By Carl Campanile

The Brooklyn Diocese has agreed to negotiate a “global” settlement to compensate 1,100 people who accused priests and staffers of child sex abuse — a figure that will likely run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

The payouts for these cases—90% of which date back more than 50 years to the 1960s and ’70s — will be a huge financial blow to the diocese, forcing it to unload real estate to raise the settlement money.

“To facilitate this global resolution, the Diocese is cost-cutting and setting aside significant funds to compensate victim-survivors,” Bishop Robert Brennan said Thursday in a “Dear brothers and sisters” letter to the church faithful.

“The process of marshalling these funds entails difficult financial choices, but the Diocese is committed to fairly compensating all meritorious claims,” Brennan said, adding that the payout cash will not come from parishioners.

“The funds used to make these settlements, and future ones, have not and will not come from your donations to the Diocese or from your parish offerings.”

Brennan said the diocese’s lawyers have spoken with the top attorneys representing hundreds of victims to begin the settlement process.

“We will endeavor to resolve expeditiously all meritorious claims, and to avoid the time, expense, and emotional strain for victim-survivors that would be caused by individual trials,” Brennan said.

“As our global resolution process moves forward, we continue to pray for the victim-survivors, their families, and all others impacted by sexual abuse.”An attorney at one of the law firms representing more than 200 clients suing the Diocese over the alleged sex abuse welcomed the announcement, but said actions speak louder than words.

“The Diocese’ announcement offers promise but action is what counts,” said Trusha Goffe, a lawyer with Jeff Anderson and Associates.

Survivors have suffered for decades from “protracted litigation and scorched earth tactics,” Goffe said, adding she hoped the Diocese would offer settlements to address the “tremendous harm” caused by predators assigned to or employed by the church.

“The announcement today by Bishop Brennan to pursue a global resolution of remaining clergy sexual cases is a step in the right direction only it helps survivors or victims gain a degree of validation,” said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represents 25 Brooklyn victims and who helped bring the clergy sex abuse scandal at the Archdiocese of Boston into the national spotlight more than two decades ago.

“Bishop Brennan must understand that clergy sexual abuse survivors, for good reason, do not trust the Catholic Church or its leaders,” Garabedian said. “Accordingly, the settlement program must be without delay, uncomplicated, and fair.”

The diocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, which began in 2017, has already paid over 500 victim-survivors more than $100 million.

In 2018, four men who were sexually abused by a teacher at a Catholic church in Clinton Hill reached a $27.5 million settlement with the Diocese and a local after-school program.

The men were all repeatedly raped as kids by Angelo Serrano, the former director of religion at St. Lucy’s-St. Patrick’s Church, between 2003 and 2009.

The Brooklyn Diocese — which also includes Queens and serves 1.3 million Catholics — retained the firms of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, Anderson Kill P.C., and Alvarez & Marsal as legal and financial advisers for the massive new settlement.

The parties have agreed to tap retired Los Angeles Judge Daniel Buckley and lawyer Paul Finn as neutral mediators to facilitate the resolution process. Finn has mediated hundreds of sex abuse claims brought against the Archdioceses of Boston and Milwaukee.

Buckley mediated a global settlement of sex abuse claims filed against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He has also recently been engaged to resolve the Child Victims Act claims filed against the neighborhing Archdiocese of New York.

The archdiocese in December agreed to negotiate a settlement to compensate 1,300 people who accused priests and lay staff members of child sex abuse — and is raising $300 million to cover the cost.

The Archdiocese of New York — which includes Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx and the northern suburbs — also is battling in court with its insurer, Chubb, over payments to alleged sex abuse victims.

Other Catholic dioceses, including Albany, Rockville Centre and Rochester, filed for bankruptcy protection under the crush of sex abuse claims.

The New York Child Victims Act of 2019 allowed child sex abuse survivors to bring a civil lawsuit against abusers and institutions that protected them until the survivor reaches the age of 55. It also opened a one-year window for child sexual abuse victims of any age to bring lawsuits for abuse that occurred even decades ago.

Hundreds of suits were filed against the Brooklyn Diocese under the law.One of them accused Rev. Patrick Fursey O’Toole, Friar Rudolph Manozzi and Brother Julio Ortiz of engaging in “unpermitted sexual contact” with altar boys dating back to the 1950s, according to court documents.

The Diocese last year defrocked a priest who led parishes for decades following an investigation into child sexual-abuse claims dating back to the 1980s.

