Sexual Abuse

The Boston Globe did a nice job with a front-page article about a violent teenage prostitution ring in Boston. Next month, one of the perpetrators is scheduled to be sentenced in US District Court in Boston for his role in the abuse. Another perp is already serving a 25-year prison sentence. They were convicted last […]

Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian is crying foul after the Archdiocesan Review Board cleared a Weymouth priest, Cambridge native Rev. Charles J. Murphy, whose last assignment was at St. Francis Xavier Church in Weymouth, of sexual abuse. Murphy had been accused of abusing a teenage boy while assigned to St. Agatha’s Church in Milton during the […]

The Boston Globe reports that a Catholic priest who had been cleared of allegations of child sexual abuse is facing new ones and has been barred from any ministry. The Rev. Thomas M. Curran, 65, was placed on administrative leave from 2002 to 2007 following the previous allegations. In 2007, he was placed in permanent […]

The Metrowest Daily News reported this week on a Hopkinton man recently charged with sexually assaulting a Worcester teen was barred from his work as a traveling minister in the 1970s after an earlier allegation of child abuse. George Scandalis, 67, had been a minister for a Christian fellowship that goes by no official name […]

The Boston Globe reports on a disturbing story of a 24-year-old East Boston man, accused of raping a 7-year-old girl in Allston multiple times over the past few months. The girl is the daughter of a parishioner of an Allston church of which the accused man, Erik Roldan, is a member. Roldan had met the […]

A Wilmington, Massachusetts man has been sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for molesting two 6-year-old girls more than a decade ago. Herbert Dorazio, a father of four from Wilmington, was sentenced on Thursday in Middlesex Superior Court after being found guilty last week of child rape and assault with intent to rape. […]

The Patriot Ledger had an interesting piece about the criminal trial of Sean Ebert and whether he is competent to stand trial. Ebert suffered a brain injury 15 years ago as a 10-year-old boy. Pembroke police say Ebert sexually abused a young girl from 2001 to 2004, starting when he was 16. His Massachusetts lawyer […]

The Cambridge Chronicle reports that the headmaster of Cambridge Montessori has pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges in North Adams, Mass. and released on bail. David B. Harris, 66, was arraigned Monday in Northern Berkshire District Court in North Adams on child pornography charges, according to the Berkshire District Attorney’s office. Harris was charged […]

The Vatican has revised its internal policies, making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests. However, as reported by the New York Times and Boston Globe, the changes are causing confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia. The measures fell short of the hopes of many advocates […]

Today’s Boston Globe reports on new charges of indecent assault and battery against a former teacher at the Maimonides School in Brookline. The abuse allegedly occurred during the 1970s, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. The Globe reports that the grand jury indictment is the fifth charge for Stanley Z. Levitt, […]

The Boston Globe reports that former Melrose YMCA employee James Conner will spend up to 30 years in prison for sexually assaulting young girls under his care. Conner, 52, of North Reading, pleaded guilty to 20 charges, including five counts of rape of a child with force and four counts of indecent assault on a […]

In a stunning development, an Oregon jury has awarded $18.5 million in punitive damages to a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a Boy Scouts leader in the 1980s. The verdict was the largest ever against the Scouts in a jury trial. The same jury previously awarded the man, Kerry Lewis, $1.4 million […]