It’s a good thing there are civil lawsuits in this country for victims who have been let down by the system. One such victim, a 17-year-old girl who has had her rape allegations against a group of boys thrown out, has now filed a civil lawsuit against the boys.

The unidentified victim was gang raped by a group of De Anza College baseball players at a co-ed party held at a baseball player’s house. She was drunk at the time of the rape, and the incident only came to light when three of her friends barged into the room and found her. She was apparently unconscious and was being raped, while at least eight other men stood around and watched.

The Santa Clara District Attorney’s office spent almost a year investigating the matter, but finally came to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough evidence for criminal charges. They made the decision not to prosecute the young men, saying the evidence was too slim. It didn’t help matters that the girl didn’t remember the rape. The women who barged into the room and witnessed the accident apparently didn’t see the men’s faces.

The young men who were in the room at the time of the rape seem to have given varying accounts of what happened, ruining the DA’s case further.

The result of all this was a terse announcement by the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office that “reprehensible” behavior had taken place at a player’s home on March 3, 2007, but it was impossible to find out what exactly happened.

The teen has now filed a lawsuit accusing the nine former players and another man at the party of men of sexually assaulting her. The charges include rape, false imprisonment, and violation of her privacy. The violation of privacy charge stems from the videotapes of the rape that the perpetrators reportedly circulated among their friends.

It now stands to the civil courts to give this young girl justice. After having suffered one of the most heinous crimes that could be committed, it must be frustrating to not even have the opportunity to face your torturers in court and accuse them of the crime. While we understand the hesitation in filing criminal charges against the perpetrators because of the lack of solid evidence, it still doesn’t help the young girl to know that these men could get away with scarring her for the rest of her life. It also sends a negative message to other rape victims.

Everybody, from the investigators to the district attorney’s office, seems to agree that there was rape committed that night at the party. But the way things work, the victim will probably not have her chance at justice from a criminal court. The video that the boys made so arrogantly could prove to be their nemesis. It will probably be used in the plaintiff’s arguments when the civil lawsuit comes up for hearing.

If have been the victim of a sexual assault, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

A dead priest, HIV and drugs abuse – a new sex scandal rocking a church has all the sordid ingredients of an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.

The dead priest is the focus of a $130 million lawsuit bought by a man who claims the priest, who was HIV positive, raped him and infected him with the virus. The lawsuit has been bought by Daniel Brown of Florida. It names the Diocese of Manchester, claiming that they permitted an HIV infected homosexual priest to be in a position of eminence, which gave him close access to victims. The priest, who hasn’t been named because of the speculative nature of the suit, was the head priest of the St. Mary Parish in Dover, New Hampshire.

According to Brown, the priest was a known homosexual and drug user who was HIV positive. The rape incident, according to Brown, occurred in 1977. According to the lawsuit, the priest was then living in an apartment that he shared with two other men. Brown had accepted a ride from the priest, and was asked to accompany him up to his apartment. Because the priest was someone known to him, Brown says that he complied. Once at the apartment he was drugged and then raped. He was 16 at the time.

Brown began experiencing symptoms of HIV infection in the eighties. He traced the infection back to the priest, because he had only had sexual relations with one other man after the rape incident, and had practiced safe sex.

In 2002, Brown was part of a class action lawsuit against the diocese in which he received a group settlement of $490,000. Brown says he was coerced into taking that settlement. He hired a private investigation firm to investigate the priest’s character, and the firm has come up with damaging evidence and testimony. For instance, one of his former roommates compares him to “a devil”. He was supposedly a master of seduction, and was very aggressive in his pursuit of young men. He frequented two popular gay bars in the city, and was a habitual drug user. In fact, he was known to use drugs to sedate and then rape his victims. The roommate claims that he himself was drugged and raped by the priest.

Drug use, rape, child abuse – it’s hard to believe that the priest could have lived such a colorful life under the nose of the Diocese without them being aware of it. His escapades didn’t seem to come in the way of his career –he was made a head priest, a position that gave him even greater access to his victims, young boys.