The Diocese said it substantiated accusations of sex abuse against the Rev. Michael McHugh, a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Astoria.
McHugh was permanently barred from all ministerial duties and no longer lives in church housing.

His name was added to the Diocese List of Credibly Accused Priests.

— Additional reporting by Peter Senzamici

by Della Harper

An explosive scandal rocking the exiled Tibetan community strikes at the heart of the power surrounding its spiritual leader. Tenzin Taklha, the Dalai Lama’s trusted nephew and private secretary, faces multiple internal whistleblower accusations of systematic sexual exploitation, misappropriation of aid funds, and attempts to monopolize the process of HHDL’s succession. The allegations, contained in disturbing chat logs, accuse him of using faith to exploit at least 25 girls, leading to a public marital breakdown with his wife.

These allegations intertwine with recent controversies sparked by U.S. Epstein case files, painting a startling picture of moral collapse among the exiled elite. As the 90-year-old HHDL enters his twilight years, this scandal is not just about individual alleged crimes; it threatens to ignite a brutal internal war over his vast religious and political legacy.

The Fall of the ‘Gatekeeper’: From Spiritual Aide to Accused Predator

Tenzin Taklha is no ordinary aide. As the Dalai Lama’s nephew and private secretary, he plays the role of ‘gatekeeper,’ controlling access to the aging spiritual leader. Whistleblowers allege he has turned this position into a personal fiefdom. “He is a de facto autocrat,” wrote one anonymous whistleblower in materials provided. The list of accusations is staggering:

Sexual Exploitation: Accused of exploiting young women’s devout faith in HHDL to induce them into explicit online sexual conversations and exchange nude photos. He allegedly boasted of having relations with 25 girls. Last year, Tenzin Taklha’s wife, Tsering Dolkar, publicly accused him of adultery and domestic violence, shattering his carefully cultivated image as a family man.

Financial Abuse: Accused of diverting humanitarian aid funds intended for the Tibetan cause to purchase luxury properties in the United States, among other personal expenses.

Trading Secrets: Allegedly shared HHDL’s private health information, undisclosed travel plans, and the meeting information with senior Indian officials in private chats, raising serious concerns about compromised Indian government security protocols.

The Shadow Over ‘Ganden Phodrang’: Corruption Reaches for the Reincarnation

Most alarmingly for the Tibetan community, Taklha’s influence is alleged to have penetrated the very heart of the Dalai Lama’s succession process. He is a key member of the Ganden Phodrang Trust, responsible for overseeing the sacred and sensitive process of identifying HHDL’s reincarnation.

It was for this reason that 32 members of the Tibetan Youth Congress in North America angrily petitioned last summer for his expulsion from the foundation. They warned that his “unchecked power” was poisoning the process, potentially manipulating the outcome for factional gain and creating catastrophic division within the Tibetan world.

The Fragility of Exiled Democracy and the Leader’s Silence

This crisis hits at a paradoxical point in the Dalai Lama’s life’s work: he successfully built an exiled democratic government, but failed to constrain the power of those closest to him. After withdrawing from politics in 2011, executive power was transferred to the elected Sikyong and parliament. Yet, the office of HHDL remains a ‘state within a state,’ operating without democratic oversight, with Taklha as its master.

For years, the Dalai Lama has faced criticism for his handling of sexual abuse scandals within Tibetan Buddhism. As early as 1993, he learned from Western monks about allegations against prominent lamas like Sogyal Rinpoche, but initially took no strong public action. It wasn’t until 2017, under immense public pressure, that he publicly criticized Sogyal Rinpoche. Visiting the Netherlands in 2018, he met with survivors, acknowledged knowing about the issue for decades, and promised reforms.

Now, as corruption and sexual abuse allegations point directly to his relative and most trusted lieutenant, the silence from the Dalai Lama and his office is deafening. For millions of Tibetans and their supporters who see him as a symbol of freedom and morality, this silence has become an answer in itself.

Anger and despair permeate the community. A scholar of Tibetan issues lamented, “The exiled community must confront the systemic flaws in its spiritual leadership, or it will lose all credibility.” With Beijing poised to exploit any weakness, this scandal, which began with allegations of sexual exploitation and corruption, is rapidly escalating into a battle for the survival of the exiled Tibetan cause itself.

