Child Abuse and Neglect

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    Cardinal Roger Mahony, Accused of Hiding Sex Abuse, Will Help Close Pope Francis’ Casket

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    Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, who was accused of covering up cases of abuse as archbishop of Los Angeles, will have an official role in the ceremonies around Francis’ funeral.An American cardinal who was accused of covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests and was later stripped of some duties, is set to play an official role in the ceremonies surrounding Pope Francis’ funeral.Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles, will participate in the closing of the pope’s casket at St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday evening and in his burial at the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on Saturday, according to Vatican announcements.The cardinals taking part were chosen based on seniority, a spokesman for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said at a news briefing on Thursday.Cardinal Mahony, 89, was the archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 until his retirement from the Roman Catholic Church in 2011. In 2013, internal church personnel files released as part of a civil case revealed that Cardinal Mahony had played a role in covering up cases of sexual abuse by priests.The documents show that Cardinal Mahony and others worked to protect abusive priests from punishment and withhold evidence of sexual abuse from law enforcement agencies. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States, also sent priests who had molested children out of state for treatment, in part because therapists in California were legally obligated to report evidence of child abuse to the police, according to the documents.In 2007, the Los Angeles archdiocese agreed to pay $660 million to settle claims from more than 500 victims, the largest settlement for priest sexual abuse at the time. Last year, the church agreed to pay another $880 million to settle abuse claims from 1,353 people.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Overlooked Clue Sheds Light on Shakespeare’s Marriage

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      New research undermines the traditional view that Shakespeare was a distant, neglectful husband to his wife, Anne.Any clue about William Shakespeare’s life usually excites scholars, but one piece of evidence had been neglected for decades. Now, a new analysis of that overlooked document seems to shatter a longstanding narrative about the Bard’s bad marriage.Shakespeare was 18 in 1582 when he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a family friend in Stratford-upon-Avon who was in her mid-20s and pregnant. For centuries, it was thought that the writer left his wife and children behind to lead a literary life in London, seeking to avoid “the humiliation of domestic feuds,” as one influential 19th-century essayist put it.This view of Shakespeare’s wife as a “distant encumbrance” suited scholars who thought “Shakespeare was far too interesting to be a married guy,” Matthew Steggle, a literature professor at the University of Bristol in England, said in an interview. The perception was bolstered by the fact that Shakespeare had famously bequeathed her his “second best bed” in his will.But Mr. Steggle’s new research, expected to be published this week in the journal Shakespeare, suggests that the writer was not detached from his marriage after all.The hint lies in a fragment of a 17th-century letter addressing a “Mrs Shakspaire,” found in the binding of a book published in 1608. The letter’s existence was noted in 1978 by an amateur historian, but it got minimal attention, even after the book was unbound in 2016, revealing what appeared to be part of a reply from Shakespeare’s wife, Mr. Steggle said.He was working on a Shakespeare biography when he learned of the 1978 find, and was surprised it wasn’t better known. Technological advances allowed him to track down people mentioned in the long-ago correspondence, along with other evidence indicating that it included the playwright’s wife, he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A $4 Billion Sex Abuse Settlement in L.A., After Childhoods of ‘Pure Hell’