From what we have learned about the behavior of the church in matters of clergy sexual abuse, it’s easier to believe that the church was well aware of all that was going on in its parish, but chose to turn a blind eye. For now, the Diocese is claiming that the charges are all falsified, and expressed hope that the charges would be “dismissed.” It would be a travesty of justice if the case was indeed dismissed. The only way to make churches more accountable for the actions of their priests is to dangle the sword of bankruptcy over their heads.

It’s probably safer to stay out of church altogether and watch services on TV.

A lawsuit filed against the First Baptist Church of Hesperia alleges that the pastor knew about sexual abuse being committed by his church deacon, and did nothing about it. Roy Long, an 88-year-old former deacon at the First Baptist Church of Hesperia, was accused of molesting two minor girls who were in his charge. The sexual abuse reportedly continued over a period of four years from 1996 to 2000. The girls initially did not confide in anybody until years later, when they turned 17 they told their mother.

Long later pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse with minors and molesting girls under the age of 18. He was arrested in November last year and sentenced to time served and four years probation, due to his advanced years.

Now ,a lawsuit has been filed against the pastor of the church where Long served. The lawsuit filed by a Los Angeles based firm is alleging that pastor Wayne Stockstill was aware of the sexual abuse, but chose to remain silent about it.

The lawsuit also sues Long for damages, besides the church itself.

The case against Wayne Stockstill and the church stems from an incident when a female witness saw Long abuse one of the plaintiffs on a wagon hay ride at the church’s Fall Festival. The shocked woman immediately went to Stockstill, and recounted what she had seen. Upon this, Stockstill apparently told her that he would “take care of the matter”. Apparently, the good pastor was in no hurry to take care of matters at all. The witness was shocked when she heard of Long’s arrest last year, and to know that the deacon had not been dealt with at all. She wrote a letter to the pastor, upon which she received a reply in which he admitted that he made an “egregious mistake” in his handling of Long, and that he had “erred on the side of grace” choosing not to believe the witness.

In short, he decided to not believe a first person account, and instead let the sexual abuse continue. It’s possible that there are more victims in this sordid tale. This is also the reason why The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has publicly released Roy Long’s photograph. They hope that other victims will come forward to tell their story and strengthen the case against him.

There has been a tendency on the part of the church to rely on forgiveness and grace when it comes to pedophile crimes committed by their church leaders. The oft-repeated mantra – even when these offenders come to court to give testimony - is forgiveness and prayer for the perpetrator’s sins. That’s a very touching sentiment, but we must make sure that priests and other church members are not allowed to get away with such crimes. The only way to do that, unfortunately, since moral and spiritual influence seem so sorely lacking in these people, is to hold the church itself responsible for keeping their staff in order. In this case, the church relied on contributions by its members and the church has complained that it will essentially be driven bankrupt in the event of a multi-million dollar settlement - which is common in such cases. We think such settlements will serve to enforce better verification checks while recruiting leaders instead of crying about the possibility of going broke after unspeakably heinous crimes have been committed.

If you or a loved one have been the victim of sexual abuse, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

When the family with four children was left fatherless in 1965, it didn’t take long for Father Titian Miani to jump to the rescue. He was kind and generous, and the children’s devout Catholic mother welcomed him into her home, thinking he would be a good male influence on her kids in the absence of their father. The mother worked long hours and took night shifts to make ends meet, leaving the kids in the company of the kindly priest.

Except that Father Miani was far from the benevolent neighborhood church priest. In fact he was an established pedophile, and he wasted no time turning his perverted eyes on the kids – three girls and a boy. The boy, 15 at the time, was the first victim, but later the clergyman’s eyes fell on the daughters.

Now decades after the incidents occurred, these sins have come back to haunt him.

The siblings, now adults, have filed a lawsuit against father Miani’s religious order, the Salesian Society. They allege the organization, which is the only Roman Catholic order involved in a sexual abuse case not to have settled, knew of the clergyman’s propensity for molesting little children, and chose to look the other way.

For its part, the Salesian Society has been careful not to defend the priest. There have been too many priests involved in too many sexual acts involving young kids for anybody in their right mind to give Father Miani the benefit of doubt. They don’t defend him, but they plead ignorance of his pedophile nature, saying they were completely unaware of any such acts on his part.

However, one of the records in the case is from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles warning the Salesian Society that there were reports of Father Miani having abused a child.

