senior diplomat had been subject to a police investigation, after a parcel containing "obscene materials" was found on a London bus in 1978. Sir Peter was not prosecuted following an investigation into his activities. The diplomat, who died in 1992, was accused of being a paedophile by MP Geoffrey Dickens under the cloak of parliamentary privilege in 1983, before the file was prepared for the then Prime Minister. Compiled between October 1980 and March 1981, the 37-page file is now available for public view, and features Mrs Thatcher’s handwritten annotations and notes. It confirms that Sir Peter was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) group, and claims he intended to make "contact with adults with whom he could exchange obscene material." The revelations come as Home Secretary Theresa May announced she would be launching an inquiry into historical child abuse, during which Sir Peter’s activities will be investigated.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
Margaret Thatcher was adamant officials should not publicly name Sir Peter Hayman, a senior diplomat connected to a paedophile scandal, even after she had been fully briefed on his activities. The file [of formerly secret papers], compiled between October 1980 and March 1981, is made up of memos and background notes put together for Thatcher, then prime minister. In a three-page document from 17 March 1981 ... officials explain why Hayman was not prosecuted when, three years previously, police discovered he was a member of the Paedophile Information Exchange group. The memo ends: “It is the policy of the law officers that persons who have been investigated by the police but not prosecuted should not be named in the House [of Commons]”. Thatcher amends this paragraph to cross out “in the House”, indicating that she did not believe Hayman should be named anywhere. Thatcher’s insistence on not naming Hayman appeared always unlikely to succeed. [Peter Hayman] had come to the attention of police in 1978 when ... Police raided his flat in west London and found 14 years’ of journal entries detailing his fantasies, many involving children. The director of public prosecutions decided that Hayman and his co-correspondents should not be charged. The magazine Private Eye ran a story detailing what had happened and naming him. The file shows that prior to the Private Eye article, in October 1980, Thatcher and her officials had no idea that police had even investigated Hayman.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
First came the allegations late last year that Britain's Prince Andrew and a prominent American lawyer took part in a wealthy sex offender's abuse of teenage girls. Defense attorney Alan Dershowitz ... represented the highly connected Jeffrey Epstein and was himself named in the latest court filings. Jane Doe No. 3 and three others who say Epstein victimized them want a federal judge to ... throw out the part of Epstein's plea deal that guaranteed that neither he nor any co-conspirators would [remain anonymous or] face federal charges. They contend their rights as victims were trampled by the then-secret agreement. Now a 31-year-old wife and mother, Jane Doe No. 3 insists her motives are to hold the elite accountable, [and to] "help expose the problem of sex trafficking." She first met Epstein in 1999 ... at age 15. What followed was a three-year whirlwind of paid sex abuse, international travel and encounters with many of Epstein's powerful friends. "I was trained to be everything a man wanted me to be," she said in her affidavit. "They said they loved that I was very compliant and knew how to keep my mouth shut." Although she was paid for her services and was given luxurious accommodations by Epstein, Jane Doe No. 3 said, it was also clear she could get into "big trouble" if she tried to leave or refuse his sexual advances and requirements to provide sex to others. "He let me know that he knew many people in high places," she said. "Speaking about himself, he said, 'I can get away' with things. I was very scared, particularly since I was a teenager."
Note: Jane Doe #3 has not kept her identity secret, and continues use her real name in court to expose the FBI cover up of this elite sex trafficking ring, but one of her attorneys requested that the AP not use her name in the above article. For more, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, or read deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Attorneys for convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claim in a new court filing that the billionaire financier will be "irreparably harmed" if emails and letters his lawyers sent to federal prosecutors ... are made public. They're asking a judge to order that the correspondence remain sealed. Epstein's legal brief ... represents his first formal statements since explosive allegations emerged last month that he had forced a then-17-year-old girl to have sex with Britain's Prince Andrew and other powerful men. Virginia Roberts, 31, ... claimed in court documents that Epstein ... trafficked her for sex with a host of his prominent associates, including three times with Prince Andrew ... and at least six times with longtime Harvard legal professor, Alan Dershowitz. Roberts ... seeks to join a case filed by two other women. Those women contend that the deal with Epstein violated their rights as crime victims to be consulted and treated with fairness in the administration of justice. The case, which was first filed in July 2008 as an emergency motion to stop the deal from taking place without their input. Unbeknownst at the time to the victims, the agreement had already been signed nine months earlier. Last fall, Judge Marra unsealed a small portion of the correspondence from Epstein's attorneys. One excerpt -- a one-line email from an Epstein attorney sent just as the terms of the non-prosecution deal were being finalized -- reads simply: "Please do whatever you can to keep this from becoming public." If [Marra] were to side with the plaintiffs, the immediate effect could be the unsealing of a 23-page letter written in part by Dershowitz and sent to federal prosecutors two months before the agreement was signed.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Hacktivist group Anonymous, which has made public attacks on extremists, corporations and religious and governmental bodies, is calling for help in its fight against international paedophile networks, or what it calls the “paedosadist industry”. In a project named Operation DeathEaters, Anonymous says it is is planning on collating evidence against international paedophile rings and their severe abuse of children and find the links between different operations, and to bring them to justice. Anonymous has issued a video instructing activists on how they can aid in the operation, which has appeared at a time of serious allegations of historic child sexual abuse levied against prominent UK figures, including claims that a VIP Westminster paedophile ring existed in the past. “The Westminster paedophile ring is one of many cases where Operation DeathEaters has actively pursued and sought truth, in order to end the hideous crimes concealed behind the British elite,” Anonymous alleges in a statement. “In fear of these investigations being bungled over time, the operation’s objectives are clear and simple: source public information before it disappears, push for independent enquiry, and offer support to witnesses and the victims where needed.” It has outlined its first step in the operation as gathering “meticulously researched and clearly documented examples of high level complicity in the industry, obstruction of justice and cover ups to show the need for independent inquiries”.
Note: Anonymous has been quite active in exposing pedophiles, as can be seen in the Time magazine article where they revealed information on known offenders to the authorities. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Duke of York is under renewed pressure to speak publicly about sex abuse allegations after flight records backed up his accuser's claims of having met him three times. Flight logs from the private jet of the Duke's friend Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, show Virginia Roberts and the Duke were both in the locations where she claims to have had sex with him, at the relevant times. The Duke had no doubt hoped that interest in claims made by Miss Roberts in US court documents, which emerged at the start of the month, would have died down by the time he arrived in Davos, but new disclosures continue to emerge. Flight logs for Epstein's Gulfstream jet, published by Mail Online, together with public information about the Duke's movements, show that Miss Roberts and the Duke were both in London in March 2001, when she claims they first had sex, and in New York and the US Virgin Islands the following month, the locations where she says their other sexual encounters happened. Meanwhile fresh legal papers [were] submitted to a Florida court on Tuesday. The Miami US attorney's office ... is seeking to prevent [Roberts from] joining an existing case in which two other victims are trying to overturn a plea bargain which enabled Epstein to serve an 18-month prison sentence in return for pleading guilty to procuring a 14-year-old girl for prostitution. In exchange [for this plea], all federal investigations into his alleged widespread sex abuse were halted.
Note: An ABC News article on this case states Roberts "declined to name others in her statement - but her lawyers noted in a cryptic footnote that, if she had, the names would 'have created significantly more media attention than the names that she did include.'" For more along these lines, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government.
Alfredo Rodriguez, the butler of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has died, and with him the location of a ‘black book’, which allegedly details “the full scope and the extent of Epstein’s involvement with underage girls”, and contact details of the businessman’s celebrity friends. Rodriguez died at the age of 60 after suffering from mesothelioma last week, his widow Patricia Dunn [said]. Dunn alleges that her late husband “knew all about Prince Andrew,” who has been named in the current sex scandal centering on Epstein. Allegations leveled at the Prince are that he was supplied with a teenage girl who was used by Epstein as a “sex slave”. The ‘black book’ that Rodriguez had in his possession [was a] journal in which Epstein is understood to have detailed the girls which attended his properties for “massages” for him and his friends, and details of his celebrity friends and associates who had no connection with alleged offences, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Rodriguez, who stole the book, claimed he needed it as insurance against the businessman to protect his own life. The butler failed to tell prosecutors he possessed the book and later refused to hand it over. He was jailed for 18 months for attempting to sell it for $50,000. In 2011 it emerged that the journal “detailed the full scope and the extent of Epstein’s involvement with underage girls,” according to prosecuting lawyers, who referred to it as “The Holy Grail”.
Note: If the above link fails, this article is available in the Internet Archive. Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which directly implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A federal court filing accuses ... Prince Andrew of having sex in three countries with the self-described “sex slave” of an American financier, Jeffrey Epstein. The lawsuit that mentions these charges [targets] the U.S. Department of Justice. The case [started] in 2005, when Florida police began investigating claims that Epstein was paying underage girls for sex at his West Palm Beach home. Investigators uncovered evidence that more than a dozen girls may have been victimized by Epstein. The Justice Department agreed to a deal with Epstein that required him to plead guilty to two state charges, including a single count of solicitation of minors for prostitution, to register as a sex offender and to serve a short jail sentence. In exchange, the U.S. Attorney agreed to drop any further prosecution. The agreement also said that “the parties anticipate that this agreement will not be made part of any public record,” an unusual condition for such a criminal plea. The [deal] shocked several of the victims. The case has been now been ongoing for six years, with more than 280 filings. In legal filings, Edwards [a Florida trial lawyer] and Cassell [a victims' rights advocate and former federal judge] have questioned [the] pressure on the U.S. Attorney to keep the case from trial, either from Prince Andrew or former President Clinton, who travelled with Epstein on his private plane at the time but has not been accused of wrongdoing. “The elephant in the room is this: How does a guy who sexually abused 40 girls end up doing basically one year in a halfway house,” says Cassell.
Note: This is the second recent child sex scandal connected with UK royalty. Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The FBI allegedly possesses "secret documents" about the American billionaire [Jeffrey Epstein] that could provide evidence for under-age "sex slave" accusations against him, [which include] forcing a 17-year-old girl to have sex with Prince Andrew, Duke of York. FBI documents are said to show that Epstein controlled under-age girls who could provide evidence about the claims. In May last year, prosecutors surrendered 541 pages of correspondence with Epstein’s lawyers leading up to a 2008 non-prosecution agreement. A letter released by the court last year showed Brad Edwards, [alleged victim Virginia] Roberts’s lawyer, telling the US attorney’s office that Epstein "may be the most dangerous sexual predator that the country has ever seen". The letter continued: "The evidence suggests that for at least four years he was sexually abusing as many as three to four girls a day. "He uses his extraordinary wealth and power to lure in poor, underprivileged little girls and then also uses his wealth to shield himself from prosecution and liability." Lawyers for Virginia Roberts ... have said that evidence against the billionaire was covered up after lobbying by his “political and social” connections. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to a single charge of soliciting prostitution.
Note: An FBI investigation has identified 40 female victims of Epstein's elite criminal enterprise. For more along these lines, watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, or read concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Buckingham Palace has denied "any suggestion of impropriety with underage minors" by Prince Andrew, after he was named in US court papers. This is [part of] a long-running, complicated legal action which began in 2011 against an American businessman called Jeffrey Epstein. In these court documents ... an unnamed woman alleges she was forced to have sexual relations with Prince Andrew when she was a minor, three times in three different locations. The court document, first reported on by Politico Magazine, alleges: "Epstein also sexually trafficked the then-minor Jane Doe ... making her available for sex to politically connected and financially powerful people. "Epstein's purposes in 'lending' Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain, as well as to obtain potential blackmail information." Prince Andrew ... is named as part of evidence relating to a wider case of an alleged sex trafficking scheme, involving US businessman Jeffrey Epstein, who spent time in jail in 2008-9 for a sex offence with a minor. Two women (known as Jane Doe #1 and Jane Doe #2) are suing the US government, saying it failed to protect their rights when it entered into a plea deal with Epstein. Now, two further women (Jane Doe #3 and #4) want to join this case, and it's Jane Doe #3 who has made claims against the Duke of York, as part of this. The prince strongly denies the allegations.
Note: Read the full legal text of the claims against Prince Andrew in this article in the UK's Telegraph. Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
A list of people who have associated with Jeffrey Epstein over the years would take in the world of celebrity, science, politics - and royalty. Over the years, the casually-dressed, globe-trotting financier, who was said to log more than 600 flying hours a year, has been linked with Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and Manhattan-London society figure Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of the late media titan Robert Maxwell. Epstein reportedly flew Tucker and Spacey to Africa on his private jet as part of a charitable endeavour. Clinton, meanwhile, flew on multiple occasions in the same plane to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James, between 2002 and 2005 as he developed his philanthropic post-presidential career. It would later be alleged in court that Epstein organised orgies on that same private island in the US Virgin Islands. Reports in the US media say many of the A-list names broke off any links with the former maths teacher after his arrest and conviction in 2008 of having sex with an underage girl whom he had solicited. His arrest followed an 11-month undercover investigation at a mansion in Florida’s Palm Beach that Epstein owned. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to a single charge of soliciting prostitution and was handed a 18-month jail sentence. He served 13 months in jail and was obliged to register as a sex offender.
Note: Read more about the child sex trafficking ring Epstein allegedly operated. This article says, "Epstein wired his mansion with hidden cameras, secretly recording orgies involving his prominent friends and underage girls. The ultimate purpose: blackmail, according to court papers." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Ministry of Defence has paid out more than Ł2 million in out-of-court settlements in the last three years as a result of claims that young cadets were sexually abused. The cases includes allegations that teenage boys performed ritual sex acts on younger cadets, and a cadet who was raped by an instructor and gave birth to her abuser’s child. Some of the settlements are understood to relate to historic abuse, perpetrated against adults when they were children. Others relate to abuse carried out in recent years. [One] settlement involved a teenage girl who was sexually abused by her adult cadet instructor while she was a cadet under his charge. Eventually she gave birth to her abuser’s child, leading to her suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic depression. The MoD admitted liability at an early stage and settled the claim for Ł210,000. Among the settlements made in 2012, four people made a successful claim for Ł900,000 after alleging they were abused when they were young members of the Army Cadets in Harborne, Birmingham. An MoD spokesperson said: “We take any allegation of abuse extremely seriously. All adult volunteers undergo enhanced criminal record checks and are made fully aware of their responsibility to protect children from harm.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
More than 80% of so-called “dark net” internet traffic is generated by visits to websites offering child-abuse material, according to a study of Tor “hidden services” websites conducted at the University of Portsmouth. Researcher Dr Gareth Owen analysed traffic to sites using Tor’s technology to hide their addresses from search engines over a six-month period, in an attempt to understand what kind of sites were most popular. He presented his findings at the Chaos Computer Congress in Germany, with Wired reporting on the research’s conclusion that while sites with paedophile material represent just 2% of the estimated 45,000 hidden services websites online at any one time, they account for 83% of visits to these sites once automated “botnet” traffic is removed from calculations. The study focuses on websites using Tor’s technology to hide themselves, rather than the surfing habits of individual internet users using Tor’s anonymising features. The latter are not spending 84% of their time visiting child-abuse websites. “Before we did this study, it was certainly my view that the dark net is a good thing, but it’s hampering the rights of children and creating a place where paedophiles can act with impunity,” Owen told Wired, while describing the scale of traffic to these sites as “a huge shock”. The study found that less than a sixth of hidden services sites that were online in March when the research started were still online in September when it concluded, suggesting a short average lifetime for these websites.
Note: Read a very sad, but important article by a woman who infiltrated pedophile sites on the dark net to learn how they operated. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Government is deliberately sabotaging the inquiry into historic claims of child abuse to protect “high profile figures,” a Labour MP has claimed. A letter leaked at the weekend showed that Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is considering abandoning the current panel, amid a catalogue of problems including the resignations of two chairman. [Labour MP Simon Danczuk] told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “If Government are set on doing this then it can be achieved, but you can’t help thinking that they aren’t intent on getting this right. There’s a catalogue of mistakes that have been made, some of them fairly basic, and you can’t blame the survivors of child abuse for wondering [if] some of this is quite deliberate.” Asked why the Government would want to sabotage the probe, he went on: “Well, because they don’t want to get to the truth. The Home Secretary in this process is in complete disarray. We’re not moving forward and it’s been six months now. I think that people will turn to more direct action and you can hardly blame them.” Peter Saunders, of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, [says that] “The only people who want to see this fail, to not get off the ground and to not do the work that it potentially would be able to do are abusers themselves or those people who have covered up in the past. “I have yet to encounter any survivors themselves who have any confidence in the process and in the panel as it is currently constituted."
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Police are investigating claims that up to five paedophile rings operated at the heart of Westminster with the involvement of “highly influential” politicians. A Labour MP who has handed a dossier of evidence to Scotland Yard said he now believed the complexity of child abuse networks at the heart of government in the Seventies and Eighties had been seriously underestimated. John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, said it was “inconceivable” that police would not now arrest and interview some of the politicians he has named in a list handed to detectives. Mr Mann, who has spent months sifting evidence from members of the public, met Scotland Yard and handed over evidence on 22 politicians, including three serving MPs and three members of the House of Lords. “There are at least five paedophile rings which involved MPs,” he said. “Each of them involved at least one MP, some involved more, and these were groups of people who knew about the activities of one another. “In some cases I believe they committed abuse together.” Thirteen former ministers were among the list. Mr Mann handed his dossier to detectives from Operation Trinity, the Metropolitan Police’s investigation into alleged abuse in children’s homes in Lambeth, south London. A range of other inquiries have also been launched including Operation Midland, looking at allegations of child sex abuse focusing on Westminster.
Note: A further article states that a member of Parliament is calling for an investigation into the suspicious deaths of two people who were revealing information on the pedophile rings which go to the highest levels of government. Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government.
The son of a former chauffeur to the Australian high commissioner may have been murdered by a VIP paedophile ring in London more than three decades ago, according to shocking claims being investigated by British police. Martin Allen was 15 when he disappeared on November 5, 1979. His body has never been found. He lived with his parents on the grounds of the Australian high commission in London – his father was chauffeur to the then high commissioner, Sir Gordon Freeth. A key witness has come forward to police, with allegations about sexual abuse and murder by a paedophile ring with links to government, spy chiefs and prominent military figures. Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald, who is in charge of the investigation dubbed Operation Midland, said no bodies have been recovered. "At this stage in the investigation, it is not possible to say if Martin's disappearance is linked [to the organised sexual abuse]," Superintendent McDonald said. "However, officers will keep the family updated on the progress of their investigation." In 2009 Allen's parents made a fresh appeal for information about their son's fate. Tom and Eileen Allen said they had lost hope of seeing him alive and feared they would die before his body was found. "We just want to know what happened," Mrs Allen said. "Somebody must know something. Please tell us so we can move on."
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Detectives are investigating three alleged murders as part of an inquiry into historical child abuse, the Met Police has said. No confirmed identities or bodies of victims had been found. Officers made a public appeal for information relating to Dolphin Square estate in Pimlico, south-west London, amid claims boys were abused there [by] a paedophile ring involving prominent figures in the 1970s and 1980s. The appeal was made as part of Operation Midland, which is under the umbrella of Operation Fairbank, and is one of a number of ongoing inquiries into historical abuse. The paedophile ring is alleged to have included senior military, law enforcement and political figures. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Rodhouse said police were examining whether children were abused at locations across London, in the Home Counties and at "military establishments". BBC home affairs correspondent Tom Symonds said it was the first time Operation Midland had confirmed ... that the murders involved three children. The claims also included allegations a child had been run over. [Related inquiries include] Operation Fernbridge - examining claims [of a] paedophile ring with links to Parliament. Operation Cayacos - investigating allegations ... linked to convicted paedophile Peter Righton. The Independent Jersey Care Inquiry - assessing reports of abuse in the island's children's homes and fostering services from 1960 to the present day.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Scotland Yard says victim’s allegations against prominent political and establishment figures are credible and true. They believe allegations that a ring of prominent politicians and members of the establishment abused and terrorised children as young as seven more than 30 years ago and went on to kill three young boys. Detectives appealed for victims and witnesses to come forward and identified a flat in Dolphin Square, London, near the Houses of Parliament, as a scene of some of the alleged abuse, as well as military premises and other locations across London and the home counties. So far one victim, known by the pseudonym Nick, has come forward. Police as yet have no bodies, full names of those abused or killed, or exact locations where the killings took place. But the detective in charge of the investigation pointedly described Nick’s allegations as “true” and said Nick had been abused from 1975 to 1984, between the ages of seven and 16. It is clear detectives are not just investigating but building criminal cases to take to court. Police said their inquiries into claims that prominent people abused children, and [into] the cases [that] may have been “overlooked” or covered up now spanned 18 separate investigations, including one into the Elm Guest House in London. The police inquiries followed allegations of abuse involving senior politicians and high-profile figures made by the Labour MP Tom Watson.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The rape by six men of the 23-year-old Delhi medical student who later died of her injuries sparked national protests and changes to India’s rape laws. For film-maker Ram Devineni, founder of the publisher and film production company Rattapallax, it also led to Priya’s Shakti, a new comic for teenagers which Rattapallax says is “rooted in ancient matriarchal traditions that have been displaced in modern representations of Hindu culture”, and which is intended to support “the movement against patriarchy, misogyny and indifference through love, creativity and solidarity”. Illustrated by Dan Goldman, the comic is about to be unveiled at Mumbai Comic-Con. It tells the story of Priya, devoted to the goddess Parvati, and as a young girl, full of dreams of becoming a teacher. But she is told by her father to stop going to school, and to stay home and take care of the house. As she grows up, she is the victim of increasing sexual violence, until she is raped - and then thrown out of the family home. Parvati is horrified to discover what women on earth go through, and inspires Priya to speak out and spread a new message to the world: to treat women with respect, educate all children, and speak out when a woman is being mistreated. Priya, riding on a tiger, returns to her village. She is, said Devineni, “a new hero for a modern India”. Priya’s Shakti – Shakti is “the female principle of divine energy” – is available free online, and Rattapallax has printed 6,000 copies in Hindi and English for the convention and for educational distribution.
Note: For more, read this inspiring article in the Christian Science Monitor.
For decades, officials at Bob Jones University told sexual assault victims that they were to blame for their abuse, and to not report it to the police because doing so would damage their families, churches and the university, according to a long-awaited independent report released Thursday. Bob Jones, an evangelical Christian institution, displayed a “blaming and disparaging” attitude toward abuse victims, according to 56 percent of the 381 current and former students and employees who replied to a confidential survey and said they had knowledge of how the university handled abuse cases. Abuse victims said the university actively discouraged them from going to the police. “I was abused from the ages of 6 to 14 by my grandfather,” one respondent said. “When I went for counselling I was told: ‘Did you repent for your part of the abuse?" Another person said that at Bob Jones, “abuse victims are considered ‘second-rate Christians.’ ” And another said, “by the time I left B.J.U., I didn’t think God loved me at all.” The criticism of Bob Jones differs from that prompted by the sexual-assault scandals that have erupted at colleges across the country, in that it is not primarily about assaults on or near campus. Rather, the university has been criticized for penalizing victims who reported incidents or sought treatment.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In a damning 2009 report, Ireland’s independently-run Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse – which spent nine years investigating thousands of allegations of abuse at religious-run institutions – spoke of a culture of “endemic sexual abuse” in the country’s Catholic boys’ schools and of the “deferential and submissive attitude” of the Irish state towards the religious orders who ran them. What emerged from the investigation, and from a separate Dublin-specific inquiry concluded the same year, was that institutional child abuse was widespread and that it had occurred not only in schools, but in many places where young people were in the care of religious orders. The commissions also revealed that very often when children reported the abuse, they were largely ignored and even punished. The state, too, had willfully turned a blind eye. The very ordinariness of [the abuse] struck photographer Kim Haughton as profoundly disturbing. This was molestation that was at once hidden and woven into the fabric of everyday life. “So much of this happened in places like schools and churches, and in homes,” she tells TIME. And so she embarked on In Plain Sight, a project in which the [actual] sites of these abuses became the subjects of her lens ... places that, when taken at face value, seem unremarkable. “The work, I hope, challenges us to confront these crimes in the context in which they happened,” Haughton adds, “everyday life.”
Note: Read the complete story to see photos from In Plain Sight. Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals also reach to the highest levels of government in the US. And read an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations.
The security services are facing questions over the cover-up of a Westminster paedophile ring as it emerged that files relating to official requests for media blackouts in the early 1980s were destroyed. Two newspaper executives have told the Observer that their publications were issued with D-notices – warnings not to publish intelligence that might damage national security – when they sought to report on allegations of a powerful group of men engaging in child sex abuse in 1984. One executive said he had been accosted in his office by 15 uniformed and two non-uniformed police over a dossier on Westminster paedophiles passed to him by the former Labour cabinet minister Barbara Castle. The other said that his newspaper had received a D-notice when a reporter sought to write about a police investigation into Elm Guest House, in southwest London, where a group of high-profile paedophiles was said to have operated. Theresa May, home secretary, this month told the Commons that an official review into whether there had been a cover-up of the Home Office’s handling of child-abuse allegations in the 1980s ... was prompted by the discovery that 114 Home Office files related to child abuse in the 1980s had gone missing. The two journalists, Don Hale, the former editor of the Bury Messenger, and Hilton Tims, news editor of the Surrey Comet between 1980 and 1988, both recall their publications being issued with D-notices around 1984.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals also reach to the highest levels of government in the US. For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable sources.
Police are investigating possible murders linked to Elm Guest House in south-west London after claims of a cover-up. A number of allegations have been made. So far the only politician to have been implicated is the Liberal MP Cyril Smith, who died in 2010, but other unnamed politicians were also alleged to have been involved in a Westminster paedophile ring. Smith is alleged to have abused boys at Knowl View residential school in Rochdale and at Elm Guest House, in Barnes in south-west London, in the 1970s and 80s. Greater Manchester police are investigating allegations of abuse by Smith at Knowl View, where Smith was a governor. Other MPs were said to have attended the Elm Guest House. After claims made by the Labour MP Tom Watson in 2012, the Metropolitan police launched Operation Fairbank into child abuse at the guesthouse. Watson said there was “clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to parliament and No 10”. A dossier of evidence of an alleged paedophile ring, involving several MPs, including Smith, and other public figures, was handed to the Home Office in 1983, by the Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens, who died in 1995. The 40-page dossier has since been destroyed or lost, according to a Home Office review. At least three MPs were reported to have been questioned in 1982 after a police raid on the guesthouse. It was reported at the time that it was being used as a brothel where children as young as 10 were abused. Two children living in the house were taken into care.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals also reach to the highest levels of government in the US. And read an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations.
Organised child sex abuse is widespread in England, a report by MPs on the Rotherham exploitation scandal says. Their report said: "On the evidence we took, the alarming conclusion is that Rotherham was not an outlier and that there is a widespread problem of organised child sexual exploitation in England." The MPs inquiry was prompted by a report by Prof Alexis Jay, which revealed up to 1,400 children were estimated to have been victims of abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. Ofsted, which carried out a series of inspections during the period, said it had introduced a "more rigorous inspection framework". The parliamentary committee called for an investigation into missing files at the council and said council officials "should be held accountable for their actions." In a statement, Ofsted said it welcomed "the opportunity to give evidence to the committee. In common with a number of organisations, we accept that past inspections may not have given child sexual exploitation the forensic focus it needed and deserved," it said.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. And read an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations.
Police are investigating "possible homicide" linked to what has been described as a paedophile ring involving powerful people in the 1970s and 1980s. The group is alleged to have included senior figures in public life, the military, politics and law enforcement. A key witness who has spoken to police has told the BBC that he was abused for nine years as a boy. The Metropolitan Police said, "At this early stage in this inquiry, with much work still to do, it is not appropriate to issue appeals or reveal more information." Using the name "Nick", the alleged victim said he had given three days of video-taped evidence to detectives. His accounts are being assessed as part of ... a new Scotland Yard investigation. Nick, now in his 40s, says ... the group was "very organised" and would arrange for chauffeur-driven cars to pick up boys, sometimes from school, and drive them to "parties" or "sessions" at locations including hotels and private apartments in London and other cities. "Some of them were quite open about who they were. They had no fear at all of being caught, it didn't cross their mind." Nick said he had one motivation for speaking to the BBC - to encourage other alleged victims or those who unwittingly assisted the abusers to come forward. "People who drove us around could come forward. Staff in some of the locations could come forward. We weren't smuggled in under a blanket through the back door. It was done openly and people must have questioned that and they need to come forward."
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. And read an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations.
A scathing examination of this city’s Police Department has concluded that five detectives tasked with investigating sex crimes failed to pursue hundreds of reported cases. “It was a persistent, systemic problem,” said Howard Schwartz, the inspector general’s lead investigator. The report described how victims’ charges of sexual assault were ignored, referrals from medical personnel were dismissed, and evidence was not processed; in some cases the detective would mark down in a report that evidence had been sent to the state laboratory, though no records could be found that the laboratory received anything. In one case, a 2-year-old was brought to the emergency room on suspicion of having been the victim of a sexual assault and was found to have a sexually transmitted disease. The detective did no follow-up and closed the case. In another, a nurse collected DNA evidence from a victim in a rape kit, but the detective apparently never submitted the kit for testing. That same detective, the report said, told at least three different people that he or she “did not believe that simple rape should be a crime.” These findings are not new to the New Orleans police force, which is under federal court supervision after having been found to have a pattern of inefficient, abusive and corrupt police work.
Note: For more along these lines, see these concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption and sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable sources.
The topic of Satanic Ritual has long been taboo. Criminal cases are rare. One former Idaho woman says she was a victim of Satanic Ritual abuse while growing up in Eastern Idaho. Teal Swan says her life consisted of abuse, both physically and sexual - and murder. What Teal shared ... is the focus of dozens of investigations around the country. A Department of Justice report on cult rituals ... admits these crimes are hard to prove, but says it is imperative the cases be solved. In most documented cases of ritual abuse, the FBI says it is often a close friend or family who commits the crime. Teal [said] that she truly believes what she shared happened to her. She was taken in at age six. She escaped during a ritual in Eastern Idaho when she was 19. She left the state and found refuge with her friend in Utah. Teal says things started to turn around from there, but it took time. "It is because you have been traumatized and you have no option. It is too difficult to talk to someone who has been in a space of freedom. You can't explain to them what it is like to be in a situation where you would do anything you were told to do because you don't have another option," she [said]. Teal now lives in Utah and refuses to step foot back in Idaho. She spends much of her time providing assistance to those who claim to have been a part of cult.
Note: It is very rare that the major media will report on Satanic abuse. Watch the full, 10-minute news report. For powerful evidence that satanic abuse is real from reliable sources, watch this video to hear U.S. army colonel Michael Aquino defend his being a satanist. If you are open to more, read this essay by a professor who exposed the destruction being caused by these groups only then to be shut down. Then explore the reliable, verifiable sources in our Mind Control Information Center.
TLC cancelled ”Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” on Friday after photos surfaced of star Mama June hanging out with a convicted child molester. In August, “Sons of Guns” star Will Hayden was arrested on multiple rape charges against minors. Discovery, which owns TLC, swiftly cancelled that show, too. In 2013, reality TV producer Donald Luciano – who worked on some episodes of “Beverly’s Full House” about the life of former supermodel Beverly Johnson – pled guilty to possession of images of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. So does reality TV have a pedophile problem? “The issue is not just about reality TV. Hollywood bears a lot of responsibility normalizing this behavior by sexualizing young girls,” said Dan Gainor, Vice President of Culture at the Media Research Center. “Too bad director Roman Polanski doesn’t get the (quick cancellation) treatment. He got an Oscar and a standing ovation and he raped a 13-year-old girl. ”Alec Shankman, Head of Alternative Programming & Digital Media at Abrams Artists Agency, noted that reality TV background checks are extremely thorough. “In the ‘Honey Boo Boo’ scenario, the guy wasn’t even on the show,” he said. "I wouldn’t say it is a problem in the genre, certainly no bigger than throughout the rest of Hollywood.” California-based criminal defense attorney Leo Terrell of CleartheCourt.com, noted that “The abuse is magnified when one of these predators appeared on a reality television show and/or is a public figure.”
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Fiona Woolf, who has been appointed to chair the government inquiry into historic child abuse, was subjected to an interrogation on Tuesday. Mrs Woolf appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons. The essential charge against her was that she was a member of the “Establishment” and therefore ... unsuitable for the task. She is the current Lord Mayor of London. As Mrs Woolf explained, she had, on five occasions, given or received dinner parties to or from her London neighbours, Lord and Lady Brittan. She felt it necessary to mention this because Lord Brittan, who was Home Secretary from 1983-5, is accused by some of having failed to deal adequately with allegations about child abuse by the late Geoffrey Dickens MP. Despite its outrageous bullying, the committee ... exposed the fact that Mrs Woolf was frightened. Instead of justifying her wholly reasonable links with the Brittans, she ran scared of them. No doubt she sincerely wants to perform a public service, but she gave every impression of not understanding ... why its subject is so problematic. This inquiry involves, to use Mrs Woolf’s own phrase, “hundreds of institutions and thousands of failures”. The whole thing is driven by the main emotion that nowadays dominates our enfeebled Establishment – fear: in this case, the fear of being accused of ignoring or covering up child abuse.
Note: Read an article in the UK's Guardian to understand more why the victims don't trust the Lord Mayor of London. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources..
First there was abuse at the hands of a popular BBC host. There were scandals at private schools and in the church and talk of a pedophile ring in Parliament. Then there was Rotherham. Over the past two years, high-profile revelations of sexual abuse of children have painted a picture of Britain as a place where such abuse is not just endemic but systematically covered up — either because the perpetrators are of the very highest status or because the victims are of the very lowest. The main driver of abuse is impunity: “Abuse happens in a context of permissibility,” said Helen Beckett, an expert on the subject at the University of Bedfordshire. In 2012, it emerged that Jimmy Savile had raped scores of children as colleagues and the police turned a blind eye. Mr. Savile, who was a friend of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, used his charity work to gain access to his victims in schools and hospitals. In July, Britons learned of allegations that Cyril Smith, a former member of Parliament who died in 2010, abused boys in a care home in his constituency. The allegations against him and others were detailed in a file prepared three decades ago by a crusading lawmaker who described a pedophile ring of “big, big names.” But the file mysteriously disappeared.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Child sex grooming gangs have avoided prosecution due to a failure by one of the country’s biggest police forces to pursue claims against them. Greater Manchester police (GMP), the third largest force in England and Wales, has been accused by serving and former detectives of attempting to cover up failings to tackle gangs of Asian men who were abusing young girls. Responding to the claims, GMP chief constable Sir Peter Fahy [said] that officers had developed a “mindset” that victims in sexual abuse cases were “unreliable” but, while this had since changed, it was still present within the courts. The claims against GMP come just months after a damning report found at least 1,400 children were subjected to sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013, with “blatant” collective failings by the council and South Yorkshire police blamed for the abuse. Another GMP detective, who has remained anonymous ... revealed there was reluctance by senior officers to investigate sexual abuse claims despite her warnings the problem was spiralling out of control. In a letter seen by ITV News, one serving officer claims there has been a “cover-up” and an internal report commissioned two years ago has been “re-written on nine separate occasions”. A statement from the police force said: “Considerable resources are now invested in a number of ongoing investigations and we have already made clear that further arrests will be made.
Note: Explore powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about sexual abuse scandals and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
The ability of the courts to secure justice for child sexual abuse victims may be diminishing, despite decades of law reform, the head of a royal commission says. Justice Peter McClellan gave the warning as data covering almost 20 years showed a massive fall in the number of child sexual abuse cases that make it to court. An analysis of police and court data from NSW suggests a steady increase in the number of incidents of child sexual assault offences reported between 1995 and 2013. But for the same period, the proportion of child sexual assaults reported to police where charges were laid declined dramatically, from around 60 per cent in 1995, to around 15 per cent in 2013. The figures have raised concerns the trend is being replicated across other jurisdictions. "In spite of the issues being well known, and in spite of decades of reform, the preliminary results from some of our research suggest that the opportunity to secure justice for victims of child sexual abuse through the criminal justice system may in fact be decreasing, rather than increasing," he said. Justice McClellan said further reform must be considered, including introducing special child sex abuse courts, and even eliminating juries. The decline in prosecutions also raised the prospect that complainants find the criminal justice system too traumatic or damaging, he said. "If the system is too damaging or traumatic for complainants, then we must consider how the system could be improved for the complainant, while still delivering a fair trial for the accused."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Fears of a “deliberate cover-up” by public officials of the sexual abuse of children in Rotherham have been fueled by the large number of documents ... which have vanished, an investigation by MPs has concluded. They urged the Home Office to examine claims that files were stolen from a locked council office in the South Yorkshire town. At least 1,400 girls as young as 11 were groomed and abused by gangs in the town over a 16 year period. The committee raised suspicions that officials colluded to conceal evidence. The MPs heard from a former researcher who was hired by Rotherham Council. She referred in a report, which was about to be sent to the Home Office, to the “alleged indifference towards, and ignorance of, child sexual exploitation on the part of senior managers”, the committee said. An unknown individual subsequently gained access to her office and removed all of the data relating to the Home Office work. There were no signs of a forced entry and the action involved moving through key-coded and locked security doors. "She was also subjected to personal hostility at the hands of Council officials and police officers,” the committee said. The MPs said: “This is not the first case in which it has been alleged that files of information relating to child sexual exploitation have disappeared. Keith Vaz, the committee chairman, said: “A number of individuals attempted to bring these crimes to light, only to face obstacles from the council and police."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Long-sealed records of 14 Catholic priests who worked in four high schools and 45 parishes across southern Minnesota were opened to public scrutiny Tuesday, revealing hundreds of documents indicating that the Diocese of Winona did not report claims of child sex abuse to law enforcement, did not remove offenders from ministry, and continued to financially support the priests even as the patterns of abuse became clear. The Winona Diocese “anticipates eventual bankruptcy” as a result of that lawsuit and others being filed under the new Minnesota Child Victims Act. The 14 priests worked in all four high schools in the diocese. The files, including mental health reports on the priests and detailed complaints of sexual abuse, were made public as part of a groundbreaking lawsuit making its way through Ramsey District Court. “The files being released on each of these credibly accused offenders reflects not only their history of offenses, but how they have been handled by top officials over the years,” said Jeff Anderson, the attorney for the lawsuit. “Every time we disclose the past, we make it less likely to be repeated in the future.” The sexual abuse ranged from oral sex to fondling to rape, the documents showed. Emotional abuse often accompanied the physical abuse. For example, the Rev. Richard Hatch would force one of his boy victims to have oral sex and then make him go to confession and confess it as if he were the cause of it, documents showed. Like other dioceses, Winona kept the priests on the move, even after serious allegation of abuse.
Note: How many more terrible abuses like this are not being exposed because the Catholic Church and many other groups refuse to release their secret files showing just how bad it was. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
America is in the grip of a highly profitable, highly organized and highly sophisticated sex trafficking business that operates in towns large and small, raking in upwards of $9.5 billion a year ... by abducting and selling young girls for sex. It is estimated that there are 100,000 to 150,000 under-aged sex workers in the U.S. The average age of girls who enter into street prostitution is between 12 and 14 years old. This is America’s dirty little secret. According to the FBI, sex trafficking is the fastest growing business in organized crime, the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns. Young girls ... are sold to 50 men each day for $25 apiece, while their handlers make $150,000 to $200,000 per child each year. Some of these children are forcefully abducted, others are runaways, and still others are sold into the system by relatives. Finding girls is easy for pimps. They look on MySpace, Facebook, and other social networks. Foster homes and youth shelters have also become prime targets. Unfortunately, Americans have become good at turning away from things that make us uncomfortable. Very little time and money is being invested in the fight against sex trafficking except for the FBI’s annual sex trafficking sting, which inevitably makes national headlines for the numbers of missing girls recovered. For those trafficked, it’s a nightmare. Those being sold for sex have an average life expectancy of seven years, and those years are a living nightmare of endless rape, forced drugging, [and] humiliation. What can you do? Call on your city councils, elected officials and police departments to make the battle against sex trafficking a top priority. Educate yourselves and your children. The future of America is at stake.
Note: The above was written by constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. Lots more here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from reliable major media sources. And watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US.
Barry Davis stood before a judge and admitted to a horrific crime: aggravated sodomy of a 6-year-old girl. Davis served two years in prison and eight on probation, and his name was to live forever on an ignominious list: Georgia’s sex offender registry. But suddenly last year, all was forgiven. Georgia’s parole board granted Davis an unconditional pardon, recognizing his restored reputation and absolving ... him of his crime. The board did so without notifying Davis’ victim, her family, or the prosecutor and judge who sent him to prison. And now Davis, like at least one other pardoned child molester from Georgia, says he no longer has to comply with the state’s restrictions on sex offenders. Davis’ case underscores the near-absolute autonomy exercised by Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, a government agency that is not accountable to legislators, judges, or even the governor who appoints its members. The board classifies almost all material in its files as “confidential state secrets.” The board does not meet in public to consider cases. It announces no justification for its decisions. Without oversight or transparency, the board quietly restored the firearms rights of more than 1,400 felons in six years. In Davis’ case, the board apparently relied only on information that Davis himself assembled. So the board didn’t hear about his victim’s years of psychological therapy. And it learned nothing about Davis’ efforts, as late as 2011, to persuade the victim to claim the crime never happened.
Note: Some progress has been made in years since this article was published, but there are still serious problems. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and judicial system corruption.
Key reports detailing child sexual exploitation have disappeared from the archives, the outgoing chief executive of Rotherham Council has told MPs. Martin Kimber said he had not seen a full copy of a 2002 report, had never seen a 2003 report and only saw a 2006 report on [last] Sunday. A report published earlier this month found at least 1,400 children were abused in the town from 1997 to 2013. The council was heavily criticised by Professor Alexis Jay. In her report, Professor Jay said: "Further stark evidence came in 2002, 2003 and 2006 with three reports known to the police and the council, which could not have been clearer in their description of the situation in Rotherham." Addressing MPs, Mr Kimber said he did not know whether the archives had been destroyed, but he told the Local Government Committee: "They are not within the council's archives." Director of children's services Joyce Thacker told MPs the first two reports did not appear to have been referred to in any existing council minutes. Asked whether there had been a "deliberate attempt to suppress information", she said she could not answer. Meanwhile, Rotherham council announced plans to dissolve the cabinet and invest Ł120,000 in counselling services for victims of child sexual exploitation. Deputy leader Paul Lakin said the money would come from cutting two cabinet posts and banning overseas travel by members. The council has also approved an emergency motion calling for the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Shaun Wright to resign. Mr Wright ... was cabinet member for children's services in Rotherham between 2005 and 2010.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
Just when it looked as though the inquiry into child sex abuse could finally get under way, it once again has to face whitewash accusations. After the absurd appointment of Lady Butler-Sloss, which ensured the inquiry got off to a farcical start, Theresa May has made the equally dubious appointment of a replacement chair in Fiona Woolf. This time it emerges the chair has close links with Lord Brittan. Yes, Leon Brittan, the former home secretary who has been accused of covering up a massive child abuse scandal. Even the most basic of checks would have revealed glaring problems with Woolf that were always going to cause difficulties and ensure victims had no confidence in the process. Events of the past few weeks suggest that, where tackling sex abuse is concerned, victims remain an afterthought for the government. Rather than send the message that this investigation is ready to take on the establishment, everything about this appointment conveys careful political management, a strategy of containment. The days when the public would tolerate Lord Hutton-type inquiries are long gone. On such a sensitive and raw issue as child abuse, the faintest whiff of whitewash will do untold damage. Westminster still lags a long way behind the public view. That’s why the home secretary has to demonstrate that the government finally gets it. There are only two options before her. She either deals with child abuse or covers it up.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A Home Office official who investigated the sexual exploitation of children in Rotherham accused the council of being involved in the unauthorised removal of information from her office. Her report in 2002 suggested there were then more than 270 victims of the scandal, which was finally exposed last week with revelations that at least 1,400 children were abused from 1997 to 2013. She [said] that she had sent her report to both the council and the Home Office on a Friday, but when she returned on Monday she found her office had been raided. "They'd gained access to the office and taken my data, so out of the number of filing cabinets, there was one drawer emptied and it was emptied of my data. It had to be an employee of the council," she said. The Home Office researcher, [whose name was not released], also said she had been accused of being insensitive when she told one official that most of the perpetrators were from Rotherham's Pakistani community. A female colleague talked to her about the incident. "She said you must never refer to that again – you must never refer to Asian men. And her other response was to book me on a two-day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues." The Home Office researcher said that at one point the council tried to get her sacked and the report was never published. A draft of the report severely criticised agencies working to tackle the child exploitation in the area, including "alleged indifference towards, and ignorance of, child sexual exploitation on the part of senior managers". It said: "Responsibility was continuously placed on young people's shoulders rather than with the suspected abusers."
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A report released on [August 26] on accusations of widespread sexual abuse in the northern England city of Rotherham found that about 1,400 minors — some as young as 11 years old — were beaten, raped and trafficked from 1997 to 2013 as the local authorities ignored a series of red flags. Some children were doused in gasoline and threatened with being set on fire if they reported their abusers. Others were forced to watch rapes and threatened with the same fate. In more than a third of the cases, the victims appear to have been known to child protection agencies, but the police and local government officials failed to act. Within hours of the report’s publication, [Roger Stone, the leader of the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council since 2003,] resigned. It was not until 2010 that the first case of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, a South Yorkshire city of about 250,000 people, made it to court. Five men received long prison sentences for grooming three teenage girls for sex. It was one of several high-profile prosecutions over the past four years that revealed sexual exploitation in cities including Oxford, Rochdale and Derby. Alexis Jay, the author of the report and a former chief inspector of social work, said that vulnerable girls as young as 11 and largely from disadvantaged backgrounds had been brutalized by groups of men. “They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten and intimidated,” she wrote. The report described the failures of the political and police leadership as blatant.
Note: Further information is available in this story in the UK's Guardian. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A former federal cyber security chief was convicted [on August 26] on several charges related to accessing and distributing child pornography. Timothy DeFoggi, 56, was acting director of cyber security at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services when he was detained in May 2013 as part of an investigation targeting three child pornography websites. The former Germantown, Md. resident registered as a member of one of the sites on March 2, 2012, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release. He used the site to access and solicit child pornography, "and exchanged private messages with other members where he expressed an interest in the violent rape and murder of children," according to the DOJ. DeFoggi also suggested to one member of a message board that they meet in person to fulfill fantasies of violently raping and murdering children. He is the sixth person convicted in connection with the investigation. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 7.