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      MaryAlice Ashbrook remembers the rain on the night the Los Angeles police retrieved her, the 8-year-old child of a pill-addicted mother, and took her to the MacLaren Children’s Center, the county-run foster home where she was preyed upon. Shirley Bodkin remembers the smell of the staff member there who would put her on his lap and make her hold a Raggedy Ann doll while he hurt her. J.C. Wright remembers the social workers who accused him, at age 7, of “fabricating” when he tried telling them what a doctor there had done to him. Those memories are decades old. Ms. Ashbrook is 65 now, a retired bookkeeper in Yuma, Ariz. Ms. Bodkin is 58, the mother of two grown sons in the Southern California beach town of Dana Point. Mr. Wright is 42, a truck driver and father of four in suburban Los Angeles.Whole chapters of their lives have gone by — marriages, children, careers — yet the memories have never ceased to torment them. Ms. Ashbrook tried electroshock therapy. Ms. Bodkin attempted suicide. Mr. Wright lived on the streets for years, ending up in prison. There was no escaping the nightmares, they said in interviews on Sunday. So they turned to the courts for some measure of relief.Last week, it arrived, for them and nearly 7,000 other plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused as children in Los Angeles County’s juvenile detention and foster care systems, in cases dating to the late 1950s. In a settlement that lawyers say is the largest of its kind in the nation, the county publicly apologized and agreed to pay a record $4 billion, dwarfing previous settlements in child sex abuse cases brought against the Boy Scouts of America and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The wave of claims — so immense that officials had warned before the deal that Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, could be bankrupted by it — came after California gave childhood victims a new window to sue, even though the statute of limitations had expired. The county’s Board of Supervisors is expected to formally approve the payout on April 29.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Texas Megachurch Pastor Is Indicted on Child Sex Abuse Charges

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      Robert Morris, the former senior pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway Church, abused a girl over several years in the 1980s, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said.Robert Morris, the founder of a Texas megachurch and a former faith adviser to the Trump White House, was indicted Wednesday on charges that he molested a girl over several years in the 1980s, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said.Last summer, days after Cindy Clemishire publicly accused Mr. Morris, 63, of having abused her when she was a girl, Mr. Morris resigned as the senior pastor of the Dallas-based Gateway Church.On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted Mr. Morris on five felony counts of lewd or indecent acts to a child after concluding that he had used his hands and body to touch the girl’s private parts from when she was 12 until she was 14, according to the indictment. The indictment refers to the girl only as C.C.Ms. Clemishire, 55, of Oklahoma, told The Dallas Morning News last year that the abuse had begun when her family invited Mr. Morris — then a young, traveling preacher — to stay at their home in Oklahoma on Christmas Day in 1982. It took her decades to realize that what had happened to her was abuse and a crime, Ms. Clemishire told the newspaper.In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. Clemishire said, “After almost 43 years, the law has finally caught up with Robert Morris for the horrific crimes he committed against me.” She added, “My family and I are deeply grateful to the authorities who have worked tirelessly to make this day possible and remain hopeful that justice will ultimately prevail.”Lawyers who had represented Mr. Morris did not immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.In a statement to The Christian Post last year after Ms. Clemishire made her allegations, Mr. Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, confessed that he had engaged in “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.” Gateway Church, one of the largest churches in the United States, claimed to have more than 100,000 attendees.In a statement on Wednesday night, Gateway Church said: “We are aware of the actions being taken by the legal authorities in Oklahoma and are grateful for the work of the justice system in holding abusers accountable for their actions. We continue to pray for Cindy Clemishire and her family, for the members and staff of Gateway Church, and for all of those impacted by this terrible situation.”Mr. Morris had served on a faith advisory council during President Trump’s first term. He hosted Mr. Trump at Gateway Church in June 2020. In 2024, a spokesman for Mr. Trump said that Mr. Morris had not played a role in his 2024 presidential campaign.Specifics about the criminal investigation into Ms. Clemishire’s claims were not immediately available. The charges that Mr. Morris faces each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Trump Administration Cuts Ties With Migrant Shelter Provider After Dropping Child Abuse Lawsuit

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      The Trump administration said on Wednesday that it had stopped using the largest U.S. operator of shelters for migrant children over allegations of sexual abuse and harassment of minors at the facilities, and moved to dismiss a Biden-era lawsuit that sought to hold the nonprofit accountable for enabling that abuse.A joint statement issued by the Health and Human Services and Justice Departments on Wednesday cited concerns over allegations detailed in the lawsuit filed last year, namely that employees for the provider, Southwest Key Programs, subjected children to abuse and harassment.The suit accused employees of Southwest Key, which has worked with the federal government for more than two decades, of exploiting “children’s vulnerabilities, language barriers and distance from family and loved ones” from 2015 through at least 2023, including President Trump’s first term.Attorney General Pam Bondi, in the statement, blamed the Biden administration’s immigration policies for enabling the abuses.“Under the border policies of the previous administration, bad actors were incentivized to exploit children and break our laws: this ends now,” Ms. Bondi said, adding, “securing our border and protecting children from abuse are among the most critical missions of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration.”Anais Biera Miracle, a spokeswoman for Southwest Key, maintained the nonprofit denied the claims of abuse. She said it was “pleased” that the Justice Department had dropped the case in its entirety, and that charges cannot be refiled.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trial of Former Surgeon Accused of Abusing Nearly 300 Opens in France

