Issue 105 – July 2012
S.M.A.R.T
(Stop Mind control And Ritual abuse Today)
P. O Box 1295, Easthampton, MA 01027-1295 USA E-mail: SMARTNEWS@aol.com
Home page: http://ritualabuse.us/
Issue 105 – July 2012
The purpose of this newsletter is to help stop secretive organizations and groups from abusing others and to help those who allege they have been abused by such organizations and groups. This newsletter is not a substitute for other ways of recovering from ritual abuse. Readers should use caution while reading this newsletter. If necessary, make sure other support systems are available during and after reading this newsletter.
Important:The resources mentioned in this newsletter are for educational value only. Reading the books cited may or may not help your recovery process, so use caution when reading any book or contacting any resource mentioned in this newsletter. Some may have a religious or other agenda that may be separate from your own recovery process. Others may have valuable information on the Masons and other organizations, but have triggers or be somewhat sympathetic to those organizations. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the views expressed in this newsletter constitute expressions of opinion, and readers are cautioned to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions by consulting a variety of sources, including this newsletter. Resources listed, quoted and individual articles, etc. and their writers do not necessarily support all or any of the views mentioned in this newsletter. Also, the views, facts and opinions mentioned in this newsletter are solely the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily the opinions of this newsletter or its editor.
Copyright 2012 – All rights reserved. No reproduction of any material without written permission from the editor and individual authors.
SMART wants to thank all those that have contributed resource information to the newsletter.
Special discounts are available for those that register and pay early for the SMART conferences.
August 2012 Ritual Abuse Conference for Survivors http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/
August 2012 Ritual Abuse Conference for Clinicians http://ritualabuse.us/smart-conference/ritual-abuse-and-extreme-abuse-clinicians-conference-2012
Smart-Talks Podcast Blog
This is a collection of talks given at the annual SMART conference in Connecticut. Speakers present to tell their stories of their experiences with ritual abuse and/or mind control, their experiences treating patients with such backgrounds, or to raise awareness of the various issues surrounding recovery from ritual abuse/mind control of efforts made to raise awareness with the general public of this issue. http://smart-talkspodcastblog.blogspot.com/
This issue contains information on Clergy Abuse Cases, Irish Catholic Church, Fr Brendan Smyth, Philadelphia Priest Clergy Abuse Trial, Ex-Modesto priest, Stockton Diocese, Wisconsin diocese lawsuit, Ultra-Orthodox Child Sexual Abuse Allegations, Etan Patz Case, Anders Behring Breivik, Native American Schools, Christian schools, veterans, medical experimentation, Satanic Ritual Abuse, psychopaths, Bluebird, Artichoke, MK Ultra, MK Delta, cannibalistic ritual, torture, Mexico Drug War, human foetuses, Sex Assaults, domestic violence, child custody, teen idols, Severe abuse and schizophrenia, Childhood Adversities and Psychosis, child maltreatment, Violence and children’s DNA, Parental Alienation Debate, DSM-5, PAS, Human Trafficking, Mandated Reporters, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Backpage and anti-trafficking
Resources and Information
Please note: Listing of these resources does not necessarily constitute our endorsement of them. They are for educational value only and some may be heavy for survivors to read. Some of the conferences listed may not necessarily be safe for all survivors. S.M.A.R.T. recommends always bringing a support person to all conferences. If you are a survivor of mind control and/or ritual abuse, S.M.A.R.T. recommends that you try to bring a support person that is familiar with mind control techniques.
Legal Information
Clergy Abuse Cases
Irish Catholic Church unable to foot $1.84 billion abuse bill – Government vows to pursue every means possible to get the compensation By Dara Kelly, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Irish Minister for Education says that religious orders in the country found culpable in the sexual abuse of children are not able to pay their share of the compensation owed to victims.
However, he also went on to say that he is still going to pursue every means possible to get the compensation from them. The total compensation package for victims of sexual abuse is some $1.84 billion dollars and the plan was for it to be split between Irish taxpayers and religious orders where abuse took place.
The Residential Institutions Redress Scheme is the authority that makes the awards to victims of abuse….
It now seems that the onus will be placed on the taxpayer to stump up more than the 50 percent originally planned. Quinn is trying to get the orders to hand over deeds of schools and other property assets to redress the cash shortfall, but many of the properties are now owned by trusts and not directly by the orders.
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/news_from_ireland/Irish-Catholic-Church-unable-to-foot-19-billion-abuse-bill-146552675.html
Brady under pressure as sex abuse victims talk of cover-up By Greg Harkin Tuesday May 01 2012
CHURCH leaders will come under renewed pressure when a BBC documentary is screened tonight outlining the widespread cover-up of clerical sex abuse here.
‘This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church’ is said to focus on Cardinal Sean Brady’s role in an ecclesiastical investigation that led to the silencing of two victims of Fr Brendan Smyth.
Victims of paedophile priests in Co Donegal will also tell how the church failed to deal with complaints which allowed one cleric to continue to abuse more victims.
The broadcaster has refused to comment on the investigation by reporter Darragh Mac Intyre but BBC sources say the documentary has “powerful testimony” from abuse victims.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/brady-under-pressure-as-sex-abuse-victims-talk-of-coverup-3096117.html
Fresh claims put pressure on Cardinal Brady By Andy Martin BBC News 1 May 2012
Cardinal 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….
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….
However, 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.
He even furnished the investigating priest and his colleagues with their names and addresses.
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. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17853126
This World The Shame of the Catholic Church Decades of clerical abuse and cover up have left the Catholic church in Ireland at breaking point. Now Darragh MacIntyre reveals new evidence of a scandal that goes to the very top of the Irish church. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ma9ALRpEVw
The Shame of the Catholic Church Decades of clerical abuse and cover up have left the Catholic church in Ireland at breaking point. Now Darragh MacIntyre reveals new evidence of a scandal that goes to the very top of the Irish church. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01h7m8r
available only in the UK
This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church, BBC Two, review Damian Thompson reviews the BBC This World documentary, The Shame of the Catholic Church, which investigated child abuse claims.
By Damian Thompson 02 May 2012
Paedophiles are cunning. It’s one of those things we’re always told but doesn’t sink in – until we’re confronted by the sort of detail revealed in last night’s BBC Two documentary This World: The Shame of the Catholic Church. Father Eugene Greene of Donegal liked to fiddle with altar boys, and he knew how to go about it. He’d invite one of them to drive his car. That’s pretty exciting when you’re 12 years old – and an honour, too, given that it’s Father’s car. “Both hands on the wheel!” said the priest. And then he’d reach over. I don’t think I need say any more.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9241955/This-World-The-Shame-of-the-Catholic-Church-BBC-Two-review.html
Church crisis: Cardinal Brady should face criminal probe says Smyth child victim By Independent.ie reporters Friday May 04 2012
A WOMAN, who was sexually abused as a child by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, today called for a criminal investigation into the actions of Cardinal Sean Brady. American lawyer Helen McGonigle, (50) who now campaigns for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, said the All Ireland Primate should resign for not alerting other families to Smyth’s horrific catalogue of abuse. She was molested by Smyth in the late 1960s in Rhode Island, New York. Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster today, Ms McGonigle said she was “outraged” by Cardinal Brady’s response to allegations in a BBC documentary broadcast this week.
She said Cardinal Sean Brady’s “duty as a human” was to protect children and his failure to act properly on Brendan Boland’s complaint – when he named other five other children being abused – was “unforgivable”. The Cardinal had shown “arrogance and insensitivity”, Ms McGonigle said.
She was just six-years-old and preparing for the sacrament of penance when she was abused by Smyth, who led her from her classmates into the sacristy of the church where he molested her….
Smyth was already known to have sexually molested children when he was sent to the McGonigles’ parish in the summer of 1965. Using his usual modus operandi, he befriended the family and they bonded over a shared Irish ancestry. Speaking to the Irish Independent two years ago, Ms McGonigle, who is an attorney living in Connecticut, said: “From 1967 until about 1970 he molested me. He was caught in my parish molesting children as early as 1968….
While any intervention by Cardinal Brady in 1975 would have been too late to save the children of East Greenwich, Ms McGonigle said many others could have been protected….
She said Cardinal Brady must resign and he should be charged with obstruction of justice. “He sat on this knowledge for 35 years, from 1975 through to 2010, and Brendan Smith continued to abuse children. It is only because of the lawsuit one of his victims has brought that he has had to show his hand.” http://www.independent.ie/national-news/church-crisis-cardinal-brady-should-face-criminal-probe-says-smyth-child-victim-3099251.html
Abuse survivor: Without courage or integrity Cardinal Brady failed and it is unforgivable 5/3/12….Now an executive director of Amnesty International Ireland, O’Gorman was not satisfied with the similar but weak defence offered by Scicluna and Brady yesterday that back in 1975 Brady was only a ‘notary’ in the interviews.
“Authority is not needed to walk into a Garda station to report the abuse and rape of children. It takes courage and a sense of moral decency,” he said, adding that it was important to remember that Brady was a highly-educated and qualified Canon lawyer at the time. He was also 35-years-old.
Commenting on the atrocious acts of Smyth that spanned a forty-year period, O’Gorman recalls the level of terror still visible in Brendan Smyth’s victims years later as something “extraordinary”.
http://www.thejournal.ie/abuse-survivor-without-courage-or-integrity-cardinal-brady-failed-and-it-is-unforgiveable-437703-May2012/
In full: Cardinal Brady responds to allegations over role in abuse inquiry 5/2/12
http://www.thejournal.ie/in-full-cardinal-brady-responds-to-allegations-over-role-in-abuse-inquiry-437208-May2012/
Vatican likely to replace Irish Cardinal Brady with new deputy bishop – Report says Cardinal Brady likely to be gone to retirement by end of year By JOHN O’BRIEN, IrishCentral.com Staff Writer
The Vatican is expected to replace Ireland’s leading church figure. Cardinal Sean Brady, and will appoint a coadjutor or deputy bishop by the end of this year who will eventually be his replacement. The Irish Times has reported that the Vatican move will happen because of massive public pressure on Brady over his actions concerning the notorious pedophile priest Fr. Brendan Smyth.
Brady is primate of all Ireland, essentially Ireland’s leading Catholic figure, based in Armagh.