Disclaimer

Important Notice and Disclaimer

This article is published strictly for informational, analytical, and public-interest discussion purposes only. It references allegations and claims circulating in the public domain, including on social media platforms, blogs, and third-party commentary.

The publisher does not assert or confirm the truth of any allegations mentioned. All individuals named are presumed innocent, and no claims cited have been proven in a court of law or confirmed by credible investigative reporting.

If any individual or organization believes that information contained in this article is inaccurate or misleading, they are encouraged to contact the publisher for review, clarification, or correction.

CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC-TV, NBC – 3 [Cleveland OH]

February 11, 2026

By Annabelle Childers

The woman claiming she was sexually abused as a teen by a former church worship director, testified Wednesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

A 27-year-old woman testified for hours Tuesday in the trial of a former Cleveland area church worship director accused of sexually abusing her when she was a teenager.

In March 2025, Andres Andino, 60, was indicted on two counts of sexual battery, two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and one count of rape. At the time of his arrest, he had been working as director of worship at St. John Bosco Catholic Church in Parma Heights, as well as part-time at St. Joseph Parish in Avon Lake, in addition to a number of other volunteer positions for churches and groups across the Diocese of Cleveland.

Andino maintains his innocence, claiming he viewed the victim as the daughter he never had and never touched or treated her inappropriately.

WARNING: This story contains disturbing allegations of sexual abuse. Reader discretion is advised.

The alleged victim took the stand and laid out a timeline of her relationship with Andino, detailing how she said their interactions evolved from music lessons to sexual abuse.

The victim told the court she first met Andino as a sixth grader, when he served as school choir director at St. Anthony of Padua in Lorain. She testified that they grew closer after she asked him to give her piano lessons.

During those private lessons, the victim claims Andino began patting her on the back and letting her hold his hand. When she reached high school, she claims he started touching her sexually in the Cleveland music studio he owned before ultimately having sex with her in 2013.

She testified that before it happened, Andino said, “I can’t take advantage of you. You’re 15 years old.”

The alleged sexual encounters continued multiple times a week until the victim went to college, she said, adding that Andino told her he loved her and made her feel special. She said she worried that if she told anyone what happened, he wouldn’t like her anymore.

Over the years, as she confided in college friends, she said she began to view their relationship differently. In 2024, she decided to come forward to police after receiving a Google meeting invite from Andino.

Both the prosecution and defense questioned the victim about nearly 5,500 messages exchanged between her and Andino between 2016 and 2018. Andino frequently picked up the victim from her house for lessons and church events, and many conversations document those exchanges, according to testimony.

In 2018, the victim claims she stopped responding to Andino. Cuyahoga County prosecutors shared the final text messages he sent her on Sept. 25, 2018: “Your mom showed me a video of you playing at your last recital. You are amazing. I’m so proud of you, I almost started crying in front of your parents. I miss you so much and think of you all the time.”

The women, by then an adult, did not respond. Andino texted again two days later: “You don’t have to respond, I know things change.” He went on to write, “My feelings never have and never will change for you. I will be there for you if you ever need me, sweetie.”

As the woman described the alleged sexual acts, Andino appeared visibly distraught, at times shaking his head and whispering to his defense attorney. His lawyer tells 3News Andino will take the stand in the trial, and that the jury will also hear testimony from Andino’s wife and multiple character witnesses.

PIERRE (SD)
South Dakota Searchlight [Sioux Falls, SD]

February 11, 2026

By Seth Tupper and John Hult

Debates about which types of authority figures should be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect ended in one proposal’s failure and another’s advancement on Wednesday at the South Dakota Capitol in Pierre.

The state House of Representatives approved a bill that would add coaches of school activities to a list of mandatory reporters in state law that includes teachers, health care providers, child care workers and others. The bill’s next stop is a state Senate committee.

The legislation’s sponsor, Rep. Mary Fitzgerald, R-Saint Onge, was not fully happy despite the 66-0 vote in favor of the measure.

Her initial draft sought to add the term “coach” to the mandatory reporters list. A committee amendment narrowed the language to high school coaches. Fitzgerald unsuccessfully sought on Wednesday to amend the bill back to her original language.

“I just cannot imagine why we would go out of our way to not protect kids,” she said.

Other representatives said the word “coach” is too broad. An amendment moved Wednesday as a compromise by Rep. Drew Peterson, R-Salem, changed the language to “coach of a school activity.”