Miani’s personnel file itself shows that he was accused of assaulting a boy in Italy. He was then transferred to Canada in accordance with the practice of transferring “troublemaker” priests abroad. In Canada, he was accused by three boys of sexual molestation, after which he was transferred again, this time to St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California. It was at this high school that he ran into the fatherless family that has now filed a lawsuit against his order.

A spokesman for the Society said a huge judgment would bankrupt it and he “hoped and prayed” that a settlement would be reached before trial.

With the evidence so strong that the Society was negligent enough to allow a known pedophile to continue to be in close proximity to young kids, it would seem the time for “hoping and praying” has long since passed. It’s finally time for justice.

If you or a loved-one has been the victim of sexual assault, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury law firm. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

Hospitalization has to be one of the most traumatic experiences a person has to go through. Imagine undergoing all the all the stress of being sick and having to fend off sexual predators right inside the hospital.

This is what happened at the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, California where a female patient named Kathryn Peulicke claims she was sexually assaulted by a male member of the nursing staff, Paul Crumal.

Peulicke has now filed a lawsuit against the hospital saying the management knew about previous such cases of assault by the nurse, but continued to retain his services, exposing patients to the dangers of having a sexual predator in such close proximity to them. According to The Press-Enterprise, Peulicke’s lawsuits allege dependant adult abuse, negligence, battery and damage to her relationship with her husband.

She is seeking unspecified damages from the hospital, for her pain and suffering.

Her lawsuit alleges that Crumal had been accused of assaulting another patient in 1999, and claims that hospital management was aware of this. Despite this they continued to retain his services. Not only this, they also seem to have taken no disciplinary action against Crumal. No allegation was reported to the California Department of Public Health, and he was not charged with any crime. He was allowed to continue working in close proximity with female patients. Peulicke says she was heavily sedated when she was assaulted. One wonders how many more sedated and disoriented women Crumal managed to prey on while hospital authorities were turning a blind eye to his peccadilloes.

Hospital reps claim they were completely in the dark about the assault, and found out about it only when Peulicke told her husband, who then contacted an attorney and the police. Last week, Crumal was sentenced to 180 days in jail in the assault case.

If you have been the victim of any type of abuse or attack, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

Five teenage juvenile offenders are suing San Mateo County, California for the sexual abuse they suffered at an adolescent boy’s home by an employee at the facility.

The lawsuit alleges that the county failed to protect the boys from the sexual predator Cardell Demond Brown, a known felon employed by Project 90, a non-profit group that the county contracted to provide boys rehab services – and neglected to notice signs that the boys were being molested by Brown.

The lawsuit also names Project 90 for hiring and supervising Brown without bothering to check his credentials.

As expected whenever children are abused, no time is being wasted by the people concerned, before washing their hands of the whole sordid affair. Project 90 was quick to point out it was not really their fault since they don’t hire people unless they are screened by the state’s criminal justice system, and since Brown passed through that safety check, he was assumed to be perfectly safe. Management and staff, according to Project 90s CEO Jim Stanberry, are trained to observe and notice if “anything out of the ordinary” was happening at the facility, and then report it to the organization.

Well, if that’s part of their modus operandi for keeping children in their care safe, then obviously there’s a big hole in that part of the plan. Because Brown not only managed to sneak though the system and right into the midst of a entire facility full of young boys, but also managed to escape the “watchful” eyes of the staff who had been trained to spot people like him. With all the agonizing and excruciating testimonies coming out of the clergy abuse trials in California, you would have thought people in charge of kids would have wised up and gotten a better handle on how to protect children, but sadly it seems nothing has changed.

San Mateo County, on its part, is equally keen on passing the buck. “Not our fault”, was the general response. Brown was not technically an employee of the county; he was an employee of the independent contractor, in this case, Project 90. It seems so much like a panic-stricken knee jerk reaction of “Not my fault, it was him,” it’s not even funny.

Meanwhile, Inside Bay Area reports, the five boys, who reported being forced to perform just about every sexual act known to man and then some on an adult, are pressing ahead with their case.

If you or your child has been the victim of an attack or abuse in the past, you need an experienced California personal injury lawyer on your side. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.