This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Texas: Pastor Julio Perez charged with murder for hiring a hit man to shoot his wife.
Mississippi: Pastor Eddie Prince charged with downloading child porn on a public library computer.
Washington DC: Whistleblower lawsuit filed against Catholic Charities for charging the poor for flu shots meant to be free under a government-funded program.
New York: Father Francis McCloskey busted in stolen car after attempting to elude pursuing cops. McCloskey is a renowned anti-abortion activist.
California: Father Alejandro Castillo charged with seven felony counts of child molestation.
New Jersey: Rabbi Mordchai Fish pleads guilty to money laundering.
New York: Pastor Jeremy Fulton pleads guilty to molesting five girls as young as ten years old.
Pennsylvania: Archdiocese of Philadelphia sued for wrongful death in suicide of molestation victim.
Oklahoma: Pastor Tommy Pitts charged with 70 felony counts of child molestation. The victims are his adopted daughters.
Wisconsin: Father John Dahlberg charged with embezzling from church fund meant for families in crisis.
Texas: Pastor Owen Davis charged with sexual assault of an undocumented woman he had forced to sign a contract agreeing to sex on demand.
California: Pastor Joe David Nelms charged with sexual assault on a child.
New York: Pastor Joe Flowers charged with molesting an 11 year-old boy.
Illinois: Father John Regan to face trial for embezzling $400K in church funds to support his gambling addiction.

This Week's Winner
Wisconsin: The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is accused of transferring $55M into a cemetery trust account in order to shield assets from suing molestation victims. The Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January and this week proposed settling 22 molestation suits at $700K each. In February a lawyer for the victims accused New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan of hiding $130M while assigned to Milwaukee in 2008.

Catholic Church Fights CT Move To Lift Statute Of Limitations On Molestation

Connecticut lawmakers says they are shocked by the Catholic Church's opposition to a proposed lifting of the statute of limitations on lawsuits for the sexual abuse of minors.

“I’m just so surprised they are opposing this. We certainly had the sense last year that they would not,” Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, said of the bill she proposed that eliminates the limitation on civil suits prospectively. Bills that would have removed any limitation on when a suit could be brought retroactively, aimed to a large extent at the childhood victims of Dr. George Reardon, a former physician at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, failed to go forward in 2009 and 2010. More than 100 lawsuits have been brought against Reardon, who died in 1998, and against St. Francis. Police say more than 50,000 slides of child pornography found in the home where Reardon once lived had belonged to the doctor, who practiced medicine at St. Francis for more than 30 years.

Current Connecticut law permits lawsuits for 30 years after a minor victim's 18th birthday. One advocate for victims of childhood sexual abuse says that half of her clients come forward after the time limit has expired.

(Tipped by JMG reader Casey)