The Vatican is expected to act after a BBC documentary alleged that Brady was far more involved in a cover up of Smyth than he admitted at the time in 1987. Brady, then a young priest, served on a panel investigating Smyth. No action was taken against Smyth and he went on to abuse many more kids.
The Vatican at first defended Brady and said he had their full confidence. However, Irish leader Enda Kenny, Deputy leader Eamon Gilmore, and Northern Irish leader Martin McGuinness, have all called on Brady to resign….Brady, 73, managed to keep his position after an earlier controversy about Smith and how he handled the case. This latest crisis, however, is seen as far more serious.
If Brady is forced to step down, it will be the 2nd major figure that Fr. Brendan Smyth has been instrumental in forcing out of office. Former Irish leader Albert Reynolds also resigned after becoming involved in the Smyth controversy….
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Vatican-likely-to-replace-Irish-Cardinal-Brady-with-new-deputy-bishop-150279125.html
Advisers backed resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady to save Catholic Church’s image By Greg Harkin Saturday, 5 May 2012 Cardinal Sean Brady was backed by his senior advisers when he offered to resign more than two years ago. The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland informed the Vatican of his “willingness to stand aside” as one of a range of possible options when his role in the Brendan Smyth controversy became public in 2010. And his senior advisers backed the move — expressing concern that the Smyth controversy would damage the church. The cardinal is now planning an alternative exit strategy.
Cardinal Brady had asked the Pope for ‘Episcopal help’ or an auxiliary bishop two years ago when the controversy first erupted, but the bishop was not appointed. However, the church confirmed yesterday that the request has been “reactivated”.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/advisers-backed-resignation-of-cardinal-sean-brady-to-save-catholic-churchs-image-16154588.html
As Cardinal Sean Brady turns his back on calls to quit, pressure mounts on police to get involved By Liam Clarke Saturday, 5 May 2012 Pressure is growing on the PSNI to interview Cardinal Sean Brady over the most recent claims in the child sex abuse scandal. The police didn’t act two years ago when the revelations that Dr Brady was present at the interview of two victims of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth first emerged. One of the young victims, Brendan Boland, gave the names and addresses of several other children he knew were being abused by Smyth.
Despite this evidence nothing was done to warn the children’s parents or inform the police, and Smyth went on to abuse dozens more children over subsequent decades until he was finally brought to justice in the 1990s, dying in prison in 1997. He had been abusing children since the 1940s.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/as-cardinal-sean-brady-turns-his-back-on-calls-to-quit-pressure-mounts-on-police-to-get-involved-16154168.html
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin calls for establishment of independent Fr Brendan Smyth inquiry Sunday, 6 May 2012 The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has called for an independent international commission of inquiry into the crimes of Fr Brendan Smyth, the late paedophile priest.
Dr Martin said such an inquiry was owed to victims and that it would be in the public interest that the full story, and not bits and pieces, should come out….
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0506/archbishop-martin-calls-for-smyth-inquiry.html
Vatican `has blood on hands’ over Smyth affair By Claire O’Sullivan Saturday, May 05, 2012 An American lawyer who was abused by Fr Brendan Smyth has said that the Vatican has “blood on its hands” for its failure to inform Irish Church authorities that it had censured Smyth for abuse in the United States years before the 1975 secret inquiry.
Helen McGonigle has learnt that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Religious issued a decree that Smyth wasn’t allowed to take Confession and was to be supervised following abuse complaints made in the late 60s. Yet, in 1975 the Bishop of Kilmore and the Abbot of Killnacrott agreed a similar censure of Smyth – seemingly oblivious that a similar reprimand had already been handed down.
“Why didn’t the bishop or the abbot inform the Papal Nuncio of this second censure? Why weren’t they informed by the Vatican of the original censure? It is very clear that the 1968 censure was not enforced. What does all of this say about the organisation that is the Catholic Church,” Ms McGonigle asked. Ms McGonigle has pleaded with police on both sides of the border to investigate Cardinal Brady for his possible role in perverting the course of justice and endangering children.
She pointed to current cases being taken against Catholic priests in the US for failing to report abuse allegations to the civil authorities. “They are enablers, Cardinal Brady and all these priests. That is what they were asked to do and that’s what they have done,” she said.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/vatican-has-blood-on-hands-over-smyth-affair-192867.html
Cardinal Brady apologises to abuse victim Brendan Boland 7 May 2012 Cardinal Sean Brady has said he wants to personally apologise to a man who was abused as a 14-year-old boy by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth. Cardinal Brady has come under pressure after a BBC documentary.
It accused him of failing to act on abuse allegations when he was a priest.
He said he had no intention of stepping aside but hoped an assistant – with succession rights – would be quickly appointed to his archdiocese.
Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTE on Monday, Cardinal Brady said he wanted to “apologise without hesitation” to Brendan Boland “and to any victim”.
“I offered that apology last Christmas, I offered to come and see him in person,” he said…..
Last week, a BBC documentary uncovered new revelations about an internal Church investigation into clerical child sex abuse in 1975. It said a teenage boy who had been sexually abused by Fr Brendan Smyth gave the names and addresses of other children who were at risk from the paedophile priest to Cardinal Brady, who at that time was a 36-year-old priest. He passed the allegations to his superiors but did not inform the police or the children’s parents. Fr Smyth continued to sexually assault one of the boys for a year after that. He also abused the boy’s sister for seven years, and four of his cousins, up until 1988. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17984642
Brendan Boland welcomes Cardinal Seán Brady apology Tuesday, 8 May 2012 Brendan Boland who, as a 14-year-old boy, was sworn to secrecy by Cardinal Seán Brady after testifying that he had been sexually abused by the paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth, has welcomed the Cardinal’s public apology to him….
Mr Boland added: “I note that Cardinal Brady has now acknowledged that the information I gave him regarding other children being abused or at risk of abuse, should have been passed on to their parents in 1975. “When I confided in the Youth Club to Father McShane in 1975, he did the right and proper thing in immediately bringing me to my parents and telling them what had been happening to me. It was only after that, that he informed his Superiors. “If the right thing had been done by Father (now Cardinal) Brady, and Bishop McKiernan, the unspeakable abuse of the other children I had sought to save would not have happened. Both Cardinal Brady and I will have to live with our guilt in that regard.” http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0508/brendan-boland-welcomes-cardinal-brady-apology.html
U.S. priests accused in 700 sex cases in 2011: report By Agence France-Presse Wednesday, April 11, 2012 WASHINGTON — About 700 people launched new claims of sexual abuse against Catholic clergy in the United States last year, including 21 who are still minors, according to a new report released by US bishops. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in the report released Tuesday that of the 683 adults who reported allegations for the first time, “most allegations reported today are of incidents from previous decades.”
Sixty-eight percent of the complaints relate to events that took place between 1960 and 1984 — the majority from 1975 to 1979, the report says. Many of the clergy members accused have since died, or been relieved of their church duties. More than 280 of them had been accused in the past, it said….
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/11/u-s-priests-accused-in-700-sex-cases-in-2011-report/
Philadelphia Priest Trial Painful, Poignant For Catholics By MARYCLAIRE DALE 04/21/12
PHILADELPHIA — Graphic testimony in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial this month has ripped open secret church files and reopened old wounds among Catholics as scarred men and women tell jurors that priests groped, molested or raped them as teens.
The testimony has proven both painful and poignant, especially that of a 48-year-old man who said he had been in love with his parish priest during a five-year sexual relationship that began in ninth grade – and jealous when the priest allegedly bedded down at his farmhouse with other teens. The stories have been told before, in two Philadelphia grand jury reports and in lawsuits filed around the country.
But Monsignor William Lynn’s decision to go to trial on child-endangerment charges stemming from his 12 years as secretary for clergy has brought the grand jury reports to life – and seemingly put the archdiocese on trial. The judge is allowing testimony about more than 20 accused but uncharged priests, because Lynn knew of complaints lodged against them or took part in internal church investigations. The accused priests were left in ministry, often transferred to unsuspecting parishes.
Nearly a dozen alleged victims have testified, while internal church memos and Lynn’s 2002 grand jury testimony have been read aloud. And jurors will soon hear from a former altar boy who says he was raped by two priests and his fifth-grade teacher….
Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged with helping the church cover up complaints of child sexual abuse. He faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted….
Lynn, 61, is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, 48, who is charge with sexually assaulting a teen in 1996. Each has pleaded not guilty. Defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges days before trial, and is serving a 2-1/2 to 5-year prison term. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/21/pa-priest-trial-painful-p_n_1443041.html
Pa. accuser unleashes fury at Catholic Church By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press – 4/30/12
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 47-year-old man unleashed his fury Monday at the Roman Catholic Church, staring down a church official in a Philadelphia courtroom as he described being forced as a child to engage in sex acts with a priest. The man glared Monday at Monsignor William Lynn at the defense table and complained that only one church representative, a priest friend, had ever apologized.
“It always felt wrong. A man should not touch a child,” said the man, the ninth of 10 children in his Levittown family. Testifying in the sixth week of a clergy abuse trial focusing on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the man broke down when he recalled telling his mother in 1998 about being abused by defrocked priest David Sicoli in the late 1970s….
The 61-year-old Lynn is charged with endangering children by keeping accused priests in ministry after reviewing abuse complaints kept in secret archives when he served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. His lawyers argue that he took orders from the cardinal.
Lynn is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, who is charged with the attempted rape of a 14-year-old in 1996, when Brennan was on voluntary leave and the boy slept over at his West Chester apartment.
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Pa-accuser-unleashes-fury-at-Catholic-Church-3521684.php
Prosecution rests in Philadelphia Archdiocese child sex abuse trial Dave Warner Reuters May 17, 2012 PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – The prosecution rested its case on Thursday against Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal.
During nearly eight weeks of startling testimony about the lurid lives of predatory priests, Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy, has sat stoically in his clerical garb as the case unfolded in an often-packed courtroom.
Lynn, 61, is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy over accusations he covered up child sex abuse allegations against priests, many of whom were simply transferred to unsuspecting parishes. He faces the possibility of 28 years in prison if convicted.
The trial that started on March 26 has drawn a spotlight on the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the nation’s sixth largest with 1.5 million members, in a case experts say is likely being watched by the Vatican. Defense lawyers promised to begin their case on Tuesday to bolster Lynn’s argument that he acted responsibly, reporting allegations to higher officials, but was overruled.