Note: For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Peace Corps’ inspector general says she can’t oversee the agency properly without access to sex-assault records it refuses to hand over. Since 2008, Peace Corps Inspector General Kathy Buller has led internal investigations that have led to 21 criminal convictions for crimes such as rape, attempted rape, abuse of minors, embezzlement, theft and possession of narcotics. Buller charged the Peace Corps with [hindering] her office’s oversight efforts, and said the agency was not fully disclosing its sexual assault reports. In 2011, [ABC News] reported that more than 1,000 female Peace Corps volunteers have been raped or sexually assaulted in the past decade, and that some victims felt the agency either sought to cover up incidents or treated victims with insensitivity. The murder of Peace Corps volunteer Kate Puzey in Benin seized public attention in 2011. The volunteer was found dead after she reported her suspicions that a Peace Corps contractor was sexually harassing students at the school where she taught. Less than a year after her death, Congress passed reforms to protect whistleblowers like Puzey and to improve the agency’s sexual assault practices. But even after Puzey’s murder, sexual assault still remains a problem for the Peace Corps and the thousands of volunteers they send abroad.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
The [UK] government [has] announced an inquiry into historical allegations of child sex abuse by leading political figures. The Westminster inquiry will investigate not just the rape and assault of children at group homes going back decades but also accusations that child abuse by politicians and other public figures was deliberately covered up or even facilitated by members of the elite. [The] Parliament has ... spent 30 years failing to catch the pedophiles in its own house. Before the inquiry was even announced, it emerged that 114 files concerning allegations of abuse against children involving senior political figures had mysteriously disappeared. What links all these convicted or alleged predators of children is not background or upbringing. What united them was power and access — and a sense of entitlement, acquired from Britain’s traditional elite, that came from the knowledge that their reputations were too great for them to be held accountable. In many cases, investigation by the authorities was deliberately deflected. Nowhere is this truer than at Britain’s top “public schools,” as the private secondary, usually boarding, schools are known. In these, a culture of bullying and sexualized violence has been understood for more than a century as part of the process of training young men to be leaders. Teachers at 130 of these schools have been implicated; several schools are under criminal investigation by the police. That victims of child abuse often grow up to replicate that abuse, to become bullies or tyrants or covert sexual predators, has long been understood as a human tragedy. Only in Britain does it seem to have been the intrinsic psychology at the dark heart of the governing elite.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A group of Catholic and Anglican church leaders have accused the ... government of ''state-sanctioned child abuse'' in the immigration detention system, and called for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to step down from his position as guardian for all unaccompanied minors. Leaders from nine Christian denominations, which form the Australian Churches Refugee Taskforce, [have released] a report [with] recommendations to the ... government to improve the wellbeing and treatment of children in onshore and offshore immigration detention centres. The church leaders ... say the church has learnt a painful lesson from decades of child abuse within their congregations. Reverend Peter Catt, the Anglican Dean of Brisbane said: ''We have the absolute duty to make sure the events that came out from the Royal Commission aren't repeated in any setting. Institutional child abuse occurs in many different settings and it's illegal, it's horrific and it's unacceptable.'' The recommendations in the report include ending closed detention for all unaccompanied children; providing institutional child welfare and protection; and replacing the Immigration Minister as the guardian of about 135 unaccompanied asylum seeker children who are being held in onshore and offshore centres. There are about 4330 children in immigration detention - most of them living in the community. ''The Minister forsakes his guardianship duties when he sends unaccompanied children to the detention camp in Nauru,'' says the report, titled Protecting the Lonely Children. The report said there was clear evidence that children are experiencing ''terrible physical and mental suffering''.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
When victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests first organized into a small band of volunteer activists in the late 1980s, reports of clergy molesting children were still new and relatively few. Today, as the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, marks its 25th anniversary at a conference in Chicago (Aug. 1-3), its members can take satisfaction in seeing that its claims have been validated, and a few (though hardly all) of its recommendations have been implemented by the church hierarchy. SNAP’s advocacy on the Catholic scandal also helped push the reality of sexual abuse into the public consciousness to the point that victims can regularly win in courts and get a hearing in the media, and they are much more likely to come forward to tell their stories, whether they were abused by clergy or by athletic coaches or Boy Scout leaders. Yet that success is also presenting SNAP with a daunting new challenge as it looks to the future: how to respond to a flood of new inquiries from victims from other faiths and institutions, and how to push for changes beyond the familiar precincts of the Catholic Church. “We are continuing to grow, and more of the growth is coming overseas and in non-Catholic institutional abuse, mostly religious institutions but a surprising number of secular ones as well,” said David Clohessy, SNAP’s national director. The appeals for help from SNAP have increased so much — from students abused by teachers to victims of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky — that SNAP has set up chapters specifically for victims from non-Catholic churches and for those who were abused in the Boy Scouts.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A six-year-old schoolgirl has allegedly been raped by two staff members at a prominent school in the southern Indian city of Bangalore, police say. Hundreds of parents have protested outside the school, pulling down its gates and shouting slogans. Police have registered a case, but they are yet to make any arrests. India's sluggish judicial system means it can take years for victims to get justice. New Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised a zero tolerance approach on crimes against women, but violence and discrimination against women remain deeply entrenched in society. The girl was allegedly raped by a security guard and a gym teacher, but as there are multiple guards and gym instructors in the school, police say they are trying to identify the guilty. As news of the incident became public, hundreds of parents gathered outside the school, protesting against the alleged insensitivity of the school management. Scrutiny of sexual violence in India has grown since the 2012 gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus. The brutal crime led to massive outrage in the country and forced the government to introduce tougher anti-rape laws, including the death penalty in rare cases. But the law appears to have failed to act as a deterrent. Statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau for 2013 show one rape was reported every 21 minutes.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A former Metropolitan Police detective was removed from his post in an investigation into alleged child sex abuse after revealing politicians were suspects, he has claimed. Clive Driscoll, a Detective Chief Inspector who has since retired, [said] he was conducting an inquiry in 1998 into reported paedophile activity at children’s homes in Lambeth, south London, in the 1980s. Mr Driscoll said he had a list of suspects he wanted to look at, including local and national politicians in power during the period. Mr Driscoll said he had disclosed suspects’ names and was afterwards informed it was “inappropriate” and taken off the case. He added: "Whenever people spoke to you and shared their fears and their story about what they had seen, it was almost on the proviso that they wouldn't make a statement and that they would be scared if you released who those people were that were talking for fear of reprisals to both themselves and their families." Investigations are believed to have continued into more than 20 children's homes after Mr Driscoll was moved. Mr Driscoll ... claimed there were discussions within the Met about withholding documents from an independent inquiry into the original investigation. Some of the allegations could be considered in the Government’s inquiry into allegations of an establishment “cover-up” of child abuse allegations. A spokesman at Scotland Yard said the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards was looking into Mr Driscoll’s claims and they would be fully investigated.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse news articles from reliable major media sources.
A high-ranking friend of Cyril Smith tried to warn off police investigating claims that he had been sexually abusing boys, a report reveals. A senior detective investigating the claims against Smith said a magistrate made "veiled threats" to officers. The detective's 1970 report to the Chief Constable of Lancashire said there was "prima facie" evidence of the MP's guilt. The Director of Public Prosecution later advised against prosecuting. The 14-page report by the detective superintendent ... said that Smith would have been "at the mercy of a competent counsel", but also reported that the MP's magistrate "buddy" had warned of "unfortunate repercussions for the police force and the town of Rochdale" should he be prosecuted. Smith was interviewed by the detective superintendent, who reported to former chief constable William Palfrey that "it seems impossible to excuse [Smith's] conduct". "Over a considerable period of time, while sheltering beneath a veneer of responsibility, he has used his unique position to indulge in a series of indecent episodes with young boys towards whom he had a special responsibility," he wrote. He said Smith was "most unimpressive during my interview with him". The officer said: "He had difficulty in articulating and even the stock replies he proffered could only be obtained after repeated promptings from his solicitor. "Were he ever to be placed in the witness box, he would be at the mercy of any competent counsel. Prima facie, he appears guilty of numerous offences of indecent assault." The officer reported that he interviewed the magistrate who told him in his "personal opinion" he "sincerely hoped that this matter is not prosecuted before the court".
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse news articles from reliable major media sources.
Why is it – in a culture purporting to take allegations of sexual assault and harassment seriously – that victims suffer more social punishment than their accused attackers? Young women are shamed, harassed and called whores while the men accused get rallied around. The misplaced empathy makes predators' lives easier and assaults more difficult to punish. Immediately after a guilty verdict came down in the much-watched Steubenville sexual assault case, for example, CNN reporter Poppy Harlow bemoaned the lost "promising futures" of the two convicted rapists. She failed to observe, in that moment, that the verdict didn't ruin their lives – their decision to rape did. But at least those rapists actually served time; the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (Rainn) reports that only three out of every 100 rapists go to jail. This is in large part because of how under-reported sexual assault is: according to the US Justice Department, over 60% of rapes and 74% of sexual assaults aren't reported to police. Given the abysmal way female sexual assault survivors are treated by the criminal justice system – and society more broadly – these numbers shouldn't be shocking. Given all this, it seems odd that we continue to worry about the reputations of men who are accused of sexual wrong-doings. Until we shame attackers with the same contempt that so many people reserve for women who come forward – until we shift the disdain from victim to perpetrator – rape, sexual assault and harassment will continue to run rampant and predators will continue to attack.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse news articles from reliable major media sources.
Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that "about 2%" of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles. The Pope said that abuse of children was like "leprosy" infecting the Church, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper. He vowed to "confront it with the severity it demands". Until now, the Vatican has declined to quantify the extent of clerical sexual abuse scandals in the worldwide Church. Statistics are usually available only for countries in the developed world. In the developing world, information is usually only sketchy. In the interview, Pope Francis was quoted as saying that the 2% estimate came from advisers. It would represent around 8,000 priests out of a global number of about 414,000. While the incidence of paedophilia as a psychiatric disorder in the general population is not accurately known, some estimates have put it at less than five percent. "Among the 2% who are paedophiles are priests, bishops and cardinals. Others, more numerous, know but keep quiet. They punish without giving the reason," Pope Francis was quoted as saying. "I find this state of affairs intolerable," he went on. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi denied that Pope Francis had said that there were cardinals who were paedophiles. Asked in the same La Repubblica interview about the celibacy rule for priests, Pope Francis recalled that it was adopted 900 years after the death of Jesus Christ and pointed out that the Eastern Catholic Church allows its priests to marry.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse news articles from reliable major media sources.
It's a mythical number that skeptics never question. And it's come up again and again in the national press for decades. It's purportedly the number of victims from the infamous child sexual abuse cases of the 1980s and 1990s. Not child victims, though. The victims are said to be adults who were falsely charged and often convicted of sexual abuse, victims of a witch-hunt. Christina Hoff Sommers used the number just a few weeks ago in a Time column, referring to those cases and writing that "hundreds of innocent adults faced charges of ritual child abuse." The number of accused or jailed is always impressive. The abuse is always dismissed as imaginary. The cases are always cast as witch-hunts, with a narrative typically full of lurid details. The alarming words ritual or satanic -- sometimes both -- are often added for good measure. The witch-hunt narrative has been bolstered by scores of articles and books. But the numbers don't add up. There's no evidence of hundreds of cases of false convictions of child sexual abuse in this era. In my new book, The Witch-Hunt Narrative, I examine dozens of specific cases from the 1980s and early 90s. In many of the cases proclaimed to be witch hunts, looking closely at the record revealed substantial evidence of abuse and compelling reasons that jurors voted to convict. It's true that I also found cases where people were charged who shouldn't have been. Yet even in some of those cases, there was strong evidence of abuse. A crime was committed and a child was assaulted by someone who was never apprehended, but only the false accusation story lives on.
Note: The author of this essay, Ross E. Cheit, is professor of political science and public policy at Brown University. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
It’s a mythical number that skeptics never question. And it’s come up again and again in the national press for decades. It’s purportedly the number of victims from the infamous child sexual abuse cases of the 1980s and 1990s. Not child victims, though. The victims are said to be adults who were falsely charged and often convicted of sexual abuse, victims of a witch-hunt. Christina Hoff Sommers used the number just a few weeks ago in a Time column, referring to those cases and writing that “hundreds of innocent adults faced charges of ritual child abuse.” She was echoing a January article in Slate. The list goes back over the years. The number of accused or jailed is always impressive. But the numbers don’t add up. There’s no evidence of hundreds of cases of false convictions of child sexual abuse in this era. In my new book, The Witch-Hunt Narrative, I examine dozens of specific cases from the 1980s and early 90s that are said to be wrongful prosecutions or wrongful convictions. Looking closely at the record revealed substantial evidence of abuse and compelling reasons that jurors voted to convict. While the media publicizes sexual abuse stories about celebrities and cover-ups of abuse in the past, and repeats the mythical numbers from the witch-hunt narrative, they overlook a real number that concerns real victims - the number of children being sexually abused today.
Note: For solid evidence that rogue elements of government are involved in systematic child abuse sometimes with Satanic elements, see this excellent essay. Watch a disturbing seven-minute clip from a 1988 show of Geraldo interviewing Satanist Lt. Col. Michael Aquino and Ted Gunderson, former chief of the FBI's Los Angeles division. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
From politicians’ fraudulent expenses to phone hacking, Britain has become surprisingly scandal-strewn in recent years, but the latest reputational cyclone to sweep across its shores is casting an especially dark light: pedophilia in high places. Newspapers and TV bulletins have been dominated for the past week by allegations that politicians with links to Margaret Thatcher’s government sexually abused vulnerable children in the 1980s and hid the truth for decades through their “chumocracy.” Suspicions of an establishment cover-up involving government departments, Scotland Yard and other elements of the establishment intensified in recent days when the law-and-order ministry, the Home Office, confirmed [that] dozens of potentially-relevant files alleging sexual misconduct had gone missing from its archives. The allegations—which center around the suggestion that politicians of all parties and other VIPs preyed on children at a guest house in the London suburb of Barnes—have been given greater credence because in the past two years a string of national figures have been exposed as predatory pedophiles. Into this febrile atmosphere, Tom Watson, a Labour Party lawmaker, told the House of Commons in October 2012 that police should “investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful pedophile network linked to Parliament and Number 10.” As a result of Watson and online news agency Exaro’s investigations, Scotland Yard launched Operation Fernbridge, an inquiry into the now-notorious Elm Guest House.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
When Australia's Susie O'Neill claimed the gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, she dedicated her victory to Scott Volkers, the swimming coach who had taken over her training two years earlier. By this time, three women who had been Volkers' students were losing belief in themselves and the swimming community. Julie Gilbert, Kylie Rogers and Simone Boyce took the stand at the royal commission into child abuse in Sydney this week to describe their mental breakdowns, eating disorders, anxiety and isolation from a swimming hierarchy that refused to believe them or failed to explore the possibility that Volkers molested them – as girls aged 12 to 18 – in the 1980s. Volkers remained on the payroll of elite Australian swimming institutions until 2010, when he was finally forced to move to Brazil, where he still works as a leading coach. Was it Australia's win-at-all-costs swimming culture that kept him in the presence of young athletes? An exasperated Andrew Boe, the lawyer representing Gilbert, Rogers and Boyce, pointed out: "This is not an examination of whether he was a good swimming coach or not." Nor is it an examination of the guilt or innocence of Volkers – against whom charges concerning these three alleged victims were dropped in 2002 – or other swimming coaches. It is an inquiry into the institutional responses to abuse. Swimming Australia's association with Volkers [ended] in 2005, when the coach's fourth accuser came forward with claims that Volkers had groped her breasts and attempted to stimulate her vagina in the late 1990s, when she was 15. The allegations were very similar to the earlier cases.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
Lady Butler-Sloss, the retired high court judge appointed as chair of the inquiry panel examining child abuse, faced a backlash on [July 9] as Labour MPs and a victims' lawyer called on her to stand down over conflict of interest. Critics pointed out that her brother, the late Lord Havers, was attorney general from 1979 to 1987 when some of the controversy over the failure to prosecute child abuse cases could have arisen. Havers, who later served briefly as lord chancellor, backed the decision of the director of public prosecutions not to prosecute Sir Peter Hayman, a diplomat and subscriber to the Paedophile Information Exchange. Hayman was caught sending paedophile literature through the post but was not prosecuted. Alison Millar, a lawyer ... who is representing some of the victims of child abuse, [told] BBC Radio 4: "Baroness Butler-Sloss ... has very close connections to the very establishment this inquiry will be investigating – namely her brother. Picking someone who will be seen at the start potentially by survivors as someone who is very much of the establishment, linked to the establishment at the time, is not going to give people any confidence to come forward and be frank and fearless in front of this inquiry." Butler-Sloss, 80, was appointed on [July 7] by the home secretary, Theresa May, to chair the panel of enquiry that will examine handling of child abuse allegations by public institutions.
Note: For more on this, see this Daily Mail article.
Most everyone remembers Cyril Smith. The member of Parliament had a personal touch. He sang. He went on pal Jimmy Savile’s BBC show. He also, according to hundreds of allegations since his 2010 death, was a pedophile of historic proportions. That fact was one of many in a dossier prepared 30 years ago by a crusading member of Parliament who warned of a powerful pedophile ring of “big, big names.” The man told his family the allegations were “explosive.” It would, he told his son, “blow the lid off” of the pedophile ring and perhaps take down powerful, famous sex abusers who had infiltrated the highest reaches of British life. The allegations ... weren’t aggressively pursued and no arrests or prosecutions followed. “My father [Geoffrey Dickens] thought that the dossier at the time was the most powerful thing that had ever been produced,” son Barry told the BBC ... after it emerged that the document has since gone missing. As its disappearance ballooned into a national scandal, the Guardian reported [that] an additional 114 documents relevant to allegations involving the ring are also missing — a revelation sparking suspicion that Margaret Thatcher’s government orchestrated a cover-up. Norman Tebbit, a former cabinet minister who served under Thatcher, [said] the inclination at the time may have been to protect “the system” rather than delving “too far” into the claims. Asked if there had been a “big political cover-up,” Tebbit conceded “there may well have been.”
Note: Why have we heard nothing further on this case? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Pope Francis has begged forgiveness from the victims of sexual abuse by priests, at his first meeting with the victims since his election. He condemned the Church's "complicity" in hiding the abuse and said it must "weep and make reparation" for the "grave crimes" committed by clerics. He met the six victims, two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany. At a press conference ... Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Pope Francis had spent half an hour with each of the victims who visited him. The Pope said the abuses had been "camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained". He added: "I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of Church leaders who did not respond adequately." Pope Francis' heartfelt and humble apology on behalf of his church to six European victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clerics may go some way towards meeting criticism by victims' associations in many countries that he had failed to address adequately the scandal that predator priests have caused. Many survivors of abuse by priests are also angry at what they see as the Vatican's failure to punish senior officials who have been accused of covering up scandals.
Note: If you want to know more about cults involved in sexual abuse, read a professor's speech and a survivor's account.
Pope Francis begged forgiveness [on July 7] in his first meeting with Catholics sexually abused by members of the clergy and went further than any of his predecessors by vowing to hold bishops accountable for their handling of pedophile priests. Abuse victims and their advocates have long demanded that higher-ups be made to answer for the decades-long cover-ups of rape and molestation of youngsters in a scandal that has rocked the church and dismayed its worldwide flock of 1.2 billion. "Before God and his people, I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness," Francis said. But in speaking of accountability, he made no mention of what countless victims and their families around the globe have waited years to hear: whether bishops and other prelates who shuffled child-molesting priests from parish to parish or didn't inform police and prosecutors would be fired or demoted. The U.S.-based victims group SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, reacted skeptically. SNAP Director David Clohessy said, "Saying and doing are different things. The first is easy, the second is hard." Anne Barrett Doyle, a director of another victims advocacy group, BishopAccountability.org, said the pope's meeting with the three men and three women was still a positive step.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
[The] horrors of the Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal that saw the BBC accused of cover up and culture of secrecy to protect itself, ... opened the door on a potentially even more explosive scandal – the claims of a VIP Westminster paedophile ring operating from the heart of the British Establishment from the 1960s onwards. It has led to allegations of a massive cover up across Whitehall spanning decades, pressure on the police and prosecutors not to pursue cases and the apparent disappearance of key dossiers and files detailing claims of child abuse and alleged attackers. The story begins with Cyril Smith, the late Liberal Democrat MP, who was exposed as an alleged paedophile in 2012, two years after his death, aged 82. As early as the 1960s, he allegedly routinely assaulted young boys, especially in children’s homes and special schools in his home town, where he was MP from 1972 to 1992. He was also said to have been a visitor to the notorious Elm Guest house in South-west London, now the focus of a Scotland Yard investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring. Smith was only one of a number of alleged high profile child abusers within Westminster said to have been named in a 40-page dossier submitted to the Home Office by the late campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens in 1983. Mr Dickens told his family at the time that it named leading public figures, including senior politicians, and was going to “blow it all apart”. But the time bomb never exploded.
Note: The truth is slowly coming out. To learn how child sex abuse rings lead to the highest levels of government, watch this highly revealing Discovery Channel documentary. If you want to know more about cults involved in sexual abuse, read a professor's speech and a survivor's account.
A former cabinet minister has said there "may well have been" a political cover-up of child sex abuse in the 1980s. Lord Tebbit told the Andrew Marr Show the culture at the time was to protect "the establishment" rather than delving "too far" into such claims. His comments come after it emerged that the Home Office could not locate 114 potentially relevant files. Current MP Keith Vaz said files had been lost "on an industrial scale". The government has rejected calls for an over-arching public inquiry into the various allegations of child abuse from that era. Lord Tebbit, who served in various ministerial roles under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, said at the time people had an "almost unconscious" tendency to protect "the system". "And if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into them," he said. "That view was wrong." Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, said there had been a "veil of secrecy over the establishment" for far too long. The Home Office's 2013 review found 527 potentially relevant files which it had kept, but a further 114 were missing, destroyed or "not found". Mr Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs Committee, said this represented loss of files "on an industrial scale" and it was "a huge surprise" that so much potential evidence had gone missing.
Note: The truth is gradually coming out. To learn how child sex abuse rings lead to the highest levels of government, watch this highly revealing Discovery Channel documentary.
The handsome Edwardian house that was formerly Elm Guest House, near Barnes, in south-west London, was long ago converted into flats. Some 30 years ago, the convenient location was similarly appealing. Today ... this suburban house is at the heart of a simmering scandal threatening to boil over and take with it the reputations of a swath of the political class of the 1970s and 1980s. In 2012 Tom Watson, the Labour MP who played a key role in exposing the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, stood up in parliament to ask the prime minister to ensure that a dossier of information used in 1992 to convict a notorious paedophile called Peter Righton was examined thoroughly. Watson said he believed the file, if it still existed, would provide some evidence of a "powerful paedophile network linked to parliament and No 10". Claims have since materialised about boys from Grafton Close Children's Home in Hounslow, west London, being taken to Elm Guest House, plied with alcohol and abused. Cyril Smith, the late Liberal MP, accused since his death in 2010 of being an inveterate child abuser, is said to have regularly visited the property. Back in 1983, Geoffrey Dickens, a Tory MP, had got wind of something of this. He compiled a dossier, telling his family it was "explosive" and would "blow the lid" on powerful and famous child abusers. The dossier was handed over to the then home secretary, Leon Brittan, who acknowledged receipt in a letter and suggested the police had been informed. [But] nothing was heard of the Dickens dossier again.
Note: Watch powerful evidence in a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A dossier compiled by an MP detailing allegations of a 1980s Westminster paedophile ring is one of more than 100 potentially relevant Home Office files destroyed, lost or missing, it has emerged. The government faced fresh calls for an overarching inquiry into historical cases of paedophilia as it was revealed that a total of 114 Home Office files relevant to allegations of a child abuse network have disappeared from government records. David Cameron has already ordered the Home Office permanent secretary to look into what happened to a lost dossier given earlier in the 1980s to Leon Brittan, then home secretary, by the campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens. Dickens, who died in 1995, had told his family that the information he handed to the home secretary in 1983 and 1984 would "blow the lid off" the lives of powerful and famous child abusers, including eight well-known figures. In a letter to Dickens at the time, Brittan suggested his information would be passed to the police, but Scotland Yard says it has no record of any investigation into the allegations. The Home Office's permanent secretary, Mark Sedwill, admitted, however, that a further 114 documents relevant to allegations of child abuse were missing from the department's records. That discovery was made last year by an independent review into information received about organized child sex abuse but was not published in its report. Sedwill [said] the missing documents were some of the 36,000 records which officials presumed were lost, destroyed or missing.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The home of an MP who compiled a dossier alleging paedophile activity within Westminster was burgled twice in suspicious circumstances around the time he took it to the authorities, his son has said. Barry Dickens said nothing was taken in what appeared to be two "very professional" intrusions into his father Geoffrey's home in 1983, leading to suspicions they may have been related to his attempt to expose alleged abuse. He said he did not know what had happened to an apparent second copy of the dossier after the Home Office admitted one which it received for investigation at the time appeared to have been destroyed. "My parents had two burglaries at the time close to it without anything being taken, which seemed a very professional job the way they were carried out," Mr Dickens – whose father died in 1995 – [said]. He said the dossier contained concerns and worries expressed to the MP about the behaviour of ''those with a high profile, in an office or high status'' and questioned its subsequent disappearance. He said his father had been motivated to take on the cause of vulnerable young people by his own difficult childhood in a succession of foster homes and that he would be pleased that the case had become public now. Backing a public inquiry, [he] added: "A lot of people came forward with facts. I think it does need doing and finishing."
Note: See powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government
Rolf Harris, then a trusted and beloved entertainer, strolls into [the] shot flanked by four youngsters [in] what is now an unsettling 20-minute long anti-child-abuse video that prosecutors planned to play for the jury at Harris’ indecent assault trial. Overnight, Harris was declared guilty of all 12 charges of indecent assault against four girls, from 1968 to 1986. The video, called 'Kids Can Say No', was developed in the mid-1980s, when he was indecently assaulting young women and girls - including one as young as seven or eight. Harris had commissioned and fronted the child protection video, with endorsement from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, after being inspired by similar programs in Australia. In the period when the video began to be widely shown in schools, youth clubs and health institutes in the United Kingdom, the court found he was also having sexual encounters with his daughter’s best friend. In 1986, he had sexually abused an eight-year-old girl at a community centre near her home when Harris performed ‘Two Little Boys’ for the children.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
A former Downing Street adviser has been charged with making and possessing indecent images of children. Patrick Rock ... was involved in Government policy on filtering online child abuse images. The 63-year-old has had a glittering career as a Conservative Party adviser spanning 30 years. On Friday, he was charged with three offences of making indecent images of children and one offence of possession of 59 indecent images of children. [He] resigned shortly before his arrest in February. Mr Rock has been an influential figure behind the scenes in the Conservative Party for decades and unsuccessfully stood as an MP three times. He met David Cameron when they were fellow advisers to the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, in the 1990s and the Prime Minister brought him into the Downing Street policy unit in 2011. Judith Reed, a senior lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service's organised crime division, said: “We have determined that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that a prosecution is in the public interest.” Mr Rock has been bailed to appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 3 July.
Note: Why is it mentioned so casually that this man was involved in setting policy on child abuse images? For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Vatican's former ambassador to the Dominican Republic has been convicted by a church tribunal of sex abuse and has been defrocked, the first such sentence handed down against a top papal representative. The Vatican said [on June 27] that Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in recent days, and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible against a cleric: laicization, meaning he can no longer perform priestly duties or present himself as a priest. He also faces other charges by the criminal tribunal of Vatican City, since as a papal diplomat he is a citizen of the tiny city state. The Holy See recalled the Polish-born Wesolowski on Aug. 21, 2013, and relieved him of his job after the archbishop of Santo Domingo, Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez, told Pope Francis about rumors that Wesolowski had sexually abused teenage boys in the Dominican Republic. Wesolowski is the highest-ranking Vatican official to be investigated for alleged sex abuse, and his case raised questions about whether the Vatican, by removing him from Dominican jurisdiction, was protecting him and placing its own investigations ahead of that of authorities in the Caribbean nation. The case is particularly problematic for the Vatican since Wesolowski was a representative of the pope, accused of grave crimes that the Holy See has previously sought to distance itself from by blaming the worldwide sex abuse scandal on wayward priests and their bishops who failed to discipline them, not Vatican officials.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
Detainees wrested from sleep every 30 minutes, the lights in their frigid cells never turned off. One detainee told by officials, don't lie or you'll be raped. Another detainee sexually abused by guards. Detainees forced to stand in stress positions. Others denied adequate food, water, and medical treatment and held in dehumanizing conditions. "Welcome to hell," one guard told a detainee, a good metaphor for what occurs across these sites of torment. These incidents don't come from military prisons in Iraq or Afghanistan or CIA black sites. This has been happening for years along the Southwest border in U.S. government facilities run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and its Border Patrol. The victims: children, some as young as infants. Government agencies have known about these abuses for a long time, but [have] failed to take action. One in four detained children reported physical abuse at the hands of CBP, including sexual assaults and beatings. More than half reported verbal abuse, including racist and sexist insults and even death threats, as well as the denial of urgent medical care. Seven out of ten interviewed reported detentions lasting longer than the 72-hour period mandated by law. Three out of ten children reported that their belongings were confiscated and never returned. Many others reported being shackled during transport, the metal restraints excruciatingly digging into their wrists and ankles. Eighty percent reported CBP personnel denied them adequate food and water. The tolerance of child abuse by federal authorities violates our laws and our values -- it is both inhumane and immoral. Now is the time to put an end to it.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
Tens of thousands of paedophiles are using the so-called dark net to trade images of sexual abuse, an investigation by BBC News indicates. Brits are heavily involved in producing and distributing illegal obscene images. Britain's National Crime Agency warned in its 2014 threat assessment that abusers were turning to anonymous sites and encryption technology. The dark net is the term used to refer to parts of the internet that are hidden and can be hard to access without special software. One of the most popular products used to access such areas is called the TorBrowser. It allows people to use Tor, an "onion-routing" system which makes a PC's net address untraceable by bouncing the encrypted data it sends through several randomly selected computer servers on a volunteer network - each of which removes a level of encryption - before it reaches its destination. There are also many hidden sites on the network ending in the .onion suffix, which cannot be found using Google or other regular search engines. Tor was first created by the US military but is now also used by pro-democracy campaigners, whistleblowers and journalists operating under repressive regimes. It was used by activists during the Arab Spring to avoid detection. But criminals are also taking advantage of its anonymity. IT experts are divided as to whether it's possible to create a workable "backdoor" into Tor, which would allow users to be identified. But some security specialists believe there are innovative ways to unmask the users of paedophile sites.
Note: Another BBC article reveals that over 100 million files containing images of child abuse have been reviewed. And this only counts the ones authorities have found and monitored. For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
Although roughly 1 in 6 women nationwide are victims of sexual assault -- with the rate being higher for women in college, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey -- rapists often escape jail time. Only between 8 percent and 37 percent of rapes ever lead to prosecution, according to research funded by the Department of Justice, and just 3 percent to 18 percent of sexual assaults lead to a conviction. The likelihood of conviction inevitably factors into the decision of whether or not to pursue a case, explained Michelle J. Anderson, dean and professor of law at the City University of New York. The reasoning is based in how to spend limited time and resources. "What you don't want is the police and prosecutor's office to be more concerned with the win-loss record rather than justice," Anderson said. Recent legislation proposed in California and New York would require colleges to submit all reports of sexual assault to local police. The bill in California was developed at the urging of LAPD officers after it was revealed that USC and Occidental had underreported the number of assaults on campus. [But] the reality is [that] the criminal justice system often decides against prosecuting cases of acquaintance rape and date rape. An analysis of the National Violence Against Women Survey by the group End Violence Against Women International concluded that roughly 5 percent of rapes are ever prosecuted. Conviction rates present a "perverse incentive" for prosecutors to pursue only the strongest cases that offer the highest probability that a DA can win the case.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
The St. Louis archbishop embroiled in a sexual abuse scandal testified last month that he didn’t know in the 1980s whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children, according to a court deposition released [on June 9]. Archbishop Robert Carlson, who was chancellor of the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul at the time, was deposed as part of a lawsuit against the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota. In a video released by the St. Paul law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, the Catholic archbishop is asked whether he had known it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child. “I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson responded. “I understand today it’s a crime.” When asked when he first realized it was a crime for an adult — including priests — to have sex with a child, Carlson, 69, shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he testified. Attorney Jeff Anderson, who is representing an alleged clergy abuse victim, also released documents ... indicating Carlson was aware in 1984 of the seriousness of child abuse allegations. He admitted in his deposition that he never personally went to police, even when a clergy member admitted to inappropriate behavior. In last month’s testimony, Carlson responded 193 times that he did not recall abuse-related conversations from the 1980s to mid-1990s. Anderson provided a report from a previous deposition in 1987 in which now-deceased Bishop Loras Watters said he advised Carlson to answer “I don’t remember” if questioned in court. Carlson responded last month that he had “no knowledge of the discussion.”
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandals news articles from reliable major media sources.
Thirty years ago ... began one of the longest, most expensive and notorious criminal investigations in American history. A Los Angeles grand jury charged Raymond Buckey, a 25-year-old teacher at the [McMartin] preschool, and six others with 321 counts of sexual abuse involving 48 children. In the end, after seven years and $15 million, the case fell of its own weight, ending without a single conviction. McMartin was the first of a series of prosecutions in the 1980s that have come to be seen as a collective witch hunt, in which panicked parents and incompetent investigators led children to make up stories of abuse by adults at day care centers and preschools. But what if the skeptics went too far? What if some of the children were really abused? And what if the legacy of these cases is a disturbing tendency to disbelieve children who say they are being molested? Those are the questions that frame The Witch-Hunt Narrative, [a] new book by Ross E. Cheit, a political scientist at Brown University who spent nearly 15 years on research, poring over old trial transcripts and interview tapes. His conclusion about the McMartin case is that the outcome was “doubly unjust.” While he acknowledges that some defendants were falsely accused, he argues that Mr. Buckey was probably guilty, meaning that some of the children were not only sexually abused but “have been demeaned by the witch-hunt narrative’s assertion that the entire case was a ‘hoax.’ ” He thinks the continued treatment of these cases as a modern-day episode of mass hysteria does disservice to children and even puts them in danger.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on child abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
The discovery of a grave containing the remains of as many as 800 babies at a former home for unmarried mothers in Ireland is yet another problem for the Irish Catholic Church. The mother and baby home at Tuam in County Galway was run by the nuns of the Sisters of Bon Secours and operated between 1925 and 1961. It took in thousands of women who had committed the “mortal sin” of unwed pregnancy, delivered their babies and was charged with caring for them. But unsanitary conditions, poor food and a lack of medical care led to shockingly high rates of infant mortality. Babies’ bodies were deposited in a former sewage tank. Sadly, the mass grave at Tuam is probably not unique. Tuam was only one of a dozen mother and baby homes in Ireland in the years after the Second World War, all of which treated their inmates in a similar fashion. During 10 years of research into the Catholic Church’s treatment of “fallen women” — [a] book, Philomena: A Mother, Her Son, and a Fifty-Year Search, later turned into a feature film starring Dame Judi Dench — [revealed] that the girls were refused medical attention, including painkillers, during even the most difficult births; the nuns told them the pain was the penance they must pay for their sin. Philomena and thousands like her were forced to look after their babies for up to four years, bonding with them before they were taken away to be adopted. Many went to families in the United States in return for substantial “donations”; lack of proper vetting meant some were handed over to abusive parents.
Note: For more on this, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on child abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Reports that nearly 800 dead babies were discovered in the septic tank of a home run by nuns [have] sparked calls for accountability from government and Catholic Church officials. Some 796 children were secretly buried in the sewage tank of the home in Tuam, County Galway, where unmarried pregnant women were sent to give birth in an attempt to preserve the country's devout Catholic image. The home was run by nuns from the Bon Secours Sisters congregation between 1925 and 1961. People who lived near the home said they have known about the unmarked mass grave for decades, but a fresh investigation was sparked this week after research by local historian Catherine Corless ... showed that of the hundreds of children who died at the home, only one was buried at a cemetery. She also said that health board records from the 1940s said conditions at the home were dire, with children suffering malnutrition and neglect and dying at a rate four times higher than in the rest of Ireland. The claims came to light after Corless obtained death records for the home and cross checked them with local cemetery records. According to Eoin O'Sullivan, associate professor at Trinity College Dublin, "Tuam was a former workhouse and conditions were pretty bleak," said O'Sullivan, co-author of the 2001 book Suffer the Little Children: The inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools. "Ireland's first mother and baby home, at Bessborough, in Cork, had an even worse infant mortality rate of around 82 percent: In the year ending March 31, 1944, 124 children were born or admitted there, and 102 died."
Note: For more on institutional abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
[Linda] MacDonald and fellow [Nova Scotian] registered nurse Jeanne Sarson are the founders of Persons Against NST (Non-State Torture). They say their first foray into looking at domestic torture began in 1993 when Sarson took a call from a woman in her late [twenties] who goes by the name Sara. Sara, who is now 50 years old and uses a pseudonym to protect her identity, alleges she was starved, drugged, confined, beaten and raped by her own parents from the time she was a young child. "I remember so often being rented out and I remember the statement, 'Bring her back when you're done.' And I remember feeling like a thing," Sara says. "But also the whole time is so confusing, because you don't understand. I was so young and ... you think it's normal." Sarson and MacDonald say the violence suffered by Sara amounts to torture. They say being unable to find "torture-informed support" for Sara led them to start Persons Against NST. Over the years, Sarson and MacDonald say they've helped more than 3,000 victims of NST around the globe. MacDonald says counselling can continue for two to three years. In some cases, they work with victims for over a decade. Canada does not recognize "torture" under the law, unlike Michigan, California, France and Queensland, Australia, which do. Sarson and MacDonald say their goal is to have NST recognized as a "specific and distinct human rights violation." Sarson and MacDonald say they won't give up until police and politicians recognize that more resources are needed to help victims of torture.
Note: Bravo to CBC for reporting this, and if you want to know much more, read an excellent summary on the topic at this link. To understand the big picture behind this kind of torture, see our section revealing the deepest aspects of mind control.
Hundreds of people have contacted the FBI about a teacher suspected of drugging and molesting boys during a four-decade career at international schools on four continents, greatly expanding the potential number of suspected victims. The FBI said last month that William Vahey had molested at least 90 boys, whose photos were found on a memory drive stolen by his maid. Vahey killed himself at age 64 after evidence of molestation was found. He was one of the most beloved teachers in the world of international schools that serve the children of diplomats, well-off Americans and local elites. The discovery of his molestation has set off a crisis in the community of international schools, where parents are being told their children may have been victims, and administrators are scurrying to close loopholes exposed by Vahey's abuses. There were decades of missed opportunities to expose Vahey, starting with an early California sex-abuse conviction that didn't prevent him taking a series of jobs exposing him to children. Vahey began his international teaching career at the American School in Tehran, the first in a series of stays around the Middle East and Europe. He taught history, social studies and related subjects in Lebanon, Spain, Iran, Greece, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, almost always to middle school students. In addition to teaching, he coached basketball and led school trips to Bahrain, Turkey and Africa.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Vatican revealed [on May 6] that over the past decade, it has defrocked 848 priests who raped or molested children and sanctioned another 2,572 with lesser penalties, providing the first ever breakdown of how it handled the more than 3,400 cases of abuse reported to the Holy See since 2004. The Vatican's U.N. ambassador in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, released the figures during a second day of grilling by a U.N. committee monitoring implementation of the U.N. treaty against torture. Tomasi insisted that the Holy See was only obliged to abide by the torture treaty inside the tiny Vatican City State, which has a population of only a few hundred people. But significantly, he didn't dispute the committee's contention that sexual violence against children can be considered torture. Legal experts have said that classifying sexual abuse as torture could expose the Catholic Church to a new wave of lawsuits since torture cases in much of the world don't carry statutes of limitations. The Vatican in 2001 required bishops and religious superiors to forward all credible cases of abuse to Rome for review after determining that they were shuffling pedophile priests from diocese to diocese rather than subjecting them to church trials. Only in 2010 did the Vatican explicitly tell bishops and superiors to also report credible cases to police where local reporting laws require them to. The Vatican statistics ... showed that far from diminishing in recent years, the number of cases reported annually to the Vatican has remained a fairly constant 400 or so since 2010.
Note: For more on sexual abuse by Catholic priests, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The CDC estimates that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. Worldwide 550 million children are survivors of child abuse according to the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that there are currently 617,000 registered sex offenders in the United States, and typically 100,000 of those are unaccounted for. Other pedophiles are not on records or in databases. Research has shown that an average victim of child sex abuse has to tell at least seven adults before being believed. According to the Journal for the American Medical Association only 1 in 20 cases of child abuse are reported. It is critically important that every parent and adult responsible for the care of a child educate and empower themselves with the knowledge to stop predators. If we work together we can stop the stolen innocence of our children and that of others by spending a few hours educating ourselves. There is no greater tragedy than to live a life plagued by the shattered hopes and dreams of a vandalized childhood. To learn more about the education and prevention of child abuse go to the following websites: Joyful Heart Foundation, Childhelp, Stop Abusing Your Children and Arrow Child and Family Ministries.
Note: For more on what is being done to fight against the sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The federal government’s spy-satellite agency failed to alert authorities after some of its employees and contractors admitted during polygraph tests to crimes including child molestation and lying on security-clearance questionnaires, according to a watchdog. The intelligence community’s inspector general released two reports ... saying the National Reconnaissance Office did not refer some of the cases because of confusion about reporting expectations and requirements. According to one of the reports, an Air Force lieutenant colonel admitted during a 2010 lie-detector test to touching a child in a sexual way and downloading child pornography on his work computer. The NRO only reported that case to the Air Force division that oversees security clearances instead of the Justice Department or the Air Force’s special-investigations office, the inspector general said. The NRO is not legally required to report certain state crimes such as child molestation. Thirty individuals who took NRO lie-detector tests from 2009 through 2012 admitted to child abuse or using child pornography, according to the report. The NRO failed to report three of those cases. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who requested the review after a McClatchy news investigation raised concerns about the matter in 2012, said the NRO showed a “complete lack of common sense in failing to require reporting of serious state crimes of this sort.”
Note: The NRO is the agency that was running a drill on the morning of 9/11 of an airplane crashing into one of its Washington, DC buildings, as reported in this USA Today article. It has also allegedly been involved in the UFO cover-up, as reported in this testimony.
The sexual abuse scandal that festered under [Pope John Paul's] watch remains a stain on his legacy. Pope Francis has inherited John Paul's most notorious failure on the sex abuse front — the Legion of Christ order, which John Paul and his top advisers held up as a model. The Legion admitted that its late founder sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children. Yet the Legion's 2009 admission about the Rev. Marcial Maciel's double life was by no means news to the Vatican. Documents from the archives of the Vatican's then-Sacred Congregation for Religious show how a succession of papacies ... simply turned a blind eye to credible reports that Maciel was a con artist, drug addict, pedophile and religious fraud. The documents show the Holy See was well aware of Maciel's drug abuse, sexual abuse and financial improprieties as early as 1956, when it ordered an initial investigation and suspended him for two years to kick a morphine habit. Maciel's fraud, one of the greatest scandals of the 20th-century Catholic Church, raises uncomfortable questions for today's Vatican about how so many people could have been duped for so long. [This] brings into question how the church's own structure, values and priorities enabled a cult-like order to grow from within and how far accountability for all the harm done should go. It begs the question of whether the order has really been purged of the abuses that allowed generations of priests to subject themselves to blind obedience to a false prophet.
Note: It is all too clear that a succession of popes and cardinals of the Catholic church were well aware of these severe child sex abuse scandals for decades, yet took no serious steps to stop the harm being inflicted on innocent children. To learn how child sex-abuse rings lead to top levels of both political and religious leadership around the world, watch the powerful Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link and read the astounding news reports available here.
For four years in the late 19th century, a lurid controversy racked the small Russian community of San Francisco - one that featured a pair of strong-willed antagonists hurling accusations of bigamy, arson, murder conspiracy and child abuse. One was the new leader of the Russian Orthodox church in San Francisco, Bishop Vladimir. His bitter enemy was Dr. Nicholas Russel, a revolutionary who had fled Russia to implant his radical ideas in what he hoped would be the fertile soil of America. Of all the ugly exchanges between these two men of diametrically opposed political and religious views, none was uglier than the charge that Bishop Vladimir had sodomized children. There was overwhelming evidence to support it, but a combination of factors - the authorities' unwillingness to investigate a high-ranking churchman, Victorian reticence and the bishop's cunningly aggressive tactics - allowed an obvious case of pederasty to go unpunished. It was among the first - though not, unfortunately, the last - cover-ups of sexual misconduct by a religious leader. Terence Emmons laid out the details in his meticulous 1997 study of the affair, Alleged Sex and Threatened Violence: Doctor Russel, Bishop Vladimir, and the Russians in San Francisco, 1887-1892. Russel ... started checking into rumors about the bishop's relations with the boys he had brought to San Francisco. Russel went to a lawyer, who interviewed three of the boys. They submitted affidavits alleging that Vladimir had forced them to "commit the crime against nature" with him, and had threatened them and mistreated them in other ways.
Note: This article shows how people in power have been protected from child abuse for centuries, even when it is quite blatant. If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here.
A dossier compiled by an MP detailing allegations of a 1980s Westminster paedophile ring is one of more than 100 potentially relevant Home Office files destroyed, lost or missing, it has emerged. The government faced fresh calls for an overarching inquiry into historical cases of paedophilia as it was revealed that a total of 114 Home Office files relevant to allegations of a child abuse network have disappeared from government records. David Cameron has already ordered the Home Office permanent secretary to look into what happened to a lost dossier given earlier in the 1980s to Leon Brittan, then home secretary, by the campaigning Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens. The revelation that further relevant documents have disappeared will raise fresh fears of an establishment cover-up. Dickens, who died in 1995, had told his family that the information he handed to the home secretary in 1983 and 1984 would "blow the lid off" the lives of powerful and famous child abusers, including eight well-known figures. In a letter to Dickens at the time, Brittan suggested his information would be passed to the police, but Scotland Yard says it has no record of any investigation into the allegations. On Saturday the Home Office made public a letter to Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, in which the department confirmed that correspondence from Dickens had not been retained and it had found "no record of specific allegations by Mr Dickens of child sex abuse by prominent public figures".
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals and government corruption.
In 1982, 12-year-old Johnny Gosch disappeared while on his early morning paper route in suburban Des Moines, Iowa. The case remains unsolved, but there are clues to what might have happened. Filmmakers David Beilinson, Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky tackle the story from the point of view of the boy's mother, Noreen Gosch. When she and her husband first reported Johnny's disappearance, police assumed he had run away and declined to involve the FBI. Gosch expressed her displeasure with regularity, prompting this quote in the newspaper from the local police chief: "I really don't give a damn what Noreen Gosch has to say. I really don't give a damn what she thinks. I'm interested in the boy and what we can do to find him. I'm kind of sick of her." The story takes several unusual turns. A dollar bill surfaces at a store with a handwritten message: "I am alive. Johnny Gosch." A young man incarcerated in Nebraska admits some involvement in Johnny's abduction as part of an organized child prostitution ring. Gosch then admits to seeing her son one time, on her doorstep, decades after his disappearance. A swirl of conspiracy theories, professional incompetence, grief, finger-pointing and bizarre details, the story only gets stranger as it goes. And more disturbing. Decades after his disappearance, Gosch received photos of boys who were bound and gagged. The images, though PG, are upsetting on such a deep level. What really happened to Johnny, at least according to his mother, sounds outlandish. Horrifying. But it's not implausible.
Note: This film is intimately related to one of the most revealing documentaries ever made - "Conspiracy of Silence" - which you can learn about and watch on this webpage. Learn lots more on the website put up by the mother of Johnny Gosch and on this webpage.
In 2009, when Robert H Richard IV, an unemployed heir to the DuPont family fortune, pled guilty to fourth-degree rape of his three-year-old daughter, a judge spared him a justifiable sentence – indeed, only put Richard on probation – because she figured this 1-percenter would "not fare well" in a prison setting. Richard’s ex-wife filed a new lawsuit accusing him of also sexually abusing their son. Since then, the original verdict has been fueling some angry speculation ... that the defendant's wealth and status may have played a role in his lenient sentencing. Inequality defines our criminal justice system just as it defines our society. It always has and it always will until we do something about it. America incarcerates more people than any other country on the planet, with over 2m currently in prison and more than 7m under some form of correctional supervision. More than 60% are racial and ethnic minorities, and the vast majority are poor. There is an abundance of evidence ... that both conscious and unconscious bias permeate every aspect of the criminal justice system, from arrests to sentencing and beyond. Unsurprisingly, this bias works in favor of wealthy (and white) defendants, while poor minorities routinely suffer. In August of last year the Sentencing Project, a non-profit devoted to criminal justice reform, released a comprehensive report on bias in the system. This is the sentence you need to remember: "The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and minorities."
