The Sexual Abuse Survivor Suing All Of California's Catholic Bishops

Tom Emens couldn't hold his abuser accountable, so he's taking his fight to the entire state.

Survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have limited legal recourse. They can't sue individual priests, because states' statutes of limitations cut off at 10 to 21 years, depending on the state. They can't force widespread disclosures on the scale of those in Pennsylvania without a grand jury investigation and a willing attorney general. Many can't even confront their abusers, as some have sought to do: Of the 212 names listed on a recent Bay Area report of alleged abusers, more than half are now dead.

So Tom Emens took a different route. In 2017, the 50-year-old Camarillo resident passed up a chance to settle with the Chicago diocese, which oversaw the California-based retired monsignor who Emens says groomed and then abused him from ages 10 to 12 while in residence at an Anaheim, California, parish. Emens had waited more than three decades before telling members of his family—or anyone at all, save his wife. When he went public, he intended to be heard. read more »

More than 20 Ohio State staffers knew sexual abuse concerns over doctor, accusers say

Former students who say they're victims of sexual misconduct by an Ohio State University team doctor allege more than 20 school officials and employees, including athletic directors, knew concerns about how he treated young men but didn't stop him.

More than 150 ex-students have alleged sexual misconduct by Dr Richard Strauss between 1979 and 1997. read more »

Everyone Believed Larry Nassar. The predatory trainer may have just taken down USA Gymnastics. How did he deceive so many for so long?

Larissa Boyce was 10 when her coach, John Geddert, forced her legs into a split so hard she cried. He pulled her right leg up toward his torso, sending shooting pains through her groin and hamstrings, and he kept pulling. “Racking,” as it’s called, was common practice at the gym, but it was evidently too much for Larissa’s mother, who marched onto the mats and told Geddert to take his hands off her daughter. From then on, Larissa would train under Kathie Klages, a relatively low-key coach with unruly red hair and glasses at Michigan State University’s Spartan youth gymnastics team. Klages, like Geddert, considered herself a dear friend of an athletic trainer named Larry Nassar and sent her gymnasts to him. read more »