Lynn served in essence as the personnel director of the archdiocese under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the long-time archbishop of Philadelphia….
A grand jury that indicted Lynn and four others said in its January 2011 report that “Over the past two decades, Msgr. Lynn has put literally thousands of children at risk of sexual abuse by placing them in the care of known child molesters.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-churchbre84g1hd-20120517,0,5467080.story
Philadelphia Priest Trial: Monsignor William Lynn Takes Stand In Own Defense By MARYCLAIRE DALE 05/24/12 PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official testified Thursday that he typed a list of suspected pedophile priests on his computer, but couldn’t find it 10 years later to show a grand jury.
Monsignor William Lynn endured a second day of searing cross-examination as he fights charges he endangered children by protecting priests. He’s due back on the stand Tuesday. Lynn denies locking the 1994 list in an archdiocese safe, where church employees say it was found in 2006 and then buried in a lawyer’s files until this year. The list was turned over to city prosecutors in February, days after Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died. They’ve made it something of a smoking gun since the trial started in March. Prosecutors believe it shows the Philadelphia archdiocese knew it had diagnosed pedophiles and other predators on duty, but left them in jobs with access to children….
Lynn is charged with endangering two children by leaving the Rev. James Brennan, a co-defendant charged with attempted rape, and former priest Edward Avery, who pleaded guilty to sexual assault, in ministry despite earlier red flags….
On Bevilacqua’s orders, Molloy shredded Lynn’s list of predators in February 1994, an act witnessed by Cistone, according to the “shred memo,” which was shown in court….
Lynn said he prepared the list of 35 accused priests for a February 1994 meeting of Bevilacqua and his top two aides. Lynn, not a regular participant, was called in for the briefing. He said he doesn’t remember much about the discussion, other than the case of a priest accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl in Venezuela years earlier. “The cardinal did not consider that pedophilia, because it was a different culture and a different atmosphere,” Lynn recalled. The priest remained in ministry until March, when he was removed from the South Philadelphia parish he led. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/philadelphia-priest-trial-parishioners-told-accused-priests-had-health-problems-monsignor-william-lynn-testifies_n_1542218.html
Testimony: In 2008, priest admitted to sleepover, letting teen look at porn By Sarah Hoye, CNN Mon April 30, 2012 Philadelphia (CNN) — One of the two Philadelphia priests on trial in a landmark child sexual abuse and conspiracy case admitted in 2008 that he allowed a 14-year-old to view pornography and sleep in the same bed with him during an overnight visit in 1996, according to testimony given to church investigators.
Monsignor Kevin Quirk, the presiding priest over the 2008 canonical trial of Rev. James Brennan, read Brennan’s testimony into the court record on Monday. Brennan is accused of attempted rape in the 1996 incident and is currently standing trial in criminal court.
“Did I allow it happen? Yes. I take full responsibility for it,” Brennan testified in 2008, adding that the behavior was “borderline” inappropriate. Brennan denied touching the 14-year-old or exposing himself, according to the 2008 testimony that Quirk recounted for the court on Monday….
Also on trial is Monsignor William Lynn, the first high-ranking church figure charged with child endangerment. He’s accused of knowingly transferring priests from parish to parish despite allegations of sexual abuse of minors, including Brennan. Both have pleaded not guilty….
Two grand jury reports accused the archdiocese of failing to investigate claims of sexual abuse of children by priests. The 2011 report led to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office criminally charging four Philadelphia priests and a parochial school teacher with raping and assaulting boys in their care, while Lynn was accused of allowing the abusive priests to have access to children.
Days before the trial began March 26, defrocked priest Edward Avery of the Philadelphia Archdiocese pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of child after admitting that he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy during the 1998-1999 school year. http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/justice/pennsylvania-church-abuse-trial/index.html
On final day of testimony, Philadelphia monsignor apologizes for priest’s sex assault
By Associated Press Tuesday, May 29, 2012 PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official apologized to a priest sex-abuse victim on the final day of testimony in his groundbreaking child-endangerment trial….
Lynn, 61, who served as the Philadelphia archdiocese secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, is the first U.S. church official charged over his handling of priest-abuse complaints. He and the Rev. James Brennan have been on trial for 10 weeks. Brennan has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a teen in 1996. Defrocked priest Edward Avery pleaded guilty to a 1999 sexual assault days before trial and is in prison. Lynn testified that he tried to get accused priests out of parishes and into treatment, but said his power was limited because Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua had the final say….
Lynn said that Bevilacqua would not permanently remove a priest unless he was a diagnosed pedophile. That was rare among the dozens of priests accused of raping or molesting children in Philadelphia. Defense lawyers call the mild-mannered Lynn a scapegoat for the alleged failings of the archdiocese. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/judge-denies-monsignors-bid-to-drop-endangerment-charge-in-philadelphia-priest-abuse-trial/2012/05/29/gJQArF54yU_story.html
Ex-Modesto priest found liable for abuse, removed from clergy By Jordan Guinn The Record (Stockton) Apr. 06, 2012
The jury in a civil trial found that Father Michael Kelly should be held liable for three counts related to child molestation, according to the lawyer for his accuser. Attorney John Manly said Friday a civil jury unanimously agreed that his client, a 37-year-old man identified in court papers as John TZ Doe, was molested by Kelly while he was a priest at Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton. The plaintiff was a student at Annunciation School in the 1980s….
Now that Kelly’s verdict has been delivered, the same jury will start a second phase of the trial Wednesday to determine the diocese’s role in the alleged abuse and liability. Manly said removing Kelly from the diocese is a substantial victory….
Friday’s verdict is the culmination of four years of litigation and a seven-week trial, Manly said. The hearings centered on the plaintiff’s allegations of sexual abuse, memories of which he said he had repressed over the decades. The defense challenged the legitimacy of those memories. The plaintiff’s attorneys also argued Kelly had victimized multiple children, but testimony from an alleged second victim was not allowed at the trial….
When the trial resumes Wednesday, the diocese’s previous handlings of child molestation cases will be the focus. That includes the case of defrocked and criminally convicted priest Oliver O’Grady.
O’Grady, a native of Ireland, recently was convicted of pornography charges in that country. Before that, the former Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Stockton served time for child molestation in San Joaquin County. Before his 1993 arrest, O’Grady had been a priest at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in Lodi, the Church of the Presentation in Stockton, St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in San Andreas and others. Allegations against O’Grady have cost the Diocese of Stockton millions of dollars in settlements in more than 20 lawsuits brought by alleged victims.
http://www.modbee.com/2012/04/06/v-print/2147587/ex-modesto-priest-found-liable.html
Stockton Diocese accused of cover-up in Michael Kelly case Fri Apr 13, 2012 By Ross Farrow/News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Now that Father Michael Kelly has been held liable for sexual assault and removed as pastor of a Lockeford parish, his civil trial will focus on the Stockton Diocese’s role in handling Kelly and other priests accused of childhood sexual abuse. “The diocese made a concerted effort to cover up for Father Kelly,” attorney John Manly told the jury in his opening statement on Thursday morning. “They value money, power and their reputation more than they do children. Ladies and gentlemen, that has got to stop.” The 10-woman, two-man jury found Kelly, 62, liable on Friday of sexually assaulting an altar boy in the mid-1980s.
http://www.lodinews.com/news/article_2cc84273-73fd-5ac3-9452-f1d6fe4902da.html
Jury awards brothers $700K in Wis. diocese lawsuit Monday, May 21, 2012
APPLETON, Wis. (AP) – An Outagamie County jury on Monday awarded two brothers $700,000 in a fraud trial against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. The civil jury found the diocese responsible Monday for concealing a former priest’s history of child molestation.
Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield sued the diocese in 2008, alleging the diocese was aware the Rev. John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978, when it assigned him to Freedom’s St. Nicholas Church. Feeney was convicted in 2004 for the sexual assaults of the Merryfields and has already served his prison sentence. The jury awarded Troy Merryfield $475,000 and Todd $225,000 in damages, The Post-Crescent reported….
Over the past week, Jeffrey Anderson and John Peterson, the Merryfields’ attorneys, called several priests as witnesses. The priests testified there were allegations of inappropriate behavior by Feeney – that he swam naked with boys and showered with them after basketball games – long before he assaulted the Merryfields in 1978. But the bishop, who died in 2005, said in a previous deposition testimony that if there was merit to complaints of sexual abuse by Feeney, he would have immediately suspended the priest.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Jury-awards-brothers-700K-in-Wis-diocese-lawsuit-3575027.php
Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-up May. 21, 2012
APPLETON – When an Outagamie County jury decided the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay covered up a priest’s history of child molestation, it sent a message to the rest of Wisconsin, an advocate for sexual abuse victims said….
Rev. John Feeney molested the Merryfields in 1978, when they were 12 and 14 years old. In 2004, Feeney was convicted of sexual assault of the brothers. After the criminal trial, the brothers said they learned the priest had a history of similar assaults in the 1960s and 1970s that the diocese knew about and hid from parishioners at St. Nicholas Church in Freedom, which the Merryfields attended.
So in 2008, they sued the diocese and now-deceased Bishop Aloysius Wycislo, who was in charge of ensuring priests were fit to serve, for fraudulent misrepresentation and sought unspecified damages….
Feeney was attending mental health counseling in 1974 after he touched girls inappropriately at a church retreat, Rev. Lawrence Canavera testified. Anderson and Peterson presented a letter forwarded from psychologist Thomas Kelley to the bishop stating under stress Feeney’s “usual controls over sexual impulses may fail and cause some indiscretions.”
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120521/APC0101/305210146/Green-Bay-diocese-held-liable-molestation-cover-up-story-photo-video-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
Ultra-Orthodox Shun Their Own for Reporting Child Sexual Abuse by SHARON OTTERMAN and RAY RIVERA May 9, 2012 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….
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….
Some ultra-Orthodox Jews want to keep abuse allegations quiet to protect the reputation of the community, and the family of the accused. And rabbinical authorities, eager to maintain control, worry that inviting outside scrutiny could erode their power, said Samuel Heilman, a professor of Jewish studies at Queens College….