Peterson said he wanted to broaden the bill beyond the language approved by the committee, but didn’t want to put potential criminal liability on impromptu volunteers, citing the example of a parent who helps a Little League team once for 20 minutes. He said such a person could have qualified as a “coach” under the original language and been prosecuted for failing to make a report.

Fitzgerald criticized the resistance to her language, saying “it’s a sad day here in South Dakota.”

Attempt to add clergy fails

Earlier Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 8-3 to defeat a bill that would have added clergy to the list of mandatory reporters.

House Bill 1216, from Sioux Falls Democratic Rep. Erin Healy, was modeled in part after a law in Washington state. The bill had the support of the Episcopal Diocese of South Dakota and the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.

Opponents came from the South Dakota Catholic Conference, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and religious liberty organizations.

The state of Washington agreed not to enforce a provision of its law that required reporting of abuse and neglect disclosed during Catholic confession as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought against the state.

Catholic practice bars the disclosure of anything divulged in the confessional.

Michael Pauley of the South Dakota Catholic Conference said the bill would create “a legal obligation to report information in violation of church law.”

Other church opponents said requiring faith leaders to make “subjective” calls on whether difficult life circumstances or poverty amount to reportable abuse or neglect would interfere with the clergy-parishioner relationship and run afoul of First Amendment protections for religious liberty.

Healy told the committee that disclosure during confession could be exempted, as it was in Washington. She said mandatory reporting is a backstop to ensure “bad actors” in the church who ignore abuse are held accountable.

“Complex” questions about the role of the clergy and their role in parishioners’ lives, Healy said, “must always be weighed against our responsibility to protect children.”

Rio Dell City Manager Kyle Knopp returned our phone message and explained that while the parcel is currently zoned for one-acre minimum parcels, the city would “enthusiastically” support up-zoning to allow for denser development.

The water board previously curtailed development in this area due to wastewater issues, but a new treatment plant was built in 2013, and restrictions were lifted in 2017.

“We have a project going on already to upsize the sewer line in that area,” Knopp said. “The parcel is ripe for housing, it’s in a great location, and it has beautiful views of the Scotia Bluffs.”

The Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa recently put a handful of Northern California properties, including 8.19 undeveloped acres in Rio Dell, up for sale in an effort to raise some quick cash as it works through bankruptcy proceedings.

The diocese, whose territory comprises Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Napa and Sonoma Counties, filed for bankruptcy in March 2023 amid an onslaught of more than 250 sexual abuse lawsuits.

The bankruptcy proceedings paused court proceedings for those lawsuits, much to the frustration of survivors.

The Rio Dell property, located at 800 Rigby Avenue, sits on the east side of Hwy. 101, tucked into an elbow of the South Fork Eel River. Local real estate agent Marc Matteoli highlights the property’s development potential in an online listing, noting that it could be split into eight one-acre lots or subdivided into as many as 50 smaller lots.

However, a municipal zoning map shows the parcel zoned “Suburban Low,” a designation that mandates a minimum lot size of one acre. A call to Rio Dell City Manager Kyle Knopp seeking clarification was not immediately returned.

Matteoli’s listing says, “The City of Rio Dell has expressed willingness to work with a developer to create residential development here,” though it also notes that sewer system upgrades will probably be necessary.

Other properties placed on the market this week by the Diocese of Santa Rosa include a couple of vacant acres in Sebastopol, a Napa Valley vineyard, a small Napa home and a long-vacant former clergy residence in downtown Santa Rosa, the Press Democrat reports.

A quick side note: The Diocese of Santa Rosa is headed up by Bishop Robert Francis Vasa, who last year injected himself into the State of California’s emergency abortion care lawsuit against Providence-St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka. Attorneys for the Catholic-run Providence-St. Joseph Health Northern California had reached an agreement with the Attorney General’s Office by which treating physicians would be allowed to terminate a patient’s pregnancy whenever they determined that failing to do so would seriously jeopardize the patient’s health. Vasa found the agreement’s terms were incompatible with the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.

The Rio Dell property is listed at $749,000.

https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2026/feb/6/catholic-diocese-santa-rosa-selling-eight-acres-ri/

NEWRY (UNITED KINGDOM)
The Irish News [Belfast, Northern Ireland]

February 9, 2026

By John Breslin

Details can be revealed as one diocese argues it has no immediately available funds to pay abuse victims

Catholic dioceses with parishes in Northern Ireland are sitting on cash and assets totalling more than £400m.