Note: For more on systemic injustice within the US prison/industrial complex, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A judge who sentenced a wealthy du Pont heir to probation in the rape of his three-year-old daughter said in court documents that he would "not fare well" in prison. The rape case against Robert H. Richards IV became public this month after his ex-wife reportedly filed a lawsuit seeking damages for the abuse of his daughter. According to a lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, Richards raped his daughter, now 11, in 2005 when she was 3, telling her "to keep what he had done to her a secret." The girl told her grandmother in October 2007, and Richards pleaded guilty in June 2008 to one count of fourth-degree rape to avoid jail time, court records show. The lawsuit also alleged that Richards abused his toddler son. Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden's sentencing order for Richards suggested that he needed treatment instead of prison time and considered unique circumstances when deciding his fate, reports the [News Journal of Delaware]. Attorney General Beau Biden initially indicted Richards on two counts of second-degree rape of a child, punishable by ten years in prison for each count. But as part of a plea agreement days before his 2008 trial, Richards pleaded guilty to fourth-degree rape -- reportedly a Class C violent felony that can bring up to 15 years in prison, though guidelines suggest zero to 2 1/2 years. At Richards' 2009 sentencing, prosecutor Renee Hrivnak recommended probation. Richards, a great-grandson of du Pont patriarch Irenee du Pont, is unemployed and supported by a trust fund, [and] owns a 5,800-square-foot mansion in Greenville and a home in the exclusive North Shores neighborhood near Rehoboth Beach.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Italy's bishops have adopted a policy, with backing from the Vatican, that states they are not obliged to inform police officers if they suspect a child has been molested. The Italian Bishops' Conference said the guidelines ... reflected suggestions from the Vatican's office that handles sex abuse investigations. Victims have denounced how bishops systematically covered up abuse by moving priests while keeping prosecutors in the dark. Only in 2010 did the Vatican instruct bishops to report abuse to police — but only where required by law. [The] guidelines cite a 1985 treaty between the Vatican and Italy stipulating that clergy aren't obliged to tell magistrates about information obtained through their religious ministry. The guidelines remind bishops, however, they have a ''moral duty“ to contribute to the common good. The ruling comes less than a week after Pope Francis appointed a former child victim as one of the first members of a new commission to help the Catholic Church put an end to clerical sexual abuse. A UN report published in March blasted what it called the Vatican's code of silence" around abusive priests. UN children's rights experts estimate "tens of thousands of children worldwide" have been sexually abused by predatory clerics as a result of moving, rather than reporting, paedophiles.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Prompted by publicity surrounding recent child abuse scandals involving well-known figures, dozens of British men are breaking decades of silence about molestation they say they suffered as boys at expensive private schools, forcing the schools to confront allegations that in the past might have been hushed up, ignored or treated derisively. In one instance involving Aldwickbury School, which educates boys ages 4 to 13, a former student, who requested anonymity because of the intimate details of the case, said he suffered profound feelings of confusion and guilt after being abused by a teacher in the 1970s. He said the teacher molested him regularly during English lessons over a period of two years. The former Aldwickbury student is one of dozens of people who have come forward. Last month, a former headmaster of Caldicott, a school in Buckinghamshire attended by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, was jailed for past child abuse offenses. The former headmaster, Roland Peter Wright, now 83, was convicted of abusing students 8 to 13 from 1959 to 1970. Other schools facing compensation claims include Ashdown House, which has educated, among others, the queen’s nephew, Viscount Linley. Most of these claims are directed at Britain’s preparatory schools, which typically admit children 4 to 13, with students living at the school starting at 7 or 8. The very nature of boarding schools — closed environments in which teachers can wield enormous power — can make them attractive to child abusers.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A top judge campaigned to support a paedophile group that tried to legalise sex with children, a newspaper claims. The Mail on Sunday said Lord Justice Fulford was a founder member of a campaign to defend the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The judge told the BBC he had "no memory" of this, but had in the 1970s been involved with a civil liberties group to which PIE was affiliated. He said he had never supported PIE and child abuse was "wholly wrong". The Daily Mail has run a series of articles questioning the links between PIE and civil liberties group the National Council for Civil Liberties during the 1970s and early 1980s. PIE had called for greater tolerance and paedophile "rights" and campaigned for a lowering of the age of consent to 10. Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, her husband and fellow Labour MP Jack Dromey and former Labour health secretary Patricia Hewitt were all prominent figures in the NCCL, which granted PIE affiliate status in 1975. Ms Hewitt has apologised for having "got it wrong", while Mr Dromey has accused the Daily Mail of "dirty, gutter journalism". Ms Harman has said she "regrets" the links between the two groups but she has "nothing to apologise for". The Mail on Sunday said its investigation had found that Lord Justice Fulford, a member of the Privy Council, was a founder member of a campaign set up to defend PIE against criminal charges.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A Fort Hood sergeant who was a coordinator of the post's sexual assault and harassment prevention program faces multiple charges after he was accused of setting up a prostitution ring involving cash-strapped female soldiers. Sgt. 1st Class Gregory McQueen was charged [on March 7] with 21 counts related to pandering, conspiracy, maltreatment of a subordinate, abusive sexual contact, and adultery and conduct of a nature to bring discredit to the armed forces. The Fort Hood case and others like it have increased pressure on the Pentagon and Capitol Hill to confront sexual misconduct in the armed forces. The charges against McQueen came one day after the Senate rejected a bill that would have stripped military commanders of the authority to decide whether to prosecute serious crimes.
Note: Is it just a coincidence that the man in charge of prevention of sexual assault was running a prostitution ring, or is this possibly a common way the military keeps sexual abuse from being handled effectively? For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Senate on [March 6] rejected a ... bill to remove military commanders from decisions over the prosecution of sexual assault cases in the armed forces, delivering a defeat to advocacy groups that argued that wholesale changes are necessary to combat an epidemic of rapes and sexual assaults in the military. The measure, pushed by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, received 55 votes — five short of the 60 votes needed. The vote came after a debate on the Senate floor filled with drama and accusations that Ms. Gillibrand and her allies were misguided. The debate pitted the Senate’s 20 women against one another, and seemed bound to leave hard feelings, given that a solid majority of the Senate actually backed Ms. Gillibrand’s proposal. Congress began scrutinizing the sexual assault problem in the military after a recent series of highly publicized cases, including one at the Naval Academy, and after the release of new data from the Pentagon on the issue. On Sept. 30, the end of the last fiscal year, about 1,600 sexual assault cases in the military were awaiting either action from commanders or the completion of criminal investigations. Critics of the military’s handling of such cases say that the official numbers represent a tiny percentage of sexual assault cases, while Ms. Gillibrand said that only one in 10 sexual assaults were reported. She and her supporters argue that forcing victims to go to their commanders to report sexual assaults is similar to forcing a woman to tell her father that her brother has assaulted her.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Violence against women is "an extensive human rights abuse" across Europe with one in three women reporting some form of physical or sexual abuse since the age of 15 and 8% suffering abuse in the last 12 months, according to the largest survey of its kind on the issue. The survey, based on interviews with 42,000 women across 28 EU member states, found extensive abuse across the continent, which typically goes unreported and undetected by the authorities. Morten Kjaerum, director of FRA, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, which was responsible for the survey, said: "Violence against women ... is an extensive human rights abuse that the EU cannot afford to overlook." The FRA study provides ample evidence of the size of the problem, as well as suggestions on how to fix it. In a foreword to the report, Kjaerum calls for all member states to sign and ratify the Council of Europe Istanbul convention, which demands more protection for women, as well as action from private and public organisations. Among the findings: • One in 10 women have experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 15, while one in 20 has been raped. • One in 10 women have been stalked by a previous partner. • Most violence is carried out by a current or former partner, with 22% of women in relationships reporting partner abuse. • Violence against women is one of the least reported crimes. Only 14% of women reported their most serious incident of partner violence to the police, while a similar percentage (13%) reported their most serious incident of non-partner violence. • Just over one in 10 women experienced some form of sexual violence by an adult before they were 15.
Note: For more on sexual abuse and violence against women, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A senior aide to David Cameron resigned from Downing Street last month the day before being arrested on allegations relating to child abuse images. Patrick Rock, who was involved in drawing up the government's policy for the large internet firms on online pornography filters, resigned after No 10 was alerted to the allegations. Rock was arrested at his west London flat the next morning. Officers from the National Crime Agency subsequently examined computers and offices used in Downing Street by Rock, the deputy director of No 10's policy unit. The arrest of Rock, 62, who had been tipped for a Tory peerage, will have come as a severe shock to the PM and the Tory establishment. Cameron and Rock worked together as special advisers to Michael Howard in his time as home secretary in the mid 1990s. Rock later worked for Lord Patten alongside Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, during his time as a European commissioner in Brussels. Rock helped to draw up government policy which led to the deal with the internet giants on online filters. Under the deal, all households connected to the internet will be contacted to be asked if they would like the filters installed.
Note: For more on sexual abuse and violence against women and children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
How did the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) [become so influential in the 1970s]? "It was an extraordinarily liberal period," said Harry Fletcher, a criminal justice expert who at the time was the senior social worker for the National Council for One Parent Families. People were pushing at every boundary – sexual, moral, legal. Many on the left thought that criminalising sexual behaviour between consenting teenagers was misguided and wanted it lowered to 14, a proposal endorsed by the NCCL's [National Council for Civil Liberties] executive committee. Others, like Fletcher, felt such a move would give a licence to older men to prey on young girls. Into this permissive climate crept the PIE, a group that actively promoted sex between children and adults and that was allowed not only to affiliate to the NCCL ... but enjoyed considerable recognition and support for its right to speak out on such issues. The group inveigled itself so successfully into the NCCL that, as reported in the May 1978 edition of its magazine MagPIE, the council's annual meeting passed a motion in support of PIE's rights. Admittedly, any group could join the NCCL, which had more than 1,000 affiliate member organisations and the council's motion probably owed more to defending the principle of free speech than defending PIE. And it would be wrong to portray PIE as a major force. Being small, comprising only a handful of activists and with a membership estimated to be between 300 and 1,000, PIE was not a powerful voice at a time when the main debates within the council were about sexual equality and race relations. But its views were so profoundly abhorrent to most of Britain that it is still hard to see why the council did not do more to disown PIE from the start.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Here is how a stunning PBS documentary describes itself: “In Secrets of the Vatican, FRONTLINE tells the epic, inside story of the collapse of the Benedict papacy and illuminates the extraordinary challenges facing Pope Francis as he tries to reform the powerful Vatican bureaucracy, root out corruption and chart a new course for the troubled Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion followers.” Take everything you have ever heard about the Catholic Church and the global clergy child sexual abuse scandals, the dodgy Vatican bank, add in drug abuse, and multiply it all by ten. A primary insight is that Pope Benedict really did not step down from the papacy so much as flee the job. No one could make up what this documentary reveals. For all of the horror on display, the reality is basic: arrogance, hubris and insularity will bring down any organization, even one ordained to do God’s work on earth. A human organization manifests all human frailties. Allow it to make its own rules and hide, and the worst happens. This is a tragedy that defies description. Abuse of people, power and a benefit of the doubt that goes with the job description. Pope Francis is [presented] as the institutional savior who comes from far enough outside the Roman Curia and the inner sanctum to instigate and sustain change. The only optimism in the documentary are references to a new beginning for a wounded church, and a religious crusade to save the church. Watch “Secrets of the Vatican.” You might know the story line. You have no clue about the depth of the shame.
Note: To watch this devastating documentary, click the link above or click here. For a more detailed description, click here. For more on institutional secrecy, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Girls as young as 18 months who came into contact with the [New South Wales, Australia] child welfare authorities from the 1930s onwards were routinely tested for venereal disease and evidence of sexual activity. If they were found, on the basis of a spurious vaginal examination, to have been sexually active, from the age of 10 upwards they could be sent to the Parramatta Girls Home where they were exposed to ''state-sanctioned rape'' perpetrated by doctors, supervising staff and other inmates. The notorious detention centre for girls, which shut down after public outcry in 1974, is the focus of hearings for the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Harrowing testimony is expected as 10 women, who were among the thousands detained in the home or at the associated Institution for Girls at Hay during the period of 1950-1974, take the stand to tell their stories. In the 2005 book Orphans of the Living by Joanna Penglase, a NSW departmental field officer told Dr Penglase how girls picked up on vague grounds of being ''exposed to moral danger'' were subjected to vaginal examinations. Despite having no scientific basis, this test could be used to assign a girl to the Parramatta home, wrote Dr Penglase, who called it state-sanctioned rape. ''Regardless of whether she claimed she had been abused by a parent or foster carer or [someone else], she was seen to be guilty,'' said Bonney Djuric, who was sent to the Parramatta home in 1970 and founded a support network for former inmates, Parragirls, in 2006. ''For many girls having this examination was essentially their first sexual experience, if you can call it that,'' Ms Djuric said. ''Being raped by having a metal object inserted is something you never forget.''
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Roman Catholic Church is enjoying some of its best press in decades. But, says a new documentary by PBS’ "Frontline," “Secrets of the Vatican,” the morally wrenching controversies that threatened to destroy the church's credibility, starting about the time Pope John Paul II died in 2005, have not fully subsided. "Secrets of the Vatican" ... takes an unsparing look at the state of the church Pope Francis inherited from his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. “2012 was an annus horribilis for [Benedict],” Antony Thomas, the ... director of the film [said]. A horrible year on many fronts, not just with mounting evidence of financial impropriety at the Vatican bank, but also with incidents of sexual abuse by clergy spreading to more than 20 countries and, further, exposure of church hypocrisy about homosexuality. At the same time, reports emerged from Rome of a “gay mafia” inside the church that included some of its top officials, who were unafraid to wield political power and at the same time live an openly promiscuous gay lifestyle. “There was a lot that came to light, including a man who was, as it were, providing choirboys as rent boys,” Thomas said. "Secrets of the Vatican" also looks at the connection between the church’s requirement that its clergy must remain celibate and the high number of sexual abuse incidents among its ranks. Thomas said the film’s specificity about the nature of sexual abuses was necessary - because it’s still an overwhelming concern.
Note: Watch this incredibly revealing documentary on the PBS website. A primary insight is that Pope Benedict really did not step down from the papacy so much as flee the job. Then watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of sexual abuse scandal news articles.
The Labour party is facing fresh revelations about the relationship between some of its most senior members and an organisation called the Paedophile Information Exchange, which campaigned for the legalisation of sex with children under five, during the 1970s. The discredited organisation has been linked to a number of big Labour names including the party's current deputy leader, Harriet Harman, by a Daily Mail investigation. Harman and her husband, Labour's shadow minister for policing Jack Dromey, are tied to Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) by their shared past in the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), the former name of human rights group Liberty. Former health secretary Patricia Hewitt was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974-83, Harman was its legal officer from 1978-82 and Dromey sat on the group's executive committee for nine years, between 1970 and 1979. During those years, the NCCL built links with PIE and lobbied parliament on behalf of its agenda. Close relations between the groups were apparently founded on the shared principle of social and sexual progressiveness. PIE members maintained that sexual relations between children and adults did not harm the former. In 1978, Harman claimed that sex abuse images should be given back to paedophiles by police who had seized them because doing otherwise would be censorship.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Finally, a strong important voice in the world, the United Nations, speaks out on behalf of the rights of children and condemns the Vatican and the bishops for crimes of violence, rape and sexual abuse against children by transferring pedophile priests from parish to parish, withholding documents for prosecution and perpetuating an institutional culture of secrecy and shame. What's truly shameful is that the Catholic Church was not itself that strong and important voice, protecting "the least of these." The media have said the church is suffering from a "code of secrecy." Kirsten Sandberg, the chairwoman of the United Nations, put it this way: "We think it is a horrible thing that is being kept silent both by the Holy See itself and in local parishes." It is easy to think that when we talk about the crisis of child rape and abuse that we are talking about the past -- and the Catholic Church would have us believe that this most tragic era in church history is over. It is not. It lives on today. Pedophiles are still in the priesthood. Coverups of their crimes are happening now, and bishops in many cases are continuing to refuse to turn information over to the criminal justice system. Cases are stalled and cannot go forward because the church has such power to stop them. Children are still being harmed and victims cannot heal. These criminal acts happened over and over to tens of thousands of children in the past, continue now and will continue until Pope Francis and the bishops act fiercely to insist that children and their safety come first, and that priests and protecting the image and power of the Catholic Church come a distant second.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more on the Catholic Church's failure to control sexual abuse of children by priests, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Legion of Christ Catholic order has for the first time apologised to the victims of sexual abuse carried out by its founder, Father Marcial Maciel. Father Maciel led the order from its foundation in 1941 until 2006, when Pope Benedict ordered him to retire. [Maciel] abused seminarians as young as 12, and died in 2008 aged 87 without ever being convicted of his crimes. The Roman Catholic order apologised for not believing in the beginning in the testimonies of the victims and later, for the its "institutional silence". The public apology was announced as the order chose its first leader since the scandal forced Father Maciel to leave. The new leader is Father Eduardo Robles Gil, from Mexico. The order has a conservative profile that attracted donations from many wealthy Catholics, particularly in Mexico. It operates in more than 20 countries and has nearly 1,000 priests, running schools and charitable institutions across the world and a Catholic university in Rome.
Note: For more on the Catholic Church's failure to control sexual abuse of children by priests, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
In an unprecedented report, a United Nations committee slammed the Vatican's handling of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and accused the church of protecting itself rather than the victims. The Vatican should establish an "independent mechanism for monitoring children's rights" to investigate complaints and work with law enforcement, according to the report, which was released [on February 5]. It calls for the church to immediately remove all known or suspected abusers from its ranks. The report follows a hearing last month where Vatican officials were grilled over the church's handling of child abuse allegations. The Vatican, as a country, is a signatory of the U.N. Convention of the Rights of the Child, and it was the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child that published the report. Clerics have been involved in the sexual abuse of "tens of thousands" of children, the report says, and the United Nations is concerned about how the Vatican has handled the allegations. "The committee is gravely concerned that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which has led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators," the report states. The report accuses the Vatican of transferring child sexual abusers from one parish to another in an attempt to cover up crimes, placing children at high risk for abuse.
Note: For more on the Catholic Church's failure to control sexual abuse of children by priests, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
For years, Karen and her 9-year-old daughter, whose identity CBS News is choosing not to share, were abused by Karen's husband. Fearing for their lives, Karen found help from an unlikely group of people: a 3,000-member organization committed to protecting children around the world. They call themselves BACA - Bikers Against Child Abuse. “One thing we try and do as an organization is to help that child feel empowered so they can enjoy their childhood and grow up as an adult knowing that there’s always going to be somebody there and not all adults are bad,” said Happy Dodson, President of the Connecticut chapter, which is currently helping eight families across the state. BACA helps by stepping into the void left by an overwhelmed court system - and by forming a cocoon of support around the abused child, pledging 24-7 protection. Each member goes through an extensive Federal background check and adopts child-friendly road names like Scooter, Shaggy and Pooh Bear. “If the child has problems sleeping or getting on the bus or is afraid to go to school, we’ll take you to school. When the bus drops you off, we’ll be there. We’ll take you home and if need be we’ll stay in that yard until you feel comfortable,” Dodson said. The group also shows up to court appearances to let the abuser know that the child is a part of the BACA family. BACA's motto is "no child deserves to live in fear." Because of them, this young girl no longer does. For some of the members, the cause is personal; they too were abused.
Note: For more on this most inspiring group, see this article and this great video.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena [Montana] planned to file for bankruptcy protection [on January 31] as part of a proposed settlement of $15 million for hundreds of victims who say clergy members sexually abused them over decades while the church covered it up. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Montana would be responsible for approving and supervising the disbursement of $15 million to compensate the 362 victims identified in the two lawsuits. In addition, at least $2.5 million will be set aside for victims who come forward later, [Diocese spokesman Dan] Bartleson said. Molly Howard, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said she believes the bankruptcy process will resolve the case more quickly than years of litigation and trials with uncertain outcomes. The Helena diocese is the 11th in the nation to seek bankruptcy protection in the face of sex-abuse claims. In one of the lawsuits, the plaintiffs said they were repeatedly raped, fondled or forced to perform sexual acts while at school, on the playground, on camping trips or at the victims' homes. The second lawsuit, filed a week after the first in 2011 ... alleged that nuns at the Ursuline Academy in St. Ignatius abused dozens of Native American children.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more articles on sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
An Australian commission is hearing allegations of the physical and sexual abuse of boys in the care of the Salvation Army over several decades. The shocking treatment at some of the organization's boys homes included rape, beatings, locking boys in cages and, in one case, forcing a boy to eat his own vomit, the commission was told. The public hearings, taking place in Sydney, are part of a wide-ranging investigation into how Australian institutions responded to cases of child sexual abuse. The current phase is focusing on the Salvation Army's response to abuse that took place in four of its boys homes in the states of Queensland and New South Wales in the 1960s and '70s. The four homes at the heart of the hearings were identified by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as those where the most complaints of abuse were made to The Salvation Army. The homes ... were all closed by 1980. Allegations of widespread sexual assault carried out by Salvation Army officers and some of the boys under their supervision were also outlined. At the Bexley home, members of the public also abused boys, [said Simeon Beckett, the counsel assisting the commission], possibly with the knowledge of Salvation Army staff members. "These persons had access to the boys' dormitories at night and would access the dormitories and sexually assault the boys," he said.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more articles on sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Papers documenting allegation of sexual abuse by priests in the Chicago Archdiocese were released to the public today by victims' attorneys. The documents cover only 30 of at least 65 priests for whom the Chicago church says it has substantiated claims of child abuse. The papers, put online, were made available through settlements between Church and victims' lawyers. Church officials said most of the abuse occurred before 1988, none after 1996. The documents tell one heartbreaking story after another - 6,000 pages detailing not just how children and adult victims were abused by trusted priests, but also how church officials often bungled their responses, failing to turn sexual predators over to criminal authorities and often shuttling the offending priests from parish to parish, where they abused again. That deception ... came from the cardinal on down. Not only were the victims and their families deceived, but so too were parishioners where offending priests were transferred, as well as the police and the public at large. In one case in 1979, a priest raped a 13-year old boy and later warned him at gunpoint not to tell anyone. The documents show the boy's parents were assured that the priest would get treatment and would be kept away from minors, but he wasn't. Within a year, that priest was returned to ministry in another parish where he abused again. In another case, the late Cardinal John Cody tells a priest accused of sexually abusing a girl that the allegations, quote, "should just be forgotten." That priest later abused again.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Vatican has been confronted publicly for the first time over the sexual abuse of children by clergy, at a UN hearing in Geneva. Officials faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they would not release data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse. Last month, the Vatican refused a request from the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for data on abuse, on the grounds that it only released such information if requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings. Victims say they hope the hearing, which is being broadcast live, will prompt the Church to end its "secrecy". Pope Francis announced last month that a Vatican committee would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church. The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society. It ratified the convention in 1990 but after an implementation report in 1994 it did not submit any progress reports until 2012, following revelations of child sex abuse in Europe and beyond. The Vatican was asked why it continued to describe abuse as an offence against morals rather than a crime against children. While Thursday's questions were numerous and far-ranging, some observers vented frustration at the lack of specific answers.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A paedophile ring that streamed live child abuse from the Philippines over the internet has been broken up after an operation by UK police and their counterparts in Australia and the US. 17 Britons have been arrested in Operation Endeavour, which spanned 14 countries. Three other inquiries into men who pay to see abuse via webcams are under way, with 139 Britons among 733 suspects. The NCA say it is an "emerging threat", particularly in developing countries. It said: "Extreme poverty, the increasing availability of high-speed internet and the existence of a vast and comparatively wealthy overseas customer base has led to organised crime groups exploiting children for financial gain." The man whose arrest sparked the entire investigation was already a convicted paedophile. Five of the 17 UK suspects arrested have been convicted; one will face no further action, and two are dead. Nine more are still being investigated. Operation Endeavour has also resulted in 29 arrests in other countries, including 11 people suspected of facilitating the abuse in the Philippines. Suspects have been identified in Australia, the US, France, Germany, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Taiwan, Denmark and Switzerland. In the Philippines, some 15 children aged six to 15 were rescued after being identified as victims. Payments by customers totalling more than Ł37,500 were uncovered by the investigation, with relatives getting paid for abuse of the children in some instances.
Note: For a Discovery Channel documentary revealing a widespread pedophile ring which leads to the highest levels of government, click here. For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A Lismore [Australia] Catholic priest who sexually abused children was ordered by the Vatican to “live a life of prayer and penance” and offer a Mass every Friday for his victims, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been told. But the “overwhelming majority” of clerical sex abuse cases are not reported to Rome because the Vatican wants to know only about incidents which occurred within the past 10 years, the Commission heard. The Bishop of Lismore, Geoffrey Jarrett, did not pass on any complaints for five years, probably because a directive from the Pope to do so was filed in a drawer and forgotten, he told the Commission. In a day of astonishing revelations about the Australian Catholic church’s lackadaisical attitude to child sex abuse allegations, Bishop Jarrett admitted he did not pass on a 2002 complaint in which a woman alleged she “walked in on Father [Paul Rex] Brown in the act of sexually abusing a child in the sacristy of the cathedral” in 1959. That alleged incident preceded Father Brown’s abuse of Mrs Jennifer Ingham in the late 1970s by two decades. In 2001 [a] Holy See directive ordered bishops to refer to it every case with a “semblance of truth” involving sexual abuse of children by clerics who were still living. The revised rule that bishops should refer only allegations concerning incidents from the past 10 years came into effect in 2002 after the Holy See was “unable to deal with the vast number of referrals” from all over the world.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane [Australia] has admitted to “spectacular bungling” and “drastic failure” in dealing with a child sex abuse victim and flagged his willingness to revisit cases where victims’ needs have not been met. Archbishop Mark Coleridge said it was wrong that insurers and lawyers had determined how much victims were paid out. His archdiocese had $52 million from which he was prepared to draw for victim payouts. ‘‘In the end, I [as archbishop] decide whether a sum conforms to the criteria of justice and compassion’’. In the strongest statements yet by a senior Australian Catholic Church official about the church’s mishandling of sex abuse claims, Archbishop Coleridge said a “tsunami” of child sexual abuse allegations had caught bishops and other officials “like rabbits in a headlight”. The failures of the Towards Healing protocol, in use since 1997, meant other ways of dealing with victim complaints needed to be explored “if we are serious about coming to the aid of victims”, the archbishop told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He said powerful cultural factors had converged to create a “perfect storm” around child sex abuse in the church. One factor was the “absurd” lack of training in the past for would-be priests about human and sexual relationships: “We have reaped the harvest of horror of that”. The Brisbane archdiocese has had 99 cases of child sex abuse and nine current matters, with $2.5 million in payments made to victims.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals involving respected institutions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Lord Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust, has warned a Conservative MP that he risks legal action if he publishes evidence calling into question the corporation's handling of the Jimmy Savile scandal. Robert Wilson, Tory MP for Reading East, has obtained an audio recording in which the author of an independent inquiry into the scandal at the BBC reportedly undermines his own findings. [Wilson] is planning to publish the audio recording today but Lord Patten has written to him warning that he should be "weighing up the legal liabilities that might arise". Nick Pollard, the former head of Sky News, last year [led] an independent inquiry into the BBC's decision to drop a Newsnight investigation into allegations of sex abuse by Savile. Mr Pollard's final report found that while the decision was "flawed", it was not driven by a desire to avoid a clash with tribute programmes. However, it did not include testimony from Helen Boaden, the BBC's former Head of News. She alleged that Mark Thompson, the corporation's former director-general, was aware of the content of the Newsnight investigation. Despite her testimony Mr Pollard's inquiry found that there was "no evidence to doubt" Mr Thompson's version of events. In the audio recording obtained by Mr Wilson, Mr Pollard reportedly privately admits that he was wrong to overlook Miss Boaden's evidence. The report disclosed that BBC executives were warned that Jimmy Savile had a “darker side” but pressed on regardless with tribute programmes to the child abuser.
Note: The evidence was released in full. To read or listen to the tape, click here. For more on sexual abuse scandals involving respected institutions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Only 12 of the hundreds of staff members accused of child abuse in Ireland's Christian Brothers order since the mid-1970s have been convicted, the watchdog of the country's Catholic Church said [on December 10]. The report from the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church looked into how the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order set up to run schools, handled abuse allegations. It said although abuse claims were made against 325 of the order's officials since 1975, only a dozen were convicted of crimes. It was the latest setback for the Christian Brothers, whose history of running schools for boys across Ireland dates back to the early 1800s. The order's reputation has been damaged in recent years by the revelation of widespread child abuse in Irish Catholic institutions. Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland's 4 million Catholics who himself was widely criticized for being implicated in covering up the abuse of children, said he is "truly sorry". The report was released along with a series of others on dioceses around Ireland. In the Armagh Archdiocese, run by Brady, the watchdog reported that there was a lack of records on allegations made before 1995. It said the situation has improved since then and praised Brady for the improved safeguarding of children.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals involving respected institutions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
In his first concrete step to address the clerical sexual-abuse problem in the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis will establish a commission to advise him on protecting children from pedophile priests and on how to counsel victims, the Vatican said. The announcement was a forthright acknowledgment by the Vatican of the enduring problem of abusive priests, and fit with Francis’ pattern of willingness to set a new tone in the governance of the church nine months into his tenure. Whether the new commission portends a significant change in how the Vatican deals with abusive priests and their protectors remains to be seen, experts on the church said. Yet the timing of the announcement, two days after a United Nations panel criticized the Vatican over its handling of abuse cases, suggested that the pope and his closest advisers wanted to at least be seen as tackling the issue with greater firmness. Soon after he became pope, Francis directed the Vatican last April to act decisively on abuse cases and punish pedophile priests, in a meeting with subordinates at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s enforcement arm. The announcement elicited a mixed reaction, reflecting some skepticism, particularly among victims and their advocates, over whether a new commission would be more than cosmetic. The commission will have a broad mandate including the development of “norms, procedures and strategies for the protection of children and the prevention of abuse of minors,” the Vatican said in a statement.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The notices arrive almost every day. They tell a young woman named Amy, as she is called in court papers, that someone has been charged with possessing child pornography. She was the child. “It is hard to describe what it feels like to know that at any moment, anywhere, someone is looking at pictures of me as a little girl being abused by my uncle and is getting some kind of sick enjoyment from it,” Amy, then 19, wrote in a 2008 victim impact statement. “It’s like I am being abused over and over and over again.” Next month, the Supreme Court will consider what the men who took pleasure from viewing Amy’s abuse must pay her. Images of Amy being sexually assaulted by her uncle are among the most widely viewed child pornography in the world. They have figured in some 3,200 criminal cases since 1998. Amy is notified through a Justice Department program that tells crime victims about developments in criminal cases involving them. She has the notifications sent to her lawyer. There have been about 1,800 so far. Her lawyer often files a request for restitution, as a 1994 law allows her to do. Every viewing of child pornography, Congress found, “represents a renewed violation of the privacy of the victims and repetition of their abuse.” Amy’s losses are in most ways beyond measure, but some of them can be calculated in dollars. She has found it hard to hold down a job. She needs a lifetime of therapy. She has legal bills. Her lawyers say it adds up to about $3.4 million. The question for the justices is how to allocate that sum among the participants in the sordid marketplace for pictures of her.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
On November 25th, the most notorious rape case in recent memory took yet another shocking twist. In Steubenville, Ohio, where a 16-year-old girl was raped by two high school football players in August 2012, a grand jury indicted the city's School Superintendent, Michael McVey, on felony charges of tampering with evidence and obstructing justice. An elementary school principal and two coaches in the district were indicted as well, facing misdemeanor charges including failure to report child abuse and making false statements. Shortly after the news hit that morning, Deric Lostutter, a ... 26-year-old programmer in Lexington, Kentucky, [sent] me a message. "We were called liars and more," he wrote, but "we were right about it." He had reason to feel vindicated. As one of the most notorious members of the hacker collective, Anonymous, Lostutter battled to bring justice to Steubenville, exposing secrets of a town that's still reeling from the fallout today. He just never expected that he'd get raided by the FBI, and face more prison time than the rapists in the end. Anonymous is a purposefully chaotic and leaderless collective. Anyone can proclaim themselves a member or declare an "operation" against a target. But getting others to [care] is another story. This is what makes Lostutter stand out. Less than two months after creating his alter ego as KYAnonymous, he launched and organized two of group's most renowned and righteous operations yet: battling the Westboro Baptist Church and, most famously, the town of Steubenville, Ohio, after the high-profile rape of a teenage girl by players on the high school football team.
Note: On the final page of this revealing report, Lostutter claims he is facing 25 years in prison for his heroic acts. To learn about some of the disturbing forces which perpetuate sexual abuse in our society, watch the eye-opening Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Nearly 400 children have been rescued and 348 adults arrested following an expansive and “extraordinary” international child pornography investigation, Canadian police announced [on November 14]. The three-year [investigation], named Project Spade, ... revealed an entire child movie production and distribution company in Toronto operating via the web site azovfilms.com. The site was run by 42-year old Brian Way, according to police, and sold and distributed images of child exploitation to people across the world. Investigators catalogued hundreds of thousands of images and videos of “horrific sexual acts against very young children, some of the worst they have ever viewed,” [Joanna Beaven-Desjardins, head of Toronto’s Sex Crimes Unit] said at the press conference. Police seized over 45 terabytes of data from the $4-million business that distributed to over 50 counties including Australia, Spain, Mexico, Sweden and Greece. As a result of the investigation thus far, 50 people were arrested in Ontario, 58 in the rest of Canada, 76 in the United States, and 164 internationally. Among those arrested were 40 school teachers, nine doctors and nurses, six law enforcement personnel, nine pastors and priests and three foster parents, she said. Citing a particularly egregious example, she said police found over 350,000 images and over 9,000 videos of child sexual abuse in the home of a retired Canadian school teacher. Some of the images were of children known to the man and he was also charged with sexually abusing a child relative. Police said the children were "rescued from child exploitation" but did not give more details.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
“We have called our report Betrayal of Trust,” said [Victoria, Australia MP] Georgie Crozier as she presented the findings of the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other non-government organisations. “Children were betrayed by trusted figures in organisations of high standing and suffered unimaginable harm,” she said. “Parents of these children experienced a betrayal beyond comprehension. And the community was betrayed by the failure of organisations to protect children in their care.” The report’s criticism of the Catholic church is unsparing. Its recommendations are radical. If adopted they would strip the Catholic church of its virtual immunity in the courts and compel religious leaders of all faiths to report child abuse to the police. The committee has recommended that priests and other religious leaders face imprisonment if they fail to report or if they conceal criminal child abuse; or if they knowingly put a child at risk of abuse or fail to remove children to safety. Even more radical are recommendations that would open the courts to victims of abuse by clergy. All faiths would be exposed by legal changes that gave victims more time to take action and clarified the legal responsibility to protect children from offenders. But the particular legal protection now enjoyed by the Catholic church may be swept away if the Victorian government accepts the recommendation that the church – like other churches – becomes a legal entity under Australian law.
Note: For more on child abuse by trusted institutions, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here. For an in-depth report showing how even police assigned to investigate child abuse were intimately involved in the cover-up, click here.
More than a million people have signed an online petition demanding justice after three men accused of brutally gang-raping a girl in Kenya were ordered to cut grass as punishment. The policemen who ordered the punishment should be disciplined for failing to investigate rape charges, the petition said. The 16-year-old was gang-raped and dumped in a pit latrine in Busia. When her case came to light earlier this month, it caused national outrage. The director of public prosecutions has ordered the national police to investigate why the local force, known as administration police, did not fully investigate the alleged rape, and instead ordered the suspects to cut grass. The alleged rapists are reported to have gone into hiding. The petition - published by online campaign group Avaaz called on Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo to "deliver justice" for the girl, named Liz. Her alleged attackers should be immediately arrested and prosecuted and disciplinary action should be instituted against police officers who "dismally failed to handle her case", the petition said. "By holding these police officers to account you will send a strong message to police everywhere that rape is not a misdemeanour, it is a serious crime, and if police do not uphold the law they will be held to account," it added. "We call on you to ensure Liz's case is a turning point to end the war on girls." The 16-year-old was attacked after returning from a grandfather's funeral in a village in Busia, western Kenya, the local Daily Nation newspaper reported.
Note: For more on sex crimes, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The trial in [a] Mumbai gang-rape case has opened ... without the crush of reporters who documented every twist in a similar case in New Delhi in which a woman died after being gang-raped on a private bus. The Mumbai case provides an unusual glimpse into a group of bored young men who had committed the same crime often enough to develop a routine. The police say the men had committed at least five rapes in the same spot. Their casual confidence reinforces the notion that rape has been a largely invisible crime here, where convictions are infrequent and victims silently go away. Not until their arrest, at a moment when sexual violence has grabbed headlines and risen to the top of the state’s agenda, did the seriousness of the crime sink in. “It was exactly like watching a kid in school who has been caught doing something,” said [the victim's coworker], who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of the victim, who cannot be identified according to Indian law. “It’s like a bunch of kids who found a dog and tied a bunch of firecrackers to its tail, just to see what would happen. Only in this case it was far more egregious. It was malevolent, what happened.” None of the men worked regularly. There were jobs chicken-plucking at a neighborhood stand — a hot, stinking eight-hour shift that paid 250 rupees, or $4. The men told their families they wanted something better, something indoors, but that thing never seemed to come. They passed time playing cards and drinking.
Note: For more on sex crimes, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A Colorado court [has] released a long-sealed 1999 grand jury indictment of JonBenet Ramsey's parents for child abuse resulting in death, but it gave no specifics and did not accuse them of killing her. Prosecutors declined to act on the indictment and charge John or Patsy Ramsey at the time, and years later they publicly exonerated the couple and suggested an unknown intruder was the culprit. Yet the Boulder Police Department — which put the Ramseys under an "umbrella of suspicion" soon after the 6-year-old beauty queen's slaying in 1996 — portrayed the belated document release as a vindication of their investigation. "The grand jury of 12 objective jurors ultimately agreed with investigators that probable cause existed for the filing of charges," the department said in a statement. The Ramseys' lawyer, L. Lin Wood, however, called the unsealing of just four pages of the grand jury record a "miscarriage of justice" and noted that the panel did not have the benefit of DNA evidence that cleared the couple years later. JonBenet was found strangled in the basement of her home on Dec. 26, 1996 — the start of a murder mystery that would fascinate the nation for months and spawn books, TV movies and countless theories about who killed her. A grand jury spent more than a year combing through a mountain of evidence before preparing charges. But they were never made public after the Boulder district attorney announced there wasn't enough evidence to charge anyone.
Note: Why were these documents kept secret for so many years? Could there be more to this case than meets the eye? For more on abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Although he’s known for successful comedies, '80s child actor Corey Feldman’s own story reads like a tragedy. In [his] new memoir, Coreyography, Feldman weaves a harrowing Hollywood tale of sex, drugs and profound loneliness on his road to stardom. Feldman’s book covers parental abuse, twisted friendships and devastating drug abuse. As his star began to rise in hit movies like “Stand By Me,” “The Lost Boys,” “Gremlins” and “The Goonies” — Feldman had no guidance or support from his parents. His mother -- a former Playboy model who suffered from depression and drug problems -- tortured her son about his weight and, at one point, force-fed him diet pills. He says his father was a musician who routinely encouraged Feldman to get high with him. By age 7, Feldman was a successful commercial actor and the main breadwinner of the family. Feldman found refuge on Hollywood sets and yearned for adult role models and supporters. While director Steven Spielberg became a trusted friend, many adults let him down. His father hired an assistant in his early 20s who Feldman calls “Ron.” The two became inseparable, with Ron providing Feldman with various drugs and eventually coercing him into sex. Feldman says he was “petrified,” and “revolted” the first time Ron abused him, but their twisted friendship lasted for years. Ron wasn’t the only pedophile Feldman encountered in his search for stable adult relationships. “Slowly, over a period of many years,” he writes, “I would begin to realize that many of the people I had surrounded myself with were monsters.” One person he felt safe with was Michael Jackson. He calls the singer's world his “happy place” and said Jackson brought him back to his innocence.
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A former police officer has spoken about some of his colleagues' attitude to Jimmy Savile in the 1960s - saying that everyone in the force knew "Jimmy liked them young". The ex-officer ... was with Leeds City Police in the 1960s. He used to patrol areas of the city where Savile was well known. Late one night, just before midnight, he noticed Jimmy Savile's Rolls Royce parked in a secluded spot on the edge of Roundhay Park. "As I went past I saw the interior lights were on," he said. "He was sat in the driver's seat and was talking to a young lady in the passenger seat. She looked ... perhaps 15 or 16. "I said, 'What's the matter, Jimmy - what are you doing up here?' "He said, 'Yeah, we're fine, aren't we?' And she smiled. Then he said, 'We're waiting for 12 o'clock, son.' "Why?" I asked. 'Because it's her birthday tomorrow, she's 16.' And he winked at me. "I asked the girl, 'Are you ok?' "She smiled - there was no impression she was being forced to be there. "Jimmy then said, 'Now get back on your bike before you lose your job.'" The former officer said today that the attitudes of the time were "different" and accepts that such actions today would be unthinkable. "Leeds City Police ... turned a blind eye to 15-year-olds but never considered that as paedophilia. The officer ... believes that attitude of the police towards Savile lasted for years afterwards, [and] that police may have informally talked to Savile about the age of his girlfriends in the 1960s. Jimmy Savile, a former TV presenter and radio DJ ... is believed to have abused hundreds.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Up to 30 hospitals are now under investigation as part of the inquiry into Jimmy Savile's alleged abuse of patients at NHS hospitals. Inquiries had originally just focused on Broadmoor and Stoke Mandeville and Leeds General Infirmary. Revelations that Savile had sexually abused children prompted hundreds of victims to come forward, including those who said they were attacked on BBC premises and at a number of other institutions. Savile had a bedroom at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, an office and living quarters at Broadmoor, and widespread access to Leeds General Infirmary. Liz Dux, an abuse lawyer who represents more than 70 of the claimants, told the BBC she was worried the extension would prolong the distress of her clients. "These hospitals were known about - all my clients gave their evidence some time ago to the NHS investigation. These victims want the investigation concluded, naturally as efficiently as possible, but they want it over, they need closure," she said. The revelations about Savile have led to a number of inquiries. The police investigation, Operation Yewtree, ... has three strands. One looking specifically at the actions of Savile is due to report in the new year. The BBC understands it will put the number of alleged victims at over 500. The second strand concerns allegations against "Savile and others". The third relates to complaints against other people unconnected to the Savile investigations, made by people who came forward after widespread coverage of the scandal
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children in institutional settings, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The international band of Internet activists known as Anonymous has chosen the rural Missouri town of Maryville as the target of its latest campaign, after the Kansas City Star published a powerful examination of a possible rape case that went unprosecuted by local authorities. Known for successful hacks of organizations ranging from the Church of Scientology to PayPal to the government of Brazil, Anonymous released a statement: “If Maryville won’t defend these young girls, if the police are too cowardly or corrupt to do their jobs, if justice system has abandoned them, then we will have to stand for them." [Matthew] Barnett was a 17-year-old senior on the Maryville High School football team. Daisy, a freshman cheerleader, was delighted by the senior boy’s attentions, and ignored her older brother’s advice to steer clear of him, [the Star] reported. Barnett, the grandson of former state representative Rex Barnett, later admitted to police that he knew the girl was drinking at his house and that he had sex with her while she was drunk. He loaded the girl, in tears, into his car and left her unconscious on her front porch in subfreezing cold. Much of the town turned on the Coleman family, Daisy’s mother Melinda was fired from her job, and — after the Colemans left town — their house burned down under suspicious circumstances. Melinda Coleman is not the only one wondering whether the prominence of Barnett’s family had something to do with the decision not to prosecute.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
When children tell adults they are being abused, their confidants only take action in just over half of cases, according to a study by the NSPCC [National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children]. Eight out of 10 abused under-18s tried to tell an adult, according to research based on interviews with 60 young adults. But adults acted in only 58 per cent of cases. One young woman described how police and social workers bungled her attempts to report her sexually abusive father. "The first time I told, I told my teacher, and then a social worker came, and two police officers. But they invited my mum and dad and sat them in the room with me. Then they asked me what happened, and so I denied it and said, 'No, nothing's happening,' because I could see my dad in the corner and I just thought, 'Oh my God!'" It took an average of seven years for those children who had been sexually abused to successfully tell someone about what was happening and to get help. Pam Miller, co-author of the report called No One Noticed, No One Heard, ..., said: "We were surprised at the number of people who had told someone about their abuse as a child, particularly given the extreme amount of abuse they suffered."
Note: For more on sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Christian mission field is a "magnet" for sexual abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday to a room of journalists. While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, "I think we are worse," he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference, saying too many evangelicals had "sacrificed the souls" of young victims. "Protestants can be very arrogant when pointing to Catholics," said Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which has investigated sex abuse allegations. Earlier this summer, GRACE spearheaded an online petition decrying the "silence" and "inattention" of evangelical leaders to sexual abuse in their churches. Still, [Tchividjian] says, he sees some positive movements among some Protestants. Abusers discourage whistle-blowing by condemning gossip to try to keep people from reporting abuse, he said. Victims are also told to protect the reputation of Jesus. Too many Protestant institutions have sacrificed souls in order to protect their institutions, he said. "We’ve got the Gospels backwards," he said. Tchividjian said he is speaking with Pepperdine University, a Church of Christ-affiliated school in California, about creating a national GRACE center.
Note: For more on institutional sexual abuse of children, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
An "organised ring" of paedophiles believed to include Anglican and Catholic clergy used a Sunday afternoon "children's Christian program" in the 1970s to sexually abuse boys at a church-run Wallsend boys home. The United Protestant Association has issued an unreserved apology. "These men changed from week to week, suggesting a larger, organised ring," UPA general manager Steve Walkerden and after-care support worker Graham Hercus said on Friday. "We are aware of a group of men who did come to the home in the 1970s for a number of years ... who routinely took smaller boys into downstairs rooms in the building and abused them." Anglican priest Peter Rushton - acknowledged by the church in 2010 as a sexual abuser of children - and "volunteer carer" and convicted child sex offender Robert Holland, are believed to have taken boys from the home. A third "volunteer carer" at Woodlands was quietly convicted of child sex offences more than a decade ago. Another "volunteer carer" from Germany sexually abused about 10 boys in the 1970s before leaving Australia. The UPA has [also] paid compensation and provided support to a woman for repeated sexual assault over a six-year period at its girls home, Ellimatta. Many children were placed in the homes by court order; others were placed there voluntarily by parents, usually because of marriage breakup or the death of a partner.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
An Australian inquiry into church and institutional child abuse began public hearings [on September 9], with warnings that widespread and "shocking" allegations would be heard against places of worship, orphanages, community groups and schools. Justice Peter McClellan opened the hearings in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, announced by the government last November, saying that thousands of people had so far come forward. "It is now well known that the sexual abuse of children has been widespread in the Australian community, however the full range of institutions in which it has occurred is not generally understood," McClellan said in an address. "Many of the stories we are hearing will shock many people." Some "preliminary themes have already emerged", he said. In residential institutions such as orphanages and boarding schools ... the commission had established that "sexual abuse is almost always accompanied by almost unbelievable levels of physical violence inflicted on the children by the adults who have responsibility for their welfare". The events would often set off a domino effect, with a victim's schoolwork suffering, limiting their future employment prospects, and their ability to trust others and form relationships damaged beyond repair. "The damage to an individual, be it a boy or girl, who was abused at a time when, because of their age, they are unable to resist an abuser or report the abuse to others, may be life-changing," he said, adding that even "low level" abuse could have "catastrophic" consequences.
Note: For powerful information already released on this including names of famous Australians implicated, click here.
In the first major study of child abuse and neglect in 20 years, researchers with the National Academy of Sciences reported [on September 12] that the damaging consequences of abuse can not only reshape a child’s brain but also last a lifetime. Untreated, the effects of child abuse and neglect, the researchers found, can profoundly influence victims’ physical and mental health, their ability to control emotions and impulses, their achievement in school, and the relationships they form as children and as adults. The researchers recommended an “immediate, coordinated” national strategy to better understand, treat and prevent child abuse and neglect, noting that each year, abuse and neglect costs an estimated $80 billion in the direct costs of hospitalization, law enforcement and child welfare and the indirect costs of special education, juvenile and adult criminal justice, adult homelessness, and lost work productivity. The report ... found that while rates of physical and sexual child abuse have declined in the past 20 years, rates of emotional and psychological abuse, the kind that can produce the most serious long-lasting effects, have increased. Every year, child-protection agencies receive 3 million referrals for child abuse and neglect involving about 6 million children, the report found, though with unreported instances, the actual number is probably much higher, the researchers said. Child victims are equally likely to be male or female, the report found. The majority are younger than 5. About 80 percent of the perpetrators are parents, the vast majority biological parents. More than half of the perpetrators are female.