In Brooklyn, of the 51 molesting cases involving the ultra-Orthodox community that the district attorney’s office says it has closed since 2009, nine were dismissed because the victims backed out. Others ended with plea deals because the victims’ families were fearful. “People aren’t recanting, but they don’t want to go forward,” said Rhonnie Jaus, a sex crimes prosecutor in Brooklyn. “We’ve heard some of our victims have been thrown out of schools, that the person is shunned from the synagogue. There’s a lot of pressure.”
For Ultra-Orthodox in Abuse Cases, Prosecutor Has Different Rules By RAY RIVERA and SHARON OTTERMAN May 10, 2012
An influential rabbi came last summer to the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, with a message: his ultra-Orthodox advocacy group was instructing adherent Jews that they could report allegations of child sexual abuse to district attorneys or the police only if a rabbi first determined that the suspicions were credible. The pronouncement was a blunt challenge to Mr. Hynes’s authority. But the district attorney “expressed no opposition or objection,” the rabbi, Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, recalled.
In fact, when Mr. Hynes held a Hanukkah party at his office in December, he invited many ultra-Orthodox rabbis affiliated with the advocacy group, Agudath Israel of America. He even chose Rabbi Zwiebel, the group’s executive vice president, as keynote speaker at the party. Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who lead growing communities in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights. 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. Called Kol Tzedek (Voice of Justice in Hebrew), 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….
Through an extensive search of court and other public records, The Times determined the names of suspects and other details in 47 of the 95 cases attributed to the Kol Tzedek program. More than half of the 47 seemed to have little to do with the program, according to the court records and interviews.
Other Cases
Indiana ISP owner charged with ‘sextortion’ of minors; hundreds of victims might have been targeted By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com 4/9/12 The owner of an Internet service provider in Indiana has been charged with blackmailing children into performing sexually explicit acts over webcams, authorities said Monday.
Richard Leon Finkbiner, age 39, of Brazil, Ind., about 50 miles southwest of Indianapolis, was charged in a federal complaint last week with sexual exploitation of children. The allegations involve two 14-year-old boys, but the FBI said in court documents that it found thousands of sexually explicit images and videos on Finkbiner’s computer that suggest “several hundred” other victims. Authorities said the “sextortion” scheme worked this way:
Using the pseudonym “Josh Swaim,” Finkbiner would befriend young boys on social media and capture sexually explicit video of them they had uploaded on what they thought was an anonymous video chat site, the complaint alleges. He would then tell them that if they didn’t record more sexually explicit videos, he would release the clips online or send them to their friends, it says….
“Analysis of FINKBINER’s computer and other digital media uncovered thousands of video files depicting hundreds of individuals on various states of undress or engaged in sexually explicit conduct,” the FBI said in court documents. “Many, if not most, of these individuals appear to be between the ages of 14-16 years of age,” it said.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/09/11103049-indiana-isp-owner-charged-with-sextortion-of-minors-hundreds-of-victims-might-have-been-targeted
Pedro Hernandez Charged With Second Degree Murder In Etan Patz Case By COLLEEN LONG and LARRY NEUMEISTER 05/25/12 AP NEW YORK — Thirty-three years to the day after 6-year-old Etan Patz vanished without a trace while walking to catch a school bus, a man accused of strangling him and dumping his body with the trash was arraigned on a murder charge on Friday in a locked hospital ward where he was being held as a suicide risk. A lawyer for Pedro Hernandez, who was a teenage convenience store stock clerk at the time of the boy’s disappearance, told the judge that his client is mentally ill and has a history of hallucinations….
Hernandez, a churchgoing father now living in Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested Thursday after making a surprise confession in a case that has bedeviled investigators and inspired dread in generations of New York City parents for three decades. Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his two-block walk to his bus stop in Manhattan. It was the first time his parents had let him walk the route by himself. Next to the bus stop was a convenience store, where Hernandez, then 18, worked as a clerk. When police, acting on a tip, interviewed him this week, he said he lured Etan into the basement with a promise of a soda, choked him to death, then stuffed his body in a bag and left it with trash on the street a block away, police said….
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Hernandez gave a detailed confession that led police to believe they had the right man. He also said Hernandez told a relative and others as far back as 1981 that he had “done something bad” and killed a child in New York. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/pedro-hernandez-charged-etan-patz_n_1546858.html
Breivik
note: Reprinting these article excerpts about Breivik are in no way meant to support or promote Breivik’s abhorrent ideas printed below.
Confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik: Attacks were ‘spectacular’ April 17, 2012
LONDON — Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing Norwegian fanatic who has admitted killing 77 people on the Norwegian island of Utoya and in the Oslo city center last July, told a court Tuesday that he had carried out “the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack … in Europe since World War II.”
The confessed 33-year-old killer was captured on video raising his right arm in a fascist-style clenched-fist salute as he entered the court in Oslo. His testimony, which began with a statement in which he sought to explain his actions, was not broadcast due to a judicial decision to avoid giving a televised platform to his violent anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant views. But his remarks were widely reported….
Breivik compared the killings to the U.S. use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, according to an Associated Press report, which quoted him as saying, “The attacks on July 22 were a preventive strike. I acted in self-defense on behalf of my people, my city, my country.”….
Authorities charge that Breivik targeted an annual Labor Party political camp on Utoya, shooting and killing 69 young Norwegians, and blew up a government building in central Oslo, leaving eight people dead…. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/04/anders-behring-breivik-norway-massacre-witness-stand.html
Norway massacre: the real Anders Behring Breivik – Former friends and neighbours in Oslo talk about growing up with the boy who became a mass murderer. By Robert Mendick 31 Jul 2011
Even as he languishes in solitary confinement in a prison that fittingly was once a Nazi concentration camp, Anders Behring Breivik continues to wage his demented war against Islam. Having murdered 77 innocent victims, he is now entering the propaganda phase of his 21st-century crusade. Confined to his cell, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that he spends his waking hours writing speeches or making bizarre requests to the authorities.
A narcissist and a fantasist, Breivik, 32, refuses to have his prison “mugshot” taken to ensure that the carefully stage-managed photographs he took of himself – in full Masonic regalia or clutching his rifle – are not replaced by more humbling images. Having been refused permission to wear a combat uniform, he has demanded to wear a red Lacoste sweater for his public outings to court or to the police station. He will not wear anything else….
He had a drastic solution, too, for curing what he saw as the ills of multicultural Norway. He would slaughter government workers and the children of the Norwegian socialist elite as the opening salvo in a new crusade against what he perceived as the creeping Islamification of western Europe. His plan was laid down in his manifesto, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. The year 2083 signals when Breivik was convinced the civil war he hoped to start would be over….
“I never felt comfortable with him. He was a little cold, although I never thought he was crazy,” says Lina Engelsrud, who lived in an apartment close by. “He used to spit in the basement and pee in the neighbour’s shed. He took great pleasure in killing ants.”….
In 2002, aged 23, Breivik writes of travelling to London to establish with other extremists the Knights Templar, a new crusading movement to crush Islamists. No extremist has come forward to admit being at the meeting, although Paul Ray, a founder member of the anti-Islamist English Defence League, admits he may have influenced Breivik’s thinking.
From then on, Breivik secretly plotted his attacks. His strategy in place, it’s not clear how he funded his enterprise but money appears to have been no great problem. By now claiming to be a committed Christian, he held a number of minor posts in the far-Right, anti-immigration Progress Party but abandoned conventional politics in 2003 after losing an Oslo City Hall election.
He was close to a small group of friends throughout his twenties and early thirties and lived a bachelor’s life in Oslo, going to the gym and latterly joining an Oslo gun club and the freemasons.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/norway/8672801/Norway-massacre-the-real-Anders-Behring-Breivik.html
Breivik: How I met ‘Richard the Lionheart’ in London cafe to plot ‘how to seize power in Western Europe’ Mass killer draws inspiration from Islamist terror network’s methods
Claims to have met three people in London to create Knights Templar in 2002
Said he met a Serbian ‘war hero’ in Liberia in 2002 by posing as a member of Unicef
Prosecutors said Breivik was not part of a sophisticated anti-Muslim group
By Daily Mail Reporter 18 April 2012
A meeting between Anders Breivik and an English anti-Islamic militant calling himself ‘Richard the Lionheart’ was outlined in court yesterday. Nine years before his killing spree left 77 dead, the Norwegian said he was sitting in a London cafe with members of an extremist group called Knights Templar, to plot ‘how to seize power in Western Europe’.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2131468/Anders-Behring-Breivik-trial-Norway-killer-says-I-dont-fear-death-execute-let-go.html
Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools
Amnesty International Magazine
U.S. and Canadian authorities took Native children from their homes and tried to school, and sometimes beat, the Indian out them. Now Native Americans are fighting the theft of language, of culture, and of childhood itself. By Andrea Smith March 26, 2007
….Dolphus is one of more than 100,000 Native Americans forced by the U.S. government to attend Christian schools. The system, which began with President Ulysses Grant’s 1869 “Peace Policy,” continued well into the 20th century. Church officials, missionaries, and local authorities took children as young as five from their parents and shipped them off to Christian boarding schools; they forced others to enroll in Christian day schools on reservations. Those sent to boarding school were separated from their families for most of the year, sometimes without a single family visit. Parents caught trying to hide their children lost food rations….
“Native America knows all too well the reality of the boarding schools,” writes Native American Bar Association President Richard Monette, who attended a North Dakota boarding school, “where recent generations learned the fine art of standing in line single-file for hours without moving a hair, as a lesson in discipline; where our best and brightest earned graduation certificates for homemaking and masonry; where the sharp rules of immaculate living were instilled through blistered hands and knees on the floor with scouring toothbrushes; where mouths were scrubbed with lye and chlorine solutions for uttering Native words.”….
The schools were part of Euro-America’s drive to solve the “Indian problem” and end Native control of their lands. While some colonizers advocated outright physical extermination, Captain Richard H. Pratt thought it wiser to “Kill the Indian and save the man.” In 1879 Pratt, an army veteran of the Indian wars, opened the first federally sanctioned boarding school: the Carlisle Industrial Training School, in Carlisle, Penn.
“Transfer the savage-born infant to the surroundings of civilization, and he will grow to possess a civilized language and habit,” said Pratt. He modeled Carlisle on a prison school he had developed for a group of 72 Indian prisoners of war at Florida’s Fort Marion prison. His philosophy was to “elevate” American Indians to white standards through a process of forced acculturation that stripped them of their language, culture, and customs.
