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Lawsuits alleging the sexual abuse of minors in a Hollywood pedophilia ring were filed in Hawaii Monday against three prominent Hollywood executives: David Neuman, Gary Goddard, and Garth Ancier. The suits were announced at the Four Seasons Hotel by Jeff Herman, the attorney representing Michael Egan, the man who alleges he was sexually abused by "X-Men" director Bryan Singer as a teen. Variety reports that: Ancier is the former president of BBC Worldwide America and headed the Fox entertainment group while Neuman is the former president of Disney TV. Goddard heads a design firm in Los Angeles which has created...

Famous Hollywood director Bryan Singer has been accused in a new federal lawsuit of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy. The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Hawaii, accused the 48-year-old “X-Men” filmmaker of first preying on the 15-year-old aspiring actor at a party at a California mansion where underage boys were plied with drugs and alcohol and taken advantage of. “The stories that I’ve heard of what went on at the estate are truly despicable,” the accuser’s lawyer, Miami attorney Jeff Herman, told the Daily News Wednesday night. Herman identified the accuser as Michael Egan III. Egan, who is...

A week ago, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the Italian Episcopal Conference, defended the Vatican’s policy of not requiring clergy to report child sex abuse to the authorities. “The Vatican requires national laws to be respected, and we know that there is no such duty (to report abuse) under Italian law,” he told reporters. It was a disappointment because Pope Francis had just appointed a commission to advise him on sex-abuse policy. Bagnasco’s comments sounded like business as usual.

Claims of widespread child sex abuse at four Christian Brothers-run WA boarding schools will be investigated as part of a nationwide inquiry. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold its first WA public hearing at the end of this month. It will hear from dozens of former boarders who spent time as young boys at Castledare Junior Orphanage in Wilson, St Vincent’s Orphanage in Clontarf, St Mary’s Agricultural School in Tardun, and Bindoon Farm School.

The Archdiocese of Chicago agreed to pay $1.68 million to $2.1 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged former priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack sexually abused a former fifth grade student at Our Lady of the Westside School, the plaintiff’s attorney announced Wednesday. The agreement settles a suit brought against the archdiocese and Cardinal Francis George in December, 2011. The suit was filed by a male Chicago plaintiff, now 23, who chose to remain anonymous and is identified as John Doe. It alleged that at various times in the 2000 to 2001 school year, McCormack “inappropriately sexually touched,...

Bishop Frank Caggiano has agreed to meet with representatives of national and local victim support groups who Wednesday called for him to hire an outside firm to investigate two priests who have been accused in the past of sex abuse -- one who admitted he hid more than 40 years of abuse complaints. But Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said although she is willing to meet with Caggiano, she would prefer to do so after he agrees to the investigation. "History has shown that meetings don't always bear fruit, but actions speak...

A 61-year-old Catholic priest has been jailed for seven years for systematically sexually abusing a boy in Co Wicklow over a five year period beginning in 2007 when the boy was 12. Denis Nolan, with an address at Carrigmore, Tinahely, pleaded guilty to sexual assault at that address between 1 January and 30 June 2007. He also pleaded guilty to a total of ten counts of defilement of a child between 1 July 2007 and 25 August 2011.

CARDINAL George Pell’s appointment to a top Vatican post is ‘‘unsettling’’, ‘‘disappointing’’ and ‘‘a deadset shocker’’, say victims of the Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse crisis and their families. The cardinal’s move to Rome at the end of March after he gives evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse shocked people who campaigned for the historic inquiry.

PAEDOPHILE Derby priest Francis Cullen was “an arrogant man who thought he was better than others”, says a former work colleague. Les Barr worked with the now 85-year-old former Derby Catholic at a newspaper in Tenerife. He said Cullen was employed to sell advertising for the fortnightly Island Connections newspaper for English-speaking ex-pats and tourists on the holiday island. But unbeknown to him his colleague was on the run from the police and the courts and had a perverted past that has now been thrust into the spotlight.