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      A former surgeon is accused of raping or sexually assaulting 299 people, mostly children, over 25 years. It is considered to be France’s largest-ever pedophilia case.A former surgeon went on trial in western France on Monday on charges that he raped or sexually assaulted hundreds of people, most of them former pediatric patients, in what is widely considered the biggest pedophilia case in French history.The former surgeon, Joël Le Scouarnec, 74, is accused of raping or sexually assaulting 299 people over 25 years, from 1989 to 2014. Almost all of the victims are his former patients, and almost all of them were children at the time of the alleged abuse. The average age of the patients he is accused of sexually assaulting was 11.The trial opened in the coastal town of Vannes, in Brittany, where Mr. Le Scouarnec was led in by police officers at the start of proceedings.Wearing a black vest, with a bald head and a ring of white hair on the back and sides, he spoke in a clear, slightly hoarse voice as the court confirmed his name, date of birth, and other biographical information.“Your profession before you were incarcerated?” asked Aude Buresi, the presiding judge.“Surgeon,” Mr. Le Scouarnec answered calmly.He faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted, because there are no consecutive sentences in France. He has denied some charges of rape but admitted to touching some patients’ genitals during medical examinations. The rape charges are mostly related to penetration with fingers, which reflects the definition of rape in France.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sexual Violence Against Children Soars in Congo, U.N. Group Says

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      UNICEF accused “armed men” of raping scores of children in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been ravaged by conflict recently.Sexual violence against children in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has soared in recent weeks, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Thursday, as ethnic tensions and disputes over land and mineral resources fuel fighting in the country. The organization, known as UNICEF, reported that health care facilities in Goma and the surrounding areas had documented 170 cases of children having been raped in a single week, between Jan. 27 and Feb. 2.The health facilities reported 572 cases of rape that week, compared to an average of 95 cases in the prior weeks, said Lianne Gutcher, UNICEF’s communication chief for Congo. She added that the violence was being perpetrated by “armed men” belonging to all parties in the conflict.The aid group Save the Children reported similar trends of children being victimized across eastern Congo.Rebels, said to be backed by Rwanda, have been seizing huge tracts of the Democratic Republic of Congo at lightning speed. In a month, they have routed Congo’s underequipped army several times and caused more than half a million people to flee. In late January, they rebels captured Goma, a Congolese city of three million people along the Rwandan border.Rwanda’s president has denied that his country is arming the rebels or that his troops are in Congo.The rebels, known as M23, say they are protecting ethnic Tutsis, the minority group massacred in a 1994 genocide, some of whom also live in Congo. Experts, however, say the group is after Congo’s rare minerals.Captured soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Congo aboard vehicles outside the city of Goma last month as armed rebel soldiers walk by.Guerchom Ndebo for The New York Times“In North and South Kivu provinces, we are receiving horrific reports of grave violations against children by parties to the conflict, including rape and other forms of sexual violence at levels surpassing anything we have seen in recent years,” UNICEF’s executive director, Catherine Russell, said in a statement. She added that medical workers were running out of drugs used to reduce the risk HIV infection after an assault.Save the Children said it had evidence that 18 girls were sexually violated in South Kivu Province, and that a 16-year-old girl was killed resisting armed men.“One mother recounted to our staff how her six daughters, the youngest just 12 years old, were systematically raped by armed men while searching for food,” she said.The rebel group’s leaders have vowed to bring order and security to the areas it controls.Elian Peltier More