Government officials found the Carlisle model an appealing alternative to the costly military campaigns against Indians in the West. Within three decades of Carlisle’s opening, nearly 500 schools extended all the way to California. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) controlled 25 off-reservation boarding schools while churches ran 460 boarding and day schools on reservations with government funds.
Both BIA and church schools ran on bare-bones budgets, and large numbers of students died from starvation and disease because of inadequate food and medical care. School officials routinely forced children to do arduous work to raise money for staff salaries and “leased out” students during the summers to farm or work as domestics for white families. In addition to bringing in income, the hard labor prepared children to take their place in white society — the only one open to them — on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder….
Rampant sexual abuse at reservation schools continued until the end of the 1980s, in part because of pre-1990 loopholes in state and federal law mandating the reporting of allegations of child sexual abuse. In 1987 the FBI found evidence that John Boone, a teacher at the BIA-run Hopi day school in Arizona, had sexually abused as many as 142 boys from 1979 until his arrest in 1987. The principal failed to investigate a single abuse allegation. Boone, one of several BIA schoolteachers caught molesting children on reservations in the late 1980s, was convicted of child abuse, and he received a life sentence. Acting BIA chief William Ragsdale admitted that the agency had not been sufficiently responsive to allegations of sexual abuse, and he apologized to the Hopi tribe and others whose children BIA employees had abused….
Dolphus, now director of the South Dakota Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence, sees boarding school policies as the central route through which sexual abuse became entrenched in Native communities, as many victims became molesters themselves. Hopi tribe members testified at a 1989 Senate hearing that some of Boone’s victims had become sex abusers; others had become suicidal or alcoholic….
A 2001 report by the Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada documents the responsibility of the Roman Catholic Church, the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the federal government in the deaths of more than 50,000 Native children in the Canadian residential school system.
The report says church officials killed children by beating, poisoning, electric shock, starvation, prolonged exposure to sub-zero cold while naked, and medical experimentation, including the removal of organs and radiation exposure. In 1928 Alberta passed legislation allowing school officials to forcibly sterilize Native girls; British Columbia followed suit in 1933. There is no accurate toll of forced sterilizations because hospital staff destroyed records in 1995 after police launched an investigation. But according to the testimony of a nurse in Alberta, doctors sterilized entire groups of Native children when they reached puberty. The report also says that Canadian clergy, police, and business and government officials “rented out” children from residential schools to pedophile rings….
six members of the Sioux Nation who say they were physically and sexually abused in government-run boarding schools filed a class-action lawsuit this April against the United States for $25 billion on behalf of hundreds of thousands of mistreated Native Americans. Sherwyn Zephier was a student at a school run from 1948 to 1975 by St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Marty, S.D.: “I was tortured in the middle of the night. They would whip us with boards and sometimes with straps,” he recalled in Los Angeles at an April press conference to launch the suit. http://www.amnestyusa.org/node/87342
Landmark Children’s Rights Case Now Before the Fifth Circuit By James R. Marsh on April 25, 2012
During the past two years, victims of child pornography (represented by the Marsh Law Firm and pioneering attorneys Paul G. Cassell and Carol L. Hepburn) have been seeking restitution in federal courts throughout the country.
Almost twenty years ago Congress, led by then-Senator Joe Biden, passed a law as part of the Violence Against Women Act which requires federal district courts to award mandatory restitution to child pornography victims for the “full amount of the victim’s losses.” 18 U.S.C. § 2259(B)(3). Among the losses covered by the statute are psychiatric care, lost income, and occupational therapy. Recently this issue has come to a head in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in two cases, In re Amy Unknown, No. 09-41238, and United States v. Wright, No. 09-3125.
The Fifth Circuit has scheduled a rare rehearing en banc before 16 judges in these two cases on Thursday, May 3, 2012 in New Orleans. Amy will argue that the Fifth Circuit should not read a general proximate cause requirement into the statute. At least four judges on the Court agree with her.
Both the Government and the defendants in these two consolidated cases believe that proximate cause is required and limits the availability and amount of restitution. A decision in the case is expected by the end of the year. For more information on this issue, visit http://www.childlaw.us/restitution/
Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Information
Vets Get More Discovery in CIA ‘Guinea Pig’ Case By NICK MCCANN Monday, April 09, 2012
OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – The Department of Veterans Affairs must disclose certain documents that a class of veterans hopes will prove they were used as guinea pigs by the CIA in Cold War-era drug experiments, a federal judge ruled.
Vietnam Veterans of America filed a class action against the U.S. government in 2009, claiming that at least 7,800 soldiers had been used as guinea pigs in Project Paperclip. The experiments were allegedly conducted at the Baltimore-area Edgewood Arsenal.
Soldiers were allegedly administered at least 250 and as many as 400 types of drugs, among them Sarin, one of the most deadly drugs known, amphetamines, barbiturates, mustard gas, phosgene gas and LSD.
Using tactics it often attributed to the Soviet enemy, the U.S. government sought drugs to control human behavior, cause confusion, promote weakness or temporary loss of hearing and vision, induce hypnosis and enhance a person’s ability to withstand torture, according to the complaint.
The veterans say that some soldiers died, and others suffered seizures and paranoia.
They say the CIA knew it had to conceal the tests from “enemy forces” and the “American public in general” because the knowledge “would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles and would be detrimental to the accomplishment of its mission.”
The veterans’ claims have changed over the course of discovery, and there are four remaining legal claims against the CIA, Defense Department, Army and Department of Veterans Affairs:
“1) whether the DOD and Army failed to provide adequate notice to test participants including notice of chemicals to which they were exposed and any known health effects; 2) whether the DOD and Army failed to provide medical care to test participants for any conditions arising out of participation in testing programs; 3) whether the Army, DOD, and CIA have failed to release participants from secrecy oaths; and 4) whether the Department of Veterans Affairs is an inherently biased decision-maker.”
The veterans are still fighting for access to certain documents that the four agencies have withheld from discovery as privileged.,
The government is required to provide a privilege log explaining the reason why certain documents or information is not available….
Veterans can also access an encrypted mailbox that DVA Affairs created to verify test subjects in mustard gas and Edgewood Arsenal experiments, Corley said, but it would be too burdensome for the department to produce 650 veteran claim files related to mustard gas exposure.
“Plaintiffs contend that the government failed to notify tens of thousands of individuals that they had been exposed to mustard gas and lewisite,” the decision states. “The contents of the claim files of the 650 individuals who filed claims based on their exposure will shed little if any light on plaintiffs’ notice claims.”…. http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/04/09/45455.htm
Satanic Ritual Abuse Exists – Resources & Links for Survivors
The purpose of this website is to help stop ritual abuse by sharing information, links, and resources. Ritual abuse is an extreme sadistic form of abuse of children and non-consenting adults. It is methodical, systematic sexual, physical, emotional and spiritual abuse, which often includes mind control, torture, and highly illegal and immoral activities such as murder, child pornography and prostitution. The abuse is justified by a religious or political ideology. http://ritualabuse.ca/
describes crimes
Y! Big Story: What the brain tells us By Vera H-C Chan 4/28/12
….Finding how to stop extreme behavior. Thanks to crime literature and serial killer movies, Americans are aware of many different “-paths”: sociopath, psychopath, and antisocial personality disorder. What has been a raging debate is if one is doomed to that diagnosis and basically lifetime incarceration, or if there’s a window of intervention. One researcher went on a roadtrip into the heart of darkness: Using a mobile MRI unit, a University of New Mexico associate professor of psychology took a snapshot of 2,000 inmate volunteers.
He found that compared to the average offender, 60 percent of psychopaths re-offend within the next 200 days. Maximum-security juveniles showed a similar pattern: 68 percent of individuals who were at high risk for psychopathy re-offended.
Using images of the brain, [Kent] Kiehl said he could predict psychopathy as well as one can with clinical error. (April 23, Duke (University) Research Blog) Among preliminary findings, Kiehl zeroed in on the interaction with a gene (MAOA) and a “stressful” upbringing and that treatment like group therapy actually ends in “violent failure” among adults. For juveniles, intervention’s a different story and can show a 50% reduction in violent recidivism.
“We have a problem in the United States: We incarcerate a lot of people,” he said. “We incarcerate more per capita than any other country. It’s expensive—it costs $2.34 trillion per year, which is about the same as the annual estimate for all health care [in the country].” (April 23, Duke (University) Research Blog)
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/y-big-story-brain-tells-us-000534638.html
C.I.A. Data Show 14-Year Project On Controlling Human Behavior; Data From C.I.A. Show Project on Human Behavior By NICHOLAS M. HORROCK Special to The New York Times July 21, 1977
WASHINGTON, July 20 The Central Intelligence Agency conducted a 14-year program to find ways to “control human behavior” through the use of chemical, biological and radiological material, according to agency documents made public today by John Marks, a freelance journalist….
Marks: “To be sure, drugs were a part of it, ” he said, ” but so were such other techniques as electric shock, radiation, ultrasonics, psychosurgery, psychology and incapacitating agents, all of which were referred to in documents I have received.”….
According to Mr. Marks’s documents and an earlier Senate investigation, the C.I.A. conducted secret medical experiments from 1949 through 1963 under the code names Bluebird, Artichoke, MK Ultra and MK Delta. The C.I.A. inspector general’s report in 1963 described the program as the “research and development of chemical, biological and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.”
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60A1FFC3E59157493C3AB178CD85F438785F9
Brazilian cult members accused of cannibalistic ritual By Agence France-Presse Friday, April 13, 2012 RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian police announced Friday that they had arrested a man and two women on suspicion of having murdered and cannibalized at least two women in what was described as a purification ritual.
The three defendants formed a sect called “Cartel” that seeks to purify the world and reduce the population, police spokesman Democrito Honorato from the northeastern Brazilian town of Guaranhuns told AFP. The three defendants, Jorge and Elizabeth Pires da Silveira, both 51, and Bruna da Silva, 25, intended to kill three women per year, police said….
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/13/brazilia-cult-members-accused-of-cannibalistic-ritual/
Relationships 101 – Ritual Sex Abuse of a Boy
Dr. Beth (www.drbetherickson.com) spoke with Neil Brick (ritualabuse.us/smart/neil-brick) about his experience from infancy on as a victim of the ritual sex abuse he endured. We also spoke about how being sexually abused impacts the survivor’s intimate relationships in adulthood.
http://webtalkradio.net/shows/relationships-101/
Exclusive: Senate probe finds little evidence of effective “torture” By Mark Hosenball Reuters 4/27/12 A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh “enhanced interrogation techniques” the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.