BRISBANE, Feb 21 – A culture of protecting the church existed in a diocese where a Catholic teacher raped and molested 13 girls, an inquiry has heard. Teachers were repeatedly told not to compromise the bishop, but the culture of protection wasn’t sinister, a former principal told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Brisbane. Two Catholic Education Office staff and the principal of a Toowoomba school learned of abuse claims against a teacher in 2007, but failed to act.

Drugs and ignorance is not a good combination. That's the conclusion of several law enforcement sources after looking into the case of four teenagers facing kidnapping and assault charges after they allegedly lured another teen to a shed in Southeast Portland and tortured him for several hours. Those under arrest are three boys and a girl. The youngest is 14. Two of them are 15 and one is 17. They were arraigned Tuesday, and the grand jury started hearing the case on Thursday. The 14-year-old is described as the ring-leader. The target of the teens is a 14-year-old that they...

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee said Wednesday that it was prepared to set aside $4 million in its bankruptcy reorganization plan to compensate clergy sexual abuse victims, an amount one victim called "obscene" in its stinginess. Milwaukee is one of 11 Roman Catholic dioceses nationwide to file for bankruptcy in the past decade. If approved by a judge, Milwaukee's reorganization plan would provide the smallest per-victim payments yet in these cases — roughly $32,000 each for 125 victims. The actual amount each victim receives would be based on individual circumstances.

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif.—A Southern California diocese has paid $3.8 million to settle two child-abuse lawsuits brought against a former Catholic priest. The Diocese of San Bernardino announced Sunday that payments settling the two civil cases involving Alejandro Castillo came from a combination of insurance and diocese funds.

ON THE QUESTION of how far papal authority extends, the canon law of the Catholic Church could not be clearer: “The vicar of Christ. . . possesses full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely.” (Can. 331) Note that canon law does not say, “except in cases of priestly sex abuse of children.” Canon law does not say that priests and bishops are independent contractors. Canon law does not say that what happens in Catholic parishes and dioceses around the world has nothing to do with Rome. In fact, another canon...

The Helena Catholic diocese is the third diocese in eight weeks to seek bankpruptcy protection, citing clergy sex abuse and cover up allegations. But don’t be confused. This is not about money. It’s about secrecy. The huge eruption in victims reporting clergy sexual abuse happened more than a decade ago. But these three dioceses are filing Chapter 11 because they’re smart, not broke. Bishops have learned that this is a shrewd way to save the reputations and careers of top Catholic officials by keeping a tight lid on their horrific complicity. Bankruptcy preserves secrecy by stopping all civil litigation, one...

A member of the Catholic Church tells 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS she reported possible abuse of young boys by a priest to Archdiocese officials and nothing was done about it. Mary Tacheny attended the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Maplewood and witnessed a priest who had "crossed boundaries" with young boys, she said. "I reported the incidents I saw to Father Kevin McDonough, and he lied to me about conducting an investigation into it," Tacheny said. Father McDonough, at the time, was the second-in-command at the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Women at a crisis pregnancy center in London have been told having terminations can make them more likely to sexually abuse children they may have later, an investigation has revealed. An undercover reporter for the Daily Telegraph newspaper posed as a woman asking about the procedure and was told about various risks, including nightmares, seizures and tremors. In secretly-filmed footage, an adviser who gave her name as Annabel said: “There’s also an increased statistical likelihood of child abuse.” …

Dylan Farrow, now 28 years old, is the adopted daughter of Oscar-winning director Woody Allen. In "An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow," published in The New York Times, Dylan accuses her father of inappropriately touching her "for as long as I could remember." She said: "When I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother's electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me." Not good news for Mr. Allen...

What’s your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house.

FOREST PARK, Ga. — Officers are supposed to pull drivers over for traffic violations, but a Channel 2 Action News investigation found traffic stops leading to a violation of another kind. Driver after driver told investigative reporter Jodie Fleischer officers searched inside their pants while they were stopped for minor traffic violations. In several cases, the invasive searches targeted passengers who were riding in the car. "He was like, 'Just unbuckle all your clothes,' and put his hands down inside my pants," said Terry Phillips. Forest Park police had pulled over Phillips' wife for a suspended registration. Phillips consented to...