Trusts overseeing the finances of Down and Connor, Derry, Clogher, Dromore and the Archdiocese of Armagh had close to £200m in the bank or investments, with income in 2024 reaching approximately £70m.

Details of the total funds held by the dioceses can be revealed as Dromore, administered by Archbishop Eamon Martin, asks a court to decide what cash and assets it can use to pay those abused by Malachy Finegan, the deceased former principal of St Colman’s College in Newry.

In total, across all four dioceses and the archdiocese, funds held amounted to £438m. This includes more than £180m in cash and investments.

Only Down, Connor, and Dromore are entirely within Northern Ireland.

Dromore diocese failed to pay five victims a total of just over £1m by the agreed deadline following the settlement of the actions in September and October last year.

One of the victims has filed a statutory demand under insolvency legislation. A creditor can apply for a bankruptcy or winding up order if no reply is made within 21 days.

Claire McKeegan, legal representative for the five victims, said the diocese was continuing to refuse to honour “legally binding settlements”.

The demand places further pressure on the diocese as it attempts to deal with the financial fallout from the actions of Finegan, principal of St Colman’s from 1976 until 1987, and who was later placed in parishes where he continued abusing young boys.

In total, at the end of 2024, the Dromore Diocesan Trust had total assets, cash and investments of approximately £37.5m.

According to the diocese’s accounts, £2.4m was paid out in compensation and legal fees in 2024, and the ‘unrestricted’ central office, or curia, funds ended the year £4.9m in the red.

This and other debts led the diocese to report total funds, including assets, of just over £26m.

The diocese has managed to sell the Bishop’s House on the Armagh Road in Newry and is understood to be in discussions over 27 acres of adjoining land.

They also sold the contents of the house at auction, which reportedly raised hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The diocese has argued that most of its assets – including church buildings and contents with an estimated value of close to £22m and land worth £1.5m – are under the control of the parishes and cannot be sold off to pay abuse victims.

The diocese is now asking the Chancery Court to decide what other assets and land can be used, an “unprecedented” situation in Ireland or Britain, its legal representatives wrote in a letter to solicitors for the victims.

It was further argued that the trust has “taken numerous measures to liquidate or otherwise realise all assets available…for the purpose of providing fair compensation”.

While Dromore points to the costs associated with abuse compensation for its precarious financial position, a study of its accounts and those of the other dioceses reveals marked differences in the finances going back several years, particularly around the management of investments.

Down and Connor, with 86 parishes and almost four times the size of Dromore, reported total assets, cash and investments of £176m in its 2024 accounts.

But its investments alone totalled £80m in 2024, compared to less than £1m reported by Dromore, which also had much higher debts owed that are unrelated to any compensation payments. All the other dioceses and the archdiocese also reported much healthier positions.

St Patrick’s Archdiocesan Trust, which oversees Armagh, reported total funds of £112m, including £38m in cash and investments, while Derry had £82m.

All the dioceses and the archdiocese were contacted for comment.

https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/catholic-dioceses-in-the-ni-sitting-on-400m-while-dromore-struggling-to-pay-sex-abuse-victims-4BIIX7VJMJGWBJDR3MEE7DYR4M/

Ray Mouton was one of the earliest and most influential figures in exposing sexual abuse inside the church

A Louisiana attorney whose work helped crack open the US Catholic church’s long-hidden clergy sexual abuse crisis died Thursday morning in suburban New Orleans.

Ray Mouton was 78.

Mouton’s path to becoming one of the earliest and most influential figures in exposing systemic abuse inside the church was deeply personal – and professionally paradoxical. In the 1980s, he was hired by the diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, to defend Gilbert Gauthe, a priest charged with raping children.

Mouton successfully negotiated a plea deal for Gauthe to serve a 20-year prison sentence. The case effectively started the US’s reckoning with the worldwide Catholic clergy molestation scandal, though Gauthe was released from prison after just a decade.

In the course of that work, Mouton became privy to secret information that changed the direction of his life: the same diocese paying his legal fees was quietly protecting other abusive priests.

“That realization outraged him,” said investigative journalist Jason Berry, an occasional Guardian contributor who was the first reporter to expose the wider cover-up of pedophile priests. Berry said Mouton became one of his best sources and the driving force behind the journalist’s groundbreaking 1992 book Lead Us Not Into Temptation.

“Ray Mouton was by far the most mercurial, colorful, radically dramatic source I have ever had,” Berry said.