Note: For more on the tragic impacts suffered by victims of sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A video made by 11 year-old Yemeni girl Nada Al-Adhal speaking about child marriage has gone viral. After it was translated and posted on YouTube, over seven million have watched Al-Adhal petition against the widespread practice of forced child marriages which led her to flee her family, and which, according to her powerful appeal, leads to the suicides of children all over Yemen. “Go ahead and marry me off. I’ll kill myself, just like that”, she says in a message to her parents. “I’m better off dead”. Twenty years after the Convention on the Rights of the Child passed through the UN, envisioning a future in which all children have the right to be safeguarded against violence, exploitation and abuse, Al-Adhal’s campaign against child marriage is only one example of children around the world speaking out against continuing violations against their human rights. In 2009 Manan Ansari, a young child labour activist from Jharkhand, [India] spoke at the International Labour Conference about his experiences as a child working in the mica mines of the region, and his work to free children from the dangers of the labour and give them access to school education. Last October Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Malala Yousafzai made world news when she was shot by the Taliban for championing education for girls. Since her recovery she has been hailed as a hero and an inspiration for her perseverance, telling world leaders in her speech at the United Nations on her 16th birthday; “they thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed”.
Note: The moving, three-minute video of this brave 11-year-old girl can be viewed at this link.
Law enforcement officials announced [on July 15] that a recent five-week sweep snared more than 250 suspected child predators, including nine teachers and three clergymen. Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement John Morton said that 255 child predators were arrested and 61 child victims were rescued in so-called "Operation iGuardian," which targeted online sexual abusers as well as those who possess, produce or trade child pornography. Morton said that the international investigation, which ran from May 28 to June 30, revealed that online sexual abuse is pervasive and growing. The majority of the rescued child victims were girls, Morton said. Twenty-two of the victims were 9 years old or younger -- including four under the age of 3. The remaining 39 children were between the ages of 10 and 17. Of those arrested, 20 people were charged with online sexual enticement of a minor, with the remaining 235 people charged with child pornography production, possession or distribution of child pornography, traveling with the intent to have sex with a minor, or other offenses, including rape. Only four of the suspected predators nabbed in the investigation were women. Investigators have arrested 1,674 people in similar investigations this fiscal year alone, ICE officials said.
Note: For more on sex abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Seventeen years ago, a nervous-sounding woman rang and asked me to publicise a top-secret report. She was not the whistleblower, she explained, but a go-between. She would not give me her name: “It’s safer if you don’t know.” That secret report revealed the extensive rape and savage beating of countless children in North Wales children’s homes. It was titled “Child Abuse: An independent investigation commissioned by Clwyd County Council, period 1974-1995”. Last week, John Jillings’ report on the Clwyd scandal was finally published. But Flintshire county council – successor to Clwyd – has heavily censored it. I dug out the original and discovered, unsurprisingly, that the cover-up continues. At least one paper and a news channel independently acquired the report: clearly, others whistle-blew. The coverage was widespread, and the whistleblowers’ drip-feed strategy worked: no one was arrested or sued. Clamour mounted, and the Government announced a public inquiry. The late judge, Sir Ronald Waterhouse, took evidence over three years, and in 2000 produced a report, “Lost in Care”. His tribunal had cost millions and ultimately achieved little, other than fat fees for lawyers. It amplified the horrors described by Jillings but it did not lead to arrests or managers being disciplined or struck off. The authorities had issued such stern libel threats to Jillings’s panel that it only named a few of the accused staff who were allowed to resign unpunished. But he exposed the excuses of the jobsworths who allowed sadists to control these terrible homes. This is the real censored dynamite in the report.
Note: For more on sex abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee ... reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation. Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He [said in a statement] that these were “old and discredited attacks.” However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show. The release of more than 6,000 pages of documents on Monday was hailed by victims and their advocates as a vindication and a historic step toward transparency and accountability. They were well aware that the archives would bring unusually intense scrutiny to the country’s most high-profile prelate, Cardinal Dolan. The documents lift the curtain on his role as a workaday church functionary concerned with safeguarding assets, persuading abusive priests to leave voluntarily in exchange for continued stipends and benefits, and complying with Rome’s sluggish canonical procedures for dismissing uncooperative priests. In one case, the Vatican took five years to remove a convicted sex offender from the priesthood.
Note: For the New York Times editorial on this "shocking" news, click here. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Live streaming of child sex abuse via webcams is an emerging threat, experts have warned, amid a doubling of reported indecent images. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre said children were being "abused to order". Offenders targeted vulnerable families overseas, paying them to facilitate child abuse, according to its report. CEOP said those carrying out abuse used a "hidden internet" to disguise their identity and avoid detection. The child protection body - part of Home Office's Serious Organised Crime Agency - said it received 8,000 reports of indecent images of children being shared last year. It said live streaming emerged in 2012 as a means of producing and distributing images. "We're seeing cases where they're effectively being abused to order for paying customers," chief executive Peter Davies told the BBC. He said some of those exploiting children via the internet were in the UK. An estimated 50,000 UK web users are involved in distributing abuse images. Children were forced to engage in sexual activity on live webcams in exchange for payment to the family or organised crime gangs. Tech-savvy paedophiles have turned to networks specifically designed to conceal the identity and location of their users. Using a variety of technological tricks, so-called "dark nets" - Tor, I2P, Freenet and many others - hide the giveaway identifiers while allowing people to go on using the web.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Attorney General is to examine whether disgraced former BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall’s 15-month sentence for indecent assault was “unduly lenient”. The 83-year-old former BBC sports presenter was sent to jail on Monday after admitting a series of indecent assaults on girls as young as nine, but may only serve half of his sentence. Despite initially telling police his victims were all lying ... the former It’s a Knockout host admitted his guilt ... and was jailed on 14 counts of indecent assault. But MPs and campaigners last night reacted with anger at what they felt was a light sentence. The Director of Public Prosecutions, Emily Thornberry, Labour’s shadow Attorney General, said the sentence “surely cannot be strong enough for the seriousness and circumstances of the crime”. She added: “15 months is not just a lenient sentence, it is unduly lenient. Harriet Harman, the shadow Deputy Prime Minister, wrote on Twitter: “18 years offending and Stuart Hall gets less than 18 months.” One victim, who was just 13 when Hall sexually assaulted her, said yesterday that she knew of more girls who had not yet spoken out, including one who was just eight when the alleged abuse took place. Hall ... was described as an “opportunistic predator” who targeted his victims between 1967 and 1987. For half a century he was a much-loved, light entertainer who could often be found unable to contain his laughter on television. But ... his career as one of the country’s most prominent figures in British broadcasting ending in disgrace after string of sexual abuses were first revealed last year.
Note: For more on child sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Senior State Department and Diplomatic Security officials may have covered up or stopped investigations of inappropriate or even criminal misconduct by staff, according to an internal memo from the department's Office of the Inspector General. An active U.S. ambassador "routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children," the memo says. The ambassador's protective detail and others "were well aware of the behavior," the memo asserts. When a diplomatic security officer tried to investigate, undersecretary of state for management Patrick Kennedy allegedly ordered the investigator "not to open a formal investigation." A State Department security official in Beirut allegedly "engaged in sexual assaults" against foreign nationals working as embassy guards. The security official ... was also accused of committing "similar assaults during assignments in Baghdad, and possibly Khartoum and Monrovia." An inspector general's investigator who went to Beirut to try to conduct an investigation was not given enough time to complete the job. U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-California, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has asked his staff to begin an investigation into the allegations, and sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry demanding an explanation. "The notion that any or all of these cases would not be investigated thoroughly by the Department is unacceptable," Royce wrote in his letter to Kerry.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the intelligence community.
Almost 300 current and former female Mounties have come forward to join a class-action lawsuit alleging harassment within the ranks of the RCMP. Documents filed in [British Columbia] Supreme Court ... in support of class-action certification say the action now includes 282 women from all territories and provinces across Canada. The civil suit was filed last year by Janet Merlo, a former RCMP officer. Merlo, who alleges she suffered bullying and verbal abuse throughout a career that began in March 1991 and ended in March 2010, says she is overwhelmed by the number of other women who have come forward. In her claim, Merlo describes a number of humiliating incidents that she alleges occurred during the course of her 19 years with the force. The alleged incidents described in Merlo's affidavit range from receiving verbal propositions, to facing gender-based comments challenging her ability to perform her duties, to witnessing differences in how male and female officers were accommodated at her workplace.
Note: Inside sources have revealed to WTK that rogue factions within the RCMP are responsible for many destructive programs, including mind control.
The State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks. The Diplomatic Security Service, or the DSS, is the State Department's security force, charged with ... investigating any cases of misconduct. According to an internal State Department Inspector General's memo, several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off. The memo obtained by CBS News cited eight specific examples. Among them: allegations that a State Department security official in Beirut "engaged in sexual assaults" on foreign nationals hired as embassy guards. The memo also reveals details about an "underground drug ring" was operating near the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and supplied State Department security contractors with drugs. Aurelia Fedenisn, a former investigator with the State Department's internal watchdog agency, the Inspector General, told Miller, "We also uncovered several allegations of criminal wrongdoing in cases, some of which never became cases." In such cases, DSS agents told the Inspector General's investigators that senior State Department officials told them to back off. In one specific and striking cover-up, State Department agents told the Inspector General they were told to stop investigating the case of a U.S. Ambassador who held a sensitive diplomatic post and was suspected of patronizing prostitutes in a public park.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the intelligence community.
If it weren't for Deric Lostutter (aka KYAnonymous), the Steubenville High School rape scandal may not have received the national attention it did. Lostutter is responsible for exposing the suspects' tweets, videos and Instagram photos that had bragged about the incident and were circulated among other students. But due to his ties to other hackers who (he claims) compromised the school's football team fan page, the FBI raided his home. If convicted for the hacking, Lostutter could face up to 10 years behind bars. The football players found guilty of raping the 16-year-old victim? One player received a year in jail, the other received two years.
Note: For the full, revealing story on this, click here.
The government says 1 in 10 youths at juvenile detention facilities around the country reported having been sexually victimized by staff or by other youths. The study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that ... more than 1,300 youths [reported] victimization by adult staff. According to the bureau, about 2.5 percent of juveniles, or 450, reported a sexual incident involving another youth last year, and 7.7 percent, or 1,390, reported an incident involving facility staff. The survey mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act defines sexual victimization as any unwanted sexual activity between youth and all sexual activity between youth and adult staff. One in five victims of staff sexual misconduct reported experiencing physical force or threats. One in five said they were given drugs or alcohol to engage in sexual contact. "It's deeply troubling that staff — the very people charged with helping these young people turn their lives around — are the primary perpetrators of sexual abuse," said Lovisa Stannow, executive director of Just Detention International, an advocacy group. "Today's report illustrates the fundamental failure of many juvenile detention facilities to keep their youth safe, and to demand that staff uphold the most basic standards of professional behavior." There was marked improvement in the figures between 2008-09 and 2012. The rate of sexual victimization dropped from 12.6 percent to 9.9 percent in that period.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
After I wrote an article about misogyny found on Facebook, people began to send me links to content that they had tried and failed to have removed by the site. Among these was a seven-minute video depicting a gang-rape of a girl by the side of the road. I began looking more deeply into the subject. I came across "humor" pages with names like "Raping Your Girlfriend." There were easily accessed pictures and videos of girls and women frightened, humiliated, bruised, beaten, raped, [and] bathed in blood. In one instance, Facebook declined to remove an image of a woman, mouth covered in tape, in which the caption read, "Don't tap her and rap her. Tape her and rape her." The photo went viral. Facebook's response ... "the photo ... did not violate our community standards." I joined [others] to launch a global campaign to confront institutionalized sexism in media. We wrote an open letter to Facebook, co-signed by more than 100 organizations, asking the company ... to train people to recognize violence against women as hateful. We encouraged users of Facebook to send messages to its advertisers encouraging them to boycott the social media network. Over seven days, men and women around the world sent more than 60,000 tweets ... and 5,000 e-mails to targeted advertisers, 16 of whom withdrew their advertising. Facebook responded, noting that its "systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively" as they would like. We are in the midst of a shifting cultural tide in which gender based violence -- historically kept private -- is better understood as a pandemic problem. Facebook's action represents an open acknowledgment that violence against women is a serious issue [that] deserves serious attention.
Note: How sad that it took facebook advertisers withdrawing their support to make this change. And how awesome that the writer of this article, Soraya Chemaly, had to the courage to stand up and do something about it by initiating this sexism campaign against facebook, and to inspire others to join her. Working together, we can make a difference.
Twenty BBC employees have faced 36 allegations of sexually abusing children and teenage victims since the Jimmy Savile scandal rocked the corporation last year. The complaints about an unknown number of victims under the age of 18 have come to light in the six months since October, according to a Freedom of Information request to the BBC. The [20] have worked for the BBC in some capacity over the past five decades. The complaints were among a total of 152 recent and historic allegations of sexual abuse against 81 BBC employees and freelancers, including 48 about Savile. Half of the accused are current members of BBC staff or contributors, the FoI request revealed, and cases against five are being examined by the police. Of these, three have been suspended pending the outcome of the police investigations. Allegations about 25 current staff or freelance contributors had been reported to police, with no further action taken in 20 cases. Some of the allegations are expected to be passed to the Dame Janet Smith review, the judge-led inquiry into the culture and practices of the BBC in the Savile era. The 152 allegations are understood to be separate to the 37 cases of alleged sexual harassment at the BBC uncovered by Dinah Rose QC in her review, published on 2 May, that examined the past six years.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
For years Facebook has maintained an imperious and stony silence against pleas from users and victims about its most objectionable content. But on May 27th, Facebook finally flinched. And then it cratered, caved and capitulated in the course of a single phone call after a one-week #fbrape campaign by the smartest feminists on the planet. In the end, it was all about the money. WAM (Women Action Media), feminist Soraya Chemaly and Everyday Sexism in the UK took direct aim at Facebook's advertising revenue stream. They publicly showed major advertisers their own paid ads prominently displayed ... on horrific rape-oriented Facebook pages. It was too much for Nissan and the insurance giant Nationwide, which both pulled their ads immediately. Organizers then aimed a blistering barrage of social media messages to Dove, American Express, ZipCar and other brands, demanding that they too withdraw their ads. Why did Facebook move so swiftly to staunch the bleeding? To put it simply, it had to. Advertising dollars are the octane that fuels Facebook. The #fbrape campaign organizers seized on the key paradox and gaping vulnerability in the advertising model. Although monetized like a titanic broadcast network, Facebook's content ethic is actually stuck on [a] frat-boy setting. A striking mismatch exists between the chaos generated by a billion content up-loaders and the brand discipline demanded by multi-billion dollar advertisers. No advertiser can risk having its brand associated with violent rape, gore, or child abuse porn, all of which are widely disseminated on Facebook by an army of trolls and goons.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Australia's most senior Catholic official has apologised for decades of child sex abuse by priests. During questioning at a state parliamentary inquiry, Cardinal George Pell said a culture of silence within the church was partly responsible. The Catholic church in Victoria state confirmed more than 600 cases of child abuse by its clergy since the 1930s. The hearings in Victoria are running alongside a national inquiry into abuse in state and religious institutions. Cardinal Pell ... denied being personally involved in the cover-up of paedophile priests, but acknowledged it happened. He has been accused of wilful blindness and what one parent called a sociopathic lack of empathy towards the victims and their families. He acknowledged, however, that his predecessor as Melbourne archbishop, Frank Little - who died in 2008 - "did cover up" child sex abuse cases. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard last year announced a national inquiry to look into how organisations, including the church, dealt with child sex abuse cases.
Note: In this article from Australia's leading newspaper, "Dr Pell is alleged to have abused a 12-year-old boy." For powerful information on a large child abuse ring involving many top personalities and police in Australia, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
[The] military criminal justice system ... frequently grants impunity to [sex] offenders and punishes victims -- the outcome of a fiercely guarded power of commanders who wield broad discretion over the handling of sex crimes in their ranks. From the accounts of sexual assault survivors in every branch of the military, a stark panorama emerges: Many victims were drugged or forced to drink and were raped, attacked as they slept, beaten unconscious and coerced into sex by their superiors. They were strongly discouraged from disclosing the crimes, or forced to report assaults to commanders who are closely connected to the accused. Few suspects face criminal punishment. Of 3,374 reports of sexual assault last year involving 2,900 accused offenders, only 302 went to courts-martial and 238 were convicted, the Defense Department says. Meanwhile, 286 offenders received nonjudicial or administrative punishment or discharges, allowing them to dodge a criminal mark on their record. In 70 cases, suspects slated for possible courts-martial were allowed to quit their jobs to avoid charges. Prison sentences are rare. Only 177 perpetrators were sentenced to confinement. But the most jarring statistic: about half of all convicted sex offenders were not automatically expelled from the armed services. For all the public outrage sparked by sexual abuses at the Navy Tailhook convention in 1991, the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1996 and the Air Force Academy in 2003, the military criminal justice system has failed to stem an epidemic of sexual assaults, reaching an estimated 26,000 last year.
Note: Read the full, disturbing article at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
For the second time this month, a uniformed military official whose job was to prevent sex abuse has come under investigation for a sex crime. Agents from the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division were looking into allegations that an Army sergeant first class at Fort Hood, Texas, sexually abused females in his unit and ran a prostitution ring on the base. Officials said that the soldier, who was not identified, had been assigned as an Equal Opportunity Adviser and Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) program coordinator at Fort Hood with the Army’s III Corps when the allegations surfaced. The CID investigation was looking into allegations that the sergeant was involved in “abusive sexual contact, pandering, assault and maltreatment of subordinates” in his oversight of a unit of about 800 soldiers. The allegations against the sergeant surfaced a week after Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, branch chief of the Air Force’s Sexual Assault and Prevention Office, was arrested and charged by Arlington County, Va., police for allegedly being drunk and groping a woman in a parking lot near a strip club one mile from the Pentagon. Krusinski has been charged with sexual battery, and a hearing on his criminal case has been set for July. The charges against Krusinski rocked the Air Force, which was already dealing with numerous courts-martial stemming from the alleged abuse of female recruits at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. .
Note: So the officer in charge of sexual harassment and assault was also running a prostitution ring? And this according to military.com. Do we have a serious problem here? If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.
13 studies find that more than half of schizophrenics suffered childhood abuse. Another review of 23 studies shows that schizophrenics are at least three times more likely to have been abused than non-schizophrenics. It is becoming apparent that abuse is the major cause of psychoses. It is also all too clear that the medical model is bust. In the press release accompanying publication of DSM-5 [the American Psychiatric Association's classification of psychiatric disorders], David Kupfer, who oversaw its creation, states: "We've been telling patients for several decades that we are waiting for biomarkers. We're still waiting." This is an astonishing admission that there are no reliable genetic or neurological measurements that distinguish a person with mental illness. By contrast, there is a huge body of evidence that our early childhood experiences combined with subsequent exposure to adversity explain a very great deal.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on the devastating psychological impacts of sexual abuse, click here.
The Pentagon [has] released a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted last year, up from 19,000 in 2010. The study, based on a confidential survey sent to 108,000 active-duty service members, was released two days after the officer in charge of sexual assault prevention programs for the Air Force was arrested and charged with sexual battery for grabbing a woman’s breasts and buttocks in an Arlington, Va., parking lot. In a separate report ... the military recorded 3,374 sexual assault reports last year, up from 3,192 in 2011, suggesting that many victims continue not to report the crimes for fear of retribution or a lack of justice under the department’s system for prosecution. The numbers come as the Pentagon prepares to integrate women formally into what had been all-male domains of combat, making the effective monitoring, policing and prosecuting of sexual misconduct all the more pressing. In 2010, a similar Pentagon survey found that 4.4 percent of active-duty women and fewer than 0.9 percent of active-duty men had experienced sexual assault. Pentagon officials could not explain the jump in assaults of women, although they believed that more victims, both men and women, were making the choice to come forward. In the general population, about 0.2 percent of American women over age 12 were victims of sexual assault in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
An Air Force officer was arrested for sexual assault. The remarkable thing is the accused man was the chief of the Air Force sexual assault prevention unit. The mug shot of Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski shows signs of struggle on his face. The police report alleges that a drunken Krusinski "approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks." The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police. News of the incident in the Virginia suburbs of Washington broke the day before the Pentagon is scheduled to release new figures showing a continuing rise in sexual assaults in the military: A six-percent increase from 3,192 to 3,374 reports of sexual assault in fiscal year 2012 compared to the previous year. Estimates of the actual numbers of what is a notoriously underreported crime go much higher. According to the Pentagon figures, an estimated 26,000 servicewomen experienced unwanted sexual contact, up from 19,300 two years ago. Krusinski has been removed from his job, but that will not change the reality that the Pentagon's own figures show sexual assaults are on the rise in the military.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
The suspects include a flamboyant pop star, a sharp-tongued comedian, [and] a disc jockey known as “the hairy cornflake”. Most are in their 70s or 80s, and most are, or were, household names — celebrities from a bygone era. All have been caught up in ... Operation Yewtree, a nationwide inquiry into sexual offenses that may or may not have been committed decades ago. In American terms, it is as if Captain Kangaroo, Dick Clark and Jerry Lewis were suddenly being accused of committing sexual crimes dating back 30 or 40 years. Yewtree was formed in response to the disclosures last year that the entertainer Jimmy Savile had been a serial sexual predator with scores of victims, many of them under age, in an entertainment career spanning four decades. The case ... spurred hundreds of people to come forward with their own accounts of being sexually assaulted as teenagers. The operation involves at least 69 police officers and staff members and has already cost more than $2.7 million. The result has been a flurry of arrests, about a dozen involving very public people. England has no statute of limitations on serious crimes like rape and murder, yet it is notoriously hard to obtain convictions for sexual crimes, especially ones from years ago when no physical evidence exists. Mark Williams-Thomas, a former detective who amassed much of the evidence against Mr. Savile [said] “Savile lifted the lid on people who are considered untouchable because of their celebrity status.”
Note: Another NY Times article reports on TV personality Stuart Hall, who "pleaded guilty to the charges last month, but the news media was prohibited from reporting the plea until now." Why was the media prohibited from reporting this? If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here.
There are few cases that better illustrate why the military needs to create an independent office to investigate rape than that of Lt. Col. James Wilkerson. Wilkerson, a fighter pilot, was sentenced to a year in prison and dismissed from military service after being found guilty of aggravated sexual assault by a jury of his peers. His commanding officer then threw out the conviction and reinstated Wilkerson at full rank. Under the military code of justice ... the commanding officer's discretion and bias may overrule legal decisions. In this case, Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, the commander of the 3rd Air Force, declined to approve Wilkerson's conviction by a jury of senior officers, all men. His decision suggests the Air Force doesn't take sexual assault seriously. Yet, an estimated 19,000 rapes or sexual assaults occur each year in the military, although just 8 percent of sexual assaults are referred to military court, according to a Department of Defense survey of active-duty members. That compares with 40 percent in the civilian court system. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-[CA], last week reintroduced legislation that calls for overhauling how the military justice system handles rape and sexual assault by taking prosecution, reporting, oversight, investigation and victim care out of the chain of command and putting it in an autonomous office housed in the military but staffed by both civilian and military personnel. "Victims of rape and sexual assault should not have to choose between career-ending retaliation and seeking judicial action against their attackers," said Speier.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
America is a country where all of us should be able to pursue our own measure of happiness and live free from fear. But for the millions of children who have experienced abuse or neglect, it is a promise that goes tragically unfulfilled. National Child Abuse Prevention Month is a time to make their struggle our own and reaffirm a simple truth: that no matter the challenges we face, caring for our children must always be our first task. Realizing that truth in our society means ensuring children know they are never alone -- that they always have a place to go and there are always people on their side. Parents and caregivers play an essential part in giving their children that stability. But we also know that keeping our children safe is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors and the broader community. All of us bear a responsibility to look after them, whether by lifting children toward their full potential or lending a hand to a family in need. Together, we are making important progress in stopping child abuse and neglect. So this month, let us stand up for them and make their voices heard. To learn more about ending child abuse and how to get involved, visit www.ChildWelfare.gov/Preventing. Now, Therefore, I, Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, ... do hereby proclaim April 2013 as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities that help prevent child abuse and provide for children's physical, emotional, and developmental needs.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
It was the start of the end of the silence, and wasn't it a racket? Yet officially at least, the "survivors" of child sex abuse who have waited decades to be unburdened of their stories must wait a little longer. Inside the [Australian] Royal Commission, where the hands on the wall clock were missing, chair Justice Peter McClellan announced that evidence was unlikely to start being heard in public until October. Outside the County Court, however, ... some survivors rushed to tell their secrets now. Ray Thomson told tales he had never admitted to in public before. He was a lucky one, he explained. Unlike so many other wards of the state, he hadn't landed in jail by his 20s. He wasn't dead. There had been suicide attempts. For decades, Thomson, of Coldstream, lived in denial. For a long time, he derided those who said they couldn't remember the atrocities committed against them, even though he himself still blanks them out. He also alluded to darker things, far darker things. He couldn't talk about those. Yes, he wants justice. "Five minutes" with any one of his childhood predators, in NSW boys' homes and in foster care - that would be justice enough. Thomson made clear that he didn't want his story alone highlighted. In talking to other protesters from Care Leavers Australia Network, who queued to share their sadness, his reasoning became dreadfully clear. Thomson's story wasn't at all unusual. It was just another in a sinkwell of cruelty that Australia would not or could not confront. Until now.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Bill Nelson has been a boat captain most of his life. [He] is speaking out for the first time about the two-and-a-half years he spent at the Dozier School for Boys. Just a skinny 11-year old, he was sent away for a crime he was later exonerated of. "I was raped over there as a kid, and there were several boys raped. Anything we spoke out about, we went to the White House," he said. It's a story many Dozier boys never lived to tell. "A lot of boys didn't make it. They weren't strong enough to make it," said Nelson. "Sometimes at night you could hear the screams," said Nelson. [The White House is] a small building where the temperature drops inside and paint peels off the walls and where Nelson remembers being tortured. "Sometimes you stayed two or three days in chains and they beat you," he said. "They were beaten to death." Soon the Dozier graveyard, known as Boot Hill, may become a crime scene. Scientists are preparing for a massive exhumation. They've discovered nearly 50 unmarked graves in the woods using ground-penetrating radar. The state shut down the institution for wayward boys in 2011 after allegations of abuse and suspicious deaths. "I didn't want to say anything because it's personal. But with all the boys that died up there, somebody needs to speak up for them," [Nelson] said.
Note: To see how this sadly may be more common than most would ever imagine, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
"You just get a funny feeling every time you come back here," said Marinna resident Elmore Bryant. You can feel, taste and listen to the silence on Boot HIll. It's heavy, bitter, and deafening. "Who's going to listen to you when you're poor, committed a crime and you're in an institution," said Bryant. Wards of the defunct Dozier School for Boys, children, are buried in the Marianna, Florida graveyard. Ground-penetrating radar revealed nearly 50 unmarked graves that the state never detected. "Like a sorority or a fraternity, everything was closed-mouth," said Bryant, talking about his town. Bryant, 79, grew-up in Marianna with the silence in the woods. He heard the hushed stories of boys who were beaten, tortured, or worse: Disappeared. He says his town was complicit in keeping these secrets. "Nobody knew anything or was going to tell you anything," he said. Bryant tells a story he heard about Dozier boys running away at night. He says a group called the "Dog Boys" would wait for them in the woods. "The dogs would about tear them to pieces and they would holler and yell," he says. "How many? What happened to them? Were there crimes committed?" asked U.S. Senator Bill Nelson standing atop Boot Hill. Now, after nearly a century of quiet, Nelson, University of South Florida researchers and a Tampa Bay family searching to bring their loved one home, may have made enough noise to answer these questions. They are pushing for a massive exhumation of an unknown number of bodies. "We were uncovering what was clearly grave shafts," said USF's Dr. Erin Kimmerle.
Note: To see how this sadly may be more common than most would ever imagine, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
The Joliet Diocese readily admitted that David Rudofski was sexually abused during his first confession at St. Mary Catholic Church in Mokena. It offered him an in-person apology from the bishop and more than six times his annual salary in the hope of putting a quick, quiet end to yet another ugly incident involving a priest. But Rudofski wanted more than money. He demanded that the diocese settle its debt by turning over the secret archives it maintained on abusive priests and making them available for public consumption.The diocese, however, fought Rudofski's efforts for more than a year before agreeing to turn over the personnel files of 16 of the 34 priests with substantiated allegations against them. The files ... contain more than 7,000 records detailing how the diocese purposefully shielded priests, misled parishioners and left children unprotected for more than a half-century. Researchers and Roman Catholic Church officials have previously said that about 4 percent of priests nationally committed an act of sexual abuse against a minor between 1950 and 2002, with church officials claiming the rate of abusers within the priesthood is no different from that among other professions. However, the files show that the Joliet Diocese ... had double or triple that percentage in the 1980s. In 1983, for example, more than 13 percent of priests serving in the diocese would later have credible abuse allegations leveled against them.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Enough films about human trafficking have been made in recent years that the outlines of “Eden” should be painfully familiar. But that familiarity doesn’t cushion this movie’s excruciating vision of under-age women conscripted into sexual slavery by a criminal enterprise from which there is seemingly no escape. The movie, directed by Megan Griffiths, is loosely based on the true story of Chong Kim, who was born in South Korea and moved to the United States as a toddler. As a teenager in the mid-1990s, she became a captive of the domestic sex trade. She eventually survived her ordeal and has become a crusader against human trafficking. In the film she is a Korean-American teenager named Hyun Jae (Jamie Chung), who works in her parents’ New Mexico gift shop. She is picked up in a bar by a handsome, friendly young firefighter who offers her a ride home. Along the way, he makes a stop and exits the vehicle. Moments later she is kidnapped and drugged and has her identification and possessions confiscated. Renamed Eden, she soon finds herself in a regiment of sex slaves, most of them immigrants, imprisoned under close guard in a converted storage facility. The women are suspended from the ceiling and whipped. After an incident in which Eden ... desperately tries to flee, she is handcuffed and thrown into a bathtub filled with ice cubes. We learn late in the film that the babies of the girls who become pregnant are sold. And it is suggested that by the age of 20, when a girl is considered to have outlived her commercial shelf life, she faces execution and burial in the desert.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.
Celebrities and politicians were protected from child sex investigations because hundreds of police intelligence files were kept so secret that investigating officers could not access them. Information on famous suspects was marked “secret” or “restricted”, allowing only a small number of officers to access it, to offset the risk of police officers or staff leaking the information to the media. The burying of information is understood to have helped serial offenders such as Jimmy Savile and Sir Cyril Smith MP escape prosecution for decades. The problem has emerged in a review of police information handling by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. Since the exposure of the former TV presenter as Britain’s most prolific child sex offender, police have been inundated with reports from members of the public of “historical abuse”, often by prominent politicians, celebrities and VIPs. The National Association of People Abused in Childhood said the practice had hampered investigations that could have prevented further abuse. John Bird, spokesman for the charity, said: “It is certainly the case that in the past the police put protecting celebrities above child protection. However we do think that now there is a clear drive to learn from these mistakes and get it right in the future.”
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Malala Yousafzai has gone to school today for the first time since she was shot last October. Then, the 15-year-old Pakistani girl was left for dead by the Taliban, a punishment inflicted on her simply for wanting to be educated. Malala’s journey back from a hospital bed to the classroom is not only an inspirational story of courage triumphing over all the odds but a story of determination and, indeed, of destiny: a signal to the world that nothing—not even bullets and death threats—can now stand in the way of every girl’s right to education. Yesterday Malala, who spent months in hospital recovering from neck, face, and head injuries, met teachers at her new school in Birmingham, England. But around the world there are 32 million girls who will not be joining Malala at school today, unable to go to school because they are prevented from doing so or because there is no school to attend. Of the 700,000 children not at school in their home province of Khyber Pakhtunkwha (KPK), 600,000 are girls. Until we provide both the resources and security for them and others to travel securely to school and feel safe from the Taliban while there, then many of Pakistan’s schools will remain closed, and literally millions of Pakistani girls will be denied an education. Some, perhaps as many as 10 million girls each year, will be taken out of school because they are forced into child marriages against their will. Other girls, perhaps as many as seven or eight million school-age girls, will become domestic laborers, sent to sweatshop factories or to languish in the fields and farms.
Note: After many years of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has failed to put any significant pressure on the government to change the policy there. Does anyone in government really care? For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on abuse of women and girls, click here.
The Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Wilfrid Fox Napier, has described paedophilia as a psychological "illness, not a criminal condition". The South African cardinal told the BBC that people who were themselves abused as children and then abused others needed to be examined by doctors. In an interview with the Stephen Nolan programme on BBC Radio 5 live, Cardinal Napier referred to paedophilia as "a psychological condition, a disorder". "What do you do with disorders? You've got to try and put them right. If I - as a normal being - choose to break the law, knowing that I'm breaking the law, then I think I need to be punished." He said he knew at least two priests, who became paedophiles after themselves being abused as children. "Now don't tell me that those people are criminally responsible like somebody who chooses to do something like that. I don't think you can really take the position and say that person deserves to be punished. He was himself damaged." Marie Collins, who is a victim of abuse, told the BBC: "I think it is appalling that we have a cardinal, a man at this level in the church that can still hold these views. He is totally ignoring the child."
Note: After receiving a lot of flack for these comments, Cardinal Napier reversed his opinion and stated that pedophilia is a crime, as you can read in this BBC article. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Police failures over five decades allowed Jimmy Savile, one of Britain’s best-known television personalities, to escape investigation for a lifetime of sex offenses dating back to the early 1960s. [A] report detailed poor police procedures, missed opportunities and an unwillingness to pursue accusations against one of the country’s biggest celebrities, whose renown also inhibited victims from coming forward. According to Tuesday’s report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which reviews police forces and policing in England and Wales and answers to Parliament, the police were first alerted to accusations of sex crimes by Mr. Savile in Cheshire in 1963. On that occasion, a male reported to a local police officer that Mr. Savile had raped him the day before, but was told to “forget about it” and “move on,” and no official crime report was made or investigation undertaken, the inspectorate’s report said. During Mr. Savile’s lifetime, the inspectorate found, the police recorded five accusations of criminal conduct and two further pieces of intelligence about his behavior; the earliest of these formal entries in the records dated from 1964. “We have not found evidence to suggest that any investigation was carried out as a result of that intelligence,” the document said. Since Mr. Savile’s death in 2011, more than 600 people have come forward with information about him, including 450 who have made specific accusations.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Faces at the scandal-struck Vatican were even redder than usual after it emerged that the Holy See had purchased a €23 million (Ł21 million) share of a Rome apartment block that houses Europe’s biggest gay sauna. The senior Vatican figure sweating the most due to the unlikely proximity of the gay Europa Multiclub is probably Cardinal Ivan Dias, the head of the Congregation for Evangelisation of Peoples. This 76-year-old “prince of the church” enjoys a 12-room apartment on the first-floor of the imposing palazzo, at 2 Via Carducci, just yards from the ground floor entrance to the steamy flesh pot. There are 18 other Vatican apartments in the block, many of which house priests. The Holy See is still reeling from allegations that the previous pontiff, Benedict XVI, had quit in reaction to the presence of a gay cabal in the curia. La Repubblica newspaper noted that the presence of “Italy’s best known gay sauna in the premises is an embarrassment”. There was further embarrassment for the Holy See when the press observed that thanks to generous tax breaks it received from the last Berlusconi government, the church will have avoided hefty payments to the Italian state. The properties are recognised as part of the Holy City. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Emeritus Benedict’s widely disliked right-hand man, ... was said to have been the brains behind the purchase of 2 Via Carduccio in 2008.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on secrecy, click here.
“A life ... out of moral bounds,” is how Pope Benedict XVI described Maciel in a 2010 interview, two years after Maciel’s death. A “wasted, twisted life.” And a life that exposed shocking flaws in the Vatican and the papacy. The saga of Father Maciel opens a rare view onto the flow of money in the Roman Curia across the last half century. In the late 1940s, Maciel began sexually plundering teenage seminarians in the religious order he founded, the Legion of Christ. He also shuttled between Mexico, Venezuela, and Spain ... portraying his Legionaries as a force of resurgent orthodoxy, himself a fearless foe of Communism. Maciel won government support for seminary scholarships in Madrid, after the Spanish Civil War cemented ties between Francisco Franco’s dictatorship and the Catholic hierarchy. Wealthy industrialists and patricians from the Spanish-speaking world poured money into Maciel’s fledgling order. Legionaries called their leader Nuestro Padre (Our Father). They were taught that their founder was a living saint. They took private vows, swearing never to criticize Maciel or their superiors and to report on anyone who did. The cultlike insular culture Maciel molded would reward spying as an act of faith and shield Nuestro Padre from scrutiny as the youngest victims grew up and left the order, returning to Mexico and years of grappling with his traumatic impact on their lives.
Note: Jason Berry is author of Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church.
In Rome, where 115 cardinals are gathering to elect a new pope, the conclave will include these luminaries: Cardinal Roger Mahony, former archbishop of Los Angeles, who in the 1980s plotted with an adviser to conceal child molesting priests from law enforcement. Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland's church, who failed in the 1970s to follow up on incriminating evidence against a priest, who went on to become a notorious serial molester. Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former head of the Belgian church, who once advised an adult victim of 13 years of childhood abuse against making "a lot of noise" about it because his molester, a bishop, was about to retire.The full list of cardinals who abetted the child abuse scandal that has dogged the church for more than a decade is longer. Under church law, no one can force these cardinals to forgo voting, but they should. It is impossible to overstate the breadth and depth of the child molestation scandal, or the damage done to both the children and the credibility of the church. In the U.S. alone, more than 16,000 victims have reported abuse. Similar scandals have roiled Australia, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Benedict XVI's own Germany, each revealing thousands more victims. The details in each country are as horrifying as they are familiar. Hundreds of priests abused and raped children. Reports of abuse were ignored. Victims were sometimes muzzled. Predator priests were shuffled off to other parishes to molest again. And the highest church leaders often fought to keep the details secret.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, including involvement of several Catholic Cardinals directly implicated in the sex abuse scandals, click here. To learn how child sex-abuse rings lead to top levels of leadership around the world, watch the powerful Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
After her Air Force training instructor raped Virginia Messick, a young recruit, he told her it was fun and they should do it again, she remembers. Then he threw her clothes at her and ordered her to take a shower. Ms. Messick was unable to move, cry or scream. She was a 19-year-old from rural Florida, in her fifth week of basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, and she had just been assaulted by the man the Air Force had entrusted with her life. After the April 2011 attack, Ms. Messick completed basic training, following orders from the instructor for nearly a month more. Afraid of the consequences, she did not tell anyone what he had done. “How am I supposed to go about reporting something,” asked Ms. Messick, “when the person I’m supposed to report to is the person who raped me?” Now, after leaving the Air Force, Ms. Messick is the first victim of a still-unfolding sexual assault scandal at Lackland to speak publicly about what she has endured. Since accounts of sexual violence at the base began to surface in late 2011, it has emerged as the largest such episode in Air Force history. Ms. Messick, now 21, is one of 62 trainees identified as victims of assault or other improper conduct by 32 training instructors between 2009 and 2012 at Lackland, a sprawling base outside San Antonio that serves as the Air Force’s basic training center for enlisted personnel. So far, seven Air Force instructors have been court-martialed, including Staff Sgt. Luis Walker, now serving a 20-year sentence for crimes involving 10 women, including Ms. Messick.
Note: To read a Reuters news report on the pervasive "invisible war" of rape in the U.S. military, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Britain’s highest-ranking Catholic leader, says he is resigning as archbishop in the wake of misconduct allegations and will be skipping the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI. Experts said the decision not to attend the papal conclave is unprecedented; never before has a cardinal stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal, according to Vatican historian Ambrogio Piazzoni, the vice prefect of the Vatican library. The Vatican confirmed that O’Brien had resigned as archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh. He said in a statement that he is in “indifferent health” and that he had offered his resignation last November. A church statement says the pope accepted O’Brien’s resignation on Feb. 18. O’Brien ... is contesting allegations ... that three priests and a former priest have filed complaints to the Vatican alleging that the cardinal acted inappropriately with them. During a briefing with reporters at the Vatican last week, Piazzoni was asked about the campaign to keep Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony away from the voting because he covered up sexual abuse by priests. Piazzoni said while in the past some cardinals have been impeded either by illness or by interference from their governments, none has stayed away because of a stain on his own reputation.
Note: If people at the top of the church are resigning, we can only imagine the earthquakes happening at lower levels. The dominos are falling. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here. To learn how child sex-abuse rings lead to top levels of leadership around the world, watch the powerful Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
Three priests and a former priest in Scotland have reported the most senior Catholic clergyman in Britain, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, to the Vatican over allegations of inappropriate behaviour stretching back 30 years. O'Brien, who is due to retire next month, has been an outspoken opponent of gay rights, condemning homosexuality as immoral, opposing gay adoption, and most recently arguing that same-sex marriages would be "harmful to the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of those involved". Last year he was named "bigot of the year" by the gay rights charity Stonewall. One of the complainants, it is understood, alleges that the cardinal developed an inappropriate relationship with him, resulting in a need for long-term psychological counselling. The revelation of the priests' complaints will be met with consternation in the Vatican. Allegations of sexual abuse by members of the church have dogged the papacy of Benedict XVI, who is to step down as pope at the end of this month. Following the announcement, rumours have swirled in Rome that Benedict's shock move may be connected to further scandals to come. Those involved believe the cardinal abused his position. "You have to understand," explains the ex-priest, "the relationship between a bishop and a priest. At your ordination, you take a vow to be obedient to him. "He's more than your boss, more than the CEO of your company. He has immense power over you. He controls every aspect of your life."
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens was best known during his bustling 16-year career in Parliament as a pugnacious right-winger who supplied “hang ‘em and flog ‘em” quotes to the tabloids. Eighteen years after his death, however, the backbencher’s reputation as a political lightweight is being revised in the wake of a Scotland Yard investigation which is exhuming a scandal long buried in the Westminster of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership. New evidence suggests that Dickens stumbled upon an Establishment paedophile ring in the early 1980s – and that his efforts to expose a cover-up left him in fear of his life. In 1981 Dickens had used Parliamentary privilege to name a diplomat and MI6 operative, Sir Peter Hayman as a pederast and demanded the Attorney General explain why he had escaped prosecution over the discovery of violent pornography on a London bus two years previously. Two years later, in 1983, he warned a paedophile network involved “big, big names – people in positions of power, influence and responsibility” and threatened to expose them in Parliament. In 1984, he campaigned for the outlawing of Sir Peter’s Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) organisation. Last month Metropolitan Police began Operation Fernbridge into allegations that residents of a childrens home in Richmond, west London, were taken to the nearby Elm Guest House in Barnes, where they were abused. Pornography involving adults having sex with children was allegedly shot at the property and then circulated commercially. Sir Peter was among the visitors to the property.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom – the report said – were being blackmailed by outsiders. The pope's spokesman declined to confirm or deny the report, which was carried by the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica. The paper said the pope had taken the decision on 17 December that he was going to resign – the day he received a dossier compiled by three cardinals delegated to look into the so-called "Vatileaks" affair. The newspaper said the cardinals described a number of factions, including one whose members were "united by sexual orientation". In an apparent quotation from the report, La Repubblica said some Vatican officials had been subject to "external influence" from laymen with whom they had links of a "worldly nature". The paper said this was a clear reference to blackmail. It quoted a source "very close to those who wrote [the cardinal's report]" as saying: "Everything revolves around the non-observance of the sixth and seventh commandments." The seventh enjoins against theft. The sixth forbids adultery, but is linked in Catholic doctrine to the proscribing of homosexual acts.The cardinals' report identified a series of meeting places in and around Rome. They included a villa outside the Italian capital, a sauna in a Rome suburb, a beauty parlour in the centre, and a former university residence that was in use by a provincial Italian archbishop.
Note: For more revelations on this astounding information from a reliable source, click here.
In a hotel in southern India, in the midst of a dreamless sleep, I awoke inside a nightmare. I heard someone screaming. I’m not sure how much time passed before I realized that it was my scream. I had traveled to India on behalf of a U.S.-based organization to film a documentary about political street theatre and how art is used as a tool for social change. But I found myself awake in this nightmare, with a man violently gripping my mouth shut, attempting to rape me. I was biting and kicking, using every ounce of my energy to fight for my life. I continued to scream and fight incessantly, until finally he relented. [He] said, “I’ll leave. Don’t tell the manager.” He counted on the fact that he lived in a culture that blamed the victim — that the stigma associated with sexual assault would force a woman to keep quiet. And although I had escaped the worst-case scenario, and prevented a rape, the nightmare was far from over. For several weeks, I tried to get a response from several American and Indian bureaucracies, but they all responded the same way: by doing nothing. Despite my formal complaints, in which I detailed the attack in full, these institutions offered no assistance – not even a single follow up call. I was devastated. I traveled to India on part of an American organization, and received no mental, physical or emotional support.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
The Catholic Church can’t get to a bright, new future until it finally breaks with the ugliness of the past. One way to make such a break would be to keep Cardinal Roger Mahony from participating in the next election to determine a new pope. Two weeks ago, Mahony was relieved of all public duties by current Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez. Long-sought documents revealed that Mahony actively worked to protect priests who were abusing children from police, rather than protect victims from their abusers. Some 12,000 pages of records revealed that Mahony covered up hundreds of allegations of clerical abuse in the 1980s. [But] Mahony remains a “bishop in good standing.” And after the surprise resignation announcement from Pope Benedict XVI, Mahony rushed to put out word that he intends to participate in choosing a successor. Blogged Mahony, who is one of 11 US cardinals who will vote for the next pope: “I look forward to traveling to Rome soon to help thank Pope Benedict XVI for his gifted service to the church and to participate in the Conclave to elect his successor.” In Los Angeles, local members of Catholics United, a liberal-leaning Catholic grassroots organization, have organized a petition drive asking Mahony to respect the victims of abuse that occurred under his watch and recuse himself from the papal conclave.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Pope Benedict's decision to live in the Vatican after he resigns will provide him with security and privacy. It will also offer legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources and legal experts say. "His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless. He wouldn't have his immunity, his prerogatives, his security, if he is anywhere else," said one Vatican official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Vatican police, who already know the pope and his habits, will be able to guarantee his privacy and security and not have to entrust it to a foreign police force, which would be necessary if he moved to another country. The pope's potential exposure to legal claims over the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals [is a key factor here]. In 2010, for example, Benedict was named as a defendant in a law suit alleging that he failed to take action as a cardinal in 1995 when he was allegedly told about a priest who had abused boys at a U.S. school for the deaf decades earlier. The lawyers withdrew the case last year. Benedict is currently not named specifically in any other case. The Vatican does not expect any more but is not ruling out the possibility. "(If he lived anywhere else) then we might have those crazies who are filing lawsuits, or some magistrate might arrest him like other (former) heads of state have been for alleged acts while he was head of state," one source said.
Note: To learn how child sex-abuse rings lead to top levels of leadership around the world, watch the powerful Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
Documents detailing the dubious fundraising practices of a disgraced Roman Catholic religious order called the Legion of Christ were released to the public [on Feb. 15], showing how the organization took control of an elderly woman's finances and persuaded her to bequeath it $60 million. They shed light on the inner workings of a secretive congregation placed under Vatican receivership after the Holy See determined that its founder was a spiritual fraud who sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children with two women. A Rhode Island Superior Court judge said last year that the documents raised a red flag because a steadfastly spiritual elderly woman transferred millions to "clandestinely dubious religious leaders." Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion in 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined that its founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, had lived a double life. The pope ordered a wholesale reform of the order and named a papal delegate to oversee it. The Legion scandal is significant because it shows how the Holy See willfully ignored credible allegations of abuse against Maciel for decades, all while holding him up as a model of sainthood for the faithful because he brought in money and vocations to the priesthood. The scandal, which has tarnished the legacy of Pope John Paul II, is the most egregious example of how the Vatican ignored decades of reports about sexually abusive priests because church leaders put the interests of the institution above those of the victims.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sex abuse scandals, click here.