People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups. The backers of such techniques, which include “water-boarding,” sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al Qaeda leaders….
Other coercive techniques included sleep deprivation, making people crouch or stretch in stressful positions and slamming detainees against a flexible wall. The CIA started backing away from such techniques in 2004. Obama banned them shortly after taking office….
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-senate-probe-finds-little-evidence-effective-torture-051456121.html
describes violence – Cops: Father tries to sacrifice son in cemetery By R. Stickney NBCSanDiego.com 4/30/12 A father is in custody, accused of attempting to sacrifice his own son in a San Diego area cemetery. Joseph Ramirez, 30, took his family to Mount Hope Cemetery Saturday afternoon and told them his dead grandmother told him to sacrifice the 8-year-old boy, according to San Diego police. http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/30/11474419-cops-father-tries-to-sacrifice-son-in-cemetery
Dad Attempts Son’s Sacrifice at Cemetery: Cops – Joseph Ramirez, 30, took his family to Mount Hope Cemetery Saturday around 4:30 p.m. and told them his dead grandmother told him to sacrifice the 8-year-old boy, according to San Diego police. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Dad-Attempts-Sons-Sacrifice-at-Cemetery-Cops-149495845.html
describes violence
Mexico Drug War: Dozens Of Bodies Left On Monterrey Highway By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ and PORFIRIO IBARRA RAMIREZ 05/13/12 MONTERREY, Mexico — Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated bodies were found Sunday dumped on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey to the U.S. border in what appears to be the latest blow in an escalating war of intimidation among drug gangs.
Mexico’s organized crime groups often abandon multiple bodies in public places as warnings to their rivals, and authorities said at least a few of the recent victims had tattoos of the Santa Muerte cult popular among drug traffickers. But Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said he did not rule out the possibility that the victims were U.S.-bound migrants.
The bodies of the 43 men and six women were found in the town of San Juan on the non-toll highway to the border city of Reynosa at about 4 a.m. (5 a.m. EDT; 0900 GMT), forcing police and troops to close off the highway. Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said at a news conference that a banner left at the site bore a message with the Zetas drug cartel taking responsibility for the massacre. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/monterrey-drug-war-bodies-highway_n_1512811.html
Mom Gouged Son’s Eyes Out In Drug-Fueled Ritual, Mexico Authorities Say By MARK STEVENSON 05/24/12 MEXICO CITY — Police in a Mexico City suburb arrested a mother and several relatives Thursday for allegedly gouging out the eyes of her 5-year-old son in what authorities said appeared to have been a drug-fueled ritual….
Mexico state prosecutor Isaac Acevedo told local media that a total of eight people had been detained and that investigators believed the mother herself gouged the boy’s eyes out with her fingers. The boy’s father was apparently not in the home at the time. The crime appeared to have been part of a ritual, but was not apparently related to the Santa Muerte or Saint Death cult, some of whose followers were recently charged with the sacrificial killings of two 10-year-old boys and a 55-year-old woman in northern Sonora state, he said….
While statues of Saint Death are common in many poor Mexican neighborhoods, Chavez said no altar or statue of the figure was found in the Nezahualcoyotl home. Mexico’s worst case of ritual sacrifice came with the notorious “narco-satanicos” killings of the 1980s. Fifteen bodies, many of them with signs of ritual sacrifice, were unearthed at a ranch outside the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/mom-gouged-sons-eyes-out-santa-muerte-nezahualcoyotl-mexico_n_1544235.html
describes graphic crimes
Briton arrested in Thailand after being found with six roasted human foetuses Rob Williams Friday 18 May 2012
A British citizen in Bangkok has been arrested after Thai police found six roasted human foetuses packed in his luggage. Chow Hok Kuen, who is 28 and of Taiwanese origin, was held by police after the grisly discovery was made in Bangkok’s Chinatown district yesterday. Reports says the six foetuses had been covered in gold leaf after being roasted as part of a black magic ritual….
Police made the arrest after responding to information they’d received saying that infant corpses were being offered to wealthy clients via a black magic services website. “The bodies are of children between the ages of two and seven months. Some were found covered in gold leaf,” Wiwat Kumchumnan, sub-division chief of the police’s Children and Women Protection unit, said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/briton-arrested-in-thailand-after-being-found-with-six-roasted-human-foetuses-7766232.html
Journal articles and child abuse and trauma information
Indiana Tops Nation For Sex Assaults Of High School-Age Girls April 9, 2012 BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (CBS) — In Indiana, girls have a higher chance of becoming the victim of sexual assault than almost any other place in the country. As WBBM Newsradio’s Michele Fiore reports, 10.5 percent of all American high school-age girls have been forced into sexual intercourse, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention….
The Herald-Times also pointed out that researching the issue is a challenge, given that up to 50 percent of sexual assaults against women are never reported, and Indiana is one of three states – along with Mississippi and New Mexico – where law enforcement is not required to report sexual violence to the FBI. Researchers also emphasized that 80 percent or more of rape and sexual assault involves people who know each other, not strangers, the newspaper reported.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/04/09/indiana-tops-nation-for-sex-assaults-of-high-school-age-girls/
Rape Statistics: Over 17 Percent Of High School-Age Girls In Indiana Experience Sexual Assault The Huffington Post By Carolyn Gregoire 04/9/2012 According to recent national research conducted by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 10.5 percent of all high school-age girls have been sexually assaulted. And in the state of Indiana, those numbers are considerable higher than nearly anywhere else in the country. 17.3 percent of girls in grades nine through 12 in the state have reported experiencing rape or sexual assault….
But these statistics may not even reflect the true scope of the issue. CBS Chicago noted that because 50 percent of sexual assaults against women are unreported, it’s difficult to estimate the actual number of instances. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/09/indiana-sexual-assault-17_n_1412507.html
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE, and CHILD CUSTODY: Legal Strategies and Policy Issues Co-edited by Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein 2010
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, ABUSE and CHILD CUSTODY brings together experts from the US and Canada for a multi-disciplinary review of the most up-to-date research and recommendations for handling, domestic violence custody cases. The book’s 25 chapters are written by those in the know: judges, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, sociologists, journalists, domestic violence advocates, and others intimately familiar with the details of these cases. These diverse experts approach the issue through the lens of different disciplines and professional experiences. Although they may not agree on every point, they do agree on at least one thing: that the family court system in this country is broken.
For more than two decades, protective mothers from every state in the country (as well as overseas) have been ordered to turn their children over into the care, and even the custody, of the children’s abusive fathers. This occurs even when there is adequate evidence of child abuse, domestic violence, and other harmful behaviors on the part of the father.
http://www.domesticviolenceabuseandchildcustody.com/
Two former teen idols back bill to protect child actors – Todd Bridges and Corey Feldman, both of whom were molested by men with Hollywood connections, support legislation to require fingerprinting and background checks for those with unsupervised access to child performers.
By Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times April 18, 2012
Three decades ago, they were teen idols. Todd Bridges played Willis on the popular sitcom “Diff’rent Strokes.” Corey Feldman starred in “Gremlins,””The Goonies” and “The Lost Boys.”
The two men held the same dark secret: Each had been molested in his adolescence by men with Hollywood connections, experiences that would lead to downward spirals and years of drug addiction.
Today, they are making a highly public case for California legislation they hope will protect child actors from sexual predators, a problem they say continues to bedevil the entertainment industry.
“We’re not doing enough to protect children, period,” Bridges said.
The bill that the two actors support would require talent managers, photographers and others whose jobs involve unsupervised access to child performers to provide fingerprints and submit to criminal background checks. It also would prohibit registered sex offenders from representing artists who are minors. “If this bill can help save one child from the pain and consequences of being made a victim, then it is worth every effort,” said the bill’s author, Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose).
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-et-molest-survivors-20120418,0,7018231.story
Abuse as a child linked to longer term homeless ADELE HORIN 19 Apr, 2012 TWO-THIRDS of people in a national study of homelessness suffered physical or sexual violence as children or had been neglected or emotionally abused. About one-third had been sexually assaulted. The study by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research was commissioned by the federal government….
The research is based on interviews with 1682 people flagged by Centrelink and another group that had not been flagged as homeless but identified by the researchers as having characteristics that also made them highly vulnerable. It found those exposed to violence or abuse as children were much more likely to experience longer periods of homelessness over their lifetime. This was also true for people who had been in foster or residential care as children. ”It’s clear the experience of trauma as children affects the length of time they are homeless,” a researcher, Rosanna Scutella, said. Contrary to expectations, the study found homelessness was not usually a short, one-off experience. Rather most of the people in the study had long, if broken, histories of homelessness, and found it difficult to make a permanent escape. They cycled between homelessness, marginal housing and stable housing.
http://www.bellingencourier.com.au/news/national/national/general/abuse-as-a-child-linked-to-longer-term-homeless/2526979.aspx
BishopAccountability.org Data on the Crisis The Human Toll
Thousands of Catholic clergy and religious have raped and sodomized tens of thousands of children—perhaps more than 100,000 children—since 1950. These crimes were committed in secret, and bishops nurtured that secrecy. Nearly 15,000 survivors have broken through the silence, and their accounts have created an in-depth picture of the crisis….
The U.S. bishops have reported receiving allegations of abuse by 6,115 priests in 1950-2011, or 5.6% of the 109,694 U.S. priests active since 1950….
Richard Sipe estimates that 9% of U.S. priests have offended, which extrapolates to 9,872 priests nationally….
Approximately two-thirds of sitting U.S. bishops were alleged in 2002 to have kept accused priests in ministry or moved accused priests to new assignments….
Fewer than 2 percent of sexual abuse allegations against the Catholic church appear to be false.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/data.htm
Severe abuse in childhood may treble risk of schizophrenia – Research links sexual, physical and emotional abuse, school bullying and parental neglect to schizophrenia in adulthood – Alok Jha, science correspondent guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 April 2012
Children who experience severe forms of abuse are around three times as likely to develop schizophrenia and related psychoses in later life compared with children who do not experience such abuse, according to a study that has brought together psychiatric data from almost 80,000 people.