Berry’s reporting in the 1980s laid the groundwork for later investigations into the US church’s abuse crisis, including a Pulitzer prize-winning Boston Globe series in 2002; the 2015 Oscar-winning film Spotlight that the series inspired; and the ongoing, Emmy-winning WWL Louisiana and Guardian series Losing Faith.

Berry said none of that would have been possible without Mouton.

After the Gauthe case, Mouton joined forces with Vatican canon lawyer Thomas Doyle – a former priest – and psychologist Michael Peterson, who had been treating abusive clergy, to write a 95-page internal warning to church leadership in 1985.

The document is a complicated relic. It warned that the church was facing billions of dollars in abuse claims – even back then – and offered strategies for meeting the crisis head-on while still protecting the hierarchy from the stench of individual priests’ crimes.

At the same time, it cautioned bishops that continued secrecy and denial would only deepen the crisis – and that it would expose the church to catastrophic moral and legal consequences.

“In this sophisticated society,” the report warned, “a media policy of silence implies either necessary secrecy or cover-up.”

But church leaders “failed to respond”, Mouton would later tell the CBS News program 60 Minutes II. He told the program that it left him with “a feeling of horror”.

Mouton also said the experience permanently changed him.

“I have no belief in the Catholic church – none,” he remarked. “It’s all gone. I went to many places. I saw too many things.”

For the last two decades of his life, Mouton lived with his wife, Melony, in a small mountain village in France near the Spanish border. There, he wrote the novel In God’s House, a fictionalized account drawn from his efforts to expose institutional abuse in the US Catholic church.

Despite living halfway around the world, Mouton closely followed continuing investigations into clergy abuse, a crisis that has since driven more than 40 Catholic organizations in the US into federal bankruptcy court, where they have collectively agreed to pay more than $2.6bn in settlements, according to information compiled by Pennsylvania State University’s law school.

Among those organizations is the archdiocese of New Orleans, about 135 miles (215km) east of Lafayette, which – along with its insurers – recently agreed to pay $305m to roughly 600 clergy abuse survivors.

Mouton provided quiet but vital support to a successful effort in Louisiana to eliminate filing deadlines for lawsuits seeking damages over childhood sexual abuse, which exponentially increased the size of the settlement that the New Orleans archdiocese ultimately offered survivors.

“I don’t think he wanted a lot of credit,” Mouton’s son, Todd, said. “If anything, he died upset that we still have these challenges 40 years later.”

Furthermore, his younger brother Henry would send messages from Ray reacting to WWL Louisiana’s and the Guardian’s Losing Faith series, which has captured abuse survivors’ renewed anger that many of the same patterns of concealment have persisted.

Todd Mouton said his father loved rock’n’roll and attending the running of the bulls at the annual San Fermin festival in Pamplona, Spain, just across the Pyrenees from where he lived. Ray Mouton returned to Louisiana for treatment after being diagnosed with cancer more than a year before his death.

He was at Ochsner Medical Centre in the New Orleans suburb of Jefferson when he died.

Above all, on Thursday, Todd Mouton wanted to celebrate his father’s legacy fighting for the voiceless victims.

“He was a crusader in a very unlikely effort,” Todd said. “It all unfolded in real time for him. He learned things he didn’t want to learn, but that can be any of us at any time, where you have to stand up and do the right thing.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/06/catholic-clergy-abuse-advocate-ray-mouton-dead

by: Alonzo Small, Andy Koval, Christine Flores

ORLAND PARK, Ill. (WGN) — The allegation of sexual abuse involving a suburban private tutor and a juvenile has landed a 43-year-old behind bars.

According to Orland Park police, officers arrested Brett Smith on Wednesday, Jan. 28, after he turned himself in. Police say their investigation began when parents hired a tutor who identified himself as “BJ S. McAuliffe” to tutor their child.

Police say concerns grew when the name on a bank payment appeared as Brett Smith.

The parents ran an online search of Brett Smith, also known as Brett Zagorac. Police said they found news articles and videos referencing prior allegations against Smith involving children in other states.

Orland Park opened their investigation after the parents contacted the department.

Upon further investigation, area detectives found that Brett Zagorac legally changed his name to Brett Smith and used several aliases, including “BJ S.,” “BJ Smith,” and “BJ S. McAuliffe,” when advertising private tutoring services.

Detectives also found probable cause that Smith engaged in sexual contact with the 9-year-old during more than a dozen tutoring sessions, according to court documents obtained by WGN News.