When Pope Benedict XVI resigns at the end of this month, he leaves behind a Church grappling with a global fallout from sex abuse and a personal legacy marred by allegations that he was instrumental in covering up that abuse. For 25 years, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican office responsible for investigating claims of sex abuse, but he did not act until he received an explicit order from Pope John Paul II. In 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger approved plans for a priest to move to a different German parish and return to pastoral work only days after the priest began therapy for pedophilia. In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger became head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office once known as the Inquisition -- making him responsible for upholding church doctrine, and for investigating claims of sexual abuse against clergy. Thousands of letters detailing allegations of abuse were forwarded to Ratzinger's office. A lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a victims' rights group, charges that as head of the church body Ratzinger participated in a cover-up of abuse. The suit alleges that investigators of sex abuse cases in several countries found "intentional cover-ups and affirmative steps taken that serve to perpetuate the violence and exacerbate the harm." "Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, either knew and/or [in] some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes," the complaint says.
Note: This is one of the few media stories to reveal what may be the real reason for the Pope's resignation - his direct involvement in protecting priests who were known child sexual abusers. To learn how child sex-abuse rings lead to top levels of leadership around the world, watch the powerful Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
In 1995 a 13-year-old boy committed suicide having been told he could not have counselling in the long run-up to his abuser's trial. His mother said: "He was desperate to talk to someone. But social workers said there was no possibility of discussing the abuse before the trial. They did not want to contaminate the evidence." His abuser was later jailed for four years for offences against other boys. Nearly two decades on, we do not appear to have learned the lesson from his unnecessary death, with another victim killing herself. Frances Andrade was held back from therapy as she was forced to relive her abuse in constant pre-trial interviews over two years and was then brutally humiliated in court. Malign attacks in the 1990s on psychotherapists by those accused of abuse in an effort to discredit their adult children's stories have left a false impression. The purpose of therapy is to provide a container for patients' often unbearable feelings and help them to move on. It leads to a more not less coherent witnessing of the past. Perhaps that is why it arouses such hostility in those who are desperate to bury what happened – accused abusers and their defence teams.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
The torture and murder of 5-year-old Lama Al Ghamdi could hardly have been more horrific. But the fact that this story of one little girl’s death and one father’s monstrosity went public is also a sign of just how hard women in Saudi Arabia are working to fight the cruel misogyny embedded in the kingdom’s version of Islamic law. Fayhan Al Ghamdi ... was arrested last year and charged with murder. He told authorities that he had suspected his 5-year old daughter was not a virgin. He had even taken her to a doctor to check. But apparently that had not satisfied him. He admitted he’d used a cane and electrical cables on the child. Saudi law claims to follow a clear path (sharia) laid out in the Quran, but in practice it’s based on a maze of sayings and traditions (hadith) with as many baffling contradictions as the codes used by lawyers anywhere. According to one reading, a father cannot be held fully accountable for the death of his children; their loss is a punishment for him. So the question arose in the proceedings whether Al Ghamdi could simply pay the mother “blood money” for the loss of her daughter and walk free. The mother has said she will not accept payment. Before the middle of the last decade, domestic violence and child abuse in Saudi Arabia were treated mainly as family affairs. Nobody wanted to talk about them, and if police did bother to investigate suspected crimes, which was rare, they found proof very hard to come by.
Note: As a strong ally of the U.S., the monarchy of Saudi Arabia is very rarely criticized by politicians or the media for it's highly oppressive government and practices. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on child abuse, click here.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of internal files [on Jan. 31] on priests accused of sexually abusing children, saying that it was finally abiding by a settlement it signed with victims six years ago to make the painful history public. But it now appears that the files the church released with much fanfare are incomplete and many are unaccounted for, according to the abuse victims’ lawyers. In addition, on many documents the names of church supervisors informed of abuse allegations were redacted by the archdiocese, in apparent violation of a judge’s order. Abuse victims had insisted that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles release the records as part of a settlement in 2007, which provided $660 million to more than 500 victims. “We know we have not gotten a complete disclosure,” said Jeff Anderson, who is among the lawyers representing the victims. “It’s more deception, deceit and secrecy.” The Archdiocese of Los Angeles fought for six years all the way to the State Supreme Court to block the release of the documents. Early in January, Judge Emilie H. Elias overturned a previous decision, and ordered the archdiocese to lift the redactions of the names of certain kinds of officials: archbishops and bishops, vicars for clergy members and directors of treatment facilities, as well as pastors, “church agents” or employees who had supervisory responsibility over an accused priest and were made aware of complaints or suspicions about him. But on many pages it appears that the names of supervisors, like pastors in parishes or the supervisors of religious orders, are missing.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles released 12,000 pages of personnel files on sexually abusive priests that Archbishop Jose Gomez described as "brutal and painful reading." While many of the names of the abusers and accusations against them were known, the files reveal previously undisclosed details of how the church transferred priests out of state, sent them to therapists who wouldn't report crimes and suppressed information from reaching the public. As far back as March 1988, then-Archbishop Roger Mahony was warned in a confidential memo that the [Rev. Richard Henry's] behavior around young boys — long embraces, rubbing noses, leading them to the privacy of his room — was unsettling to those who witnessed it. In October that year, Henry was ordered in a letter from a superior, then-Monsignor Thomas Curry, to "not be alone with minors." Henry served prison time for abusing several boys. The church records show the archdiocese maneuvered behind the scenes to avoid a possible lawsuit against a priest over abuse allegations in Los Angeles. In 2007, five former altar boys from Tucson, Ariz., were awarded $1.5 million each as part of the archdiocese's $660 million clergy-abuse settlement. The five said they were abused by the Rev. Kevin Barmasse, who was sent to Arizona during the 1980s after he'd been accused of child molestation in Los Angeles.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Amid the parties and fun of Super Bowl 2013, authorities say, there is a dark underworld of girls and women being forced into the sex trade. Sitting in the festive lobby of a New Orleans hotel, festooned with San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens decorations, Clemmie Greenlee, a former victim of sex trafficking from Nashville, recalled being brought to cities around the South to prostitute for those attending such large-scale events. For Greenlee's pimps, the influx of people provided a massive money-making opportunity. "When they come to these kinds of events, the first thing you're told is how many you're gonna perform a day," she said. "You've got to go through 25 men a day, or you're going through 50 of them. When they give you that number, you better make that number." Having been abducted and gang-raped by her captors at age 12, Greenlee said, she was one of about eight girls controlled by a ring of pimps, men who injected them with heroin and, at times, kept them handcuffed to beds. For trying to run away, she was once stabbed in the back. Now 53, Greenlee works at Eden House in Uptown New Orleans, the first shelter for sex-trafficking victims in Louisiana; the center opened in October 2012. "If you don't make that number [of sex customers], you're going to dearly, dearly, severely pay for it," Greenlee said. "[The victims] are terrified. We already know what power they have shown us. So either you come back to them, or you find out two days later they either got your grandmother or they just broke your little baby's arm.
Note: For more on the tragic impacts suffered by victims of sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
The Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has removed a top clergyman linked to efforts to conceal abuse as it released thousands on files of priests accused of molesting children. Archbishop Jose Gomez said he had stripped his predecessor, the retired cardinal Roger Mahony, of all public and administrative duties. "I find these files to be brutal and painful reading. The behaviour described in these files is terribly sad and evil," Gomez said in a statement released by the US's largest Catholic archdiocese. "There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children. The priests involved had the duty to be their spiritual fathers and they failed," he said. Mahony's former top aide, Thomas Curry, also stepped down as bishop of Santa Barbara. The 12,000 pages of files were made public more than a week after church records relating to 14 priests were unsealed as part of a separate civil suit, showing that church officials plotted to conceal the abuse from law enforcement agencies as late as 1987. The documents showed that Mahony, 76, and Curry, 70, both worked to send priests accused of abuse out of the state to shield them from scrutiny. A spokesman for a victims' support group said that the removal of Mahony and Curry was long overdue and a small step after the church spent years fighting to protect them. "Hand-slapping Mahony is a nearly meaningless gesture," said David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs. The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images. Nicole’s parents split up when she was a toddler, and she grew up living with her mother and stepfather and visiting her father, a former policeman, every other weekend at his apartment in a suburban town in the Pacific Northwest. He started forcing her to perform oral sex and raping her, dressing her in tight clothes and sometimes binding her with ropes. When she turned 12, she told him to stop, but he used threats and intimidation to continue the abuse for about a year. He said that if she told anyone what he’d done, everyone would hate her for letting him. He said that her mother would no longer love her.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
A veteran British TV presenter was charged with rape and 14 counts of indecent assault on underage girls, police said on [January 22], deepening concerns about sex abuse by top BBC personalities decades ago. Stuart Hall, 83, best known for hosting "It's a Knockout" in the 1970s and 1980s, was questioned after late broadcaster Jimmy Savile was exposed last year as a serial child sex abuser, prompting a flurry of further sex crime allegations. Hall, who was still appearing regularly on BBC radio until recently, had already been charged with three counts of indecent assault, in December. He denied all charges. The rape was alleged to have been committed in 1976 against a 22-year old woman, the police said. The indecent assaults were alleged to have been committed between 1967 and 1986 and to involve 10 girls aged between nine and 16 years.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
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. Memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese's chief advisor on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation's largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police. The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders' own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested. In the confidential letters, filed this month as evidence in a civil court case, Curry proposed strategies to prevent police from investigating three priests who had admitted to church officials that they abused young boys. Curry suggested to Mahony that they prevent them from seeing therapists who might alert authorities and that they give the priests out-of-state assignments to avoid criminal investigators. The memos are from personnel files for 14 priests submitted to a judge on behalf of a man who claims he was abused by one of the priests. The confidential files of at least 75 more accused abusers are slated to become public in coming weeks under the terms of a 2007 civil settlement with more than 500 victims.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Sex has proved to be the downfall of presidential candidates, members of Congress, governors and other notables. It's also among the chief reasons that senior military officers are fired. At least 30 percent of military commanders fired over the past eight years lost their jobs because of sexually related offenses, including harassment, adultery, and improper relationships. The statistics from all four military services show that adulterous affairs are more than a four-star foible. From sexual assault and harassment to pornography, drugs and drinking, ethical lapses are an escalating problem for the military's leaders. With all those offenses taken together, more than 4 in every 10 commanders at the rank of lieutenant colonel or above who were fired fell as a result of behavioral stumbles since 2005. For top officers, the numbers are startling. Eighteen generals and admirals, from one star to four stars, were fired in recent years, and 10 of them lost their jobs because of sex-related offenses; two others were done in by alcohol-related problems. The figures show that 255 commanders were fired since 2005, and that 78 of them were felled by sex-related offenses. [The] executive director of the Service Women's Action Network said ... that there really is no sufficient deterrent in place.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Scotland Yard tonight launched a full investigation into allegations that Conservative politicians were members of a paedophile ring which abused children in care the 1980s. Operation Fernbridge will centre on the alleged historic sexual abuse of children at Elm Guest House in ... south-west London. Residents of a nearby care home run by Richmond Council claim they were sexually assaulted at the property by a network of prominent individuals, including Tory MPs, who used their connections to escape justice. The allegations are one of several lines of inquiry being considered by specialist detectives at the country’s biggest force as a result of information supplied to them by Labour MP Tom Watson. Mr Watson - who alleged widespread phone hacking at the News of the World before police began a new inquiry - urged Scotland Yard to re-open the evidence file on Peter Righton, a former child care consultant who was convicted of importing illegal homosexual pornography in 1992. Saying that the file contained “clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”, Mr Watson said at Prime Minister’s Questions: “One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad. The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.”
Note: The sad truth is beginning to surface. If you want to learn how top politicians have been involved in child sex rings for decades, watch the highly revealing Discovery Channel documentary at this link.
Police in Washington DC frequently fail to investigate reports of rape, and treat victims so dismissively at times, that they experience fresh trauma while the chances of the perpetrator being caught are undermined, according to a comprehensive report due out next week. Human Rights Watch is expected to uncover "disturbing evidence of police failure" in a 200-plus page report after a two-year investigation into law enforcement practices in the US capital. But although shocking, the situation in Washington is far from isolated. There are widespread examples across the US of the police routinely neglecting crimes of sexual violence and refusing to believe victims. "This is a national crisis requiring federal action. We need a paradigm shift in police culture, because rapes and sexual assaults are being swept under the rug, and too many victims are being bullied," said Carol Tracy of the Women's Law Project, a legal advocacy group that specialises in sexual violence cases. Human Rights Watch began looking into the situation in Washington after discovering evidence that the city's Metropolitan police department (MPD) were refusing even to document a significant number of reports of sexual assaults coming in from the central hospital where victims are treated. HRW ... estimated that more than 37% of reports of serious sexual assault and rape were not being followed up on by investigators. In many cities across the US, the police record an alarming proportion of reported rapes as "unfounded" cases, meaning they decide the crime did not happen and the report was false or baseless.
Note: Full details and statistics will be disclosed by HRW in its final report, due to be published on 24 January.
Poly Prep Country Day School [has] settled a lawsuit alleging a more than 40-year cover-up of the predatory pedophilia of its legendary football coach, Philip Foglietta. The lawsuit charged that school administrators were repeatedly informed from the 1960s until his forced retirement in 1991 that Mr. Foglietta was sexually abusing boys — on campus, in his apartment and during trips. Mr. Foglietta, who died in 1998, fondled and raped dozens, if not hundreds, of children. The case raises difficult questions for a generation of Poly boys: “What did we know about Coach Phil?” “What should we have done?” Coach was often a bully. Kids who had quit the team, he would suggest, deserved to be beaten up. He would talk about the “fruits” and “homos” on the male faculty. Many of us also knew that Coach Phil showered with the fifth graders. We knew that he hung around the locker room and checked that each of us had thoroughly rinsed off. Most of us knew he invited kids for car rides to Coney Island in his green Chevy Impala and for overnight stays at the apartment he shared with his mother. We knew something was going on. We joked with one another about the showers and the car rides. One of my teammates wrote on a Web site created for Coach’s victims, “How is it that as a 14-year-old Poly freshman, I just knew that something was very wrong?”
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
When I fought to live that night, I hardly knew what I was fighting for. A male friend and I had gone for a walk up a mountain near my home. Four armed men caught us and made us climb to a secluded spot, where they raped me for several hours, and beat both of us. At 17, I was just a child. Life rewarded me richly for surviving. I stumbled home, wounded and traumatized, to a fabulous family. With them on my side, so much came my way. I found true love. I wrote books. I had a shining child. Too many others will never experience that. They will not see that it gets better, that the day comes when one incident is no longer the central focus of your life. One day you find you are no longer looking behind you, expecting every group of men to attack. One day you are not frightened anymore. Rape is horrible. But it is not horrible for all the reasons that have been drilled into the heads of Indian women. It is not horrible because you lose your “virtue.” It is not horrible because your father and your brother are dishonored. I reject the notion that my virtue is located in my vagina, just as I reject the notion that men’s brains are in their genitals. If we take honor out of the equation, rape will still be horrible, but it will be a personal, and not a societal, horror. We will be able to give women who have been assaulted what they truly need: not a load of rubbish about how they should feel guilty or ashamed, but empathy for going through a terrible trauma.
Note: The author, Sohaila Abdulali, wrote the novel Year of the Tiger. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse of women, click here.
On February 14, 2013 ... activists around the world [will join] ONE BILLION RISING, the largest day of action in the history of V-Day, the global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. Valentine's Day 2013 will be an official ONE BILLION RISING DAY OF ACTION for the City of Atlanta, declaring Atlanta a Rape and Violence Free Zone. ONE BILLION RISING began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than one billion women and girls. V-Day Atlanta will bring together a coalition of organizations, businesses, schools, entertainers, and elected representatives to work to end violence and empower women. At 12:00 noon, thousands of Atlantans will dance down Peachtree Street in a flash mob choreographed by the legendary Debbie Allen to the One Billion Rising anthem "Break the Chain." V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler's award winning play The Vagina Monologues and other artistic works. To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $90 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, reopened shelters, and funded over 14,000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq.
Note: For a powerful three-minute video on women breaking free, click here. To join the "One Billion Rising" movement, see their inspiring website here. Another article on this in the UK's Guardian is available here.
In just over a month, more than 120 sexually exploited children -- one just 19 days old -- were identified in an international operation that found them depicted in child pornography on the Internet, U.S. officials said. In Operation Sunflower, led by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigation unit from Nov. 1 to Dec. 7, 123 victims of child sexual exploitation were identified, ICE Director John Morton said at a press conference in Washington. Of that group, 44 children had been living with their abusers, and 79 children were exploited by people outside of their home or were victimized as children and are now adults. Seventy female and 53 male victims [were] rescued; 110 of the victims were identified in 19 U.S. states and the rest were identified in six foreign countries. Of the victims identified during Operation Sunflower, five were under the age of 3, and one of those was just 19 days old. Thirty others were below the age of 10, officials said. Younger children were more often abused and more women were directly involved in carrying out the abuse. Additionally, the victims of child sexual exploitation increasingly have an international nexus, said John Ryan, CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “The problem of child exploitation is hardly confined to the United States,” Ryan said.
Note: If you are ready to look at just how ugly this gets, watch the Discovery Channel documentary showing child sex abuse rings at the highest levels of government, available here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
A liberal professor of psychology who studied in the late 1970s will see [pedophilia] very differently from someone working in child protection, or with convicted sex offenders. There is, astonishingly, not even a full academic consensus on whether consensual paedophilic relations necessarily cause harm. So what, then, do we know? A paedophile is someone who has a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children. But not all paedophiles are child molesters, and vice versa: by no means every paedophile acts on his impulses, and many people who sexually abuse children are not exclusively or primarily sexually attracted to them. In fact, "true" paedophiles are estimated by some experts to account for only 20% of sexual abusers. Nor are paedophiles necessarily violent: no firm links have so far been established between paedophilia and aggressive or psychotic symptoms. Psychologist Glenn Wilson, co-author of The Child-Lovers: a Study of Pedophiles in Society, argues that "The majority of paedophiles, however socially inappropriate, seem to be gentle and rational." Legal definitions of paedophilia, needless to say, have no truck with such niceties, focusing on the offence, not the offender. The Sex Offenders Act 1997 defined paedophilia as a sexual relationship between an adult over 18 and a child below 16. There is much more we don't know, including how many paedophiles there are: 1-2% of men is a widely accepted figure. Even less is known about female paedophiles, thought to be responsible for maybe 5% of abuse against pre-pubescent children in the UK.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
The death of a woman popularly named Damini – “lightning” in Hindi – has provoked thousands to take to India’s streets, furious at endemic and unchecked violence against women. Some have been met with police batons, tear gas and water cannon. But, in the West, Damini’s death has triggered a different response: a sense that this is an Indian-specific problem. “The crime has highlighted the prevalence of sex attacks in India,” says the Daily Telegraph; “India tries to move beyond its rape culture,” says Reuters. It’s comforting to think that this is someone else’s problem. It is an assumption that is as wrong as it is dangerous. Rape and sexual violence against women are endemic everywhere. Shocked by what happened in India? Take a look at France. In 1999, two then-teenagers – named only as Nina and Stephanie – were raped almost every day for six months. Young men would queue up to rape them, patiently waiting for their friends to finish in secluded basements. After a three-week trial this year, 10 of the 14 accused left the courtroom as free men; the other four were granted lenient sentences of one year at most. Shocked? According to the [UK] Government’s Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls, 80,000 women are raped a year, and 400,000 women are sexually assaulted [in the UK]. It is a pandemic of violence against women that – given its scale – is not discussed nearly enough.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
The woman, now in her twenties, lives in relative anonymity on the West Coast, but to child pornography collectors worldwide she will always be known as “Vicky,” a little girl raped by her father in a series of videos illegally disseminated online thousands of times during more than a decade. Now the woman and a small but growing number of other child pornography victims are seeking restitution from those who collected or traded pictures and videos depicting their abuse, filing claims for damages against convicted child pornographers in Massachusetts and around the country. In court papers, victims describe living with the knowledge that their images can never be cleansed from the Internet. Since 2008, six federal child pornography cases in Massachusetts have resulted in defendants being ordered to pay restitution, according to the US attorney’s office in Boston. The amounts range between $2,000 and $2.5 million. The recent restitution efforts come as the scourge of child pornography has accelerated during the last decade, aided by improved technology and the Web’s promise of anonymity. While most sexually exploited children go unidentified, nearly 5,000 nationwide have been located during the last 10 years by law enforcement officials and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The Virginia nonprofit manages a database to aid prosecutors and help identify exploited children.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse of children, click here.
Jimmy Savile met Margaret Thatcher several times to get support for his Stoke Mandeville Hospital appeal, newly released government papers show. In letters they exchanged, released by the National Archives, Savile tells Mrs Thatcher that the patients at the hospital love her - and he does too. The government eventually gave Ł500,000 to the Buckinghamshire hospital. The papers also show Savile approached Mrs Thatcher about tax relief on charitable donations. The charitable covenant rules at the time meant a donor would have to commit to give to a charity for seven years for their donations to be eligible for tax relief. The documents show Mrs Thatcher thought the so-called "seven-year rule" was a disincentive to charitable giving, "and that three years might be a more reasonable period". In a letter to the prime minister a week later, Savile says he waited before thanking her for the "lunch invitation" because he did not want to be "too effusive". In a letter to Savile, dated 25 February 1980 and addressed "Dear Jimmy", Mrs Thatcher said: "I am interested in the subject myself and I am now looking into it." Other related documents also released by the National Archives show that at a private meeting with Mrs Thatcher in January 1981, Savile raised the possibility of "some government support" as a "goodwill gesture" for the Stoke Mandeville spinal injuries unit appeal. The records show Mrs Thatcher and Savile then met for a private lunch on 8 March 1981 and, in a handwritten note to her private secretary at the time, she says she "promised to get government contribution".
Note: CNN strangely included several photos of Savile and Thatcher together as they reported on her death, as shown at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Police have confirmed that the number of alleged sex abuse victims of the late Jimmy Savile has reached 450. 589 alleged victims have come forward during their investigation of offences committed by Savile and others. Of the alleged victims, 82% were female and 80% were children or young people. The level of allegations against Savile - 450 in total - is unprecedented - never before have police received that number of allegations against a single person. Meanwhile, police have set up Operation Fairbank to investigate allegations by Labour MP Tom Watson of a paedophile ring in high places. Mr Watson said in October that police should investigate claims of a "powerful paedophile ring" linked to a previous prime minister's "senior adviser" and Parliament. Police have a total of 20 suspects whom they wish to interview. They have interviewed seven people in total - six of whom were arrested. Police are looking at three strands within their inquiry - claims against Savile, those against Savile and others, and those against others only. High-profile names arrested in connection with the investigation are PR consultant Max Clifford, comedian Freddie Starr, DJ Dave Lee Travis and former TV producer Wilfred De'Ath, who all deny any wrongdoing. Gary Glitter, who was also arrested, has not yet made a statement.
Note: WantToKnow.info has presented evidence of "a paedophile ring in high places" for years. If you want to know how pervasive this is, you must watch the banned Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. Thankfully the word is slowly getting out. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Reports of child abuse and neglect have dropped nationwide for the fifth consecutive year, and abuse-related child fatalities also are at a five-year low. The latest annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services, released [on December 12], estimates that there were 681,000 cases of child abuse or neglect across the nation in the 2011 fiscal year. That's down from 695,000 in 2010 and from 723,000 in 2007. The number of abuse-related fatalities was estimated at 1,570 — down from 1,580 in 2010 and from 1,720 in 2007. About four fifths of those killed were younger than 4, and parents were deemed responsible for nearly four fifths of the deaths. Regarding types of maltreatment, 78.5 percent of the victims suffered neglect, nearly 18 percent were physically abused and 9.1 percent were sexually abused. The report tallied 61,472 children who were sexually abused in 2011 — down dramatically from the peak of about 150,000 in 1992. The report, formally known as the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, is based on input from child protection agencies in every state. Sociologist David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center, says he finds the annual reports frustrating because of the lack of analysis of the trends. "But at the same time, it does appear remarkable that overall child maltreatment has declined given that unemployment has been so high, the housing and mortgage crisis has continued, and state and local budgets for family and child services have been cut," he wrote.
Note: For more details on this inspiring news, see a government article at this link. Just 50 years ago, child sexual abuse was virtually a taboo topic. There was nowhere to report such things. Now that there is a protective net and awareness has skyrocketed, far fewer children are being abused. This has powerful, positive implications as more children grow up healthy and knowing that they are protected. For many other great reasons for hope and optimism in these uncertain times, click here.
Allegations of [a] disturbing pedophile ring with connections to the highest ranks of government have come to light. Campaigning Labor MP Tom Watson [has] rocked the House of Commons by airing allegations from child-protection professionals of a "powerful pedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.” Watson’s co-author of Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain, Martin Hickman, [said] on the eve of [Watson's] parliamentary statement “this is much darker and more disturbing than phone hacking … We have no idea where it will go." Within days, Steven Messham, one of the alleged victims, went on camera on a BBC Newsnight documentary to say that he and other children were sexually abused on a regular basis at a care home by a circle of men that included a leading Thatcher-era politician during the 1970s and 1980s. Messham claimed to have been raped by the senior political figure at least a dozen times, and his accusations were echoed by [an] anonymous victim, who told Newsnight that in 2000 he was abused by the same man. Watson, who for years led a lonely campaign to expose phone hacking at Murdoch tabloid News of the World, described this new scandal as “potentially worse.” In a blog post titled "10 Days That Shook My World," Watson wrote ... that “these allegations go way beyond the claims made on BBC Newsnight yesterday ... It sounds like I’ve taken leave of my senses,” Watson admitted, “Just like they said I had during the early days of the hacking scandal.”
Note: To learn about a widespread pedophile ring which reaches to the top levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Late TV presenter Jimmy Savile, who may have abused as many as 300 children, was so close to Prince Charles that he advised him on the appointment of one of his most senior aides. In an indication of the power and privilege extended to Savile by the royal family, Charles asked the DJ and television presenter for advice before selecting Sir Christopher Airy to be his private secretary in 1990. The revelation shows the close friendship between the heir to the throne and the television presenter, who the prince grew to rely on in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The two men became unlikely friends after meeting in the late 1970s while working with wheelchair sports charities. Former palace aides have described how Savile inveigled his way into the royal family, dropping in to see Charles when it suited him. While the prince seemed amused by Savile's eccentricity, Diana, Princess of Wales seemed more cautious. Despite this, the friendship between Charles and Savile grew closer over the years, in part due to Savile's charity work. In 1990, Charles brought Savile into his home in an attempt to help smooth over his relationship with Diana when it became clear their marriage was beginning to fall apart. Charles even dispatched the presenter to help the Duchess of York keep a low profile as her marriage to his brother Prince Andrew deteriorated. Savile's tasks also included helping Charles pick his private secretary. After consultation with Savile, Airy was appointed private secretary and treasurer to the prince and Diana. When Savile died last year, Charles led the tributes to him, saying his death had left him "incredibly saddened".
Note: This article requires payment to view in its entirety on the Times website. To read the full article on another website, click here. If you want to understand how these sex scandals reach to the highest levels of government with impunity, don't miss the Discovery Channel's powerful documentary Conspiracy of Silence available here. For lots more from reliable sources on the Savile case and other major sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard recounted his own sexual abuse by coaches he trusted, telling a Penn State audience [that] he hoped to encourage other victims to report abuse to police. Leonard spoke at a sold-out conference on child sex abuse hosted by Penn State weeks after former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to prison for 30 to 60 years for sexually assaulting 10 boys he befriended through his charity for at-risk youth. Leonard, 56, who retired after winning world boxing titles in five different weight classes, said as a youth he was sexually assaulted by men he trusted as his boxing coaches. The former champion said he used drugs and alcohol to “numb” his shame of being a victim of child sexual abuse. Now Leonard said he wants to step into the spotlight as a leader in the fight against child sex abuse in the hopes it will help other victims find the courage to report crimes to police. Since Sandusky's sentencing, The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN, says the volume of calls to its sexual assault hotline has increased 47 percent.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
It's something out of a nightmare - satanic rituals and human sacrifices, but this nightmare is real for Jenny Hill. It's a secret that's been burning inside her since she was a little girl. Jenny Hill explained, "Naked, tied to a cross, when you're young. I was six years old and I qualified." Jenny's story of satanic ritual abuse is documented in Judy Byington's new book Twenty Two Faces. Byington explained, "She had been sexually abused and ritually abused as a very young child so she had these multiple personalities that anytime she got into a stressful situation they would take over her mind and body." Jenny’s first alter personality was born at the age of 4. That's when Jenny says her father, a devout Mormon, began doing the unthinkable. It was just a couple of years later when the satanic ritual abuse began and that created more personalities to help her deal with the sexual abuse and torture. Byington explained, "She knows she's being abused but she can't feel the abuse because these alters are holding the pain." Jenny didn't remember the abuse; all she knew is that she would lose time until one day she woke up in a Utah psychiatric hospital confused. Dr. Weston Whatcott treated her. Whatcott says he witnessed several of Jenny's alter personalities. "Entirely different voice,” explained Whatcott. “I mean voice changes, accents, body language, totally changed." He also noticed those personalities come out in her writings. Much like her childhood diaries, her adult journals allowed the personalities to speak out and reveal what really happened to little Jenny.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
A powerful paedophile network may have operated in Britain protected by its connections to Parliament and Downing Street, a senior Labour politician suggested. Tom Watson, the deputy chairman of the Labour Party, called on the Metropolitan Police to reopen a closed criminal inquiry into paedophilia. Mr Watson referred to the case of Peter Righton, who was convicted in 1992 of importing and possessing illegal homosexual pornographic material. Righton, a former consultant to the National Children’s Bureau and lecturer at the National Institute for Social Work in London, admitted two illegal importation charges and one charge of possessing obscene material. He was fined Ł900. Mr Watson said the evidence file used to convict Righton “if it still exists, contains clear intelligence of a widespread paedophile ring”. He told a hushed Commons: “One of its members boasts of a link to a senior aide of a former Prime Minister, who says he could smuggle indecent images of children from abroad. “The leads were not followed up, but if the files still exist, I want to ensure that the Metropolitan Police secure the evidence, re-examine it, and investigate clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No 10.” The Independent understands that Mr Watson’s comments were [aimed] at a living person associated with Margaret Thatcher’s administration. They are thought to involve the activities of the Paedophile Information Exchange, a pro-paedophile group in existence between 1974 and 1984, which believed there should be no age of consent.
Note: To learn about a widespread pedophile ring which reaches to the top levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
The story seemed perfect for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s hard-hitting “Newsnight” program: a nationally beloved television host, it seemed, had also been a pedophile who for decades preyed on young teenagers in hospitals, in children’s homes — and in the halls of the BBC itself. But last December, as the segment neared completion, it was abruptly canceled by the editor in charge, who said there was not enough evidence to justify going ahead. That decision, and the BBC’s earlier failure over four decades to investigate rumors about Mr. Savile’s behavior, is now the subject of three independent investigations. But they are just the latest and most explosive elements in a scandal that seems to widen by the hour. With new victims of Mr. Savile coming forth daily, George Entwistle, who took over as the BBC’s director general just a month ago, is facing embarrassing questions about what the corporation knew and why it did nothing. The Savile affair is by no means restricted to the BBC, drawing in some of Britain’s most important institutions. Scotland Yard has opened an investigation involving 14 other police forces and no fewer than 340 “lines of inquiry”; it said that from 1959 to 2006, Mr. Savile might have molested 60 or more underage girls. But politically the primary focus is on the BBC.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
At least five former pupils have told how the DJ abused them during visits to Duncroft Approved School when it was under direct Home Office control. They claim that the Jim'll Fix star was given his own flat in the building in Staines, Surrey, by the headmistress. The institution for emotionally disturbed girls was under the direct supervision of the Home Office until April 1973. It was visited regularly by government inspectors. A former pupil, Toni Townsend, one of three girls photographed with the star in 1972, told the newspaper: "Jimmy treated Duncroft like a paedophile sweet shop. He used to take his pick of the mix. He would wander around the school in a vest and tracksuit bottoms. He stayed in a flat on the top floor. He was the only man allowed to stay overnight. Who knows what horrors happened up there. The girls at Duncroft had been sent there by the courts for prostitution, drugs and because they tried to kill themselves. Who would have believed us against Saint Jimmy?" In 2007, Surrey Police investigated Savile over allegations that he had abused pupils at the school but the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence. His former assistant Janet Cope told how Savile had an explosive temper that terrified everyone from hospital staff to fund-raisers. Miss Cope ... conceded that even she may have been duped. "Sadly, the evidence against Jim does seem a bit overwhelming and, really, I'm at a loss for words," she said. "He thought he was untouchable because he was hand in glove with the hospitals, royalty and the Prime Minister."
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
[Jimmy] Savile’s case is worth mulling, if only because the institution in which his serial child abuse took place is one of the most respected media organizations in the world: the BBC. Gossip about Savile’s fondling of young teenagers was rife, but never rose to a level deemed newsworthy during his life. To appreciate Jimmy Savile’s place in English culture, imagine a combination of Dick Clark of “American Bandstand” and Jerry Lewis, maestro of the muscular dystrophy telethon. Savile was the longest-serving host of the immensely popular BBC music show “Top of the Pops,” and the star of another long-running show called “Jim’ll Fix It,” in which he pulled strings to grant the wishes of supplicants, mostly children. He buffed his reputation by throwing himself into charity work. He seems to have used his philanthropy both to identify vulnerable children for his personal sport and to inoculate himself against suspicion. The good deeds helped earn Savile two knighthoods, one bestowed by the queen, the other by the pope. He was Sir Jimmy, confidant — or at least photo-op accessory — of royals, prime ministers, even Beatles. He cultivated an aura of flamboyant eccentricity. Being the man-child Pied Piper of the pubescent was his shtick, his job, and cover for a brutal cunning. London police now say they are pursuing more than 300 leads, and that they believe Savile abused girls as young as 13 over the course of four decades — in his BBC dressing room, in hospitals where he was a benefactor, in the back of his white Rolls-Royce.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
This Florida panhandle town is the home of a mystery that has been lost to time. A small cemetery buried deep into the grounds of a now-defunct boys reform school dates back to the early 1900s. Rusting white steel crosses mark the graves of 31 unidentified former students. Former students said the deaths were at the hands of abusive administrators. A 2009 state investigation determined there was no evidence of criminal activity connected with any of the deaths. But the investigation did not clear up the mystery over the fate of 50 other students who died at the school and whose bodies have not been accounted for. In the wake of that investigation, more former students -- who are now senior citizens -- have come forward with stories of abuse at the school, including alleged beatings, killings and the disappearance of students, during the 1940s, '50s and '60s. "These are children who came here and died, for one reason or another, and have just been lost in the woods," said Dr. Erin Kimmerle, an anthropologist from the University of South Florida who is leading a scientific search on the grounds of what used to be the Florida Industrial School for Boys. Using ground-penetrating radar, Kimmerle's team has located what she says appear to be 18 more remains than previously thought to have been buried there. After clearing the area, her team has determined that a total of 49 graves exist. All are unidentified. "We found burials within the current marked cemetery, and then we found burials that extend beyond that," Kimmerle said.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional abuse of children, click here.
Thousands of teenagers, some as young as 14 or 15, are routinely subjected by US prisons to [the] psychological torture [of solitary confinement]. One teen who participated in the Human Rights watch report wrote that being in isolation felt like 'a slow death from the inside out'. Molly J said of her time in solitary confinement: "[I felt] doomed, like I was being banished. Like you have the plague or that you are the worst thing on earth. I guess [I wanted to] feel like I was part of the human race – not like some animal." Molly was just 16 years old when she was placed in isolation in an adult jail in Michigan. She described her cell as being "a box": "There was a bed – the slab. It was concrete … There was a stainless steel toilet/sink combo … The door was solid, without a food slot or window … There was no window at all." Molly remained in solitary for several months, locked down alone in her cell for at least 22 hours a day. No other nation in the developed world routinely tortures its children in this manner. And torture is indeed the word brought to mind by a shocking report released today by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union. Growing Up Locked Down documents, for the first time, the widespread use of solitary confinement on youth under the age of 18 in prisons and jails across the country, and the deep and permanent harm it causes to kids caught up in the adult criminal justice system.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on the injustices rampant in prisons, click here.
For decades, nobody said anything, at least not publicly, not officially. Everyone knew – that is, everyone in the television and pop music industries knew. The rumours swirled around [Jimmy Savile], that he sexually abused young girls. So for decades the abuse was an open secret, and Jimmy easily rebuffed the rumours when interviewers like Louis Theroux and the psychiatrist Anthony Clare dared to put them to him. So what is the truth about Sir James Savile? When he died almost a year ago, he was given a grand and glorious funeral befitting a folk hero. But now the truth is out. More victims are emerging every day, telling stories of the sexual abuse by Sir Jimmy of children as young as nine, on one occasion alongside the convicted paedophile pop star Gary Glitter. They reveal that, like every practised paedophile, he targeted the most vulnerable children, including those in care. Jimmy, for instance, reportedly visited the notorious Jersey children’s home, Haut de la Garenne, several times in the Sixties and Seventies, where seven people have since been prosecuted for child abuse. Knighted by both the Queen and the Pope, Sir Jimmy hid the private reality that he was also a prolific, predatory paedophile. All of his crimes – the multitude of attacks committed in his famous Rolls-Royce, in his caravan, in schools and children’s homes, in his dressing room and in a London taxi – remained an open secret. In spite of the fact that he flaunted his taste for underage children, police investigations failed, newspaper investigations were never published, a Newsnight film was dropped, and through it all Jimmy’s image remained intact.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
Jimmy Savile, the television presenter and media personality, knighted for his charity work for sick and disabled children is to be exposed as a prolific sexual abuser of girls as young as 12 in a documentary this week. This news will not come as a shock to many, as the rumours about Savile have been in the public domain for decades. That's the truly shocking part of this story – so many people either knew or suspected the fact that Savile was assaulting underage girls but chose to do nothing whatsoever about it. A number of Savile's former colleagues interviewed for the documentary admitted that his predatory behaviour towards young girls was an open secret at the BBC. Wilfred De'Ath, who worked with Savile in the 1960s, ... admitted that it was "common gossip" that Savile was an abuser. Still, it appears that neither he nor any other colleagues reported him either to the BBC bosses or police. In 2007, Surrey police received a complaint from a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by Savile at an approved school that Savile regularly visited in the 1970s, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to take it forward. Esther Rantzen hits the nail on the head in an interview about the revelations when she says, "in some way we colluded with him as a child abuser" and that, "We made him into the Jimmy Savile who was untouchable, who nobody could criticise." But it is not only celebrities who are protected from justice. Throughout society, there is a culture of denial, minimisation and disbelief around child sexual abuse..
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
A new look at child abuse reports suggests there may have been a small but worrying rise in injuries to babies over the past decade or so. [A] report published ... in the journal Pediatrics ... contradicts government data collected over the same time. It’s still happening and that’s a concern, says Dr. John Leventhal of Yale University, who led the study. “Maybe parents are doing better and hurting their children less in general, but there is a small group where there continue to be substantial injuries that end in hospitalization,” Leventhal said. Leventhal and colleague Julie Gaither looked at statistics on children admitted to hospitals for serious injuries. They said they found a nearly 11 percent increase over 12 years in serious injuries to babies a year old and younger. This is at the same time that two major national surveys of child abuse found decreases of between 55 percent and 23 percent in child abuse injuries overall, for all ages, between 1997 and 2009. It's important to point out that each study goes to different sources for data -- this week's study looks at hospital admissions, while the government studies examined reports of abuse filed to Child Protective Services and other agencies by doctors and other sources. Child abuse is a serious problem in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 740,000 children and youth are treated in hospital emergency departments for injuries resulting from violence every year.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse, click here.
Rumors are flying in Washington. Were White House staff involved with prostitutes in Colombia? Fox News' Jana Winter reported that a high-ranking Secret Service agent told Fox “we knew very early on that White House staff were involved.” The Pentagon’s report, "AR 15-6 Investigation into Military Misconduct at the 2012 Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia," is very telling. Paragraph B(3) reports that 12 US military members brought prostitutes to their hotel room but paragraph 8, page 2 notes only 11 of the women were verified to be over 18 years old. What happened to the other woman? Was she, in fact, a child and the Pentagon is covering this up as they have covered up the wide-spread use of child porn by senior Pentagon staff, some with top level security clearances, on Pentagon computers? The sub-heading “White House Communications Agency Personal” in the Pentagon’s AR 15-6 report is entirely redacted. Is it possible that the “prostitutes” involved were trafficked children used by White House staff and not Secret Service agents? Has the Secret Service been forced to take the blame and cover up possible child sex abuse by the White House? It is doubtful that DHS’s Inspector General will provide a full report of what really happened in Colombia since President Obama’s administration has gone after whistleblowers and disabled the Inspector General’s as never before seen.
Note: For a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary providing powerful evidence of a child abuse ring that goes to the highest level in government, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse, click here.
There is a national crisis of federal employees engaged in the child porn industry and a related epidemic at the state level. Two states, Vermont and Maine ... appear to be running state protected child trafficking rings with evidence of cops, judges, lawyers, clergy and government employees covering for each other. This kind of racketeering creates powerful, and extremely profitable, pedophile rings. Money drives the crime. It is estimated that a criminal willing to molest a child in front of a live webcam can earn $1,000 a night. In Kittery Maine, at the “Danish Health Club,” one bust yielded $6.1 million in “door fees” over a five year period with “prostitutes” earning $12 million. Pimps’ earnings were not reported. The “door man” was a retired police officer whose wife worked in back. Half of all global child porn is produced in America. Ten new images of children are posted daily. Estimates of the global profits from child porn range from $3-20 billion. The Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Child Exploitation and Obscenities unit has been, by many accounts, totally disabled under US Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. Holder even refused to prosecute his own Assistant United States Attorney caught doing child porn on DOJ computers. Child trafficking and porn are the fastest growing crimes in America. With billions being laundered in black money it makes solid economic sense for the IRS to focus on the child porn industry. Eric Holder’s Department of Justice has demonstrated they have no interest in prosecuting pedophiles, not even their own.
Note: For a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary providing powerful evidence of a child abuse ring that goes to the highest level in government, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse, click here.
There is a national crisis of federal employees engaged in the child porn industry and a related epidemic at the state level. Two states, Vermont and Maine ... appear to be running state protected child trafficking rings with evidence of cops, judges, lawyers, clergy and government employees covering for each other. This kind of racketeering creates powerful, and extremely profitable, pedophile rings. It is estimated that a criminal willing to molest a child in front of a live webcam can earn $1,000 a night. In Kittery Maine, at the “Danish Health Club,” one bust yielded $6.1 million in “door fees” over a five year period with “prostitutes” earning $12 million. The “door man” was a retired police officer whose wife worked in back. This bust happened because of one hard-working IRS agent, Rod Giguere. An estimated $1.4 billion has been collected by the IRS’s Whistleblower program since 2006. Half of all global child porn is produced in America. Imagine what the IRS Whistleblower program could collect if they focused on child trafficking as Agent Rod Giguere did in Maine. The Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Child Exploitation and Obscenities unit has been, by many accounts, totally disabled under US Attorney General Eric Holder. Mr. Holder even refused to prosecute his own Assistant United States Attorney caught doing child porn on DOJ computers. With so many police, judges, clergy, state and federal employees across America involved in the child porn industry Americans should be able to turn to the IRS’s Whistleblower program.
Note: Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and sexual abuse scandals.
There is a national crisis of federal employees engaged in the child porn industry and a related epidemic at the state level. Two states, Vermont and Maine, ... appear to be running state-protected child trafficking rings, with evidence of cops, judges, lawyers, clergy and government employees covering for each other. This kind of racketeering creates powerful, and extremely profitable, pedophile rings. Money drives the crime. Half of all global child porn is produced in America. Estimates of the global profits from child porn range from $3-20 billion. The Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Child Exploitation and Obscenities unit has been, by many accounts, totally disabled under. With so many police, judges, clergy, state and federal employees across America involved in the child porn industry Americans should be able to turn to the IRS’s Whistleblower program. Richard Weber, Chief of IRS’s Criminal Division in Washington DC, is one point of contact. Apparently, the IRS cares about trafficked children. Child trafficking and porn are the fastest growing crimes in America. With billions being laundered in black money it makes solid economic sense for the IRS to focus on the child porn industry. The IRS should be given substantial resources to compensate for DOJ’s disgraceful failure.
Note: If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
A Philadelphia man who claims to have been paid to have sex with former Poly Prep football coach Phil Foglietta in 1979 as part of an alleged pedophile ring that included Jerry Sandusky sent an email to several Poly Prep officials on Monday ... detailing the explosive allegation. Greg Bucceroni, 48, also sent the email to Kevin Mulhearn, the Orangeburg, N.Y., attorney who represents 12 men who sued the school, alleging Poly Prep officials knew that Foglietta was a sexual predator but covered it up for decades in order to protect the elite institution's reputation and fund-raising efforts. Bucceroni says he was a teenager when he said he met Foglietta at a Second Mile fund-raiser near State College, Pa. The Second Mile organization, which helped at-risk youths, was founded in 1977 by Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach who was convicted on 45 counts of sexual abuse of minors in June. Sandusky, who is scheduled to be sentenced next month, is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. In the email to Poly Prep, Bucceroni said he was "a child prostitute" and was associated with a pedophile ring that included Sandusky, Foglietta, now-deceased Philadelphia businessman Ed Savitz and former Wharton School of Business professor Lawrence Scott Ward, who is serving a lengthy prison sentence for trafficking in child porn and smuggling photos and videos of himself having sex with a teenage Brazilian boy.
Note: We don't generally use the New York Daily News as a source, yet as this one is backed by a Washington Post report and others, we are including it here. For a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary providing powerful evidence of a child abuse ring that goes to the highest level in government, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse, click here.
Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public. A Los Angeles Times review of 1,600 confidential files dating from 1970 to 1991 has found that Scouting officials frequently urged admitted offenders to quietly resign — and helped many cover their tracks. Volunteers and employees suspected of abuse were allowed to leave citing bogus reasons such as business demands, "chronic brain dysfunction" and duties at a Shakespeare festival. The details are contained in the organization's confidential "perversion files," a blacklist of alleged molesters, that the Scouts have used internally since 1919. Scouts' lawyers around the country have been fighting in court to keep the files from public view. As The Times reported in August, the blacklist often didn't work: Men expelled for alleged abuses slipped back into the program, only to be accused of molesting again. Now, a more extensive review has shown that Scouts sometimes abetted molesters by keeping allegations under wraps. In the majority of cases, the Scouts learned of alleged abuse after it had been reported to authorities. But in more than 500 instances, the Scouts learned about it from boys, parents, staff members or anonymous tips. In about 400 of those cases — 80% — there is no record of Scouting officials reporting the allegations to police. In more than 100 of the cases, officials actively sought to conceal the alleged abuse or allowed the suspects to hide it.
Note: For a list giving details of Boy Scout leaders who sexually abused scouts with impunity, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse, click here.
Just how flagrant does a pedophile need to be before the people around him contact the police? Just how far beyond ... loading up his laptop with photos of little girls’ crotches does he have to go? I’m referring to the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, a Catholic priest in Missouri whose superiors acted ... despicably. In May 2010, the principal of a parochial school next door to the parish where Father Ratigan served sent a memorandum to the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. It flagged his odd behavior, including his habit of instructing children to reach into his pockets for candy. In December 2010, hundreds of troubling, furtively taken photographs were found on his laptop. One showed a toddler’s genitals. In what jail or prison cell, you might ask, did Father Ratigan spend the first half of 2011? None. After the photos were discovered, he ... was reassigned by Bishop Robert W. Finn, the head of the diocese, to a new post as a chaplain to an order of nuns. There he was allowed to celebrate Mass for youth groups and host an Easter egg hunt, and he was caught taking a photograph under the table, up the skirt of the daughter of parishioners who had invited him into their home. In May 2011, a diocesan official finally told police about the extent of Father Ratigan’s cache of child pornography. He was convicted of possession of it in August 2011. And last week Bishop Finn was convicted of failing to report him to law enforcement authorities, and got two years of probation. He’s the first American bishop to be found criminally culpable for his inaction in the face of suspected child abuse. It was a long time coming.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse of children, click here.