The results add to a growing body of evidence that childhood maltreatment or abuse can raise the risk of developing mental illnesses in adulthood, including depression, personality disorders and anxiety.
Prof Richard Bentall of the University of Liverpool’s Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, who led the study, showed that the risk of developing psychosis increased in line with the amount of abuse or trauma a child had gone through, with the most severely affected children having a 50-fold increased risk compared with children who had suffered no abuse. He also showed that the type of trauma experienced in childhood affected the subsequent psychiatric symptoms later in life….
Bentall’s team analysed 36 published studies that contained data on childhood maltreatment (including sexual, physical and emotional abuse, death of a parent, school bullying and neglect) and psychiatric symptoms in almost 80,000 people, collected over the course of 30 years. People who experienced these types of trauma in childhood were between 2.7 and 3 times as likely to develop schizophrenia as adults, the team found. The research is published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin….
The latest results add to recent evidence that childhood abuse can lead to serious problems in later life. In 2011, scientists at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London found that people with a history of abuse or maltreatment during childhood were more than twice as likely to have recurrent episodes of depression in adulthood and also 43% more likely to experience a poor outcome when it came to psychological or drug-based treatment. They examined data from 16 epidemiological studies involving more than 23,000 people in total and 10 clinical trials involving more than 3,000 people
The mechanisms behind the link between childhood maltreatment and schizophrenia are not yet understood. Earlier this year, psychiatrists at Harvard University found that being sexually or emotionally abused as a child correlated with reduced volumes of three important areas of the hippocampus, which is involved in the control of memory and regulation of emotions. Volumes were reduced by up to 6.5%.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/18/severe-abuse-childhood-risk-schizophrenia
Childhood Adversities Increase the Risk of Psychosis: A Meta-analysis of Patient-Control, Prospective- and Cross-sectional Cohort Studies Filippo Varese†, Feikje Smeets†, Marjan Drukker, Ritsaert Lieverse, Tineke Lataster, Wolfgang Viechtbauer, John Read, Jim van Os and Richard P. Bentall
Schizophr Bull (2012) doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbs050
Abstract
Evidence suggests that adverse experiences in childhood are associated with psychosis. To examine the association between childhood adversity and trauma (sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional/psychological abuse, neglect, parental death, and bullying) and psychosis outcome, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsychINFO, and Web of Science were searched from January 1980 through November 2011. We included prospective cohort studies, large-scale cross-sectional studies investigating the association between childhood adversity and psychotic symptoms or illness, case-control studies comparing the prevalence of adverse events between psychotic patients and controls using dichotomous or continuous measures, and case-control studies comparing the prevalence of psychotic symptoms between exposed and nonexposed subjects using dichotomous or continuous measures of adversity and psychosis. The analysis included 18 case-control studies (n = 2048 psychotic patients and 1856 nonpsychiatric controls), 10 prospective and quasi-prospective studies (n = 41 803) and 8 population-based cross-sectional studies (n = 35?546). There were significant associations between adversity and psychosis across all research designs, with an overall effect of OR = 2.78 (95% CI = 2.34–3.31). The integration of the case-control studies indicated that patients with psychosis were 2.72 times more likely to have been exposed to childhood adversity than controls (95% CI = 1.90–3.88). The association between childhood adversity and psychosis was also significant in population-based cross-sectional studies (OR = 2.99 [95% CI = 2.12–4.20]) as well as in prospective and quasi-prospective studies (OR = 2.75 [95% CI = 2.17–3.47]). The estimated population attributable risk was 33% (16%–47%). These findings indicate that childhood adversity is strongly associated with increased risk for psychosis.
http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/03/28/schbul.sbs050
full article
http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/03/28/schbul.sbs050.full
National Resource Center for Child Protective Services
The 30-60% overlap of child maltreatment and domestic violence in families indicates a need for child protection policy and practice that reflects this co-occurrence. In 2009, the NRCCPS collaborated with the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) to publish Child and Family Service Review Outcomes: Strategies to Improve Domestic Violence Responses in CFSR Program Improvement Plans to help child protection agencies develop and implement policy and best practice respond to the need for improving and deepening the child pro identified in the CFSR process.
http://nrccps.org/special-initiatives/domestic-violence/
Violence ages children’s DNA, shortens their chromosomes By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY 4/23/2012
….Study finds that exposure to violence can cause changes in DNA leading to seven to 10 years of premature aging….In fact, a new study suggests that violence leaves long-term scars on children’s bodies — not just in bruises on the skin, but also altering their DNA, causing changes that are equivalent to seven to 10 years of premature aging.
Scientists measured this cellular aging by studying the ends of children’s chromosomes, called telomeres, according to Idan Shalev, lead author of a study in today’s Molecular Psychiatry. Telomeres are special DNA sequences that act like the plastic tips on shoelaces, which prevent the DNA in chromosomes from unraveling. They get shorter each time a cell divides, until a cell can’t divide anymore and it dies….
In this study, researchers examined whether exposure to violence could make children’s telomeres shorten faster than normal. They interviewed the mothers of 236 children at ages 5, 7 and 10, asking whether the youngsters had been exposed to domestic violence between the mother and her partner; physical maltreatment by an adult; or bullying. Researchers measured the children’s telomeres — in cells obtained by swabbing the insides of their cheeks — at ages 5 and 10. Telomeres shortened faster in kids exposed to two or more types of violence, says Shalev, a post-doctoral researcher at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy in Durham, N.C. Unless that pattern changes, the study suggests, these kids could be expected to develop diseases of aging, such as heart attacks or memory loss, seven to 10 years earlier than their peers….
The study confirms a small-but-growing number of studies suggesting that early childhood adversity imprints itself in our chromosomes, says Charles Nelson, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. In a 2011 study, Nelson and colleagues found shorter telomeres in Romanian children who had spent more time in institutions, compared with children sent to foster care. http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-04-24/violence-cellular-mark/54493338/1?csp=34news
Exposure to violence during childhood is associated with telomere erosion from 5 to 10 years of age: a longitudinal study
I Shalev, T E Moffitt, K Sugden, B Williams, R M Houts, A Danese, J Mill, L Arseneault and A Caspi Abstract
There is increasing interest in discovering mechanisms that mediate the effects of childhood stress on late-life disease morbidity and mortality. Previous studies have suggested one potential mechanism linking stress to cellular aging, disease and mortality in humans: telomere erosion. We examined telomere erosion in relation to children’s exposure to violence, a salient early-life stressor, which has known long-term consequences for well-being and is a major public-health and social-welfare problem. In the first prospective-longitudinal study with repeated telomere measurements in children while they experienced stress, we tested the hypothesis that childhood violence exposure would accelerate telomere erosion from age 5 to age 10 years. Violence was assessed as exposure to maternal domestic violence, frequent bullying victimization and physical maltreatment by an adult. Participants were 236 children (49% females; 42% with one or more violence exposures) recruited from the Environmental-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally representative 1994–1995 birth cohort. Each child’s mean relative telomere length was measured simultaneously in baseline and follow-up DNA samples, using the quantitative PCR method for T/S ratio (the ratio of telomere repeat copy numbers to single-copy gene numbers). Compared with their counterparts, the children who experienced two or more kinds of violence exposure showed significantly more telomere erosion between age-5 baseline and age-10 follow-up measurements, even after adjusting for sex, socioeconomic status and body mass index (B=-0.052, s.e.=0.021, P=0.015). This finding provides support for a mechanism linking cumulative childhood stress to telomere maintenance, observed already at a young age, with potential impact for life-long health. Molecular Psychiatry , (24 April 2012) | doi:10.1038/mp.2012.32
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201232a.html
full article http://www.moffittcaspi.com/WhatsNew/Shalev_2012_MPepub.pdf
The Parental Alienation Debate Belongs in the Courtroom, Not in DSM-5 Timothy M. Houchin, MD, John Ranseen, PhD, Phillip A. K. Hash, DO, PhD and Daniel J. Bartnicki, JD
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 40:1:127-131 (January 2012) – the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. The DSM-5 Task Force is presently considering whether to adopt parental alienation disorder (PAD) as a mental illness. Although controversy has surrounded PAD since its inception in 1985, pro-PAD groups and individuals have breathed new life into the push to establish it as a mental health diagnosis. In this analysis, we argue that it would be a serious mistake to adopt parental alienation disorder as a formal mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5)….
The Origin of PAS
Richard Gardner, formerly a psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist on the clinical faculty at Columbia University, introduced the term parental alienation syndrome in his 1985 debut article on the subject….he openly supported abolishing child abuse reporting laws and controversially declared that sexual abuse cases are “turn-ons” for those involved in the court process, including lawyers and judges. Despite these unusual claims, Gardner was highly sought as an expert witness, testifying in over 400 child custody cases before the end of his career….
Controversial since its inception, PAS has compelled many scholars to write articles critical of Gardner’s theory. Kelly and Johnston have been noteworthy critics of PAS, writing in their 2001 article, “The Alienated Child, A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome, ” that “PAS terminology has led to widespread confusion and misunderstanding in judicial, legal, and psychological circles” (Ref. 9, p 250). They also highlighted the lack of empirical support for PAS as a psychiatric diagnosis and the barring of PAS testimony in many courtrooms….
Criticisms of PAS have not been limited to mental health professionals, as legal scholars have also been loath to accept the premise that parental alienation should be formally classified as a mental illness. For example, in her 2002 article, “Parental Alienation Syndrome and Alienation: Getting it Wrong in Child Custody Cases,” Carol S. Bruch, JD, voiced concern with Gardner’s tendency to cite his own, non-peer-reviewed books and publications on PAS. She noted that in one typical article, Gardner cited 10 sources: 9 writings of his own and 1 by Sigmund Freud. She further refuted Gardner’s suggestion that PAS was a generally accepted psychiatric phenomenon by pointing out that, when the validity of PAS was challenged in court, his testimony was often excluded.
