A veteran biology teacher and tennis coach at Fairfield Ludlowe High School is being sued by a female student who contends he assaulted her and subjected her to sexual harassment and a hostile school environment. John Honey, a teacher at Warde High for 37 years before moving across town to Ludlowe in 2004, is named in the suit, along with the school district, by the minor and her mother.
Philadelphia Priest Trial Refocuses Abuse Scandal - Protecting abusive priests by moving them
Opening statements are scheduled for Monday in Philadelphia in the first case in which an official of a Roman Catholic archdiocese has been accused of protecting abusive priests by moving them from parish to parish.
Monsignor William Lynn has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child. Lynn served as the vicar of clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, a position in which he was responsible for investigating reports that priests had sexually abused children. A grand jury alleged that he knowingly allowed priests accused of abuse to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to children, according to the district attorney's office. Lynn "acted as if his job was to protect the abuser, never the abused," a January 2011 grand jury report concluded.
Doctor's License Revoked After Board Concludes He Had Sex With Patient
Over the course of a year, Dr. Jyoji Bristol of Cheshire allegedly twice had consensual sex with a drug-addicted patient, wrote prescriptions for her inside a Starbucks, drove her to the pharmacy though she'd gotten drugs from 33 other prescribers, and sent her reams of explicit texts messages.
Clerical Abusers and the First Amendment
Religious institutions have constitutional protections, but they are not above the law. Unfortunately, that has not stopped the Roman Catholic Church and other religious groups from arguing that the First Amendment shields them from civil lawsuits for negligent supervision and retention of employees who sexually abuse children. Most state courts that have considered the issue have rejected this claim by churches, recognizing that holding religious employers liable for failure to monitor employees in sex-abuse cases does not interfere with constitutionally protected religious freedoms. However, courts in Missouri, Wisconsin and Utah have twisted the First Amendment into a shield for organizational liability for pedophile clergy. In an outrageous case, a Missouri appellate court summarily dismissed a negligence case brought against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by an individual who said he had been abused by a priest. His suit charged the archdiocese with negligent failure to supervise the priest, who had a past record of child sexual abuse. The court threw out the complaint, saying that Missouri law does not allow it because judging the supervision of the priest would require inquiry into religious doctrine, which it contends would violate the First Amendment. This bizarre conclusion would grant churches a special exemption from neutral, generally applicable laws designed to protect children. The United States Supreme Court now has an opportunity to reverse this erroneous interpretation of the Constitution. The justices should grant the plaintiff's petition for review, which they are scheduled to consider on Friday. Since some 20 states have not ruled on this issue, the Supreme Court can provide urgently needed clarity. It should firmly declare that the First Amendment does not exempt religious entities from accountability for exposing children to harm. THE NEW YORK TIMES, Editorial - March 14, 2012
Doctor Charged With Raping Patient Faces New Allegation Of Sexual Misconduct
A woman is suing the East Hartford doctor previously accused of raping a patient, claiming that he had sex with her in a hotel after giving her a drug cocktail and telling her that he had to be the first to have intercourse with her after pelvic surgery, court documents show.
Teacher Sex Abuse: Why Repeat Offenders Are So Common
Parents don't want to further traumatize young victims, but handling things "discreetly" merely displaces the problem to another school or community When Bud Spillane was a school superintendent in New Rochelle, N.Y., he had to deal with removing an elementary school teacher suspected of sex abuse. "It was pretty evident he had done something," Spillane recalls. The biggest obstacle to removing him from the classroom? "Parents came out of the woodwork...against me," he says. They loved the teacher, the afterschool time he put in, and the weekend trips he liked to take students on, so they fought to keep him in school.
Trial Set in Lawsuit Against Westport Connecticut Schools
A four-year-old lawsuit will go to trial this month as a former Staples High School student who says she was sexually assaulted by her English teacher in 2003 sues Westport Superintendent of Schools Elliott Landon, the Board of Education and a former Staples High School principal for negligence. The trial is set to begin March 20, said Bridgeport-based attorney Cindy Robinson, who is representing the former student. A motion filed by the board's attorney to dismiss the case was denied by Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis on Wednesday.
Sandusky Abused Boys Aged 8 - 17
Prosecutors claim Jerry Sandusky sexually abused boys ranging in age from 8 to 17, eight of whom were molested on the Penn State campus, according to a document with new details about the case filed Thursday. The Pennsylvania attorney general's office said in the document that crimes involving one of the 10 alleged victims took place in Florida and Texas, while another boy was abused at his own school. Prosecutors were more specific in the document about the ages of the boys than in earlier reports, but much of the information is similar to details revealed in grand jury presentments issued last year that formed the basis for charges against the former Penn State assistant football coach.
