Sexual Abuse

A former elementary school educator from Newton, Massachusetts, has been handed a 45-year sentence in a federal correctional facility for his role in an online forum dedicated to child pornography. The members of this forum encouraged sexual abuse of children younger than 12 and employed tactics to dodge law enforcement, as noted by both the […]

Former doubles champion Bob Hewitt has been suspended from the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport after an investigation into allegations that he sexually abused girls he coached, and his legacy has been stripped from the institution, officials announced Thursday, as reported by the Associated Press. Hall of Fame CEO Mark Stenning told The […]

After decades of legal wrangling and trying to keep secret thousands of “confidential,” or “perversion files,” the Boy Scouts of America this week – compelled by court order from Oregon – released 1,200 of those files, detailing sexual abuse and suspected abuse between scout leaders and their young victims. The Los Angeles Times has published […]

Yet another man has come forward to claim that former Boston Red Sox clubhouse manager Donald J. Fitzpatrick sexually abused him. A former Kansas City clubhouse attendant, Gerald Armstrong, alleges that Fitzpatrick repeatedly assaulted him during the late 1960s. The Boston Globe reports that with Armstrong’s allegations, there are now 20 men demanding a combined […]

A follow-up from the Sun Chronicle about additional victims coming forward with allegations of decades-old abuse against a Boy Scout leader and former town swim director. Apparently the accused perp now lives in Florida and is in ill health.

A child pornography investigation that began in Massachusetts has led to federal charges in Mississippi against a Georgia man accused of having sex with a girl who was 3 or 4 years old, according to a complaint filed Monday. The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Miss., charges Marco Laquin Rogers, 26, of […]

A Massachusetts priest who was charged for alleged repeated sexual assaults on a child who was a former parishioner has died, officials said. The Rev. Paul LaCharite, formerly of St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, died of an apparent drug overdose, the Boston Herald reported. LaCharite was charged with one count of assault to rape […]

The Boston Globe reports today that Stephen Embry has filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against Harvard University, contending he was repeatedly molested by a swimming coach at the campus from 1969 to 1972. The alleged abuse began when Embry, now 55, was barely 12. Embry, along with his lawyer, Carmen Durso, also asserts that Harvard […]

The Worcester Telegram reports that opening arguments were held this week in U.S. District Court in a civil jury case in which a doctor allegedly sexually abused an 11-year-old boy nearly 40 years ago when the doctor was a student at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The defendant is Dr. Richard B. Edison, now […]

The Waltham News Tribune reports that a sex abuse claim has been tossed out of Court by a judge who ruled that the statute of limitations had long run, since the victim appreciated back in the 1980s’ that she had been abused. There are legislative efforts afoot to change the statute of limitations so that […]

Massachusetts Citizens for Children, also known as Mass Kids, a Boston-based nonprofit that advocates for the welfare of children, announced that it recently received an $80,000 grant from the Ms. Foundation for Women to fund a campaign that aims to end child sexual abuse. Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MCC) is the lead agency for the […]

The Associated Press reports that a lawyer for clergy sex abuse victims released six new names of clerics accused of abuse, saying that it shows that a crisis that began a decade ago is far from over. One of the priests is the Rev. James Nickel, a Sacred Heart priest who worked in Fairhaven and […]

The Berkshire Eagle reports that the man accused of sexually assaulting three elementary students while working as an adjustment counselor at the former Stockbridge Plain School was investigated in 2004 for allegedly inappropriately touching two of those students, though criminal charges weren’t filed at the time. In June 2004, two 10-year-old students told investigators that […]

The Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that a registered sex offender was convicted in late March of sexually abusing two young children over three months, authorities said. Charles Howe Sr., 64, who was convicted in 1983 in Massachusetts of indecent assault and battery of a minor, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Colonial Heights Circuit Court to two felony […]

Cool piece in the Somerville Journal about a man performing a one-man show about the sexual abuse he suffered as a youth at the hands of a priest. And kudos to the church for letting him perform it there.

The founder of a western Massachusetts theater has been sentenced to five-to-seven years in prison and five years’ probation for his conviction of raping a teenage girl who took acting lessons from him. The Northwest District Attorney’s office said David Fried Oppenheim was sentenced in Hampshire Superior Court. Oppenheim, founder of the defunct Pioneer Arts […]

The rape suspect from Massachusetts who was apprehended at a New Jersey home earlier this week was once arrested for attempted murder in Massachusetts, authorities have confirmed, as reported by the Lawrenceville NJ patch.com website. Byron Garcia, a 30-year-old North Andover, Mass., resident who recently fled Massachusetts amid accusations he had raped a young girl, […]

The founder of a western Massachusetts theater has been convicted of raping a teenage girl who took acting lessons from him. David Fried Oppenheim, founder of the defunct Pioneer Arts Center in Easthampton, was convicted in early February of child rape and abuse of a child. The Hampshire Superior Court jury in Northampton deliberated over […]

A Queens, NY judge has rejected Bob Oliva’s motion to dismiss the $20 million lawsuit filed by a man who was sexually abused by the former Christ the King Regional High School basketball coach. The decision by Queens Supreme Court Judge Roger N. Rosengarten means the case will go to trial later this year unless […]

The lawyer for a Plymouth (MA) priest placed on leave by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston pending an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse dating to the early 1980s says his client has been wrongly accused. The Rev. James Braley, pastor of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha parish, was placed on leave earlier in February. […]

A Suffolk Superior Court judge will decide whether to dismiss a lawsuit against Children’s Hospital Boston, after hearing arguments this week on the suit filed on behalf of 11 people who say they were abused by pediatrician Melvin Levine, when he worked in North Carolina. Levine, who has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of […]