Tag Archives: organized crime

Time Magazine reports: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester was the first in New York to seek bankruptcy protection under the weight of new sexual misconduct lawsuits, but lawyers and church leaders say it may not be the last. All eight of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses face financial pressures as a result of the state’s new Child Victims Act, …

Just in from hate group leader Bill Donohue: The Trump administration has released a proposal that would strengthen the religious rights of federal contractors. Current law exempts religious non-profit organizations from federal laws on discrimination. The proposed rule would expand the religious exemption to any company where the owners claim that their sincerely held religious beliefs would be compromised if …

ABC News reports: Hundreds of lawsuits are expected to be filed in New York today as the state’s window allowing alleged child sexual abuse survivors to seek civil recourse opens. Earlier this year, state lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act, which allows civil claims of child sexual abuse from any time period to be brought forth, in spite of existing …

The New York Daily News reports: The handwritten missives, many signed simply “Uncle T.,” were sent to aspiring young priests as part of defrocked cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s perverse wooing of his victims, according to a pair of abuse prevention experts. Several postcards and letters sent by McCarrick to his sexual targets were made public by The Associated Press, with experts …

Reuters reports: Poland’s Catholic Church has doubled down on the anti-gay rhetoric that has become the nationalist ruling party’s dominant theme in recent weeks, drawing a rebuke from liberal politicians who compared an archbishop’s remarks to incitement to genocide. In a sermon given to mark the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising by Polish resistance fighters against Nazi occupation, the …

The Associated Press reports: The visiting priests arrived discreetly, day and night. Stripped of their collars and cassocks, they went unnoticed in this tiny Midwestern town as they were escorted into a dingy warehouse across from an elementary school playground They had been brought to town by a small, nonprofit group called Opus Bono Sacerdotii. For nearly two decades, the …

The Washington Post reports: The Vatican on Friday announced sanctions against retired West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, but stopped short of defrocking him, after investigating accusations of sexual harassment and financial misconduct. The sanctions, ordered by Pope Francis and detailed in a letter posted to the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston’s website, prohibits Bransfield from public ministry and from residing in his …

ABC News reports: Trump wants plenty of Trumps to help let Trump be Trump. Donald Trump’s official campaign kickoff on Tuesday night in Orlando, Florida, will showcase the president and Vice President Mike Pence, along with Trump’s adult children, campaign officials told ABC News. Amid flourishes, such as a convention-style balloon drop, there will be the implicit message that what’s …

NBC News reports: In the final months of his life, James “Whitey” Bulger wrote letters from prison offering his thoughts on a range of subjects. His faltering health. His longtime girlfriend. His wish for a peaceful death. But there was another topic that the notorious Boston crime boss returned to again and again: President Donald Trump. In several handwritten letters …

The Washington Post reports: In the years before he was ousted for alleged sexual harassment and financial abuses, the leader of the Catholic Church in West Virginia gave cash gifts totaling $350,000 to fellow clergymen, including young priests he is accused of mistreating and more than a dozen cardinals in the United States and at the Vatican, according to church …

CBS News reports: The U.S. Catholic Church spent $10.6 million on lobbyists to prevent victims of clerical sex abuse from suing for damages. According to a new report, the money was doled out from 2011 through 2018 in eight northeastern states where bills to reform statute of limitations laws were either in the works or being considered. “This report lays …

The Washington Post reports: A new documentary revealing cases of sexual abuse by priests has deeply shaken Poland, one of Europe’s most Roman Catholic societies, eliciting an apology from the church hierarchy and prompting one cleric to leave priestly life. “Tell No One,” a film financed through a crowdfunding campaign, was released on YouTube on Saturday. By Monday, the documentary …

NBC News reports: Pope Francis issued a groundbreaking law Thursday requiring all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-up by their superiors to church authorities, in an important new effort to hold the Catholic hierarchy accountable for failing to protect their flocks. The new church law provides whistle-blower protections for anyone making a …

NBC News reports: The Archdiocese of New York on Friday named 120 Catholic clergy that it said had been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse or being in possession of pornography. About half of the men on the list were born in the first half of the 20th century and are now dead. The rest have either been removed from ministry …

The Associated Press reports: The man charged with killing the reputed boss of the Gambino crime family wrote pro-Donald Trump slogans on his hand and flashed them to journalists before a court hearing Monday. Anthony Comello, 24, was arrested Saturday in New Jersey in the death of Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali last week in front of his Staten Island home. …

It was Rudy Giuliani’s prosecution of the Gambinos and other mob families that led to his election as New York City mayor. Today’s news is a big flashback to those days. The New York Daily News reports: Gambino crime family boss Frank (Franky Boy) Cali was gunned down Wednesday night in a gory hit in front of his Staten Island …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Pope Francis closed an unprecedented Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse by promising to protect children and help victims of what he called a plague of clerical sex abuse, but he offered few policy specifics. The pope, in his widely awaited closing speech on Sunday, said the church’s response should avoid “defensiveness that fails to …

The New York Times reports: In the early months of the Trump administration, with the president no longer running his family business, his eldest sons embarked on a plan to roll out two new hotel lines in dozens of American cities. It reflected the ambitions of “the next generation of the company,” President Trump’s son Eric said at the time. …

NBC News reports: Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán was found guilty on Tuesday of crimes spanning more than a quarter of a century, during which prosecutors said he smuggled more than 200 tons of cocaine into the U.S. After a nearly three-monthlong trial and six days of deliberations, a New York jury found the alleged Sinaloa cartel leader …

CBS News reports: Nuns have suffered and are still suffering sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests and bishops, and even being held as sexual slaves, Pope Francis confirmed on Tuesday. The abuse was so severe in one case that an entire congregation of nuns was dissolved by former Pope Benedict. The scope of the abuse of nuns by …