Kansas City bishop indicted on child endangerment charge

CNN) -- Catholic Bishop Robert W. Finn and the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph have been indicted by a grand jury on a charge of failure to report suspected child abuse by a priest, prosecutors said Friday in Missouri.

The class A misdemeanor carries a potential sentence of up to a year in jail and a fine up to $1,000 for Finn, 58, and a fine for the diocese, said Jackson

County prosecutor Jean Peters-Baker. Both pleaded not guilty Friday. "The fact that this is a misdemeanor complaint should not diminish the significance of this charge," Peters-Baker said. "This is a significant charge. To my knowledge, a charge like this has not been leveled before."

What happened was they went to the local police contact and told what they knew at the time when they found out. He was Kansas City police. he advised them they didn't have enough evidence at the time to do too much.

The computer was turned over to the diocese, where officials examined the photos and reported them to Murphy. Instead of reporting them to authorities, as required by Missouri's mandatory reporting law, Murphy called a police captain who is a member of the diocese's independent review board and described a single photo of a nude child that was not sexual in nature.

Without viewing the photo, Capt. Rick Smith said he was advised that although such a picture might meet the definition of child pornography, it probably wouldn't be investigated or prosecuted.

and they turned it over to Independence Mo police who got a search warrant and shortly afterwards the police arrested the priest

Capt Smith said he was shocked in May when Murphy told him there had been hundreds of photos on Ratigan's laptop, rather than a single image.

Capt Smith, not the Bishop, demanded the computer be turned over to police, but since the computer had been turned over to Ratigan's family and destroyed, it handed over the flash drive, instead.

...these people got bad advice early on and followed it.

I think that should read these people were deliberately deceitful and set up Capt Smith to cover their asses.

Somewhere around five months later more solid evidence came to light

The problem first came to light over a year ago.

Finn acknowledged earlier this year that St. Patrick's School Principal Julie Hess had more than a year ago raised concerns that Ratigan was behaving inappropriately around children, but that he didn't read her written report until after Ratigan was charged with three state child pornography counts this spring.

This apparent indifference after the fact that only three years ago, Bishop Finn settled lawsuits with 47 plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases for $10 million and agreed to a long list of preventive measures, among them to report anyone suspected of being a pedophile immediately to law enforcement authorities.

Further compounded by the fact that "In a memo dated May 19, 2010, Hess wrote that several people had complained Ratigan was taking compromising pictures of young children and that he allowed them to sit on his lap and reach into his pocket for candy."

Even that did not stir him to see what the Catholic School's Principal had written.

I realize you have not to be the sharpest knife in the drawer to lead the flock but this is ridiculous.

Do you get the pattern here - the only people who did anything about this were lay people. The school Principal, ordinary people complaining, a computer repair man who found the images and finally Capt Smith, a cop, who made them reported it.

To a man, everyone in the hierarchy or in their employ prevaricated, dissembled, covered up and outright lied.

But, worse than that BP, they have betrayed your trust and the people of the diocese

Here is what I don’t understand about this case. The evidence against the priest is that he had child porn images on his computer, right? Did the priest take the photos? Was he in the photos?

Because if he downloaded child porn (a heinous crime, no question), this case is much bigger.

Does it mean now that when any company or organization discovers child porn downloaded onto an employee’s laptop, that the CEO, President or even VP of IT or VP of Human Resources can be indicted, if the person is fired and not reported to the police? Because I can guarantee that is happening on a regular basis in Kansas City or in thousands of other companies across this country.

There was a guy in the Justice Department who spent most of the day at work watching porn on his computer. Some senator reported it to Holder. Months later, nothing has been done.

Not just a matter of porn, also a matter of pulling down a big salary while doing no real work.

If a priest has porn on his computer, then IMHO he should be relieved of duty until the matter has been worked out. Of course, if the computer was in the parish office, some one else may have put it there. But it should be investigated.

Still, the behavior of the prosecutor’s office makes no sense. This WAS reported to them. They’ve only taken it up because there’s publicity to be made in attacking the Church.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.