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      The Trouble Began Where #MeToo Became #ChurchToo

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      When did we know that the #MeToo moment was truly over?At its most compelling, #MeToo tried to change a culture that both concealed and enabled the illegal abuse of women and imposed hypocritical double standards, holding women to one standard of behavior while celebrating and elevating unscrupulous men.But events in 2024 have told us loudly and clearly that the moment has passed.Perhaps it was when reports emerged that Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s choice to be the next secretary of defense, had paid an accuser to settle a sexual assault claim. He denies wrongdoing, but his defense — that he had consensual sex with a married woman — was still dreadful. His philandering and mistreatment of women have been so egregious that his mother called him an “abuser of women,” in an email to him (she has since disavowed her statement) — and yet somehow his chances of being confirmed by the Senate appear to be increasing.Perhaps it was when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is married to the actress Cheryl Hines, allegedly had an improper “personal relationship” via smartphone with Olivia Nuzzi, a political reporter who is much younger, and she lost her job while he was picked to run the Department of Health and Human Services.But I think it happened earlier, when a jury found Donald Trump responsible for sexual abuse, and he was ultimately re-elected to the presidency. After years of rightfully arguing that combating sexual assault and sexual abuse can’t override due process, many conservatives not only disregarded the jury verdict, they actually reveled in how little his voters cared about the scandal, or just dismissed it as another instance of “lawfare” against Trump.I distinctly remember the mood on the right when the #MeToo movement got going. There was a sense of schadenfreude. The morally bankrupt, sexualized culture of Hollywood and the liberal media had finally been exposed. For all their talk about feminism and respecting women, many famous liberals proved to be dangerous hypocrites — or much, much worse.Yes, there was leakage into right-wing media. Roger Ailes was pushed out at Fox News in 2016, and Bill O’Reilly suffered the same fate after my Times colleagues Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt reported that O’Reilly or Fox had paid $13 million to settle claims of sexual misconduct made by five different women against him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Menendez Brothers Are a Test for Society and the Courts

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      Recently, a Los Angeles judge delayed a hearing for Erik and Lyle Menendez in their bid to be resentenced for the murder of their parents 35 years ago. Renewed interest in the brothers’ case, fueled by Netflix’s recent docudrama series and documentary on the brothers, has drawn celebrity advocates to call for their release, alongside an army of TikTok accounts. Unfortunately for the brothers, social advocacy rarely corresponds to judicial change.The Menendez brothers shot and killed their parents in August of 1989, when Erik was 18 and Lyle was 21. For months, the murders went unsolved, and the police believed that perhaps the parents had been victims of a mafia hit. During that time, the brothers went on a spending spree, buying cars, private tennis lessons, even a restaurant. When the truth finally emerged, the world was shocked. How could two young men born into privilege squander not only their futures but also quite possibly their lives?There was a televised trial, the men sobbing on the stand, detailing years of abuse at the hands of their father. Sexual abuse, emotional abuse, coercion, violence. And their mother — where was she in all of this? Drinking away the woes of her family, failing in her sacred duty to protect her children.The trial ended in hung juries, and Judge Stanley Weisberg declared a mistrial. So the men were tried again in 1995, and this time it was not televised. Judge Weisberg seemed to say enough with the shenanigans and less of this messy talk of abuse. He barred much of the evidence of the sexual perversions of Lyle and Erik’s father, Jose Menendez. The trial ended in convictions for each brother, and sentences of life without parole.I was in college and then graduate school as the fate of the Menendez brothers played out. Their lurid travails were a sort of background static for the orderly world in which I lived, attending classes, struggling with rent and groceries. What did rich kids have to be so upset over?Like so many people, I now understand more of how abuse and trauma play out in a person’s life. I understand that a male victim of abuse feels the pain no less than a woman, a child even more so. What I question is whether judges have absorbed this new understanding of abuse, and whether a court today would reach a different verdict.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More