The [UK] government has launched an action plan to tackle child abuse linked to witchcraft or religion in England. High-profile cases include the murders of Kristy Bamu and Victoria Climbie but experts fear much more abuse is hidden. The key aims are to raise awareness and set out "urgent practical steps to identify and protect children at risk". Children's Minister Tim Loughton said: "Abuse linked to faith or belief in spirits, witchcraft or possession is a horrific crime, condemned by people of all cultures, communities and faiths - but there has been a 'wall of silence' around its scale and extent. There can never be a blind eye turned to violence or emotional abuse or even the smallest risk that religious beliefs will lead to young people being harmed." The government says that cases of adults inflicting physical violence or emotional harm on children they regard as witches or possessed by evil spirits occur across the world, often in sub-sects of major religions, such as Christianity. Scotland Yard says it has conducted 83 investigations into cases of faith-based child abuse in the past decade. The government admits more research is needed before it can act effectively to protect children - the last study was in 2006 and looked at 38 cases involving 47 children from Africa, South Asia and Europe, all of whom had been abused in the name of possession or witchcraft.
Note: To learn more about cult child abuse which may be much more rampant than most would suspect, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse of children, click here.
Internal documents from the Boy Scouts of America reveal more than 125 cases in which men suspected of molestation allegedly continued to abuse Scouts, despite a blacklist meant to protect boys from sexual predators. A Los Angeles Times review of more than 1,200 files from 1970 to 1991 found suspected abusers regularly remained in the organization after officials were first presented with sexual misconduct allegations. Predators moved from troop to troop because of clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts' failure to check the blacklist, known as the "perversion files." In at least 50 cases, the Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover they had re-entered the organization and were accused of molesting again. In other cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the program until new allegations came to light. One scoutmaster was expelled in 1970 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Indiana. After being convicted of the crime, he went on to join two troops in Illinois between 1971 and 1988. He later admitted to molesting more than 100 boys. The "perversion files" naming suspected child molesters include admissions of guilt as well as unproven allegations. The confidential documents have come to light in recent years in lawsuits by former Scouts, accusing the group of failing to detect abuses, exclude known pedophiles or turn in offenders to authorities. The Boy Scouts have fought in court to keep the records from public view, saying confidentiality was needed to protect victims, witnesses and anyone falsely accused.
Note: Sexual offender lists are widely available to the public without endangering victims. Why would the scouts refuse to release the names of sexual abusers?
For nearly a century, the Boy Scouts of America has relied on a confidential blacklist known as the "perversion files" as a crucial line of defense against sexual predators. That barrier, however, has been breached repeatedly. A Los Angeles Times review of more than 1,200 files dating from 1970 to 1991 found more than 125 cases across the country in which men allegedly continued to molest Scouts after the organization was first presented with detailed allegations of abusive behavior. Predators slipped back into the program by falsifying personal information or skirting the registration process. Others were able to jump from troop to troop around the country thanks to clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts' failure to check the blacklist. In some cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the organization until new allegations surfaced. In others, officials documented abuse but merely suspended the accused leader or allowed him to continue working with boys while on "probation." In at least 50 cases, the Boy Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover later that they had reentered the program and were accused of molesting again.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse scandals, click here.
As soon as they saw the terrified boy’s photo three years ago, federal agents Peter Manning and Gregory Squire had the same thought: we have to save him. Assigned to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations office in Boston, their job is to track down child pornographers and victims. That single image of the distraught boy with the toy bunny became a crucial piece of evidence for Manning and Squire. It had been e-mailed to them by a Milford man who thought he was sharing it with fellow child-pornography voyeurs. His miscalculation sparked an investigation that would spread around the world, thus far leading to 42 arrests and the discovery of 140 children who were violated. The youngest was 19 days old. Robert Diduca, who sent the first photo — which he labeled “cookie” in a reference to the boy — eventually pleaded guilty to the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography. In June, the 48-year-old father of three was sentenced in US District Court in Worcester to 18 years in prison. For Squire and Manning, however, Diduca’s jail term did not mean case closed. They remain on the front line of a growing international effort to combat child pornography, which has exploded in volume because of faster and more potent technology that makes it easier to create and disseminate the material anonymously. Less than two weeks ago, their investigation prompted the arrest of a Florida puppeteer who allegedly discussed killing and eating children.
Note: For a powerfully revealing Discovery Channel documentary on a child sex abuse ring which leads to the highest levels of government, click here. For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on child sexual abuse, click here.
From 1992 to 1995, Utah television news and print media were agog in reports that scores of Utah children had been ritually abused as part of a macabre and gruesome circle of Satanic covens operating undercover in neighborhoods from Logan to St. George. Judy Byington, a retired licensed clinical social worker, has made it her mission to keep campaigning against these elusive crimes. Twenty-Two Faces, Byington's biography of Jenny Hill, an alleged victim, explores how her client's personality became fractured due to trauma. [Byington:] I had women in their 20s who came to me in my counseling practice in Provo. They had ritual-abuse memories of their fathers abusing them. One thing you have to understand about ritual abuse is that it's done on purpose, to divide the mind. And the only person who's mind is vulnerable at that time is the child with a developing brain. It's called mind control. Our purpose is to expose ritual abuse. Children are being abused. We want to uncover and document the fact that the problem is real. It's going on all around us. Denial is the biggest problem. People don't believe it's going on. There are active covens, or groups of men, with one woman as their witch. The biggest problem of victims is that no one around them believes them. They've been tortured, seen children murdered, and know ritual abuse first-hand. Their biggest problem is society's denial.
Note: For more revealing information on this sad story, click here and here. For more on ritual sex abuse and its relation to mind control, click here.
When children who have been the victims of abuse hear the approaching roar of a group called the Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA), they know they've got back-up. BACA, an international non-profit that uses a biker's tough image to make child abuse victims feel more secure, has a motto that says it all: 'No child deserves to live in fear.' BACA members are usually asked to intervene by local law enforcement officials or even by a parent. According to the group's mission statement, members will do everything from attending a child's court hearings to actually staying with a victim if he/she is afraid. “Our mission is to empower these children, allow them not to be afraid of the world, to stand up to the abuser and say you can’t do that me. I’ve got friends, I got backup; if you try to do that to me, you’re going to have go through us,” the Missouri chapter public relations officer, Mopar (the members use ride names for security purposes) told Columbia Magazine. Bikers Against Child Abuse was founded in 1995 by a Native American child psychologist whose ride name is Chief, when he came across a young boy who had been subjected to extreme abuse and was too afraid to leave his house. He called the boy to reach out to him, but the only thing that seemed to interest the child was Chief's bike. Soon, some 20 bikers went to the boy's neighborhood and were able to draw him out of his house for the first time in weeks. Chief's thesis was that a child who has been abused by an adult can benefit psychologically from the presence of even more intimidating adults that they know are on their side.
Note: For a short video on this highly unusual group, click here. For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
In 1998, officials at Penn State, including its president and its legendary football coach, were aware Jerry Sandusky was being investigated by the university’s police department for possibly molesting two young boys in the football building’s showers. They followed the investigation closely, updating one another along the way. The officials did nothing. No one so much as spoke to Mr. Sandusky. Last month, Mr. Sandusky, for three decades one of Joe Paterno’s top coaching lieutenants, was convicted of sexually attacking 10 young boys, nine of them after the 1998 investigation, and several of them in the same football building showers. Louis J. Freeh, the former federal judge and director of the F.B.I. who spent the last seven months examining the Sandusky scandal at Penn State, issued a damning conclusion [on July 12]: The most senior officials at Penn State had shown a “total and consistent disregard” for the welfare of children, had worked together to actively conceal Mr. Sandusky’s assaults, and had done so for one central reason: fear of bad publicity. That publicity, Mr. Freeh said, would have hurt the nationally ranked football program, Mr. Paterno’s reputation as a coach of high principles, the Penn State “brand” and the university’s ability to raise money as one of the most respected public institutions in the country.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on institutional sexual abuse, click here. For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here.
Anthony V. Mangione, the former chief of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in South Florida, plans to plead guilty rather than go to trial next month on Internet child-pornography charges, according to a federal court filing. It is customary for federal defendants who plead guilty to receive lower sentences after they accept responsibility and forego trial. Still, each of the charges accusing Mangione of transporting and receiving images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct carries a minimum-mandatory sentence of five years. Mangione ... served as an agent with ICE for 27 years. During the past decade, ICE aggressively targeted child pornography, with Mangione frequently speaking out against predators who illegally share images through their computers. As the special agent in charge of ICEs South Florida office between 2007 and 2011, Mangione often praised the agencys efforts against child pornography in both the cyber and real worlds.
Note: To learn about documented sexual abuse in secret CIA mind control programs, click here. For deeply revealing and reliable major media reports on sexual abuse, click here.
A Pennsylvania jury [has] convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn of child endangerment for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests. Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. to be tried and convicted on charges related to the church scandal in which priests across the country sexually abused children for years. In the landmark case, prosecutors said Lynn reassigned pedophile priests in Philadelphia while covering up allegations of sexual abuse. By assigning pedophile priests to unsuspecting parishes, in an attempt to protect the church’s reputation and stave off lawsuits, Lynn exposed more children to potential abuse, prosecutors said. Prosecutors produced a list that Lynn compiled in 1994 naming 37 priests in the archdiocese who had been identified as pedophiles or were suspected of sexually abusing children. The trial was noteworthy because Lynn was not accused of sexual misconduct, but of covering it up. More than a dozen witnesses testified that they were sexually abused by priests who had been allowed to serve in their parishes even after being suspected or accused of abuse. Prosecutors said Lynn lied to parents about pedophile priests in an attempt to protect the archdiocese, and that he and other church officials were lax in responding to credible reports of abuse. In some instances, prosecutors said, Lynn suggested to accused priests that their young alleged victims had enticed them into sexual contact.
Note: For lots more from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
A new documentary by director Kirby Dick, "The Invisible War," about systemic rape of women in the military and the retaliations and coverups victims face, has won awards in many film festivals, and recently even triggered congressional response. The examples of what happens to women soldiers who are raped in the military are stunning, both in the violence that these often young women face, and in the viciousness they encounter after attacks. The level of sex assault in the military [is] staggering. There is so much of this going on in the US military that women soldiers' advocacy groups have created a new term for it: military sexual trauma or MST. Last year, there were 3,158 cases of sexual assault reported within the military. The Service Women's Action Network notes that rape is always under-reported, and that a military context offers additional hurdles to rape victims: the Department of Defense, they point out, estimates that these numbers are misleading because fewer than 14% of survivors report an assault. The DoD estimates that in 2010 alone, over 19,000 sexual assaults occurred in the military. "Prosecution rates for sexual predators are astoundingly low," they note. In 2011, "officials received 3,192 sexual assault reports. But only 1,518 of those reports led to referrals for possible disciplinary action, and only 191 military members were convicted at courts martial."
Note: For revealing reports from major media sources on the prevalence of rape in the US military and other institutional settings, click here.
Pennsylvania prosecutors are considering criminal charges against former top Penn State University officials for allegedly concealing what they knew about the conduct of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. As Sandusky's trial began [on June 11] on 52 counts alleging that he abused 10 boys over 15 years, the sources said investigators had obtained new evidence, including internal university email messages and other documents. Prosecutors [said] they included a file on Sandusky that was “created, maintained and possessed” by former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz. In addition, prosecutors said, the recently discovered emails “contradict” the testimony of Schultz, former athletic director Tim Curley “and others” before a grand jury about what they knew about an allegation of possible sexual misconduct by Sandusky. Both men were charged with perjury for their testimony regarding Sandusky last November. The documents, the sources say, show that former university President Graham Spanier and others discussed whether they were obligated to tell authorities about a 2001 allegation involving a late-night encounter in a Penn State shower room between Sandusky and a young boy, both of whom were naked. The documents allegedly show that university officials even did legal research on whether such conduct might be a crime. But in one email exchange, Spanier and Schultz agreed that it would be "humane” -- to Sandusky -- not to inform social services agencies.
Note: For revealing reports from major media sources on the prevalence of sexual abuse scandals in institutional settings, click here.
For decades, a handful of teachers at the Horace Mann school, an elite prep school in the Bronx [in New York City], sexually abused both their male and female students with various levels of impunity, according to the exposé [in the New York Times Magazine] by screenwriter Amos Kamil. In the article, Kamil, a Horace Mann alumnus, recalls his friends and classmates privately confiding in him the abuse that they endured at the hands of their teachers. Very few of the victims ever reported the abuse, instead resorting to silence, apathy, therapy, alcohol and even suicide. On the two occasions when complaints were made, the offenders were swiftly relieved of their duties; but as Kamil alleges, the school took no action to investigate other similar crimes or to address the mental or other needs of the victims. The case is the latest in a series of New York-area school sex abuse scandals that have come to light lately. At Poly Prep, a prestigious Brooklyn private school, a former football coach was accused of preying on boys in his charge while the school administration turned a blind eye. In April, a former math teacher at Riverdale County School in the Bronx was arrested on charges of sexually abusing a teenaged student. Meanwhile, several New York City public school teachers have been arrested for sexually assaulting students, sparking a district-wide investigation.
Note: For revealing reports from major media sources on the prevalence of sexual abuse scandals in institutional settings, click here. For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here.
The Legion of Christ religious order, already discredited for concealing the crimes of its pedophile founder, suffered another blow to its credibility Tuesday after its superior admitted he knew in 2005 that his most prominent priest had fathered a child, yet allowed him to keep teaching and preaching about morality. The admission by the Rev. Alvaro Corcuera is likely to enrage members of the Legion and its lay branch who have endured years of apologies, hypocrisy and explanations for the crimes of the Catholic order's founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, who sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children with two women. The Rev. Thomas Williams, the public face of the Legion in America, admitted last week that he had violated his vow of celibacy and fathered a child several years ago, going public with a statement after the Associated Press presented the Legion with the accusation. On Tuesday, Corcuera wrote a letter to all Legion members admitting that he had heard rumors of the child before he became superior in 2005 but took Williams' word that they were false. Williams is a well-known U.S. television personality, author and moral theologian. Corcuera said that after becoming superior in 2005, he confirmed Williams' paternity and asked him to withdraw from public ministry. Yet he did nothing to prevent him from teaching morality to seminarians or preaching about ethics on television, in his many speaking engagements or in his 14 books, including Knowing Right From Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals within elite institutions like churches and governments, click here. And for a shocking Discovery Channel documentary showing that sophisticated child abuse rings lead to the very highest levels of government, click here.
A teenage girl whose disappearance in Rome has remained a mystery for 30 years was kidnapped for sex parties by a gang involving Vatican police and foreign diplomats, the Roman Catholic Church's leading exorcist has claimed. The tomb of a mafia don buried in a basilica in Rome is to be opened in an attempt to solve a mystery that has dogged the Vatican for three decades. Emanuela Orlandi, who was 15 at the time of her disappearance, was the daughter of a Vatican employee. Father Gabriele Amorth, who was appointed by the late John Paul II as the Vatican's chief exorcist and claims to have performed thousands of exorcisms, said Emanuela Orlandi was later murdered and her body disposed of. In the latest twist in one of the Holy See's most enduring mysteries, he said the 15-year-old schoolgirl was snatched from the streets of central Rome in the summer of 1983 and forced to take part in sex parties. "This was a crime with a sexual motive. Parties were organised, with a Vatican gendarme acting as the 'recruiter' of the girls. "The network involved diplomatic personnel from a foreign embassy to the Holy See. I believe Emanuela ended up a victim of this circle," Father Amorth, the honorary president of the International Association of Exorcists, told La Stampa newspaper.
Note: Though Father Amorth is a controversial figure, these claims most certainly deserve to be investigated. For deeply revealing reports from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals within elite institutions like the Vatican and governments, click here. And for a shocking Discovery Channel documentary showing that sophisticated child abuse rings lead to the very highest levels of government, click here.
A former supervisory FBI agent has been arrested and jailed on child pornography charges. Donald Sachtleben was taken into custody and charged ... after a nationwide undercover investigation of illegal child porn images traded over the Internet. The 54-year-old resident of Carmel, Indiana, has pleaded not guilty. A federal complaint alleges 30 graphic images and video were found on Sachtleben's laptop computer late last week when FBI agents searched his home, about 23 miles north of Indianapolis. The arrest was a result a months-long probe, said the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Joseph Hogsett. "The mission of our Project Safe Childhood initiative is to investigate and prosecute anyone found to (be) engaged in the sexual exploitation of children," Hogsett said in a news release. "No matter who you are, you will be brought to justice if you are found guilty of such criminal behavior." Sachtleben is currently an Oklahoma State University visiting professor, according to his online resume. He is director of training at the school's Center for Improvised Explosives. He had been an FBI special agent from 1983 to 2008, serving as a bomb technician. He worked on the Oklahoma City bombing and Unabomber investigations, according to his university biography. The Justice Department's Project Safe Childhood initiative was launched in 2006, leading to what federal officials call a more than 40% increase in the number of cases investigated. The project's website says 2,700 indictments were filed last year alone.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
The first shock came when Mordechai Jungreis learned that his mentally disabled teenage son was being molested in a Jewish ritual bathhouse in Brooklyn. The second came after Mr. Jungreis complained, and the man accused of the abuse was arrested. Old friends started walking stonily past him and his family on the streets of Williamsburg. Their landlord kicked them out of their apartment. Anonymous messages filled their answering machine, cursing Mr. Jungreis for turning in a fellow Jew. By cooperating with the police, and speaking out about his son’s abuse, Mr. Jungreis, 38, found himself at the painful forefront of an issue roiling his insular Hasidic community. There have been glimmers of change as a small number of ultra-Orthodox Jews, taking on longstanding religious and cultural norms, have begun to report child sexual abuse accusations against members of their own communities. But those who come forward often encounter intense intimidation from their neighbors and from rabbinical authorities, aimed at pressuring them to drop their cases. Abuse victims and their families have been expelled from religious schools and synagogues, shunned by fellow ultra-Orthodox Jews and targeted for harassment intended to destroy their businesses. Some victims’ families have been offered money, ostensibly to help pay for therapy for the victims, but also to stop pursuing charges, victims and victims’ advocates said.
Note: For key reports on sexual abuse from reliable sources, click here.
Cardinal [Seán] Brady became the Catholic Primate of all-Ireland in 1996, but the appointment that may define his career was made 21 years earlier. As a Bishop's secretary in 1975, he was tasked with investigating a complaint of sexual abuse made against a fellow priest, the man who would later be exposed as Ireland's most prolific paedophile, Fr Brendan Smyth. The manner in which he handled that internal church inquiry has come under intense scrutiny. Following two major and damning reports into the handling of clerical abuse in Ireland, it emerged that Ireland's most senior Catholic Priest had himself been involved in a process in which sex abuse was kept from the civil authorities. At the time Cardinal Brady described his role in the Brendan Smyth investigation as that of a "note-taker". What actually happened during that inquiry has now been exposed by reporter Darragh McIntyre, who has uncovered the full extent of Cardinal Brady's involvement. McIntyre's BBC investigation reveals that the teenage victim, Brendan Boland, had also told the then Father Brady and his colleagues, about other children who were being abused by Smyth. Father Brady interviewed one of those boys, who corroborated each of Brendan Boland's claims before being sworn to secrecy. Father Brady however, failed to inform any parent of the children in the group that they had been abused. Nor were the police told of Smyth's crimes against them. The result was that Brendan Smyth remained free to abuse another boy.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on the Catholic Church and other institutional sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Stephanie Schroeder joined the U.S. Marine Corps not long after 9/11. A year and a half later, the Marines diagnosed her with a personality disorder and deemed her psychologically unfit for the Corps. Anna Moore enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and planned to make a career of it. She was diagnosed with a personality disorder and dismissed from the Army. Jenny McClendon was serving as a sonar operator on a Navy destroyer when she received her personality disorder diagnosis. These women joined different branches of the military but they share a common experience: Each received the psychiatric diagnosis and military discharge after reporting a sexual assault. CNN has interviewed women in all branches of the armed forces, including the Coast Guard, who tell stories that follow a similar pattern -- a sexual assault, a command dismissive of the allegations and a psychiatric discharge. Despite the Defense Department's "zero tolerance" policy, there were 3,191 military sexual assaults reported in 2011. Given that most sexual assaults are not reported, the Pentagon estimates the actual number was probably closer to 19,000. Anu Bhagwati, a former company commander in the Marines and executive director of Service Women's Action Network, a veterans advocacy group, says she sees a pattern of the military using psychiatric diagnoses to get rid of women who report sexual assaults. From 2001 to 2010, the military discharged more than 31,000 service members because of personality disorder, according to documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request by the Vietnam Veterans of America.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on sexual abuse in institutional settings, click here.
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has been a strong supporter of Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis. But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis. Many of the rabbis consider sexual abuse accusations to be community matters best handled by rabbinical authorities, who often do not report their conclusions to the police. In 2009, as criticism of his record mounted, Mr. Hynes set up a program to reach out to ultra-Orthodox victims of child sexual abuse. The program is intended to “ensure safety in the community and to fully support those affected by abuse,” his office said. In recent months, Mr. Hynes and his aides have said the program has contributed to an effective crackdown on child sexual abuse among ultra-Orthodox Jews, saying it had led to 95 arrests involving more than 120 victims. But Mr. Hynes has taken the highly unusual step of declining to publicize the names of defendants prosecuted under the program — even those convicted. At the same time, he continues to publicize allegations of child sexual abuse against defendants who are not ultra-Orthodox Jews. This policy of shielding defendants’ names because of their religious status is not followed by the other four district attorneys in New York City, and has rarely, if ever, been adopted by prosecutors around the country.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals involving religious and government institutions, click here.
On 3 April [2002] Maria de los Angeles Veron, known as "Marita", went missing. In February [2012], 13 people accused of kidnapping Ms Veron and selling her to traffickers who forced her into prostitution went on trial in a court in Tucuman province, in the north west of Argentina. This case has become over the years a symbol of the fight against human trafficking in Argentina and most of South America. Especially because of what Mrs Trimarco has done over the last decade. In the search for her daughter she infiltrated herself into human trafficking gangs pretending to be interested in "buying" women. The information gathered by these actions led to police raids which rescued dozens of women who were being sexually exploited. Mrs Trimarco later launched the Fundacion Maria de los Angeles, named after her missing daughter. Since 2007 it has helped rescue hundreds of victims of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. She and her husband Daniel, who died in 2010, asked at hospitals, and spoke to police and neighbours about Marita. No-one knew her whereabouts. After several days there was a breakthrough. Someone had seen her being pushed inside a vehicle by three men. And weeks later a prostitute confirmed their worst fears. They were told that their daughter had been "sold" to traffickers. Mrs Trimarco says the authorities in the province at the time, as well as former members of the police and the judiciary, were in collusion with the traffickers, which is why it was so difficult to find her daughter.
Note: Months after the above article was published, there were riots after the accused were set free. Ms. Trimarco said that "while she cannot prove it, she is sure that judicial corruption influenced the verdicts." For powerful information from a Discovery Channel documentary showing that this kind of corruption is also occurring at the highest levels in the US, click here.
The biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a Web site called Backpage.com. This emporium for girls and women — some under age or forced into prostitution — is in turn owned by an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. Until now it has been unclear who the ultimate owners are. The owners turn out to include private equity financiers, including Goldman Sachs with a 16 percent stake. Goldman Sachs was mortified when I began inquiring last week about its stake. It began working frantically to unload its shares. Backpage has 70 percent of the market for prostitution ads. Village Voice Media makes some effort to screen out ads placed by traffickers and to alert authorities to abuses, but neither law enforcement officials nor antitrafficking organizations are much impressed. A Goldman managing director, Scott L. Lebovitz, sat on the Village Voice Media board for many years. Goldman says he stepped down in early 2010. The two biggest owners are Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey, the managers of the company, and they seem to own about half of the shares. The best known of the other owners is Goldman Sachs, which invested in the company in 2000 (before Backpage became a part of Village Voice Media in a 2006 merger). That said, for more than six years Goldman has held a significant stake in a company notorious for ties to sex trafficking, and it sat on the company’s board for four of those years. There’s no indication that Goldman or anyone else ever used its ownership to urge Village Voice Media to drop escort ads or verify ages.
Note: For an abundance or major media articles revealing massive sex scandals implication top authorities, click here.
More than a decade before former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with more than 50 counts of child sex abuse, a psychologist warned university police that his actions fit that of a “likely pedophile’s pattern.” The finding by State College, Pa., psychologist Dr. Alycia A. Chambers, the therapist for one of Sandusky’s alleged victims, was contained in the internal Penn State files of a 1998 police investigation of the former coach. Chambers’ detailed report is potentially significant because it was the first clear warning about the former Penn State coach’s actions – nearly four years before a then-graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, reported to the late Coach Joe Paterno and other top school officials that he had found Sandusky in the Penn State showers one evening with [a] young boy, engaged in what he viewed as sexual contact. In her interview with NBC News, Chambers described her anguish when she was contacted by police last year and learned that authorities were again investigating Sandusky for allegedly molesting multiple other boys, 13 years after she first raised her concerns. “I was horrified to know that there were so many other innocent boys who had their hearts and minds confused, their bodies violated,” said Chambers. “It’s unspeakable.”
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Grace Brown was sick of hearing about sexual assault. Having spoken with so many survivors over the years, she grew increasingly frustrated by her inability to help. Then, one night last October, another friend confessed that she too had been abused and it turned out to be the final straw. Brown went to bed determined to act and in the morning Project Unbreakable was born. The project uses photography to help survivors of sexual assault take back the power of the words used against them by their attacker/s and aid in the healing process. Participants write these phrases on a piece of cardboard and Brown, a 19-year-old freshman at The School of Visual Arts in New York City, takes their picture and uploads it on the project's website. Just as powerful are the images she creates. Amassing a tremendous amount of followers from around the world in just five short months, women and men as far as Australia, Europe and the Middle East have submitted their own photos to the site. What's especially striking is the number of people willing to show their faces, essentially outing themselves as survivors of sexual assault. "In the beginning most people didn't show their faces. It wasn't until maybe a month in. People are getting braver and it's been really amazing to watch it grow." Taking part in the project doesn't resolve the problem but it enables the healing to begin. For some, knowing they're not alone or confiding in someone can help kick-start the process and exposing the words used against you can release the hold that they have.
Note: To see powerful photos from Project Unbreakable, click here and here. For the moving website of Project Unbreakable, click here. For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists. The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case. The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims, and a relentless adversary, for more than two decades. “If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, “it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”
Note: For an excellent NY Times editorial on this, click here. To sign a petition calling for the Catholic Church to stop its persecution of SNAP, click here.
Few clergy who fled the U.S. after being accused of sexual abuse of minors have been returned to face the charges. Since 1985, at least 32 Roman Catholic priests have left the United States for foreign countries while facing criminal charges or a police investigation over allegations that they sexually assaulted or abused minors, according to federal warrants, news reports and law enforcement sources. Only five have been returned to the U.S. to face trial; some died abroad. The number of fugitive priests grows by more than two dozen if it includes those who left the country while facing internal church probes or civil allegations of child sex misconduct, instead of a criminal investigation, and those who were transferred to foreign countries by church authorities before or after allegations surfaced. Many have maintained their innocence. Authorities also have pursued religious leaders from other faith traditions who fled the U.S. amid abuse allegations.
Note: This extensive, multi-part report includes detailed stories on individual priests who have fled justice, and photos of many such fugitives, as well as other types of fugitive criminals. For key reports from reliable sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
In one of the most in-depth discussions to date on violence against women in the United States, and to coincide with International Women’s Day, I interviewed Susan B. Carbon, Director of the United States Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). Rahim Kanani: How would you characterize the landscape of justice today with respect to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking here in the United States? Susan Carbon: Although violent crime has decreased nationwide, the crimes of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking still devastate the lives of too many women, men, youth, and children. One in every four women and one in every seven men have experienced severe physical violence by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. One in five women ... have been raped in their lifetimes, and nearly 1.3 million women in the U.S. are raped every year. The statistics are sobering – even more so with our understanding that these types of crimes are often the most underreported. Many victims suffer in silence without confiding in family and friends, much less reaching out for help from hospitals, rape crisis centers, shelters, or even the police. Congress recognized the severity of these serious crimes and our need for a national strategy with the enactment of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. As a result ... we have witnessed a paradigm shift in how the issue of violence against women is addressed in the United States, and countless lives have been positively impacted.
Eight current and former U.S. service members filed a lawsuit [on March 6] alleging they were raped, sexually assaulted or harassed while serving in the military and were retaliated against once they reported the abuse. Among the defendants named in the suit are current and former Defense and Navy secretaries and Marine Corps commandants. "Although defendants testified before Congress and elsewhere that they have 'zero tolerance' for rape and sexual assault, their conduct and the facts demonstrate the opposite: They have a high tolerance for sexual predators in their ranks, and 'zero tolerance' for those who report rape, sexual assault and harassment," according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington. The suit outlines a pattern of abuse and portrays, in grim detail, the alleged experiences of the eight female service members -- two former Marine Corps officers, one active duty enlisted Marine, one former enlisted member of the Marine Corps and four former enlisted members of the Navy. "At first it was easy to laugh it off," plaintiff Elle Helmer, one of the former officers, said about her superiors' advances. "When you finally said, you know, I'm really not interested, I'd rather we be friends -- that's when you became the target. They hated you for standing up for yourself," she [said]. The lawsuit alleges Helmer was raped by her superior at his office in March 2006 after a required pub crawl.
Note: For lots more from reliable sources on sexual abuse by the powerful, click here.
An Irishman named Diarmuid Martin says the Catholic Church in Ireland has reached a breaking point, a crisis that he says results from the sexual abuse of children by priests and the cover-up by the Church. Martin has provided tens of thousands of pages of evidence against specific priests, and his words and actions carry extraordinary weight. That's because Diarmuid Martin is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin. There's overwhelming evidence that the Church hierarchy was not only aware of the sexual abuse, but did little about it. The Dublin Archdiocese knew who the predator priests were, even wrote reports about them but then locked up the files. Investigators on a state panel, the Murphy Commission, asked for the files, but the Church refused until Diarmuid Martin became archbishop. The documents revealed that one priest admitted abusing over a hundred children. Another said he abused children twice a month for 25 years. Archbishop Martin believes thousands of children suffered similar fates. Martin: Abuse isn't [just] the actual sexual acts, which are horrendous, but sexual abuse of a child is ... a total abuse of power. It's actually saying to a child, "I control you." And that is saying to the child, "You're worthless."
Note: To see the video of this important piece, click here. For lots more from reliable sources on sexual abuse by the powerful, click here.
In the past 10 years police in greater London have investigated 83 incidents of child abuse and torture linked to witchcraft and other religious rituals. Of these children, four ... were murdered during ritualised violence. One police source said more cases of this kind were coming to light – either because the problem was increasing or because the light shone on the issue had led to increased reporting of incidents. The horrific cases of child abuse are often familial and often emerge from within the African diaspora. While most of the child killings have led to perpetrators being brought to justice, others remain mysteries. Ritualised abuse involves witchcraft-style exorcisms within many different cultures, including Caribbean, Congolese and Asian communities, according to the Met. The police set up Project Violet seven years ago to target the problem and work with other agencies to raise awareness of children at risk. "We know this is an under-reported crime, we know this is a hidden crime," said Det Supt Terry Sharpe, head of Scotland Yard's child abuse investigation command. "That is why Project Violet is working with communities to try to raise the awareness within the community and among professionals so people can see the danger signs."
Note: Sadly very few people are willing to look into these very dark shadows. If you are one of the few, please don't miss the most important documentary on this available here. For lots more powerful information from one who escaped from a powerful cult involved in ritual abuse, click here.
When an on-duty police officer was shot and killed by a colleague a month ago, residents of [Santa Maria, CA, an] agricultural community north of Santa Barbara were horrified. Outrage grew when they learned the shooting occurred as fellow officers tried to arrest the policeman on suspicion he was having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl in the city's "Police Explorers" program. But inappropriate relationships between officers and youths in the junior police program aren't all that rare. No organization keeps statistics but an Associated Press examination of news accounts during the 21 years since the Explorers was spun off from the Boy Scouts of America found at least 97 cases involving officers accused of sexual assault on minor girls, and sometimes boys, in the program. And that's likely a fraction of all such incidents, said Samuel Walker, a University of Nebraska-Omaha criminal justice professor and expert on police misconduct and accountability. Most relationships never become public because a youth is unlikely to report it and even if fellow officers are aware, they're reluctant to do anything. "More often than not other officers know that something wrong is going on and they don't report it," Walker said. "Police departments are like villages: everybody gossips and everybody knows." The Explorer program is run by Learning for Life, a subsidiary of Boy Scouts of America.
Note: When a Chilean friend of this website's founder was facing a serious traffic ticket which could have gotten her kicked out of the country, the police officer offered to let her go if she would have sex with him later. She accepted but then managed to escape. She never reported the incident. This type of sexual abuse by authorities is likely much more common than most people would imagine. For more powerful evidence of this, click here and here.
Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua ordered aides to shred a 1994 memo that identified 35 Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests suspected of sexually abusing children, according to a new court filing. The order, outlined in a handwritten note locked away for years at the archdiocese's Center City offices, was disclosed Friday by lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former church administrator facing trial next month. They say the shredding directive proves what Lynn has long claimed: that a church conspiracy to conceal clergy sex abuse was orchestrated at levels far above him. The cardinal died Jan. 31. The revelation is likely to further cloud Bevilacqua's complicated legacy in the handling of clergy sex abuse and could shape what happens at the historic trial, the first for a cleric accused of covering up sex abuse. Prosecutors say that Lynn, as the secretary for clergy, recommended priests for assignments despite knowing or suspecting that they would sexually abuse children. Facing trial with him are two former parish priests accused of molesting a boy in the 1990s, the Rev. James J. Brennan and Edward Avery. Lynn's lawyers argue that the new documents show he was one of the few church officials trying to confront the issue of abuse. After becoming secretary for clergy in 1992, they say, Lynn began combing the secret personnel files of hundreds of priests to gauge the scope of misconduct involving children. The result was his February 1994 memo that identified 35 priests suspected of abuse or pedophilia.
Note: For lots more on sexual abuse scandals from reliable sources, click here.
Some 200 Catholic priests suspected of sexual abuse are living undetected in communities across California, according to an attorney who represents hundreds of plaintiffs who sued the LA Archdiocese. Ray Boucher has mapped 60 locations where suspect priests live, in cities and towns from northern to southern California. “Many if not all these priests have admitted to sexual abuse,” Boucher said. “They live within a mile of 1,500 playgrounds, schools and daycare centers.” Since none of the priests has actually been convicted of sex abuse, none can be identified under Megan’s Law, or their whereabouts revealed in related public databases. “What the issue is here, is how you weigh the right of the people,” said Boucher, who is also one of the attorneys representing students in the Miramonte Elementary School sex abuse scandal. In 2007 the LA Archdiocese reached an unprecedented $660 million settlement with many of the plaintiffs without admitting any wrong-doing. It also agreed to let the courts decide which of the case-related church files should be made public, including those identifying alleged and admitted predators. But according to Boucher and court documents, the Catholic Church has since engaged in a cover-up. By Boucher’s account, church officials allowed priests suspected of sexually abusing children to retire, flee the country or hide in rehab clinics until the statute of limitations on prosecution ran out.
Note: For lots more on sexual abuse scandals from reliable sources, click here.
Nearly 4,600 U.S. children were hospitalized with broken bones, traumatic brain injury and other serious damage caused by physical abuse in 2006, according to a new report. Babies younger than one were the most common victims, with 58 cases per 100,000 infants. That makes serious abuse a bigger threat to infant safety than SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, researchers say in the report. "There is a national campaign to prevent SIDS," said Dr. John Leventhal of Yale University, who led the new study. "We need a national campaign related to child abuse where every parent is reminded that kids can get injured." Based on data from the 2006 Kids' Inpatient Database, the last such numbers available, Leventhal's team found that six out of every 100,000 children under 18 were hospitalized with injuries ranging from burns to wounds to brain injuries and bone fractures. The children spent an average of one week in the hospital; 300 of them died. The rate of abuse was highest among children under one, particularly if they were covered by Medicaid, the government's health insurance for the poor. One out of every 752 of those infants landed in the hospital due to maltreatment. "Medicaid is just a marker of poverty, and poverty leads to stress," said Leventhal, who is the medical director of the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital Child Abuse Program.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on sexual abuse of children, click here.
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 in the Milwaukee case. The Milwaukee Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection last year, saying pending sex-abuse lawsuits could leave it with debts it couldn't afford. The archdiocese has paid more than $30 million in settlements and other court costs related to allegations of clergy abuse and more than a dozen suits against it have been halted because of the bankruptcy proceedings. One priest alone is accused of abusing some 200 boys at a suburban school for deaf students from 1950 to 1974. A victims' advocacy group called the number of filings "extraordinarily tragic," but said that represented only a small portion of people abused by clergy. "It just shows how devastating these crimes have been on this community but it's obviously far from over," said Peter Isely, the Midwest director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. 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; Spokane, Wash.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Wilmington, Del. Two other religious orders have also filed for bankruptcy.
Note: For lots more from major media sources on sexual abuse scandals, click here.
Rape in the American armed forces is an issue that has quietly been gathering attention over the past decade. The documentary "The Invisible War" [is] a devastating indictment of the government's inaction on the issue. Director Kirby Dick brought a powerful weapon to his film: victim after eloquent victim, Navy, Marine, Coast Guard, Army and Air Force veterans who were assaulted by fellow officers, supervisors or recruits. They tell their stories in courageous detail, and it quickly becomes clear that these are not isolated incidents but a pattern reflective of a widespread rot within America's military institution, one that betrays its essential values. One Marine, Ariana Klay, was raped by a fellow officer in the elite Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C. A Navy officer, Trina McDonald, was drugged and raped repeatedly by fellow officers on a remote base in Alaska. Coast Guard recruit Kori Cioca was raped and then assaulted -- smacked so hard in the face that it dislocated her jaw, causing her permanent damage and pain for which the Veterans Administration declines to provide medical coverage. Every woman in the film has had her life shattered by this event -- not necessarily because of the rape, but because of the response by the military establishment. After lodging complaints, the women were met with indifference or targeted retaliation. They have had to leave the military. Some were threatened with violence. Almost none of the alleged perpetrators were brought up on charges or punished in any way.
Note: As this article appears to have disappeared from the Tribune website, you can also find it on the Reuters website at this link. To learn about documented sexual abuse in secret CIA mind control programs, click here. For lots more on sexual abuse scandals from major media sources, click here.
In his private journal, Jason Michael Handy once described himself as a "pedophile, full blown." His job as a production assistant at one of the nation's most prominent producers of children's television programs, Nickelodeon, gave him access to child actors on and off the set, and allowed him to exchange email addresses and phone numbers with them. He used the hopes of at least two girls who dreamed of careers in TV to sexually exploit them. Handy was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest in 2004 to two felony counts, one of lewd acts on a child and one of distributing sexually explicit material by email, and to a misdemeanor charge related to child sexual exploitation. His arrest and prosecution received scant media attention at the time but are attracting renewed interest now, after the recent arrest of a talent manager on molestation charges and reports by The Times that a registered sex offender was working with children as a casting associate. The Handy case, which in part prompted Nickelodeon to toughen its background checks for all employees, is among at least a dozen child molestation and child pornography prosecutions since 2000 involving actors, managers, production assistants and others in the industry, according to court documents and published accounts.
Note: For released government documents showing sexual abuse in secret mind control programs that make these Hollywood child sex abuse cases look mild in comparison, click here.
The FBI is changing its long-standing definition of rape for the first time to include sexual assaults on males following persistent calls from victims advocates who claim that the offense, as currently defined in the agency's annual crime report, has been undercounted for decades. Under the current definition, established 85 years ago, many of the sex crimes alleged in the ongoing prosecution of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky would not be counted in the bureau's Uniform Crime Report, one of the most reliable measures of crime in the United States. Rape is currently defined as the "carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will." The new provision will define rape as any kind of penetration of another person, regardless of gender, without the victim's consent. Carol Tracy, executive director of the Women's Law Project, and 90 other organizations that support victims of sexual abuse have been pushing for such a change for more than a decade. Tracy said that the public has long been "misled" about the prevalence of rape. "If you can't measure it accurately, you can't monitor it and you can't direct appropriate resources to deal with the problem," Tracy said.
Note: For more good news about these changes, see the New York Times article available here. For many other revealing news articles on sexual abuse reported in the major media, click here.
As many as 20,000 children endured sexual abuse at Dutch Catholic institutions over the past 65 years, and church officials failed to adequately address it or help the victims, according to a long-awaited investigative report. Based on a survey of 34,000 people, the report estimated that 1 in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of sexual abuse — a figure that rose to 1 in 5 among children who spent part of their youth in an institution such as a boarding school or children's home, whether Catholic or not. "Sexual abuse of minors," it said bluntly, "occurs widely in Dutch society." The abuse ranged from "unwanted sexual advances" to rape, and abusers numbered in the hundreds and included priests, brothers and lay people who worked in religious orders and congregations. The number of victims who suffered abuse in church institutions likely lies somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000, according to the probe, which went back as far as 1945. The commission behind the investigation was set up last year by the Catholic Church under the leadership of a former government minister, Wim Deetman, a Protestant, who said there could be no doubt church leaders knew of the problem. "The idea that people did not know there was a risk ... is untenable," he told a news conference.
Note: For lots more on institutional secrecy from reliable, verifiable sources, click here.
Gerard Mannix Flynn's blazing indictment of the nationwide, decades-long abuse of institutionalized schoolchildren in Ireland, titled "James X," is remarkable and should not be missed. He lays bare the soul of a middle-aged adult, James O'Neill, who spent the bulk of his childhood being abused by every state-sponsored, often Roman Catholic-run institution to which he was sent, initially at age 6 for not attending school. From there, uncaring judges repeatedly sent him to increasingly harsh, punitive institutions without caring what happened to him. The shocking true story ... has the tragically familiar ring of current U.S. headlines about trusted school authorities charged with sexually abusing boys in their care for decades. The willful blindness of Irish officials and society at large, unwilling to confront the church that rules their lives, is even more appalling. With great physical and emotional artistry, Flynn enacts James' attempts to reclaim his own story by telling it for the first time, hoping to release his own soul with the truth at last. Many of the nuns, Christian brothers and priests, psychiatrists and jailers who dealt with him over the years either neglected or abused him harshly, as they did with the other children. He was tortured physically, sexually and emotionally, even deemed "criminally insane" at one point, and beaten so badly by one Christian brother that he required surgery.
Note: Hopefully this important play will be made into a movie. For important revelations from reliable major media news articles on institutional child abuse, click here. For a riveting Discover Channel documentary exposing a sophisticated child sex abuse ring which leads to he highest levels of government, click here.
A new child-abuse scandal in Hollywood is raising questions over the safety of minors in the entertainment business and sparking calls for new child-labor regulations. Last week Martin Weiss, a longtime manager of young talent, was arrested on suspicion of child molestation after an 18-year-old former client told police he had been abused by Weiss 30 to 40 times from 2005 to 2008. "This problem is more pervasive than people want to believe," said Paula Dorn, co-founder of the BizParentz Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the families of children working in the entertainment industry. "We have children trying to interact in an adult world." Paul Petersen, a former child actor on "The Donna Reed Show" and founder of A Minor Consideration, a nonprofit that supports former child stars, said the situation is "worse today than it was in the '30s, and there was a lot of dirty stuff going on then." Petersen [said] that his group is pushing for new regulations, including background checks and fingerprinting for talent agents, and a stronger enforcement of the California Talent Agencies Act, which is intended to protect artists from contract exploitation.
Note: For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here.
If a spate of recent allegations proves true, Hollywood may have a hideous epidemic on its hands. The past two weeks have brought three separate reports of alleged child sexual abuse in the entertainment industry. Martin Weiss, a 47-year-old Hollywood manager who represented child actors, was charged in Los Angeles on Dec. 1 with sexually abusing a former client. His accuser, who was under 12 years old during the time of the alleged abuse, reported to authorities that Weiss told him "what they were doing was common practice in the entertainment industry." Weiss has pleaded not guilty. On Nov. 21, Fernando Rivas, 59, an award-winning composer for “Sesame Street,” was arraigned on charges of coercing a child “to engage in sexually explicit conduct” in South Carolina. The Juilliard-trained composer was also charged with production and distribution of child pornography. Registered sex offender Jason James Murphy, 35, worked as a casting agent in Hollywood for years before his past kidnapping and sexual abuse of a boy was revealed by the Los Angeles Times. Revelations of this sort come as no surprise to former child star Corey Feldman. Feldman, 40, himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, unflinchingly warned of the world of pedophiles who are drawn to the entertainment industry last August. "I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia,” Feldman told ABC’s Nightline. “That's the biggest problem for children in this industry... It's the big secret.”
Note: These allegations surfaced long before Harvey Weinstein's crimes came to light. For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here. And for an abundance of major media news articles showing rampant child sexual abuse at high levels in many prominent organizations, click here.
More than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — ... were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases. Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants. The botched sex-crimes investigations have served as an embarrassment to a department whose sheriff is the self-described "America's Toughest Sheriff" and a national hero to conservatives on the immigration issue. Bill Louis, then-assistant El Mirage police chief who reviewed the files after the sheriff's contract ended, believes the decision to ignore the cases was made deliberately by supervisors in Arpaio's office — and not by individual investigators. "I know the investigators. I just cannot believe they would wholesale discount these cases. No way," Louis said. "The direction had to come (from) up the food chain." Louis said he believes whoever made the decision knew that illegal immigrants — who are often transient and fear the police — were unlikely to complain about the quality of investigations.
Note: For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here.
The latest person to accuse former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky of sexual abuse also claims that Sandusky threatened to hurt the boy’s family if he ever told anyone about the abuse. Sandusky’s newest accuser, who is now 29, had not told anyone about the abuse until he read about the grand jury presentment charging Sandusky with 40 counts of child molestation over 15 years, his lawyer Jeff Anderson said today. Until that time, he had thought he was the only victim. Anderson said the boy met Sandusky through the Second Mile foundation when the alleged victim was 10, and was abused by Sandusky from 1992 to 1994. He said that Sandusky threatened to harm the boy’s family if the boy told anyone about the abuse. Sandusky also paid for sports camps, plied the boy with gifts, and took him on trips, Anderson said. The lawyer said during a press conference today that they had filed suit against Sandusky, Penn State and the Second Mile charity seeking reparations for over 100 acts of sexual abuse. Anderson alleged that Sandusky had abused the boy at Penn State University, at Second Mile events, at his home, at a Penn State bowl game out of state, and in Philadelphia.
Note: For powerful evidence from a suppressed Discovery Channel documentary showing that child sexual abuse scandals reach to the highest levels of government, click here.
Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar investigated allegations that former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky molested a child in 1998. Gricar chose not to bring charges at the time, and now that young man ... is listed as "Victim 6" in the current child molestation charges the Pennsylvania Attorney General is pursuing against Sandusky. Gricar went missing in April 2005 and his whereabouts are still a mystery. He is ... presumed dead. The recent child molestation charges filed against Sandusky are raising questions about whether Gricar’s disappearance is somehow connected to the Sandusky case. Police Chief Shawn Weaver of the Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, police department, ... says his department has gotten new leads since the Sandusky case broke. Weaver says detectives never looked into Gricar’s 1998 investigation of Sandusky because they weren’t aware the inquiry took place. One of the strangest things about the Gricar case is that his county-issued laptop computer was found at the bottom of the Susquehanna River. Weaver confirmed ... that the hard drive had been intentionally removed.
