Religious Institutions Sexual Abuse & Assault - Feeney Law Firm

Investigation Finds Southern Baptist Leaders Covered Up Sex Abuse Claims

Christina Feeney — Wed, 25 May 2022 16:57:40 +0000

A third-party investigation, done at the request of Southern Baptists, found that for almost twenty years, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention were ignoring claims regarding a sexual abuse epidemic within the community.

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Connecticut Diocese Resolves Clergy Abuse Case

Brett Katsma — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 15:44:53 +0000

Rev. James Kowalski, the former dean of New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, reached an agreement with the Episcopal Church in Connecticut to resolve an allegation of clergy sexual abuse against him which dates back to 1984. A young woman alleged Kowalski sexually abused her when he came to visit her during her freshman year at college. Kowalski’s connection to the alleged victim started when he was a newly ordained priest at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown, Connecticut, when the complainant was in middle school. At the time of the alleged abuse, Kowalski was serving at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Hartford.

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PA Grand Jury Investigates Jehovah’s Witness Sex-Abuse Cover Up

Brett Katsma — Fri, 21 Feb 2020 19:22:06 +0000

Pennsylvania Attorney General (AG) Josh Shapiro is working towards proving that leading Jehovah’s Witness officials have long been covering up sexual abuse committed by elders and relatives of the church. AG Shapiro has experience in uncovering sexual abuse scandals

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Woman Sues Megachurch for $1 Million for Mishandling Her Sex Abuse Case

Brett Katsma — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 14:12:58 +0000

In recent news, an 18-year-old-woman has hired a sexual abuse lawyer and is suing The Village Church (TVC) in Texas for more than $1 million dollars. According to the lawsuit filing, the plaintiff was allegedly 11 years old when she was sexually molested by TVC employee Matthew Tonne while attending summer camp. To make matters worse, TVC handled the initial allegations by the plaintiff poorly. Matt Chandler, TVC’s pastor, was quoted as saying “[the unnamed sexual abuser did not currently have] access to member children of TVC” because Tonne technically no longer worked for TVC. Chandler was later quoted in an email to the TVC congregation saying that Tonne was leaving TVC due to an “alcohol abuse problem”. In other words, Tonne was not leaving TVC as a result of the sexual abuse lawsuit. Tonne also received a severance package from TVC upon departure.

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The Southern Baptist Convention must enact tough reform on its sexual abuse crisis

Brett Katsma — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 15:04:37 +0000

With 15 million members and more than 47,000 churches, Baptists make up the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. And ten years ago, Southern Baptists cried out to denominational leaders to create a registry of sexual abusers within the church. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) did not listen. Instead, they insisted that individual churches were autonomous and therefore sexual abuse crimes within the church were not their responsibility.

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