In our opinion, Gardner’s approach of self-publishing books and then citing himself as an authoritative reference in the scholarly literature went beyond simple self-aggrandizement; it was frankly misleading. We agree with Ms. Bruch that the inaccurate portrayal of PAS as an accepted and credible diagnosis gets it wrong on many levels. http://www.jaapl.org/content/40/1/127.full
Professor Perrin Appointed Special Advisor to the Prime Minister UBC Law Professor Benjamin Perrin has recently been appointed as Special Advisor, Legal Affairs & Policy in the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa….In 2010, Professor Perrin published his first book, Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking (Penguin Canada, 2010). The book, an expose on the issue of human trafficking in Canada, was named one of the top books of the year by The Globe and Mail.
He has testified before a number of Parliamentary committees studying the issue of human trafficking and child sexual exploitation. In 2010, Parliament adopted Bill C-268, a private members’ bill calling for mandatory minimum sentences for child traffickers. Professor Perrin proposed and helped draft the bill, which was first introduced to the House of Commons in January 2009 by Member of Parliament Joy Smith….
Professor Perrin…is co-editor of Human Trafficking: Exploring the International Nature, Concerns and Complexities (CRC Press, 2011), and editor of Modern Warfare: Armed Groups, Private Militaries, Humanitarian Organizations and the Law (UBC Press, 2012).
http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2012/may/05_01_12_perrin.html
New task force targets traffickers who force children into the sex trade – FBI, Chicago police join forces to go after pimps By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter May 14, 2012
Inside the Harrison Police District station, the officers sat in a semicircle to be briefed about the shift ahead in one of Chicago’s most beleaguered areas. But on this recent day, the topic was not the shootings and murders on these West Side streets, but a crime often pushed far back into the shadows — the thousands of young girls and women who are prostituted, pushed into the violence of Chicago’s sex trade.
FBI Special Agent Jonathan Williamson and Chicago police Sgt. Traci Walker were there to announce a new joint effort by the FBI and Chicago police to target child traffickers in the city….
The clandestine nature of sex trafficking makes it difficult to know exactly how many young women and girls work in prostitution, said DePaul College of Law researcher Jody Raphael. She has estimated that in Chicago as many as 25,000 are involved in the commercial sex trade, including exotic dancers. Many who work the street or are sold on the Internet started out in the business in their teens. A 2008 survey of Chicago women working in prostitution who were 25 or younger and under the control of a pimp found that they began at 16 on average. The younger the girl or woman, Raphael believes, the more likely it is she has a pimp or trafficker, in part because she is often recruited first into a romantic relationship.
Over the past decade, advocates have pushed law enforcement to re-examine how it views the crime of prostitution — especially for the young adults caught in the trade. Today, investigators are going after traffickers on one hand while extending social services to women working in prostitution. Chicago police, Cook County and federal authorities meet monthly to target offenders for the toughest punishment. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-human-trafficking-20120514,0,7415972.story
Lessons from Penn State: Training Mandated Reporters By James R. Marsh on May 8, 2012
From a special edition of Centerpiece, the official newsletter of the National Child Protection Training Center:
The recent child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State University, in which multiple, well-educated professionals declined to report clear evidence of maltreatment, is not an isolated instance. Twenty years of research documents what every child protection professional in America already knows—that most people most of the time won’t report even clear evidence of maltreatment or otherwise intervene to save a child.
Although less clear, the Penn State scandal also draws attention to an equally disturbing problem—that even when reports of abuse are made, these reports are often handled ineffectually if not incompetently. According to media reports of the Penn State scandal, investigators and prosecutors did review a 1998 report of inappropriate intimate contact with a boy.
The alleged perpetrator, Jerry Sandusky, even admitted to two university detectives that he hugged the boy while both were naked….
Although this recorded admission of Sandusky’s is an incriminating if not out-right confession of indecent contact with a boy, no charges or additional actions were taken. The inability, even failure of criminal justice authorities to take meaningful action to protect a child is also not an isolated anecdote. http://www.childlaw.us/2012/05/lessons-from-penn-state-traini.html
Dr. Phil “My Husband, My Kids and My Multiple Personalities” May 10, 2012 Tracy is a married mother of four who says her life was forever changed the day she was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder. She says she has five personalities, or “alters:” Emily, a frightened 5-year-old child; Becky, who cuts, bruises, chokes and has threatened to kill Tracy; Susie, an innocent 10-year-old child; Samantha, “the CEO” and Miss Anne, “the caretaker.” Tracy says that she’ll oftentimes black out when an alter takes over and that the transition back to being Tracy can make her physically ill. Joined by her husband, Tyler, the couple says Tracy’s alter egos and unpredictable moods are causing strain on their marriage, and they’re struggling to explain her erratic behavior to their children. Is Tracy’s diagnosis real? Then, in a Dr. Phil first, Tracy transitions between her alters onstage. Speaking as Becky and Susie, can Dr. Phil gather insight into Tracy’s disorder? Tracy’s therapist, Dr. Peggy Avent, joins the show and explains her diagnosis. Could a secret from Tracy’s childhood hold the key to understanding her illness? Tracy’s mom, Sandy, weighs in and shares why she blames herself. http://drphil.com/shows/show/1846/
Dissociative Identity Disorder Overview
http://www.youtube.com /watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9URiwU98VPo
An uneasy Backpage alliance – Anti-trafficking activists may turn to the site for tips, but some say we’re ultimately better without it by Tracy Clark-Flory Saturday, May 12, 2012
In the fight against child sex trafficking, Backpage.com is seen as both friend and foe. The online classified site screens ads, reports thousands of potential cases of exploitation, assists in police investigations and acts as a resource for those searching for trafficked kids. But even some activists who use the site for good see greater benefit in the site shutting down its adult section — a move called for recently in Senate and House resolutions. This uneasy alliance reveals the complexities of the problem at hand. In the past 16 months — the length of time Backpage has been screening and reporting potential trafficking ads — the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) received nearly 5,000 tips from the site. The center’s president, Ernie Allen, tells me, “There’s no question they have undertaken the screening and reporting process very aggressively.” Ultimately, though, the question is whether it’s enough.
After working with Craigslist in a similar fashion for almost two years, he says, “What we basically concluded was that it wasn’t working. The price you pay to allow this kind of activity to proliferate was too great.” Eventually, Craigslist shuttered its adult section and, Allen says, “the total volume of these ads dropped dramatically, and most of that has not come back.”
If Backpage were to do the same thing, “it would dramatically reduce the scale and scope of the problem,” he says. “Some of it would relocate, but I don’t think it would proliferate at the same level.” Allen says that NCMEC doesn’t make “public pronouncements about the policy stuff,” but his message is clear: Shuttering Backpage’s adult section would make things better — but, short of that, NCMEC is devoted to helping the site reduce harm….
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/13/an_uneasy_backpage_alliance/singleton/
Chronic Child Abuse Strong Indicator of Negative Adult Experiences – ScienceDaily (May 15, 2012) — Child abuse or neglect are strong predictors of major health and emotional problems, but little is known about how the chronicity of the maltreatment may increase future harm apart from other risk factors in a child’s life.
In a new study published in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, Melissa Jonson-Reid, PhD, child welfare expert and a professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, looked at how chronic maltreatment impacted the future health and behavior of children and adults.
The study tracked children by number of child maltreatment reports (zero to four or more) and followed the children into early adulthood, by which time some of the children had become parents.
The study sought to determine how well the number of child maltreatment reports predicted poor outcomes in adolescence, such as delinquency, substance abuse in the teen years or getting a sexually transmitted disease.
“For every measure studied, a more chronic history of child maltreatment reports was powerfully predictive of worse outcomes,” Jonson-Reid says.
“For most outcomes, having a single maltreatment report put children at a 20 percent to 50 percent higher risk than non-maltreated comparison children….
In models of adult outcomes, children with four or more reports were about least twice as likely to later abuse their own children and have contact with the mental health system, even when controlling for the negative outcomes during adolescence.” Jonson-Reid says that there appears to be good reason to put resources into preventing ongoing maltreatment.
“Successfully interrupting chronic child maltreatment may well reduce risk of a wide range of other costly child and adolescent health and behavioral problems,” she says.
Jonson-Reid cites a recently published Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study estimating lifetime costs for a single year’s worth of children reported for maltreatment at $242 billion….The study also found that maltreatment predicts a range of negative adolescent outcomes, and those adolescent outcomes then predict poor adult outcomes.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120515131321.htm
Child and Adult Outcomes of Chronic Child Maltreatment – Melissa Jonson-Reid, PhD, Patricia L. Kohl, PhD, and Brett Drake, PhD Abstract Pediatrics Vol. 129 No. 5 May 1, 2012 pp. 839 -845
….RESULTS: Child maltreatment chronicity predicted negative childhood outcomes in a linear fashion (eg, percentage with at least 1 negative outcome: no maltreatment = 29.7%, 1 report = 39.5%, 4 reports = 67.1%). Suicide attempts before age 18 showed the largest proportionate increase with repeated maltreatment (no report versus 4+ reports = +625%, P < .0001). The dose-response relationship was reduced once controls for other adverse child outcomes were added in multivariate models of child maltreatment perpetration and mental health issues. The relationship between adult substance abuse and maltreatment report history disappeared after controlling for adverse child outcomes.
CONCLUSIONS: Child maltreatment chronicity as measured by official reports is a robust indicator of future negative outcomes across a range of systems, but this relationship may desist for certain adult outcomes once childhood adverse events are controlled. Although primary and secondary prevention remain important approaches, this study suggests that enhanced tertiary prevention may pay high dividends across a range of medical and behavioral domains.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/5/839.abstract
CARRIE FISHER HOSTS DISCOVERY FIT & HEALTH’S PSYCH WEEK Psych Week Begins Sunday, June 3 at 8 PM ET/PT May 23, 2012
With mental health programming airing nightly, beginning Sunday, June 3 at 8 PM ET/PT, PSYCH WEEK will profile individuals dealing with a spectrum of afflictions and addictions, from agoraphobia, sexsomnia and bipolar disorder to schizophrenia, hoarding, OCD and multiple-personality disorder.
….The Woman with 15 Personalities – Friday, June 8 at 8 PM ET/PT
The Woman With 15 Personalities presents a unique look at a person living with Dissociative Identity Disorder, a condition in which a person displays several distinct identities, each with its own perception of the environment.
http://press.discovery.com/us/dfh/press-releases/2012/psych-week-2012-1946-1946/
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Please use caution while reading all of these papers. Some of the information may be very heavy for survivors. If in doubt, download the page and wait to read it until you are with your therapist or a trusted support person.
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