Note: For a revealing MSNBC News video titled, "Was DA investigating Sandusky murdered?", click here. To understand how literally hundreds of investigators of high-level sex abuse cases have either disappeared or been killed in unusual circumstances, watch a suppressed Discovery Channel video titled "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
A troubled youth who reported inappropriate sexual conduct by a counselor at The Citadel's now-defunct summer camp told a school lawyer that several other campers had similar encounters, documents released by the military college show. "It only happened to me one time. I know there are about five other kids that experienced it a few times," the former camper, whose name is redacted in the documents, told The Citadel's general counsel Mark Brandenburg in a 2007 interview. In that interview, the then-19-year old described how counselor Louis Neal "Skip" ReVille had shown boys pornography, masturbated in front of them and pressured them to join him during a summer five years before. Louis ReVille first took a job as a summer counselor at the South Carolina military college in 2001. ReVille was arrested in October on charges of molesting at least five children in alleged incidents in the Charleston area, unrelated to The Citadel accusations. According to court documents, he has admitted guilt in at least three cases involving incidents between November 2010 and October 2011. The Citadel is now facing questions about why it didn't bring the allegations against him to police at the time the former camper's family approached school officials with his story.
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than expected, click here. To understand how this relates to secret societies and deep hidden knowledge of our world, click here.
A judge who granted unsecured bail to former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky also donated money to the charity he founded. The charity is at the center of child sex-abuse charges against Sandusky. District Judge Leslie Dutchcot gave money to The Second Mile in 2009 and volunteered for the group, according to annual reports and her web page. The charity’s 2009 annual report says Dutchcot and her husband donated between $500 and $999 to The Second Mile. Dutchcot didn’t immediately respond to a question about whether she’ll recuse herself from the case because of those past ties. The judge set bail for Sandusky at $100,000 but he did not have to post collateral. The Attorney General’s office declined to say if prosecutors would ask Dutchcot to recuse herself from Sandusky’s preliminary hearing.
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than expected, click here. To understand how this relates to secret societies and deep hidden knowledge of our world, click here.
The Penn State allegations may seem unthinkable: revered assistant coach and prominent community activist Jerry Sandusky preying on eight children. But such abuses of trust play out in the USA over and over again. Respected people who set up charitable or social groups for children, only to be implicated in some form of child sexual abuse, are a frightening reality. Washington, D.C., journalist Patrick Boyle, author of the 1994 book Scout's Honor: Sexual Abuse in America's Most Trusted Institution, says reaction to Catholic church sex abuse complaints and those against the Boy Scouts of America were similar. "In both cases, there was a lot of willful ignorance among the higher-ups," he says. "They almost tried not to know things." In the Penn State case, Boyle says, "everybody seems to have done the minimum, instead of doing the maximum or more, which is what we'd expect of these institutions." "If you can give 110% on the field, why can't you give 110% for the victims?"
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than expected, click here. To understand how this relates to secret societies and deep hidden knowledge of our world, click here.
It is strange that Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar never prosecuted Jerry Sandusky on child-rape charges 13 years ago, some speculate, because Gricar was known for being fiercely independent and hard on crime. But it is even stranger that we cannot ask Gricar why Sandusky was not put behind bars, because the tough-as-nails district attorney disappeared in 2005. And though he was declared dead July of this year, his body has never been found. He disappeared on April 15, 2005 after telling his girlfriend that he was going on a drive. Ray Gricar’s car was found the next day in a Lewisburg parking lot and his laptop, sans hard drive, was found in the Susquehanna River. Ray Gricar’s friend, Montour County District Attorney Robert Buehner Jr., told the New York Times that if the ardent district attorney had committed suicide, he would have wanted his body found. But in the case of possible foul play, no suspects have emerged from investigations. When it comes to the Sandusky case, friends and former co-workers are all of the opinion that Ray Gricar would never back down from a righteous prosecution.
Note: Is it just a coincidence that Gricar never charged Sandursky (a rare act of tolerance for crime on the DA's part) and subsequently disappeared (a very rare occurrence for anyone)?
Nearly a decade and hundreds of miles separate Penn State from the clergy sex abuse scandal that erupted in Boston's Roman Catholic archdiocese [and] then spread nationwide, but those who lived through the church crisis see painful parallels. At Penn State, school administrators, including a [football] coach known for his integrity, didn't notify prosecutors when they learned years ago that former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky had been accused of molesting children. In the Archdiocese of Boston, the case of one predator priest led to revelations that for decades church leaders had moved guilty clergy among parish assignments without alerting parents or police. Both cases have had consequences for administrators. Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law wound up leaving his post and, on Wednesday, Penn State President Graham Spanier and coach Joe Paterno were fired. The scope of the crimes alleged to have taken place at Penn State doesn't nearly match those in Boston, where dozens of priests were accused of abusing hundreds of victims over six decades. At Penn State, Sandusky was indicted on charges he abused eight boys over the course of 15 years. Two Penn State officials, Senior Vice President Gary Schultz and Athletic Director Tim Curley, turned themselves in after being indicted on perjury charges and accused of failing to alert police about abuse complaints. The indictment paints a picture of administrators who had ample warning about Sandusky but failed to act.
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than expected, click here. To understand how this relates to secret societies and deep hidden knowledge of our world, click here.
Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967. The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized. Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes. Riddick’s records reveal that a five-person state eugenics board in Raleigh had approved a recommendation that she be sterilized. The records label Riddick as “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” They said her schoolwork was poor and that she “does not get along well with others.” North Carolina was one of 31 states to have a government run eugenics program. By the 1960s, tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized as a result of these programs. Eugenics was a scientific theory that grew in popularity during the 1920s. Eugenicists believed that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were traits that were inherited. To eliminate those society ills and improve society’s gene pool, proponents of the theory argued that those that exhibited the traits should be sterilized. Some of America’s wealthiest citizens of the time were eugenicists including Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter and Gamble fortune and James Hanes of the hosiery company. Hanes helped found the Human Betterment League which promoted the cause of eugenicists.
Note: For additional information view the MSNBC video accompanying this report (click here). If you want to explore even deeper into this disturbing news, click here. The article fails to mention that the laws for sterilizations like this were not removed from the books until 2003.
An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been arrested and charged with two counts of child molestation and one count of bestiality, police said. Police arrested Dr. Kimberly Quinlan Lindsey, 44, in DeKalb County, Georgia, on Sunday. Authorities also charged Lindsey's live-in boyfriend, Thomas Joseph Westerman, 42, with two counts of child molestation. The two are accused of "immoral and indecent" sexual acts involving a 6-year-old. The bestiality charge says Lindsey "did unlawfully perform or submit to any sexual act with an animal." The alleged incidents took place between January 1, 2010, and August 22, 2011. Lindsey is the deputy director for the Laboratory Science Policy and Practice Program Office at the CDC, according to her biography on the agency's website. Prior to her current role, Lindsey was the senior health scientist in the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. That office oversees the allocation process for $1.5 billion in terrorism preparedness. In her 12 years at the CDC, Lindsey has received 12 awards for outstanding performance on projects and programs, according to her bio on Emory University's Biological and Biomedical Sciences website.
Note: Don't miss Dr. Mercola's highly revealing analysis showing that Dr. Lindsey played a primary role in the bogus swine flu propaganda campaign. Read the article at this link. For how the CDC came to be infiltrated with such people, read the powerful information available here.
The villages and farming communities that surround Uganda's capital, Kampala, are gripped by fear. Schoolchildren are closely watched by teachers and parents as they make their way home from school. In playgrounds and on the roadside are posters warning of the danger of abduction by witch doctors for the purpose of child sacrifice. The ritual, which some believe brings wealth and good health, was almost unheard of in the country until about three years ago, but it has re-emerged, seemingly alongside a boom in the country's economy. The mutilated bodies of children have been discovered at roadsides, the victims of an apparently growing belief in the power of human sacrifice. Many believe that members of the country's new elite are paying witch doctors vast sums of money for the sacrifices in a bid to increase their wealth. At the Kyampisi Childcare Ministries church, Pastor Peter Sewakiryanga is teaching local children a song called Heal Our Land, End Child Sacrifice. "Child sacrifice has risen because people have become lovers of money. They want to get richer," the pastor says. "They have a belief that when you sacrifice a child you get wealth, and there are people who are willing to buy these children for a price. So they have become a commodity of exchange, child sacrifice has become a commercial business."
In the annals of the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, most of the cases that have come to light happened years before to children and teenagers who have long since grown into adults. But a painfully fresh case is devastating Catholics in Kansas City, Mo., where a priest, who was arrested in May, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of taking indecent photographs of young girls, most recently during an Easter egg hunt just four months ago. Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has acknowledged that he knew of the existence of photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. A civil lawsuit filed last week claims that during those five months, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, attended children’s birthday parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted the Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s First Communion. The case has generated fury at a bishop who was already a polarizing figure in his diocese, and there are widespread calls for him to resign or even to be prosecuted. Bishop Finn, who was appointed in 2005, alienated many of his priests and parishioners, and won praise from others, when he remade the diocese to conform with his traditionalist theological views. He is one of few bishops affiliated with the conservative movement Opus Dei.
Note: For key insights from reliable sources into institutional secrecy and secret societies, click here and here.
Corey Feldman has no idea what it's like not to be famous. After all, he starred in a McDonald's ad when he was just 3 years old. But being famous and underage, he said, caused serious damage to him and his friends, including loss of innocence and a lost childhood. Feldman blamed the adults around him, not just those looking to profit from charming children, but also some with far more sinister motives. "I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia. That's the biggest problem for children in this industry. ... It's the big secret," Feldman said. The "casting couch," which is the old Hollywood reference to actors being expected to offer sex for roles, applied to children, Feldman said. "I was surrounded by [pedophiles] when I was 14 years old. … Didn't even know it. It wasn't until I was old enough to realize what they were and what they wanted … till I went, Oh, my God. They were everywhere," Feldman, 40, said. The trauma of pedophilia contributed to the 2010 death of his closest friend and "The Lost Boys" co-star, Corey Haim, Feldman said. "There's one person to blame in the death of Corey Haim. And that person happens to be a Hollywood mogul," Feldman said, adding that he, too, had been sexually abused by men in show business. Feldman said his realization followed the discovery of what some adults around him had allegedly done to other children. "There was a circle of older men … around this group of kids. And they all had either their own power or connections to great power in the entertainment industry," he said.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on pedophilia and sexual abuse by the powerful, click here.
The number of people leaving the Roman Catholic Church in Germany jumped by nearly 50 percent in 2010 as an abuse scandal widened. Some 181,000 people quit their memberships last year, up from 124,000 in 2009, official numbers released by Germany's Roman Catholic Church showed. Deaths and people turning away from the church heavily outnumbered baptisms, which reached a record low, putting one of the world's wealthiest and most influential Catholic Churches further in decline. Over the past twenty years, the number of members of Germany's Roman Catholic Church has fallen from 28.3 million to 24.6 million or 30.2 percent of the country's population in 2010, the data showed. The numbers are easily tracked because members pay a church tax unless they formally leave the congregation -- the same reason the declining membership has led to increasing budget shortfalls for the church. Germans are not required to say why they want to strike their church membership, but many have blamed the reports of sexual and physical abuse of hundreds of children by clergy that surfaced last year. The diocese that recorded the highest member loss last year was Munich and Freising -- the pope's former diocese, which had been hard-hit by the abuse scandal -- where 21,600 people alone left the church.
The Archbishop of Dublin said there are groups in the Vatican and the Irish hierarchy trying to undermine child protection measures. Dr Diarmuid Martin said there were systems in place that were ignored. His comments come after Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny launched an attack in parliament on the Catholic Church. Mr Kenny said the recent Cloyne Report into allegations of priest sex abuse showed change was needed. In an unprecedented attack, the taoiseach said the historic relationship between church and state in Ireland could not be the same again and the report exposed the "elitism, dysfunction, disconnection, and narcissism that dominated the Vatican". Dr Martin said he was "impressed by the emotion that the taoiseach brought into this". He said he was also "angry, ashamed and appalled" by those "who felt they were able to play tricks" and "by anybody who does that, whether they be in the Irish church, the Vatican or anybody else who faces child protection". "I'm very disappointed and annoyed. What do you do when you've got systems in place and somebody ignores them?" he said. "What do you do when you have got groups either in the Vatican or in Ireland who try to undermine what is being done or simply refuse to understand what is being done?" Dr Martin said he had delivered over 70,000 documents to the Murphy Commission.
Note: To watch a short video of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin saying he is "ashamed" of the Catholic Church, click here. For key reports from reliable sources on institutional secrecy, click here.
Ireland's prime minister has launched an unprecedented attack on the Vatican, accusing it of downplaying the rape and torture of Irish children by clerical sex abusers. Enda Kenny said in parliament that the Cloyne report, released on 13 July, had exposed the Vatican's attempt to frustrate the inquiry into child sex abuse. During a debate on the fallout from the Cloyne findings, the taoiseach said the report had illuminated the dysfunction and elitism still dominant in the Vatican. Kenny told the Dáil on Wednesday that Rome seemed more interested in upholding the church's power and reputation than confronting the abuse of Irish children by its priests and religious orders. The Vatican's attitude to investigations in Cloyne, which covers County Cork, was the "polar opposite of the radicalism, the humility and the compassion that the church had been founded on", he said. Kenny said the rape and torture of children had been downplayed or "managed" to uphold the institution's power and reputation. One of the most damning findings of the Cloyne report was that the diocese failed to report nine out of 15 complaints made against priests, which "very clearly should have been reported". The report, coming after a string of inquiries into Catholic clerical sex abuse across Ireland, has set the Irish government on a collision course with the church.
Note: For key reports from reliable sources on institutional secrecy, click here.
The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, long after it issued guidelines meant to protect children, and the Vatican tacitly encouraged the cover-up by ignoring the guidelines, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the Irish government. Abuse victims called the report more evidence that the church sought to protect priests rather than children. The Cloyne Report, as it is known, drafted by an independent investigative committee headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, found that the clergy in the Diocese of Cloyne, a rural area of County Cork, did not act on complaints against 19 priests from 1996 to 2009. The Cloyne Report is the Irish government’s fourth in recent years on aspects of the scandal. It shows that abuses were still occurring and being covered up 13 years after the church in Ireland issued child protection guidelines in 1996, and that civil officials were failing to investigate allegations. The report warned that other dioceses might have similar failings. Most damaging, the report said that the Congregation for the Clergy, an arm of the Vatican that oversees the priesthood, had not recognized the 1996 guidelines. That “effectively gave individual Irish bishops the freedom to ignore the procedures” and “gave comfort and support” to priests who “dissented from the stated Irish church policy,” the report said.
Note: For key reports from major media sources on institutional secrecy, click here.
There is nothing the state of North Carolina can do, Elaine Riddick says, to make up for forcing her to be sterilized when she was 14 years old. "They cut me open like I was a hog," [she said]. About 7,600 people were sterilized under North Carolina's eugenics program. Roughly 85 percent of the victims were women or girls. Unlike most states, North Carolina ramped up its sterilizations after World War II, despite associations between eugenics and Nazi Germany, which took eugenics to even more horrifying lengths. Around 70 percent of all North Carolina's sterilizations were performed after the war, peaking in the 1950s, according to state records. Nationwide, there were more than 60,000 known victims of sterilization programs, with perhaps another 40,000 sterilized through "unofficial" channels like hospitals or local health departments working on their own initiative. Eugenics was aimed at creating a better society by filtering out people considered undesirable, ranging from criminals to those imprecisely designated as "feeble-minded." People as young as 10 in North Carolina were sterilized for not getting along with schoolmates, being promiscuous or running afoul of local social workers or doctors. "Where did all this come from? This came from doctors, medical practitioners, professors, not guys in pickup trucks wearing white sheets," said Edwin Black, author of the eugenics history War Against the Weak.
[When Diarmuid Martin], the archbishop of Dublin, ... was sent home to Dublin in 2003 after 27 years in the Vatican bureaucracy and diplomatic corps, [he] found the Irish church in crisis, reeling from a cover-up [sexual abuse of minors] that spanned the tenures of four past Dublin archbishops. In February, Martin held an unprecedented “Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” at a Dublin cathedral, where he asked forgiveness from God and victims of abuse and praised the courage of those who had come forward. In return for doing the right thing, he has been ostracized by fellow bishops in Ireland and snubbed by the Holy See. “Martin is standing alone against the tide right now, but he’s on the right side of history,” said Jason Berry, who has written two books on the church scandal. “I think he is probably the single best hope for the church within the hierarchy.” Yet Martin, famous protector of victims, is an outlier of the club, while Cardinal Bernard Law, notorious protector of pedophiles, has a cushy Vatican sanctuary. And Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was in league with the notorious abuser of seminarians and inseminator of women, Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, is the dean of the College of Cardinals in Rome.
Sexual secrets and drive do turn the tide of our public life. Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or porn impresario Larry Flynt, author of a new book, One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History. This public-private collision turns up as sexual speed traps in the waylaid careers of Schwarzenegger, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards and fully half of the presidents in our history, according to Flynt's book, which he co-wrote with Columbia history Professor David Eisenbach. Lying, blackmail and hypocrisy about secret carnality just add spice to the stew of a particularly American phenomenon described in Flynt's book. One common trait among the powerful and errant, Flynt [commented], "was a huge ego." The book presents us as an often prudish culture where mistresses, illegitimate children and homosexuality in Washington not only dominate the landscape but hijack it at key moments in our history. "I'm the first person to defend a philandering president" who's doing a good job for the public, Flynt says. He'd just like people to know a lot more about sex themselves and care a lot less about how other people practice it. In 2003, Flynt briefly ran for California governor as "the smut peddler who cares." If he had been elected, at least we would have known what we were getting.
Note: If you are ready to see just how ugly it gets when sexual slavery reaches to the highest levels of government, watch the revealing Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests. Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested [on] May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges. Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. "I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues," he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse. According to investigators, Seppia told a friend — a former seminarian and barman who is currently under investigation — that the town's malls were the best places to entice minors. In tapped phone conversations the two cursed and swore against God. The priest is charged with having attempted to kiss and touch an underage altar boy and of having exchanged cocaine for sexual intercourse with boys over 18.
Note: It's not just the church. To learn how child sex trafficking reaches to the highest levels of government, watch the revealing Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" at this link.
A German insurance firm has admitted rewarding its 100 best salesmen with a prostitute-filled "sex party" in Budapest's most famous thermal baths. Hamburg-Mannheimer International (HMI), now part of the huge Munich Re insurance conglomerate, rented out the historic Gellert Baths in the Hungarian capital and turned it into an "open-air brothel", where it let staff run riot. At least 20 prostitutes were hired by HMI top brass for the so-called "incentive trip". According to those present, the women were colour-coded to indicate which men were allowed to have sex with them. Those wearing white ribbons were reserved for "the very best salespeople and executives", said one HMI employee. After an investigation printed in the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Munich Re has admitted that the party ... – did occur. [A] guest said that beds had been set up around the baths where the salesmen could "do what they wanted". The women, he claimed, were then given an ink stamp on their forearms to show how popular they had been: some of the women ended up with more than a dozen stamps, it is alleged.
Note: For lots more on corporate corruption from reliable sources, click here.
A Roman Catholic bishop pleaded guilty in Ottawa on [May 4] to possession of child pornography for importation. Bishop Raymond Lahey, ... who once led the Diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, was charged after customs agents examined his laptop computer as he returned to Canada from an overseas trip in 2009. They found 588 graphic images of children, 33 videos and the texts of stories featuring the enslavement of children. Customs officials estimated that some boys in the photographs were only 8 years old. A month before his arrest, Bishop Lahey negotiated a $15 million settlement with people who had been sexually abused by priests in his diocese as far back as 1950. Bishop Lahey, who resigned his post in Antigonish, has been out on bail, but on Wednesday he asked to be jailed immediately. He faces one to 10 years in prison.
Note: The bishop who negotiated a settlement for children sexually abused by priests is caught with videos featuring the sexual enslavement of children. How high in the church do you think this might go? If you are willing to explore deeper into this matter through a Discovery Channel documentary that shows sexual enslavement of children going to the highest levels of government, click here.
Weeks after generating an uproar for the aggressive screening of a six-year-old child in New Orleans, the TSA is again facing criticism for an enhanced pat-down. Former Miss USA Susie Castillo says she was "molested" by a TSA screener at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after declining to go through a body scanner due to radiation concerns. According to a detailed account from the Dallas Morning News, Castillo wrote "My private area was grazed four times!" on a complaint card after the screening. Castillo immediately shot a tearful video recounting the episode more explicitly and posted it on YouTube. The Boston Herald quotes from the video: "That's why I'm crying, that's why I'm so upset. They're making me choose to either get molested, because that's what I feel like, or go through this machine that's completely unhealthy and dangerous." TSA spokesman Luis Casanova defended the screening procedure. "Everything [the screener] did was according to protocol," Casanova said.
Note: For key articles on increasing reductions of civil liberties by governments, click here.
FRONTLINE reveals a little-known chapter of the Catholic Church sex abuse story: decades of abuse of Native Americans by priests and other church workers in Alaska. In "The Silence," FRONTLINE producer Tom Curran and reporter Mark Trahant examine the legacy of abuse by a number of men who worked for the Catholic Church along Alaska's far west coast in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They would leave behind a trail of hundreds of claims of abuse, making this one of the hardest hit regions in the country. "I was just a kid," Ben Andrews tells FRONTLINE of the years of abuse he suffered at the hands of Father George Endal and Joseph Lundowski, a layman who was training to be a deacon. "Father Endal and Joseph Lundowski, they couldn't stop molesting me once they started. It was almost an everyday thing. Father Endal kept telling me that it would make me closer to God." "I'm still having nightmares of Joseph Lundowski molesting, having sex with me," says Peter "Packy" Kobuk. "I get up sweating, angry, feel like I could hurt somebody." "This was 1970," says Anchorage attorney Ken Roosa, who represented the Alaska victims in a class action lawsuit against the church. "There was nowhere for the kids to hide. There was no one they could talk to. The adults believed the abusers over their own children. It was a perfect storm for molestation."
Note: For a transcript of this revealing program, click here.
Last year nearly 50,000 male veterans screened positive for “military sexual trauma” at the Department of Veterans Affairs, up from just over 30,000 in 2003. For the victims, the experience is a special kind of hell -— a soldier can’t just quit his job to get away from his abusers. But now, as the Pentagon has begun to acknowledge the rampant problem of sexual violence for both genders, men are coming forward in unprecedented numbers, telling their stories and hoping that speaking up will help them, and others, put their lives back together. In fact, it is the high victimization rate of female soldiers -— women in the armed forces are now more likely to be assaulted by a fellow soldier than killed in combat -— that has helped cast light on men assaulting other men. Last year more than 110 men made confidential reports of sexual assault by other men, nearly three times as many as in 2007. The real number of victims is surely much higher. Like in prisons and other predominantly male environments, male-on-male assault in the military, experts say, is motivated not by homosexuality, but power, intimidation, and domination. Assault victims, both male and female, are typically young and low-ranking; they are targeted for their vulnerability. “One of the reasons people commit sexual assault is to put people in their place, to drive them out,” says Mic Hunter, author of Honor Betrayed: Sexual Abuse in America’s Military. “Sexual assault isn’t about sex, it’s about violence.”
Note: If you are ready to go down the rabbit hole on this one, learn about Kay Griggs, the wife of a USMC colonel and her descriptions of rampant sexual abuse among high ranking military officials at this link.
In one of the largest settlements in the Roman Catholic church's sweeping sex abuse scandal, an order of priests agreed [to] pay $166.1 million to hundreds of Native Americans and Alaska Natives who were abused at the order's schools in the northwestern U.S. The settlement between more than 450 victims and the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus also calls for a written apology to the victims and disclosure of documents to them, including their personal medical records. "It's a day of reckoning and justice," said Clarita Vargas, 51, who said she and her two sisters were abused by the head of St. Mary's Mission and School, a former Jesuit-run Indian boarding school on the Colville Indian Reservation near Omak, Washington state, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The abuse began when they were as young as 6 or 7, she said. The province ran village and reservation schools in Oregon, Washington state, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. The claims are from victims who were students at schools in all five states. Nearly all the victims are American Indian or Alaska Native. The province previously settled another 200 claims. Then the organization filed for bankruptcy in 2009, claiming the payments had depleted its treasury. But victims argued the province remained wealthy because it controls and owns Gonzaga University, Gonzaga Preparatory School, Seattle University and other schools and properties. Many of the abuses happened in remote villages and on reservations. The order was accused of using those areas as dumping grounds for problem priests.
Note: For more on sexual abuse scandals, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
International police led by a UK team say they shut down the largest internet paedophile ring yet discovered. The global forum had 70,000 followers at its height, leading to 4,000 intelligence reports being sent to police across 30 countries. The operation has so far identified 670 suspects and 230 abused children. Detectives say 184 people have been arrested - 121 of them were in the UK. Some 60 children have been protected in the UK. The three-year investigation, Operation Rescue, was led by investigators from the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop). The members of the network went into a private channel, boylover.net, and then used its secret systems to share films and images of abused children, said Rob Wainwright, director of European police agency Europol. In the UK, the 240 suspects include police officers, teachers and a karate teacher. One of the suspects in the UK is a woman. The internet has proved to be fertile territory for people with a sexual interest in children. Taking advantage of the anonymity modern computer technology provides, paedophiles download and exchange vile images of abuse unaware of the reality of the suffering.
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than believed, and even goes to the highest level of government, click here.
How could more than 130,000 children be shipped from Britain to Australia and other Commonwealth countries, often without their parents' knowledge, and the world not know about it? [This is] the chilling poser at the heart of Jim Loach's debut film, Oranges and Sunshine, which centres on a policy that saw children from poor and struggling families sent halfway across the world to a promised new life. Instead, many endured virtual slave labour and, in some extreme cases, serial abuse. In the film, we follow Margaret [as] she gradually uncovers the devastating effects that the deportation has had on its victims. In Australia, Margaret's efforts amass evidence that defenceless children, in the care of the Roman Catholic Christian Brotherhood, have been physically and sexually abused by members of the order. However, Margaret is seen as a troublemaker, an outsider stirring up long-forgotten memories. Back in the UK, charities and government officials are refusing to accept responsibility for sending the children abroad. She receives death threats. Margaret eventually finds personal solace as her efforts finally come to fruition. Families are brought back together after decades apart, and the now grown-up children are able to establish their true identities. Finally, in 2009-10, after many years of official denial and vacillation, there are full public apologies from the Australian and British governments. Loach's film intelligently explores a grave injustice. The title, Oranges and Sunshine, refers to the inviting picture of a new life sold to the children in advance of their long journey to the other side of the world. It is a shattering, yet inspiring story.
Note: For more on this huge scandal of child abduction and abuse, click here. For another scandal of major child abuse based in Australia that has yet to be fully exposed, click here. For more on child sexual abuse, see the deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources available here.
Three weeks after a scathing grand jury report said the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had provided safe haven to as many as 37 priests who were credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors, most of those priests remain active in the ministry. The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — “on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,” as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church. The situation in Philadelphia is “Boston reborn.” The Boston Archdiocese was engulfed in a scandal starting in 2002 involving widespread sexual abuse by priests and an extensive cover-up that reached as high as the cardinal. The church has not explained directly why these priests ... are still active. Cardinal Justin Rigali initially said there were no active priests with substantiated allegations against them, but six days later, he placed three of the priests ... on administrative leave. Philadelphia is unusual in that the archdiocese has been the subject of not one but two grand jury reports. The first, in 2005, found credible accusations of abuse by 63 priests, whose activities had been covered up by the church. But there were no indictments, mainly because the statute of limitations had expired. “The thing that is significant about Philadelphia is the assumption that the authorities had made changes and the system had been fixed,” said Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, which archives documents from the abuse scandal in dioceses across the country. “But the headline is that in Philadelphia, the system is still broke.”
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than believed, and goes beyond the Catholic Church, click here.
More than a dozen U.S. veterans who say they were raped or assaulted by comrades filed a class-action suit in federal court [on February 15] attempting to force the Pentagon to change how it handles such cases. The current and former service members - 15 women and two men - describe circumstances in which servicemen allegedly got away with rape and other sexual abuse while their victims were ordered to continue to serve with them. The alleged attackers in the lawsuit include an Army criminal investigator and an Army National Guard commander. The abuse alleged ranges from obscene verbal abuse to gang rape. "The problem of rape in the military is not only service members getting raped, but it's the entire way that the military as a whole is dealing with it," said Panayiota Bertzikis, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and claims she was raped in 2006. "From survivors having to be involuntarily discharged from service, the constant verbal abuse, once a survivor does come forward your entire unit is known to turn their back on you. The entire culture needs to be changed."
Undercover police officers routinely adopted a tactic of "promiscuity" with the blessing of senior commanders, according to a former agent who worked in a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police for four years. The former undercover policeman claims that sexual relationships with activists were sanctioned for both men and women officers infiltrating anarchist, leftwing and environmental groups. Sex was a tool to help officers blend in, the officer claimed, and was widely used as a technique to glean intelligence. He said undercover officers, particularly those infiltrating environmental and leftwing groups, viewed having sex with a large number of partners "as part of the job". His comments contradict claims last week from the Association of Chief Police Officers that operatives were absolutely forbidden to sleep with activists. The claims follow the unmasking of undercover PC Mark Kennedy, who had sexual relationships with several women during the seven years he spent infiltrating a ring of environmental activists. Another two covert officers have been named in the past fortnight who also had sex with the protesters they were sent to spy on, fuelling allegations that senior officers had authorised sleeping around as a legitimate means of gathering intelligence.
Note: For a comprehensive overview of the still-ongoing revelations about police provocateur Mark Kennedy and his cohorts in the UK police infiltration of environmental and related activist groups, click here.
A newly revealed 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police — a disclosure that victims groups described as "the smoking gun" needed to show that the Vatican enforced a worldwide culture of cover-up. The letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican's rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests following Ireland's first wave of publicly disclosed lawsuits. Child-abuse activists in Ireland said the 1997 letter should demonstrate, once and for all, that the protection of pedophile priests from criminal investigation was not only sanctioned by Vatican leaders but ordered by them. "The letter is of huge international significance, because it shows that the Vatican's intention is to prevent reporting of abuse to criminal authorities. And if that instruction applied here, it applied everywhere," said Colm O'Gorman, director of the Irish chapter of human rights watchdog Amnesty International. The Vatican does advise bishops worldwide to report crimes to police — in a legally nonbinding lay guide on its Web site. This recourse is omitted from the official legal advice provided by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and updated last summer. That powerful policymaking body continues to stress the secrecy of canon law.
Note: For many key reports from major media sources on institutional secrecy, click here.
The Pentagon porn story began in 2006. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] child pornography sting operation called Project Flicker produced payment records of about 5,200 people, many of whom provided Army or fleet zip codes or military e-mail addresses. Subsequently, the Pentagon's investigative branch, DCIS, began going through the ICE list to identify who actually was a DOD employee. The investigation, however, only ran for eight months, and only cross-checked some 3,500 names for Pentagon ties. According to DCIS documents revealed in a Freedom of Information Act request, out of that 3,500, investigators uncovered 264 employees or contractors, including staffers for the secretary of defense. Nine people had top security clearances. But only about 20 percent of those 264 people were completely investigated. Fewer still were prosecuted. After about eight months, the entire probe was halted. It left about 1,700 names totally unchecked, 1,700 alleged kiddie porn customers, an unknown number of whom may still work in some capacity for the Defense Department. Late last summer, after investigations by "The Boston Globe" and Yahoo! News revealed the figures, a Pentagon spokesman promised to reopen the investigation, conceding that DCIS had stopped due to lack of resources. DCIS says it is now revisiting all 5,200 names. They have now identified 302 employees or staffers. [Yet] of the 302 people confirmed as DOD personnel or contractors, only 70 of them were actually investigated.
Note: To see the CNN video clip of this important news, click here. Isn't it interesting that the Pentagon, with it's huge budget, claims the investigation was stopped due to "lack of resources." If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.
[Hugh Hefner's] image as a fast-living Lothario has done much to make a success of the Playboy brand, and news of his impending nuptials to a woman young enough to be his great-granddaughter will further promote the idea of him as a lovable old rascal who has plenty of life in him yet. This is certainly the image Hefner likes to project to the celebrities drawn to his lavishly debauched parties at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. The attractions there include a games house, with two guestrooms equipped with only a bed, a ceiling mirror and a phone. But unfortunately for Hefner, some of his former ‘girlfriends’, as he calls them, have become disenchanted with life in his harem over the years. One by one they have revealed what life was like behind the glittering façade of the Playboy Mansion. According to them, it disguises a grubby world where some girls feel they are no better than prostitutes, paid pocket money by an octogenarian obsessive who funds plastic surgery to turn them into his physical ideal. Hefner likes to have anywhere between three and 15 girlfriends at any one time. One of the group will be chosen to be Girlfriend No 1. She will share Hefner’s bedroom at all times, while the others are merely visitors.
Note: We don't consider the U.K.'s Daily Mail to be a particularly reliable source, but this article is quite revealing.
Sexual assault pervades the military, but the Pentagon refuses to release records that fully document the problem and how it is handled, the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups said in a federal lawsuit that seeks access to the records. Tens of thousands of service members have reported some form of sexual assault, harassment or trauma in the past decade, according to the lawsuit filed [on December 13] in New Haven against the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. "The government's refusal to even take the first step of providing comprehensive and accurate information about the sexual trauma inflicted upon our women and men in uniform ... is all too telling," said Anuradha Bhagwati, a former Marine captain. The government prosecutes 8 percent of military sex offenders, while 40 percent of civilian sex offenders are prosecuted. The lawsuit contends sexual assaults are nearly twice as common within military ranks as in civilian society, and surveys show that nearly one in three women report being sexually assaulted during their time in the military. About 80 percent of unwanted or threatening sexual acts are not reported, according to the lawsuit. Victims who report abuse to their superiors often face social isolation, retribution and counteraccusations, the lawsuit says.
Note: Sexual abuse in the military is much more pervasive than most people would think. For some shocking revelations by the wife of a US Marine Corps colonel's wife, Kay Griggs, click here and here.
Newly released U.S. diplomatic cables indicate that the Vatican felt "offended" that Ireland failed to respect Holy See "sovereignty" by asking high-ranking churchmen to answer questions from an Irish commission probing decades of sex abuse of minors by clergy. That the Holy See used its diplomatic-immunity status as a tiny city-state to try to thwart the Irish fact-finding probe has long been known. But the WikiLeaks cables, published by Britain's The Guardian newspaper ... contain delicate, behind-the-scenes diplomatic assessments of the highly charged situation. One leaked document ... authored in February 2010 by Rome-based diplomat Julieta Valls Noyes, cited her conversations with Irish Ambassador Noel Fahey and his deputy, Helena Keleher. Ireland wanted to be seen as fully supportive of the independent probe into child-abuse cover-ups ... but its Rome officials also didn't want to intervene in the probe's efforts to get information from the Vatican. Noyes, citing a conversation with a Holy See official, wrote that the investigators' letters "offended many in the Vatican" because they were viewed as "an affront to Vatican sovereignty." "In the end the Irish government decided not to press the Vatican to reply."
Note: For key reports from media sources on the secrecy of the Vatican and other institutions, click here.
A scandal involving foreign contractors ... who took drugs and paid for young "dancing boys" to entertain them in northern Afghanistan caused such panic that the interior minister begged the US embassy to try and "quash" the story, according to one of the US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. In a meeting with the assistant US ambassador, a panicked Hanif Atmar, the interior minister at the time of the episode last June, warned that the story would "endanger lives" and was particularly concerned that a video of the incident might be made public. The episode helped to fuel Afghan demands that contractors and private security companies be brought under much tighter government control. However, the US embassy was legally incapable of honouring a request by Atmar that the US military should assume authority over training centres managed by DynCorp, the US company whose employees were involved in the incident in the northern province of Kunduz. There is a long tradition of young boys dressing up as girls and dancing for men in Afghanistan, an activity that sometimes crosses the line into child abuse with Afghans keeping boys as possessions. Although rarely discussed or criticised in Afghanistan, it is conceivable that the involvement of foreigners could have turned into a major public scandal.
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than expected, click here. To understand how this relates to secret societies and deep hidden knowledge of our world, click here.
Kids help resolve such issues as bullying, violence and suicide threats, the director of Safe2Tell told Chatfield High School students. "You're the solution to your own problem," said Susan Payne, urging students to be proactive about reporting trouble when they see it. The state program allows young people to anonymously report potentially dangerous and life-threatening situations. Since Safe2Tell launched in the 2004-05 school year, there have been 2,782 reports from 158 cities in 58 counties. The reports resulted in 393 investigations, 282 school-disciplinary actions and 67 arrests. The program's website also credits Safe2Tell with 200 suicide preventions. "I think a lot of kids would feel intimidated to say something normally," said [senior] Ellie Roberts. Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said Safe2Tell, a nonprofit organization that partners with his office as well as law enforcement and various advocacy groups, gives young people a way to combat the problems they face before those problems escalate to such serious levels. "Safe2Tell has been a tremendous asset to schools and local law enforcement," Suthers said. "The success of this program should underline for educators and the public that bullying, harassment and all the other problems facing youth today can be prevented when we give kids the resources to ask for help." Young people can report problems on issues of bullying, drugs, violence and other dangerous activity by phone; at the Safe2Tell website, safe2tell.org; or by text message.
Note: Programs like this around the world are giving children a safe way to expose child abuse, bullying, and much more. Because of this, children growing up now will almost certainly be much more psychologically and emotionally healthy overall than preceding generations. For more on this inspiring trend, click here.
If the now-viral video of Fort Worth City Council member Joel Burns' extraordinary address during an otherwise routine meeting ... does not move you to tears, you surely have a tough, leathery little peanut for a heart. Burns, who is gay, spoke directly to young victims of anti-gay bullying. He shared his own teenage experience of ugly, mindless victimization, and he made the promise to kids enduring similar torment: "It gets better." That's "It Gets Better" - with caps - since it's the name for an informal online video project of adults sharing their coming-out stories to teens who are struggling with their sexual orientation and especially vulnerable to harassment. Burns' statement ... could save somebody's life. It might already have [done so]. Burns first showed photos and told stories of a half-dozen teens whose recent suicides have been linked to ridicule they received for being - or being thought to be - gay. As cruel as these stories are, they are the most poignant evidence there is against the absurd notion that sexual orientation is a "lifestyle choice" instead of a biological reality. Burns deliberately sought the attention of scared, isolated kids who fear their misery is permanent. "I know that life can seem unbearable … but I want you to know that it gets better," he said. "You will get out of the household that doesn't accept you. You will get out of that high school, and you don't ever have to deal with those jerks again, if you don't want to."
Note: For the beautiful, touching 12-minute video where this courageous city council member talks about stopping school bullying which is killing innocent children, click here. And watch a touching seven-minute video about a very tough decision made by a caring couple about the gender of their child. For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
Ms. Matei started out life thinking she would be a graphic designer. She married, had a child and then divorced. In 1990, as Romania was emerging from Communism, she [fled] the country, walking alone ... into the former Yugoslavia. She eventually arranged for her son to join her and was resettled in Australia. There, she earned a degree in psychology and worked with street children. But in 1998, after bringing her son to Romania on a holiday, she decided to move back and began working with street children here. Soon, the police called asking a favor. Would she take three young prostitutes they had just rounded up to a doctor? Afterward, she was just supposed to release them. I was annoyed until I got there and saw these girls, Ms. Matei said. The mascara was running all over their faces. They had been crying so hard. And they were minors ... but no one cared. One of the girls was pregnant. All three would be in the hospital for two weeks. But afterward, Ms. Matei said, child welfare services would have nothing to do with them. Eventually, I got an apartment for them, and more girls kept coming, she said. Thats how it started. Over the years, she has cobbled together all sorts of financing, pleading with various embassies. Right now, the shelter [she founded] is supported by an American ministry dedicated to combating human trafficking, Make Way Partners in Birmingham, Ala. More than 400 girls have stayed in the shelter, and most of them are still in touch, she said.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department -- including some with the highest available security clearance -- who used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon investigated only a handful of the cases, Defense Department records show. The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments. As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to websites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military email addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet ZIP codes when they purchased the subscriptions. In a related inquiry, the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) cross-checked the ICE list against military databases to come up with a list of Defense employees and contractors who appeared to be guilty of purchasing child pornography. The names included staffers for the secretary of defense, contractors for the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, and a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But the DCIS opened investigations into only 20 percent of the individuals identified, and succeeded in prosecuting just a handful.
Orange County sheriff deputies say a 170-page manual is circulating around Central Florida. It shows people, step-by-step, how to molest children. It also includes where to find potential victims. I've never seen anything like it. It was pretty amazing when I first saw it just because how detailed it was, said Detective Philip Graves with the Orange County Sheriffs Office. Deputies with the sheriffs sexual offender surveillance squad have been aware of the manual for the past six months. The sheriff's office received it through an email listserve. Graves told WFTV that sending the manual by email or possessing it is not a crime in Orange County. However, federal investigators are trying to track down where the manual initially came from. "I was more amazed that someone would be as bold as to create an actual 170-page document that would detail how to do it," he said. The author uses an alias in the manual. He calls himself "the mule." Deputies believe whoever is responsible may have committed crimes against children.
Note: If you want to understand the harsh realities that likely lie behind this disturbing manual, watch the powerful documentary Conspiracy of Silence at this link.
Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports. The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department. The fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies “at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations,’’ according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009. At least two of the cases were contractors with top secret clearances at the National Security Agency, which eavesdrops on foreign communications. A separate case involves a contractor working at the National Reconnaissance Office, the agency that builds and operates the nation’s spy satellites. A large amount of pornography was found on the office computer of a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA is responsible for developing some of the military’s most secret weapons and technologies.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra on Friday sentenced butler Alfredo Rodriguez to 18 months in prison for trying to sell an incriminating piece of evidence against his boss. Mr. Rodriguez was the butler for Jeffrey Epstein, the New York/Palm Beach billionaire who pleaded guilty in 2007 to two sex-related charges after more than a dozen women - many underage - claimed Mr. Epstein sexually abused them. Mr. Rodriguez tried to sell a journal that documented his boss’s sexual exploits and refused to turn it over to investigators when they first asked for it. His aim was to sell it for $50,000 to lawyers representing the women who had filed civil lawsuits against Mr. Epstein. Here is the puzzling part: Mr. Rodriguez may end up spending more time in prison than Mr. Epstein. Judge Marra gave Mr. Rodriguez an 18-month sentence - the same sentence given to Mr. Epstein. Mr. Epstein served only 13 months in prison and was released. Even under house arrest, he is free to leave is Palm Beach, Fla., mansion. The judge conceded that the equal sentences didn’t make much sense. the identical sentences seem like a strange administration of justice given the different crimes. Lesson learned: even if the butler didn’t do it, he still can go to prison for the cover-up.
Note: Epstein's butler feared for his life and ended up dead before he could reveal his secrets. Read a collection of major media reports on billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's child sex ring which directly implicate Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and other world leaders. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on [July 15] making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia. The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the changes showed the church’s commitment to tackling child sexual abuse with “rigor and transparency.” Those measures fell short of the hopes of many advocates for victims of priestly abuse, who dismissed them as “tweaking” rather than a bold overhaul. The new rules do not, for example, hold bishops accountable for abuse by priests on their watch, nor do they require them to report sexual abuse to civil authorities. But what astonished many Catholics was the inclusion of the attempt to ordain women in a list of the “more grave delicts,” or offenses, which included pedophilia, as well as heresy, apostasy and schism. The issue, some critics said, was less the ordination of women, which is not discussed seriously inside the church hierarchy, but the Vatican’s suggestion that pedophilia is a comparable crime in a document billed a response to the sexual abuse crisis.
Note: For lots more from reliable sources on the secrecy of powerful institutions, click here.
The Vatican on [June 28] issued an unprecedented rebuke of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups. The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children. Schoenborn has also called for an open discussion of priestly celibacy, views that the Vatican said he "clarified" on Monday during an audience with the pope. Schoenborn had accused the former Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, in April of blocking a church investigation into the late Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who was accused by victims in 1995 of abusing boys at a seminary. "With his words, Benedict professes concern for victims. But by his actions, Benedict shows concern for his colleagues," said David Clohessy, executive director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Note: For more on sex crimes and the Vatican, click here.
It emerged in April that Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a Colombian who for 10 years was in charge of the Vatican department that supervises the clergy, wrote in 2001 with gushing approval to the Bishop of Bayeux, who went to jail rather than give French authorities information about a priest who had raped a minor. "I congratulate you for not turning in a priest to the civil administration," he wrote. "I am delighted to have a colleague ... who ... has preferred prison to turning in his son-priest." The Vatican confirmed the authenticity of the letter, which had been posted on a French website. But then Castrillon Hoyos himself added a crucial detail. In a radio interview he said the letter was the outcome of a high-level meeting of cardinals at which [Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict] had been present. If the Pope wants to purge paedophilia from the church he must confront the compromised figures within the Curia and dismiss them. Pope Benedict XVI would like the Catholic Church to be very different from the one that ballooned out of all proportion under John Paul, purer, more beautiful, more austere. But far from moulding the church in his own image, he now risks having his own heritage fatally compromised.
Note: For more on sex crimes and the Vatican, click here.
A prominent Catholic priest, praised by Pope John Paul II as "an efficacious guide to youth," Father Marcial Maciel, sexually abused not only young seminarians under his control but also abused his own children, according to a lawsuit filed today in Connecticut by a man who claims to be Maciel's son. The priest's son, Raul Gonzalez, 30, says he thought his father worked for the CIA or an international oil company, until he saw the priest's picture in a 1997 magazine article detailing allegations of sexual abuse. Under Father Maciel, the Legion of Christ became one of the Roman Catholic Church's most prominent, conservative and financially successful orders. Among its many supporters is Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. [The] Vatican ignored reports of sexual abuse by Maciel since the 1950s, until he was forced out of the Legion by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006. Citing his age, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declined to put Maciel on trial but he was ordered to a "life of prayer and penitence." [A] lawsuit filed by Maciel's alleged son claims the Vatican and the presiding Pope from the 1950's until 2002 "engaged in a conspiracy to conceal their knowledge of Maciel's serial delicts, including the repeated sexual abuse of children." The lawsuit claims Maciel "gained influence and protection from the Vatican through giving substantial monies to Vatican officials" and providing other benefits and gifts.
Note: For more on sex crimes and the Vatican, click here.
Pope Benedict XVI on [May 11] issued his most forceful remarks on the sexual abuse crisis sweeping the Catholic Church. He called it �truly terrifying� and, in a marked shift in tone, suggested that its origins lay with abusive priests and with highly placed church officials who for decades concealed or minimized the problem. The problem, he said, was �the sin inside the church,� and by implication not accusations from victims or the media. �Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice,� he said, in remarks that underscored the Vatican�s recent if fitful efforts to break with a longstanding practice of handling abuse cases inside the church, rather than reporting abuse to civil authorities for prosecution. Victims groups said they were still waiting for concrete action more than words, and the Vatican has not yet announced whether it will change its norms for handling abuse. Benedict ... has been criticized for not acting aggressively enough against allegations of abuse as archbishop of Munich and later as the head of a powerful Vatican office.
There are around 450 criminal gangs around the world making money from images of child sex abuse, the UK's Internet Watch Foundation has said. The watchdog's annual report says that the 10 most prolific of these account for more than 650 web pages. But despite these gangs being well-established online, the IWF says the the industry is not growing. To help obscure their movements, they move their distribution networks regularly between different providers and countries. Most of the gangs operate a pay-per-view system, charging a monthly fee of around �55 for access to images and videos. Critics have accused the IWF of being ineffective, partly because it is separate from the police and partly because much of the illegal material online does not originate from the UK. IWF spokeswoman Sarah Robertson admits that it is not a policing body but denies that means it cannot act. "The amount of child abuse content hosted in the UK has fallen from 18% to 1% in the last seven years," she said. It is important to remember the serious nature of the content the IWF polices, she said, and that behind every image is a child being abused. Some 44% of the content highlighted to the IWF last year depicted the rape of a child and 23% of it featured children below the age of six.
Note: For powerful evidence that this kind of abuse is much more widespread than believed, and even goes to the highest level of government, click here.
For years, the Catholic Church has quietly sent priests accused of sexual transgressions to psychiatric centers for treatment. Dr. Leslie Lothstein has treated more than 300 Catholic priests at one of those centers, the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn. Lothstein, who is not Catholic himself, says many of his patients have sexual problems. And he says the church does not always follow psychologists' directives about patients who are treated. "My experience was that if it was said to one of the clergy who was in charge ... that this person needs to have much more supervision, they would say, 'Oh yes, yes, it'll be there, they'll have supervision.' But then what happened was they went back to their normal, everyday work. And in going back to it, we learned much later that they didn't have the supervision." Lothstein says there's a "universal feeling" that if a priest has had sexual activity with a child, he should not be around children. But, he says, it didn't always work out that way. "In my experience, there were some people who were sent right back to working in youth ministries, and they often offended," he says. "There was also a subgroup of people that I saw in my private practice where they were sent back by their religious order to a foreign country, and within that country continued to molest children. And it was just horrible."
There he was, five decades later, the priest who had raped Joe Callander in Massachusetts. The photo in the Roman Catholic newsletter showed him with a smile across his wrinkled face, near-naked Amazon Indian children in his arms and at his feet. The Rev. Mario Pezzotti was working with children and supervising other priests in Brazil. It's not an isolated example. In an investigation spanning 21 countries across six continents, The Associated Press found 30 cases of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad. Some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in another country, and some abused again. A priest who admitted to abuse in Los Angeles went to the Philippines, where U.S. church officials mailed him checks and advised him not to reveal their source. A priest in Canada was convicted of sexual abuse and then moved to France, where he was convicted of abuse again in 2005. Another priest was moved back and forth between Ireland and England, despite being diagnosed as a pederast, a man who commits sodomy with boys. "The pattern is if a priest gets into trouble and it's close to becoming a scandal or if the law might get involved, they send them to the missions abroad," said Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and critic of what he says is a practice of international transfers of accused and admitted priest child abusers. "Anything to avoid a scandal."
Note: This is only the tip of the iceberg. If you want to understand how pedophile rings have infiltrated the highest levels of government, don't miss the powerful Discovery Channel documentary on this available here.
While the Roman Catholic sexual abuse scandal unfolds in Europe, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is under renewed scrutiny. In the wake of its own scandal almost a decade ago, the U.S. church says it has reformed its policies for handling sexual abuse allegations and will remove from ministry every priest who is credibly accused of abuse. But some of those priests are now being quietly reinstated. Juan Rocha was 12 years old when he says he was molested by his parish priest, the Rev. Eric Swearingen. He eventually brought his complaints to the bishop of Fresno, Calif., John Steinbock. When Steinbock said he didn't find the allegations credible, Rocha sued the priest and the diocese in civil court. In 2006, the jury found 9 to 3 that Swearingen had abused Rocha. But it could not decide whether the diocese knew about it. Rather than go through a new trial, the two sides settled. Bishop Steinbock continues Swearingen in ministry to this day, choosing to believe the priest is innocent, choosing to protect the priest, and choosing to disregard entirely the judicial finding by a jury that found he had committed the crime of sexual abuse against Juan," says Rocha's attorney, Jeffrey Anderson. Today, Swearingen serves as priest at Holy Spirit parish in Fresno, where he also oversees the youth ministry.
As recently as 2007, 98 percent of Irish schools were run by the Catholic Church. Schools for troubled youth have been rife with barbaric corporal punishments, psychological abuse and sexual abuse. In October 2005, a report sponsored by the Irish government identified more than 100 allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Ferns, a small town 70 miles south of Dublin, between 1962 and 2002. Accused priests weren't investigated by police; they were deemed to be suffering a "moral" problem. In 2009, a similar report implicated Dublin archbishops in hiding sexual abuse scandals between 1975 and 2004. Pope Benedict's so-called apology takes no responsibility for the transgressions of Irish priests. His letter states that "the Church in Ireland must first acknowledge before the Lord and before others the serious sins committed against defenceless children." What about the Vatican's complicity in those sins? Benedict's infamous 2001 letter to bishops around the world ordered them to keep sexual abuse allegations secret under threat of excommunication -- updating a noxious church policy, expressed in a 1962 document, that both priests accused of sex crimes and their victims "observe the strictest secret" and be "restrained by a perpetual silence."
He hobnobbed with Mexico's rich and famous, cut lucrative real estate deals and was rumored to travel on occasion with a briefcase full of cash. He fathered at least one child, molested seminarians and boys and is said to have boasted that he had the pope's permission to get massages from young nuns. And all the while the conservative priest was building one of the most influential organizations in the Roman Catholic Church. Two years after the death of the Rev. Marcial Maciel, a Mexico native, scandals continue to unfold. Buffeted by the string of revelations, Maciel's powerful Legion of Christ is fighting for its survival in Rome, the headquarters of the church. But here in Mexico, where the Legion has long-standing ties with the ruling class and an expansive network of elite schools, the organization remains strong. Rather than the desertions that some branches of the Legion have experienced in the United States and elsewhere, student enrollment in Legionary schools in Mexico grew by 6% to 8% last year, spokesman Javier Bravo said. The order's assets are estimated by some to be worth $20 billion.
Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal. The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer. The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger.
Note: If you want to know just how deep this goes, watch the powerfully revealing documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available at this link.
Pope Benedict XVI addresses Ireland on [March 20] in a letter apologizing for the sex abuse scandal [there] - a message being watched closely by Catholics from Boston to Berlin to see if it also acknowledges decades of Vatican-approved cover-ups. The scandals first emerged in Canada and Australia in the 1980s, followed by Ireland in the 1990s, the United States this decade and, in recent months, Benedict's German homeland. Victims' rights activists say that to begin mending the church's battered image, Benedict's message ... must break his silence on the role of the Catholic hierarchy in shielding pedophile clergy from prosecution. That includes abuses committed decades ago under the pope's watch, when he was Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich, as well as the pontiff's role in hushing up the scandals. As leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger was responsible for a 2001 Vatican edict that instructed bishops to report all cases of child abuse to Vatican authorities under strict secrecy; it made no mention of reporting crimes to police. "Is it not time for Pope Benedict XVI himself to acknowledge his share of responsibility?" said the Rev. Hans Kung, a Swiss priest and dissident Catholic theologian. "Honesty demands that Joseph Ratzinger himself, the man who for decades has been principally responsible for the worldwide cover-up, at last pronounce his own mea culpa," Kung said.
The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by Scout leaders over the years. The "perversion files," a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could change in the coming weeks in a Portland, Ore., courtroom. The attorney for a man who was allegedly molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began [on March 17]. The lawyer says the files show the organization has covered up abuse for decades. The trial is significant because the files could offer a rare window into how the organization has responded to sex abuse by Scout leaders. The only other time the documents are thought to have been presented at a trial was in the 1980s in Virginia. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the organization over sex abuse allegations, but judges for the most part have either denied requests for the files or the lawsuits have been settled before they went to trial.
Note: Why isn't the leadership of the Boy Scouts being proactive in releasing these files. Do you think they might have something to hide?
The Vatican ... denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland. The Vatican's campaign to defend the pope's reputation and resolve in combating clergy abuse of minors followed acknowledgment by the Munich archdiocese that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there. Benedict is also under fire for a 2001 church directive he wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential. Germany's justice minister has blamed the directive for what she called a "wall of silence" preventing prosecution. Skeptical about the Vatican's handling of abuse, a U.S.-based advocacy group for abuse victims, Survivors Network of those Abused for Priests, urged faithful to bring candles and childhood photos to vigils outside churches, cathedrals and German consulates across the U.S. this weekend to remind people to "call police, not bishops" in cases of suspected abuse. Meanwhile, the scandal swirling around Benedict's brother, Georg Ratzinger, escalated with the first public allegations of abuse of choirboys during some of the 30 years he ran the boys' choir in Regensburg.
Note: If you want to know just how deep this goes, watch the powerfully revealing documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available at this link.
The Pope was drawn directly into the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal last night as news emerged of his part in a decision to send a paedophile priest for therapy. The cleric went on to reoffend and was convicted of child abuse but continues to work as a priest in Upper Bavaria. The priest was sent from Essen to Munich for therapy in 1980 when he was accused of forcing an 11-year-old boy to perform oral sex. The archdiocese confirmed that the Pope, who was then a cardinal, had approved a decision to accommodate the priest in a rectory while the therapy took place. The church has been accused of a cover-up after at least 170 allegations of child abuse by German Catholic priests. Critics say that priests were redeployed to other parishes rather than dismissed when they were found to be abusing children. An American group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said it “boggles the mind to hear a German Catholic official claim that a credibly accused paedophile priest was reassigned to parish work without the knowledge of his boss, then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger”. The Pope was Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982.
From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons. Ireland was the first in Europe to confront the church's worldwide custom of shielding pedophile priests. Floodgates opened for Irish complaints that have topped 15,000 in this country of 4 million. Three government-ordered investigations have shocked and disgusted the nation. Now that legacy of suppressed childhood horror is being confronted in other parts of the continent — nowhere more poignantly than in Germany, the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI. The recent spread of claims into the Netherlands, Austria and Italy has analysts and churchmen wondering how deep the scandal runs ... and whether a tide of lawsuits will force European dioceses to declare bankruptcy [like] their American cousins. "You have to presume that the cover-up of abuse exists everywhere, to one extent or another. A new case could appear in a new country tomorrow," said David Quinn, director of a Christian think tank.Stories of systemic physical, sexual and emotional abuse circulated privately in Irish society for decades, but only moved aboveground in the mid-1990s when former altar boy Andrew Madden and orphanage survivor Christine Buckley went public with lawsuits and exposes of how priests and nuns tormented them with impunity.
The Devil is lurking in the very heart of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican's chief exorcist claimed on Wednesday. Father Gabriele Amorth said people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron. He added that the assault on Pope Benedict XVI on Christmas Eve by a mentally unstable woman and the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries, were proof that the Anti-Christ was waging a war against the Holy See. "The Devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences," said Father Amorth, 85, who has been the Holy See's chief exorcist for 25 years. While there was "resistance and mistrust" towards the concept of exorcism among some Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI has no such doubts, Father Amorth said. "His Holiness believes wholeheartedly in the practice of exorcism. He has encouraged and praised our work," he added. In a rare insight into the world of exorcism, the Italian priest told La Repubblica newspaper that the 1973 film The Exorcist gave a "substantially exact" impression of what it was like to be possessed by the Devil.
The Vatican is facing allegations that one of Pope Benedict's ceremonial ushers, as well as a member of the Vatican choir, were involved in a gay prostitution ring. "The latest shadow on the church's image," reports CBS News Correspondent Richard Roth, "comes from leaked police reports (on) wiretaps in a separate corruption case." The recordings ... reveal Angelo Balducci, an Italian executive who's been a Gentleman of his Holiness -- the elite group of black-suited men who serve the pope in unpaid roles as ushers -- negotiating with the 29-year-olf Nigerian Vatican choir member for the services of male prostitutes, as part of the larger prostitution ring. Balducci is under arrest. "We're just scratching the surface here," says CBS News consultant Father Thomas Williams. "There's definitely more to come. We only know of these two men connected with the Vatican in some way, but obviously, they're talking about a ring, and a ring means definitely more people involved. So, I'm sure more will be coming out in the days to come."
Note: If you want to know just how deep this goes, watch the powerfully revealing documentary Conspiracy of Silence available at this link.
A disgraced federal judge was sentenced Monday to nearly three years in prison for lying to investigators about sexually abusing two female employees, who said they feared him so much they hid from him in the courthouse. U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent ... could have received up to 20 years in prison, but prosecutors said they wouldn't seek more than three years under a plea agreement. He also was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay $6,550 in restitution to the secretary and case manager whose complaints resulted in the first sex abuse case ever against a sitting federal judge. "Your wrongful conduct is a huge black X, a smear on the legal profession, a stain on the judicial system itself, a matter of concern in the federal courts," said U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, a visiting senior judge called in from Pensacola, Fla. Vinson ordered Kent, 59, to surrender June 15 for transfer to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and to serve three years' probation once his 33-month sentence is completed. He also was ordered to participate in an alcohol-abuse program while in prison. The chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and its ranking Republican demanded that Kent resign immediately from the bench Monday. His lawyer has said he retired rather than resigned, which would allow him to continue drawing a federal judge's salary.
Note: This case represents a major shift in that it is the first sex case ever against a sitting federal judge. In fact, if you watch the astonishing documentary Conspiracy of Silence, you will see that many top officials are involved in sexual abuse and have fiercely kept that a secret. Let's hope more of this comes out as we spread the word.
As a novice CIA case officer in the Middle East, Andrew Warren quickly learned the value of sex in recruiting spies. Colleagues say that he made an early habit of taking informants to strip clubs, and that he later began arranging out-of-town visits to brothels for his best recruits. Often Warren would travel with them, according to two colleagues who worked with him for years. His methods earned him promotions and notoriety over a lengthy career, until Warren, 41, became ensnared in a sex scandal. Two Algerian women have accused the Virginia native of drugging and sexually assaulting them, and, in one instance, videotaping the encounter. The episode -- one of three sex-related scandals to shake the CIA this year -- has drawn harsh questions from Congress about whether the agency adequately polices its far-flung workforce or takes sufficient steps to root out corrupt behavior. Former officers say the cases underscore a perennial challenge: guarding against scandal in a workforce -- the size of which is classified but is generally estimated to be 20,000 -- that prides itself on secrecy and deception. "You have an organization of professional liars," said Tyler Drumheller, who oversaw hundreds of officers as chief of the agency's European division. Experienced field managers are needed, he said, because inevitably "some people will try to take advantage of the system . . . and it's a system that can be taken advantage of." The recent string of embarrassing revelations started with the CIA's former No. 3 officer, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who was indicted on corruption charges two years ago.
Note: For in-depth analysis of the continuing revelations of a long history of the CIA's use of sex to control people, click here.
The Legionaries of Christ, an influential Roman Catholic religious order, have been shaken by new revelations that their founder, who died a year ago, had an affair with a woman and fathered a daughter just as he and his thriving conservative order were winning the acclaim of Pope John Paul II. Before his death, the founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, had been forced to leave public ministry by Pope Benedict XVI because of accusations from more than a dozen men who said he had sexually abused them when they were students. Now the order’s general director, the Rev. Álvaro Corcuera, is quietly visiting its religious communities and seminaries in the United States and informing members that their founder led a double life, current and former Legionaries said. In Catholic religious orders, members are taught to identify with the spirituality and values of the founder. That was taken to an extreme in the Legionaries, said the Rev. Stephen Fichter, a priest in New Jersey who left the order after 14 years. “Father Maciel was this mythical hero who was put on a pedestal and had all the answers,” Father Fichter said.
Note: For more disturbing news on this pattern of sex abuse which runs way deep, click here.
When FBI and immigration agents arrested a 28-year-old Guatemalan woman three months ago in Los Angeles, they announced that they had shut down one of the most elaborate sex trafficking rings in the country. But it was one of only a few such cases to be spotlighted by national media, contributing to the false impression that cases of immigrant sex trafficking are isolated incidents. The reality is that human trafficking goes on in nearly every American city and town, said Lisette Arsuaga, director of development for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, a human rights organization in Los Angeles. Her assessment is shared by authorities in Bexar County, Texas, where the Sheriff’s Office has formed a task force with Shared Hope International, an anti-slavery organization founded by former Rep. Linda Smith, D-Wash. Bexar County is considered a crossroads of the cross-border Mexican sex slave trade. Federal officials agree that the trafficking of human beings as sex slaves is far more prevalent than is popularly understood. While saying it is difficult to pinpoint the scope of the industry, given its shadowy nature ... officials estimated that it likely generates more than $9.5 billion a year. The Justice Department maintains a human trafficking hotline at 1-888-428-7581. “We’ve come to learn that cases of trafficking are all around us in plain sight,” [Carmen Pitre, executive director of the Task Force on Family Violence,] said. “Today, you can buy a human being for $200 in any major city in the world.”
A woman convicted two weeks ago of running a Washington call-girl ring that catered to the capital’s power elite was found dead ... and the authorities said she had apparently hanged herself. The body of the woman, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, was found in a shed at her mother’s home ... about 20 miles northwest of Tampa. The police said Ms. Palfrey had left a notebook containing at least two suicide notes and other messages to her family, but they did not give additional details. Ms. Palfrey, who had quickly become known as the D.C. Madam when the case against her began unfolding, apparently hanged herself from the shed’s ceiling with nylon rope, the police said. Her mother, Blanche Palfrey, discovered the body. Blanche Palfrey had no sign that her daughter was suicidal. A federal jury in Washington found Ms. Palfrey guilty on April 15 of running a prostitution service that catered to powerful figures including Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana. She was convicted of money laundering, using the mail for illegal purposes and racketeering. Ms. Palfrey had vowed that she would never go to prison. When she disclosed telephone records last year that revealed the identity of some of her clients, she told ABC: “I’m sure as heck not going to be going to federal prison for one day, let alone four to eight years, because I’m shy about bringing in the deputy secretary of whatever. Not for a second. I’ll bring every last one of them in if necessary.” Despite that threat, Ms. Palfrey’s trial concluded without the testimony of either Mr. Vitter or another particularly prominent client, Randall L. Tobias. One of the escort service’s employees was Brandy Britton, a former professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who was arrested on prostitution charges in 2006. Ms. Britton committed suicide in January before she could go to trial.
Note: Isn't it interesting that this woman who brought about the resignations of top government officials is found dead in an apparent suicide? See the revealing AP article on this available here. Ms. Palfrey also stated publicly that she would never commit suicide, though at one point she mentioned that she might be "suicided." To verify this, click here.
[Carissa] Phelps looks at the run-down, faded buildings and points to a tall turquoise sign with white and yellow lettering. The Villa Motel. She was 12, hungry and alone when a man three times her age picked her up, bought her a hot dog and Pepsi, then brought her here. It was the beginning of a life she never thought she'd survive. But now she is 31, a law and business school graduate of the University of California-Los Angeles, a star in an upcoming documentary about her life and a spokeswoman for teenagers forced to turn to prostitution when they have no other way to survive. Phelps wants to put the spotlight on prostituted children (calling them "child prostitutes" puts the blame on the wrong person, she says) by sharing her story, which is decidedly unglamorous and all too common: a story of a girl from a broken home with no place to go. No one has accurate statistics on how many children turn to prostitution for survival, largely because street kids remain hidden. Some estimates range from 100,000 to 300,000 in the USA. What makes Phelps' story worthy of a documentary ... was not just that she survived but that she thrived, says filmmaker David Sauvage, who met Phelps in business school. But is [Phelps] ever too haunted by the past to move forward? "Only when I'm not working on and trying to fix it," she says. "I want to somehow change the situation that I came from so that if there was another Carissa following 30 years behind me, something different would happen for them."
Note: Watch a trailer for this powerful documentary here. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
The Defense Department's top watchdog has declined to investigate allegations that an American woman working under an Army contract in Iraq was raped by her co-workers. The case of former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones gained national attention last month. An ABC News investigation revealed how an earlier investigation into Jones' alleged gang-rape in 2005 had not resulted in any prosecution, and that neither Jones nor Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been able to get answers from the Bush administration on the state of her case. In letters to lawmakers, DoD Inspector General Claude Kicklighter said that because the Justice Department still considers the investigation into Jones' case open, there is no need for him to look into the matter. "We're not satisfied with that," a Nelson spokesman said. Jones' lawyers also professed disappointment. Despite deferring to the Justice Department, Kicklighter's office told Nelson it was willing to pursue other questions Nelson raised about Jones' case. Kicklighter agreed to explore "whether and why" a U.S. Army doctor handed to KBR security officials the results of Jones' medical examination, a so-called "rape kit," which would have contained evidence of the crime if it had occurred. In a separate letter, Kicklighter's office said that the State Department had said its security officials had Jones' rape kit in their possession at one point.
Note: For a treasure trove of reliable reports on government corruption from major media sources, click here.
A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident. Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job. "Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told. In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Finally, Jones says, she convinced a sympathetic guard to loan her a cell phone so she could call her father in Texas. "I said, 'Dad, I've been raped. I don't know what to do. I'm in this container, and I'm not able to leave,'" she said. Her father called their congressman, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas. "We contacted the State Department first," Poe told ABCNews.com, "and told them of the urgency of rescuing an American citizen" -- from her American employer. The State Department ... dispatched agents from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Jones' camp, where they rescued her from the container. According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally." Over two years later, the Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case. Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.
When Nigeria's education minister faced an audience of 1,000 schoolchildren, she expected to hear complaints of crowded classrooms and lack of equipment. Instead, girl after girl spoke up about being pressured for sex by teachers in exchange for better grades. One girl was just 11 years old. "I was shocked," said the minister, Obiageli Ezekwesili. "I asked, was it that prevalent? And they all chorused 'yes.'" For years, sexual harassment has been rampant in Nigeria's universities, but until recently very little was done about it. From Associated Press interviews with officials and 12 female college students, a pattern emerges of women being held back and denied passing grades for rebuffing teachers' advances, and of being advised by other teachers to give in quietly. Most victims are college students such as Chioma, a slim, quiet 22-year-old with a B average, who repeatedly failed political science after refusing her teacher's explicit demands for sex. She said he was a pastor and old enough to be her grandfather. In a recent survey ... 80 percent of over 300 women questioned at four universities said sexual harassment was their no. 1 concern. But with a strong African tradition of respecting one's elders, families or teachers, harassed students can rarely expect support, even when repeated complaints are made against one individual. Yet attitudes are slowly changing. Ezekwesili, the education minister, says she wants to set up complaints programs and join forces with women's organizations. "We are going to take punitive measures against these teachers and give a voice to students," she promised.
Roman Catholic bishops in England and Wales rejected as false and misleading a BBC documentary about what it said was a cover-up of child sexual abuse under a system enforced by Pope Benedict XVI in his previous job. The documentary [examined] a secret document written in 1962 that sets out a procedure for dealing with child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. The document, called "Crimen Sollicitationis," imposes an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation and any witness. Breaking that oath would result in excommunication, the BBC said. "The man in charge of enforcing it for 20 years was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man made Pope last year," reporter Colm O'Gorman said in the program "Sex Crimes and the Vatican." The Vatican...had no immediate comment. The existence of the document is not new. It first surfaced publicly in 2003, when it was widely reported in the U.S. media. American lawyers representing alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests at the time used it in law suits against some American dioceses. Responding to the documentary, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham, central England, said the BBC should be "ashamed of the standard of the journalism used to create this unwarranted attack on Pope Benedict XVI." The public broadcaster defended its documentary. "The protection of children is clearly an issue of the strongest public interest," it said in a statement, responding to the bishops' criticism. "The BBC stands by tonight's 'Panorama' program, and invites viewers to make up their own minds once they've seen it."
Note: To watch this highly revealing BBC documentary free online and decide for yourself, see http://informationclearinghouse.info/article15190.htm. For government involvement in sexual abuse of children, see the Discovery Channel documentary at http://www.WantToKnow.info/060501conspiracyofsilence
Fifteen-year-old "Debbie" is the middle child in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix, and a straight-A student. [She] is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves. While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts of the world — Thailand, Cambodia, Latin America and eastern Europe, for example — few people know it happens here in the United States. The FBI estimates that well over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from 9 to 19, with the average age being 11. And many victims are no longer just runaways, or kids who've been abandoned. Many of them are from what would be considered "good" families, who are lured or coerced by clever predators, say experts. "These predators are particularly adept at reading children, at reading kids, and knowing what their vulnerabilities are," said FBI Deputy Assistant Director, Chip Burrus, who started the Lost Innocence project, which specializes in child- and teen-sex trafficking. Debbie's story is particularly chilling. Police say Debbie was kidnapped from her own driveway with her mother, Kersti, right inside. She was ... taken to an apartment 25 miles from her home. Police say her captors had put an ad on Craig's List. Shortly after the ad ran, men began arriving at the apartment at all hours of the day and night demanding sex from her. She said she had to comply. "I had no other choice," she said.
Note: If the above link does not work, this article can also be found at the Internet Archive. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Twenty-one-year-old Katia...left home on what she believed would be a trip to buy goods in Turkey, but instead she was sold into sexual slavery for $1,000. In "Sex Slaves," FRONTLINE follows [her husband] Viorel on an extraordinary journey deep into the world of sex trafficking to try to find his wife...and then free her from the violent pimp who now "owns" her. Along the way, the production team takes a rare, hidden-camera look at the various traffickers, pimps and middlemen who illegally buy and sell hundreds of thousands of women each year. Lured by traffickers who prey on their dreams of employment abroad, many of the women are then kidnapped and "exported" to Europe, the Middle East, the United States and elsewhere. During this process, they may be sold to pimps, locked in brothels, drugged, terrorized and raped repeatedly. "How much will a girl cost?" co-producer Felix Golubev asks a trafficker in Moldova while posing undercover as an interested buyer from North America. "Five hundred to 600 dollars" replies the trafficker." As Viorel searches for Katia, we learn what she might be enduring from other trafficked women. Twenty-eight-year-old Oksana was sold 13 times over an eight-month period before finally being allowed to return to her native Ukraine. "There were 22 girls in a three-bedroom apartment, and each girl got beaten up at least once a day. One girl ran away and went to the police for help, but she was taken back. Policemen…used our services." "Sex Slaves" exposes the government indifference that allows the global sex trade to continue virtually unchecked and what needs to be done.
Note: If you want to know about secret government involvement in the sex trade and sex abuse, see the harrowing, yet powerful essay at http://www.WantToKnow.info/nationbetrayed10pg and a highly revealing, free Discovery Channel documentary at http://www.WantToKnow.info/060501conspiracyofsilence
In a case that has horrified Americans way beyond the Bible Belt, Louis Lamonica ... and eight members the Hosanna Church are accused of being members of a Satanic paedophile ring who ritually raped up to 25 children, as well as performing animal sacrifices. Police say some of those charged - who include Lamonica's wife and a deputy sheriff - have already admitted devil worship inside the now defunct church. The discovery of badly rubbed-out pentagrams on the floor and eight boxes of hooded black costumes - allegedly used both in the abuse and in "morality tales" performed to prepare the young victims - bear out some of the claims. Lamonica himself astonished police by walking into a neighbouring sheriff's office a few weeks ago and confessing out of the blue that over five years he and other church members had sexually abused boys and girls aged between one and 16 and taught them to have sex with each other, as well as with a dog. Local police say his claims have been confirmed by some of the victims, of whom half a dozen have so far been interviewed, and by some of the fellow abusers, whose names Lamonica freely gave to police. Lamonica ... claimed the abuse began in 1999 and stopped in 2003 when the Hosanna Church closed. But police believe it may have continued in members' homes. Most of the accused have been charged with aggravated rape of a child under 13.
Note: The US military accepts avowed Satanists in their ranks. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this topic in the US. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret. Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret. The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001. It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week. Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a 'clear obstruction of justice'. 'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication. The letter is referred to in documents relating to a lawsuit filed earlier this year against a church in Texas and Ratzinger on behalf of two alleged abuse victims. By sending the letter, lawyers acting for the alleged victims claim the cardinal conspired to obstruct justice. Daniel Shea, the lawyer for the two alleged victims who discovered the letter, said: 'If you can manage to keep it secret for 18 years plus 10 the priest will get away with it.'
According to a Nebraska state police report, Nebraska Senate’s Franklin committee investigative report, and a 50-page report by Omaha’s Boys Town welfare case officer Mrs. Julie Walters, pedophile victims Nelly and Kimberly Webb detailed a massive child sex, homosexual and pornography operation run out of Nebraska by Larry King--but with close ties directly to the Congress and the White House.
Note: This source is clearly less reliable than those usually provided. However, as this is very important news we believe to be largely true based on numerous independent confirmations received, we've included it here. The article includes information on the Hunter Thompson suicide and the infamous Franklin case which you can learn about by clicking here.
On its Web site and newsletters, the North American Man/Boy Love Association advocates sex between men and boys and cites ancient Greece to justify the practice. It goes by the acronym NAMBLA, and the FBI has been following it for years, linking it to pedophilia and recently infiltrating it with an agent successful enough to be asked to join the group's steering committee. While NAMBLA's membership numbers are small, the group has a dangerous ripple effect through the Internet by sanctioning the behavior of those who would abuse children. San Diego police Sgt. Dave Jones, who oversees a group of investigators working on Internet crimes against children, says NAMBLA's Web site often pops up in computers on which they find child pornography. Saturday, the FBI arrested three NAMBLA members at Harbor Island as they waited for a boat that undercover agents told them would sail to Ensenada for a sex retreat over Valentine's Day with boys as young as 9. The NAMBLA investigation is part of a crackdown on people authorities have termed sex tourists, those who cross state and national borders for illicit sex. On its Web site, NAMBLA says ... children should have the right to have sex with older men and that such relationships are "benevolent." The 26-year-old organization wants to overturn statutory rape laws and free molesters from prison. Critics say NAMBLA's public face hides a network of child molesters who trade seduction techniques and child pornography and organize overseas trips for illicit sex.
Note: To see a four-minute video clip of the FBI agent's investigation, click here. If you are ready to see how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.
[Tony] Podesta is counted among the nation's most important contemporary art collectors. Inside the elite Chelsea galleries, he and his wife, Heather, are gossiped about. All the art stars know their names. In Washington, the couple is recognized, too. Podesta, 60, has ridden a long career on Capitol Hill to his current perch as a top-tier lobbyist. He spearheaded President Clinton's successful 1996 Pennsylvania campaign. Tony and Heather don't shy away from discomfort -- especially when they can inflict it, ever so gently, on others. Tony favors art with in-your-face nudity and social critique. Tony's younger brother John (yes, that John, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff) admires his choices. A piece in the[ir] Woodley Park living room, [a] nearly eight-foot-tall color photo by British artist Sam Taylor-Wood [is] an update of a late-15th-century painting of the dead Jesus. Taylor-Wood faithfully replicates the original ... in vivid color and minute detail. Just one thing: Taylor-Wood omits the shroud, displaying his subject in all his nakedness. "You've got to be pretty secure to have an eight-foot-tall naked man in your living room in Washington, D.C.," Heather says. Folks attending a house tour ... earlier this year got an eyeful when they walked into a bedroom at the Podesta residence hung with multiple color pictures by Katy Grannan, a photographer known for documentary-style pictures of naked teenagers in their parents' suburban homes. "They were horrified," Heather recalls, a grin spreading across her face.
Note: Tony is listed among the top 50 most important people in Washington by GC magazine, while Tony' s brother John, Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, does not make the list. Both Tony and John have been implicated in the Pizzagate scandal. For undeniable evidence that there are powerful child prostitution rings which lead to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of revealing news articles on sex abuse scandals from major media sources.
A highly-organised paedophile ring involving Victorian police and former politicians had been operating in the state since the 1970s, anti-child abuse groups claimed today. Dr Reina Michaelson of The Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program (CSAPP) and Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston today said they had been told by child sex abuse victims that former Victorian elected politicians and police members were involved in child pornography and prostitution. Dr Michaelson said she was working with child sex abuse victims who said they had witnessed significant police corruption and protection of paedophilia rings. The allegations come in response to a damning report released by Victoria's Ombudsman George Brouwer yesterday into Victoria Police's botched handling of four cases of child sex abuse. Ms Michaelson and Ms Johnston today called for the confidential Ombudsman's report to be made public and for a royal commission into child sexual abuse and corruption. "When problems within Victoria Police are shown to have extended into the investigation of serious sex crimes against children, as has been revealed by the Ombudsman's investigation, it is time for the Victorian government to act," Dr Michaelson said.
Note: Because of intense pressure from politicians and police and disturbing threats, Dr. Michaelson eventually gave up trying to push for justice in these sexual abuse cases. For lots more solid information on this disturbing news, click here and here. And if you are willing to explore how investigations into a massive child sex abuse ring have led to the highest levels of government, watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence," available here.
The former chief internal watchdog at the FBI has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 6-year-old girl and has admitted he had a history of molesting other children before he joined the bureau for what became a two-decade career. John H. Conditt Jr., 53, who retired in 2001, was sentenced last week ... to 12 years in prison after he admitted he molested the daughter of two FBI agents after he retired. He acknowledged molesting at least two other girls before he began his law enforcement career, his lawyer said. Conditt headed the internal affairs unit, which investigates agent wrongdoing, for the Office of Professional Responsibility at FBI headquarters in Washington from 1999 until June 2001, the FBI said. FBI officials said yesterday they had no information suggesting Conditt had any problems during his career and he was never the subject of an investigation. Assistant District Attorney Mitch Poe of Tarrant County, who prosecuted the case, said he wanted a longer prison sentence and was skeptical of Conditt's claim that his molestation of children subsided during his FBI career.
Note: For powerful evidence in a Discovery Channel documentary that many top politicians are involved in sophisticated child sex abuse rings, click here.
The United States has become a major importer of sex slaves. Between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked annually into the United States. How many of these are victims of sex traffickers? Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves, America's largest anti-slavery organization, says ... at least 10,000 a year. John Miller, the State Department's director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, conceded: "That figure could be low. What we know is that the number is huge." Bales estimates that there are 30,000 to 50,000 sex slaves in captivity in the United States at any given time. Sex-trafficking victims widely believe that if they talk, they or someone they love will be killed. And their fear is not unfounded. The trafficking rings reach back into the girls' hometowns, and local law enforcement is often complicit in the sex trade. In a series of excruciating conversations, Andrea explained to me how the trafficking ring that kept her worked. Girls were shuttled in open cars between the Plainfield, N.J., stash house and other locations in northern New Jersey. Andrea named trading hubs at highway rest stops in Deming, N.M.; Kingman, Ariz.; Boulder City, Nev.; and Glendale, Calif. The operating assumption among American police departments is that women who sell their bodies do so by choice, and undocumented foreign women who sell their bodies are not only prostitutes (that is, voluntary sex workers) but also trespassers on U.S. soil.
Note: The vast majority of child sex slaves in the US are American kids. International sex trafficking is a $99 billion industry. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject.
For decades, priests in this country abused children in parish after parish while their superiors covered it all up. Now it turns out the orders for this cover up were written in Rome at the highest levels of the Vatican. [A] confidential Vatican document, obtained by CBS News, lays out a church policy that calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to sexual abuse by priests – anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church. The policy was written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani. The document, once "stored in the secret archives" of the Vatican, focuses on crimes initiated as part of the confessional relationship. Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone (including the alleged victim) ... is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office ... under the penalty of excommunication." Larry Drivon, a lawyer who represents alleged victims, said, “This document is significant because it's a blueprint for deception. It's an instruction manual on how to deceive and how to protect pedophiles ... and exactly how to avoid the truth coming out." Richard Sipe, a former priest who has written about sex abuse and secrecy in the church, said the document sends a chilling message. “You keep it secret at all costs,” Sipe said. “It's happened in every diocese in this country.” According to church records, the document was a bedrock of Catholic sex abuse policy until America's bishops met last summer and drafted new policies to address the crisis in the church.
Fifty police officers across Britain have been arrested as part of a crackdown on suspected paedophiles who pay to access child pornography websites, detectives revealed today. The officers were among 1,300 people arrested on suspicion of accessing or downloading indecent images of children - some as young as five - from US-based Internet sites. Thirty-four men were arrested in London this morning as part of the investigation - codenamed Operation Ore - following raids on 45 addresses across the capital. In addition, 40 children nationwide - 28 of them in London - had been identified as being at risk of being abused and appropriate steps had been taken with other agencies to ensure that all the youngsters were safe. Before today's arrests, the Metropolitan Police had executed 75 warrants across the capital with 65 arrests and more than 130 computers seized. The Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Carole Howlett, said today's raids represented the single largest operation of its kind mounted so far by the force. Operation Ore is the UK wing of a huge FBI operation which traced 250,000 paedophiles worldwide last year through credit card details used to pay for downloading child porn. The names of British suspects were passed on by US investigators.
Note: For deeply revealing reports from reliable major media sources on child sexual abuse, click here.
A British tribunal has ruled that a former member of the UN police force in Bosnia was unfairly fired after she reported to her superiors that colleagues in the police force used women and children as sex slaves in connivance with Balkan traffickers. It was at least the third scandal this year involving international aid workers and vulnerable local populations. The UN officially has not commented on the latest case, in which the whistleblower, Kathryn Bolkovac, an American citizen living in the Netherlands, charged she was fired in 2000 for sending e-mails to her employer, the U.S. recruitment agency DynCorp, stating that other UN police officers from several countries were linked with prostitution rings. Bolkovac was posted to Sarajevo in 1999 to investigate sex trafficking but soon began filing reports that UN officials and international aid workers themselves were involved in it. She said UN workers frequented bars where girls as young as 15 were forced to dance naked on tables and engage in sexual acts with clients. UN peacekeepers stood by while girls who refused to take part in sex acts were beaten and raped by pimps. One police officer paid $1,000 for a girl he kept captive in his apartment. Earlier this year, a joint report by Save the Children and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said that about 70 workers from aid organizations and UN agencies were suspected of extorting sexual favors from children and young women among refugees in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in exchange for food.
Note: The case of this courageous whistleblower was turned into a movie. For lots more, see this article from the UK's Independent. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Anguish over the abduction and death of girls as young as eight at the hands of a convicted sex offender, Marc Dutroux, together with persistent allegations of official cover-ups, has been revived by an announcement that [Jacques Langlois], the chief investigating magistrate in the case, wants to reopen medical evidence of sexual assault on the children. And, in further disclosures ... a book by [Marc Verwilghen], the highly respected chairman of a parliamentary inquiry into the case, claims that his commission's findings were muzzled by political and judicial leaders to prevent details emerging of complicity in the crimes. In August 1996, [the children's] bodies were found buried in Mr Dutroux's back garden in Charleroi. They had disappeared 14 months before, and had apparently starved to death, locked in a cell in Mr Dutroux's basement. The bodies of two teenage girls were also found buried in the garden, with that of Bernard Weinstein, an associate with whom he had fallen out. Two other teenage girls were found alive in the basement cell after the police, who had previously searched the property three times without noticing it, finally broke into the house. Although there is plenty of evidence that Mr Dutroux kidnapped the children ... Mr Langlois now apparently wants to establish whether he [or anyone else] also sexually assaulted them. One of the rescued girls, Sabine Dardenne, 12, who was locked up in the cell for three months, told police of being taken to a 'beautiful white house' by Mr Dutroux and being sexually assaulted.
Note: Explore more excellent research proving a major cover-up of this case. Read a highly revealing essay on several cases of pedophilia rings involving top politicians. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Tens of thousands of Belgians gathered in the heart of Brussels today, waving white balloons and white flowers in a popular outpouring of anger and frustration over a widening child sex scandal. The "White March," as it was called by organizers, was one of the largest in the country's recent history, drawing some 275,000 Belgians. It capped a week of spontaneous protests that erupted after Belgium's highest court removed a magistrate widely seen as a hero in the scandal, Jean-Marc Connerotte, from investigations into a pedophile and child pornography ring. So far, 13 people have been charged in the case, which involves the kidnapping, sexual abuse and killing of several children, with at least seven young girls still missing. The court ruled that Mr. Connerotte had compromised his impartiality by accepting a free dinner at a fund-raiser for the parents of missing children. The ruling prompted the public ... to take to the streets. The dismissal also followed press reports that Mr. Connerotte was on the verge of disclosing the names of senior government officials who had been recognized on confiscated videotapes, and during allegations of a high-level cover-up. The march was intended not only as a protest ... but also as an expression of sympathy with the victims of a gang reportedly led by a convicted child rapist, Marc Dutroux, one of the 13 charged. He was released 10 years early in 1992 from a 13-year sentence for multiple child rape. Scores of videos with child pornography were seized along with him.
Note: For an abundance of solid information on this major cover-up of child sex trafficking rings leading to high levels in government, don't miss the most excellent documentary Imperium, which provides reliable, verifiable information on all that is going on. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
In early February 1987, an anonymous tipster in Tallahassee, Fla., made a phone call to police. Two "well-dressed men" seemed to be "supervising" six disheveled and hungry children in a local park, the caller said. The cops went after the case like bloodhounds - at least at first. The two men were identified as members of the Finders. They were charged with child abuse in Florida. In Washington, D.C., police and U.S. Customs Service agents raided a duplex apartment building and a warehouse connected to the group. Among the evidence seized: detailed instructions on obtaining children for unknown purposes and several photographs of nude children. The more the police learned about the Finders, the more bizarre they seemed: There were suggestions of child abuse, Satanism, dealing in pornography and ritualistic animal slaughter. None of the allegations was ever proved, however. Today ... the Justice Department has begun a new investigation into the Finders. One of the unresolved questions involves allegations that the Finders are somehow linked to the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1987, when Customs agents sought to examine the evidence gathered by Washington, D.C., police, they were told that the Finders investigation "had become a CIA internal matter." The police report on the case had been classified secret. Even now, Tallahassee police complain about the handling of the Finders investigation by D.C. police. "They dropped this case," one Tallahassee investigator says, "like a hot rock."
Note: For lots more on the disturbing group called "The Finders," see the excellent research available at this link. As US News & World Report does not have archives for older articles like this, the link above takes you to a scanned copy of the the article taken directly from a copy of the magazine we obtained.
On a salary of $16,200 a year ... credit union manager [Lawrence E. King Jr. spent] $10,000 a month on limousines. His credit card charges topped $1 million. King threw a $100,000 party for 1,000 close friends at the Republican National Convention. A federal jury this summer will decide whether King, 45, is guilty as charged of looting $38 million from the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union. Last week, a county grand jury ... began sifting through allegations tying King to a child prostitution and exploitation ring that reputedly catered to some of Omaha's most respected burghers. The sexual allegations [are based on] reports from half a dozen young people who reportedly have described being auctioned like love slaves, flown to the coasts for wild parties, or plied with drugs and alcohol as part of a bisexual bacchanal. "They appear credible to me," said state Sen. Loran Schmit, chairman of the legislative committee appointed to investigate the scandal. King liked to share the wealth ...with his young male friends. [He] gave a $2,800 deerskin coat and 18-karat gold bracelet to 29-year-old Charlie Rogers, who later blew his own brains out with a shotgun. Another young man [claimed] King "wanted to own you – a sugar daddy thing." Yet the lawmen who were investigating "did nothing," despite the fact that one witness passed four polygraph tests. John DeCamp, the former state senator [wrote a memo] alleging that "the most powerful and rich public personalities of the state are central figures in the investigation."
Note: This scandal is the tip of the iceberg on a pedophilia ring that reaches to the highest levels of government. Learn about and watch the suppressed Discovery Channel documentary "Conspiracy of Silence" for solid, undeniable evidence of this. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sex abuse news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Mind Control Information Center for how this is all manipulated and kept quiet.
A homosexual prostitution ring is under investigation by federal and District authorities and includes among its clients key officials of the Reagan and Bush administrations, military officers, congressional aides and US and foreign businessmen with close social ties to Washington's political elite. Reporters for this newspaper examined hundreds of credit-card vouchers, drawn on both corporate and personal cards and made payable to the escort service operated by the homosexual ring. Among clients who charged homosexual prostitutes services on major credit cards over the past 18 months are Charles K. Dutcher, former associate director of presidential personnel in the Reagan administration, and Paul R. Balach, Labor Secretary Elizabeth Doles political personnel liaison to the White House. Members of major news organizations also procured escort services from the ring, credit card documents show. These include Stanley Mark Tapscott, who was an assistant managing editor of The Washington Times. Before joining The Times, Mr. Tapscott worked for the Office of Personnel Management in the Reagan administration. A major concern, said the former official with longtime ties to top-ranking military intelligence officers, was that hostile foreign intelligence services were using young male prostitutes to compromise top administration homosexuals, thus making them subject to blackmail.
Note: How is it possible that this major story was not covered by any major media other than the Washington Times? For answers to this question, click here. For more on this astonishing case, don't miss the excellent, reliable resources and the powerful, suppressed Discovery Channel documentary available here. For an insider's story of how prostitution was regularly used to compromise politicians, click here.
A state file containing reports of physical and sexual abuse of foster children, based on interviews with some of the children and including one instance reminiscent of slave auctions, has been turned over to the Executive Board of the Nebraska Legislature. One of the reports in the file ... is an account by [a] victim who described parties at various places, including Omaha and cities to which she was flown on the East Coast ... including one in which the ... teen-ager was made to stand nude at a party while she was offered at auction to the highest bidder. "I don't know if they can prove it," the source said, "but if one-tenth of what that girl is saying is true, I'd sure hate to have her talking about me." The foster care agency's submission of the file is among the latest developments in a case that began surfacing Nov. 4, when the Government's National Credit Union Administration shut down the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union in Omaha. The agency ... subsequently filed suit against Lawrence E. King Jr., Franklin Community's manager and treasurer, charging him with diverting millions of dollars of the institution's money to his own purposes. In all, the agency says, Franklin Community is missing $38 million. Mr. King has not been accused of personally engaging in child sexual abuse. But a number of widening Federal and state investigations into the credit union's collapse are aimed in part at determining whether any of the money he is accused of embezzling was ever used to transport children or to pay them for sex.
Note: This article reveals only a small part of what is known about a sophisticated pedophile ring that reaches to the highest levels of government. For more on the suppressed Franklin Scandal, don't miss the excellent, reliable resources and the powerful Discovery Channel documentary available here. Note also the Christmas date of this article. You might be surprised at how often the press discloses the most deeply revealing information on key cover-ups on holidays, when few read the paper.
The Army announced it is closing and demolishing a child-care center at its base at the Presidio after allegations that as many as 60 youngsters were sexually abused there. Gary Willard Hambright, 34 years old, a former worker at the center and a former Southern Baptist minister, has been charged with abusing 10 boys and girls there. He worked at the center as a civilian employee for 18 months. A Federal grand jury in San Francisco spent 10 months investigating abuse allegations surrounding the Presidio center, and almost 100 children were examined for physical or psychological signs of sexual abuse. At least four children were discovered to have chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease. An assistant United States attorney, Peter Robinson, said Mr. Hambright was charged with molesting only 10 children because other victims were so young they would not be allowed to testify in court. More than 70 children had been interviewed by Army therapists as potential abuse victims. Parents have said as many as 60 children were molested at the center. A 16-member Army review team recently inspected the Presidio center as part of an investigation of the almost 300 child-care centers run by the Army, which care for an estimated 94,000 youngsters daily. Allegations of sexual abuse have surfaced at more than 10 percent of those centers since 1984. Among them are the centers at Fort Dix in New Jersey and the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Note: Charges against Mr. Hambright were eventually dropped. Is this justice? For lots more critical information on this disturbing case, see this excellently researched piece. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Of Susan, a parent who suspects that her child has been sexually abused, "Unspeakable Acts" tells us: "Susan said she couldn't rest until she knew the truth. She wouldn't rest afterward, either." Readers of Jan Hollingsworth's account of a widely publicized Florida child-abuse case may feel the same. In its lurid details, its frustrating complexity and in the agony of the children and families who were victimized, this case would seem to be the paradigm of incidents in Minnesota, California and elsewhere that have surfaced in recent years. A startling difference, though, is the outcome: the molester was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In October 1985, the owner of the Country Walk Babysitting Service, one Frank Fuster, was found guilty of 14 counts of abuse. Mr. Fuster's unspeakable acts were more than just the repeated sexual abuse of children; the victims also testified that he led them in satanic rituals in which both crucifixes and excrement played a part. The author cites the specifics of these revolting rituals to illustrate disturbing similarities in some of the multiple-victim sexual-abuse cases that have recently been discovered in other states. She suggests that such acts are fostered by a nationwide network of pedophiles who swap information and videotapes in a mega-dollar child-pornography business the F.B.I. would do well to target. Certainly, the Florida parents and children are fortunate to have this volume to document and bear witness to their collective nightmare.
Note: For more on this disturbing case, see this Huffington Post article and this blog entry. For solid evidence that rogue elements of government are involved in systematic child abuse, see this excellent essay. Watch a disturbing seven-minute clip from a 1988 show of Geraldo interviewing Satanist Lt. Col. Michael Aquino and Ted Gunderson, former chief of the FBI's Los Angeles division. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.
Important Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.