The Archdiocese of Chicago informed parents that they are “deeply concerned” before stating that he has worked in South Side and South Suburban Catholic schools.

They stated he passed state background and fingerprint checks. They released the following employment timeline below:

• Working as a long-term substitute in St. Walter-St. Benedict School (Chicago and Blue Island) during the 2024-25 school year,
• Working as an employee of a third-party vendor assigned to Pope John Paul II School (Chicago) at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year,
• Working as a private tutor for at least one family with a student enrolled at a Catholic school in the south suburbs and possibly more than one family, and
• Working as a substitute teacher at Queen of Martyrs School (Evergreen Park) in January 2026.

The archdiocese said they barred him from schools and he was terminated after learning about the allegations.

“At this time, we know of no allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Smith during his time at St. Walter-St. Benedict, Pope John Paul II, or Queen of Martyrs schools. We have learned, however, that one family in the south suburbs filed a complaint against Mr. Smith with their local police for conduct that occurred while he was tutoring in their home,” the archdiocese said.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office charged Smith with felony aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Smith appeared in court on Friday. Prosecutors presented a flurry of allegations dating back to 2003, involving children between the ages of five and nine. A judge ruled that he remains behind bars, reportedly telling the suspect, “Mr. Smith, enough is enough.”

Orland Park personnel ask anyone who believes they, their child, or a child under their care may have been a victim of Smith to contact the police department where the incident occurred.

https://wgntv.com/news/southwest-suburbs/suburban-private-tutor-who-used-a-fake-name-accused-of-sexual-abuse-of-student/

Bill Gates has said he “regrets” ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein, as his former wife, Melinda French Gates, alluded to “muck” in their marriage, and insisted the Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender.

Allegations that Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with “Russian girls” surfaced in the latest release of the Epstein files, which have provided remarkable insight into the disgraced financier’s multiple celebrity connections and activities.

His office immediately issued a statement denouncing the “absolutely absurd and completely false” assertion, but until now, Gates, 70, has remained silent.

He finally spoke on Wednesday on the Australian television channel 9News to deny the claim as “false”, and suggested that Epstein was trying to extort or defame him by writing an email in 2013 that further alleged he subsequently tried to give antibiotics to Melinda surreptitiously in case she also became infected.

“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false,” Gates said.

“I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that.”

His interview followed comments made by his ex-wife to NPR on Tuesday, in which she made clear her disapproval of his friendship with Epstein.

“For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” French Gates told the radio network’s Wild Card podcast.

“Whatever questions remain there of what – I can’t even begin to know all of it – those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”

The public airing of some of the lowest points in the Gateses’ 27-year marriage, which ended in a 2021 divorce, epitomises the fallout still being felt from the Epstein scandal, more than six years after his August 2019 death by suicide in New York’s Metropolitan correctional center as he awaited trial on sexual abuse trafficking charges.

Gates told 9News he met Epstein in 2011 and had dinner with him on several occasions to discuss investing in proposed scientific ventures. He insisted he never went to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where countless girls and young women are alleged to have been abused, and did not have any relations with any women.

“The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end,” Gates said.

“I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him. The more that comes out, the clearer it will be that, although the time was a mistake, it has nothing to do with that kind of behaviour.”

The interview with Gates French, meanwhile, will be released in full by NPR on Thursday. The network released snippets, and a three-minute video clip, on Wednesday, in which the 61-year-old spoke of the Epstein files’ release and scrutiny as a “reckoning as a society”.

Talking about Epstein’s numerous victims, she said: “No girl should ever be put in the situation they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him. It’s beyond heartbreaking.

“I remember being those ages the girls were, I remember my daughters being those ages.”

She said she had “moved on” from a marriage she said she had to get away from, and was now “in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life. I’m so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”

Asked about her emotions at learning of the claims against her ex-husband, particularly that he tried to secretly procure her antibiotics, she said she felt “just unbelievable sadness”.

She added: “I’m able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, ‘My God, how did that happen to those girls?’ I hope there’s some justice for those now women. What they went through is unimaginable.”

On Wednesday, the Republican South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, said she supported French Gates’s position that her husband had questions to answer, and had written to James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee that is investigating Epstein’s activities.

“Last night, I watched Melinda Gates interview. I immediately asked the chairman of oversight, James Comer, to subpoena, Bill Gates. I have questions for Bill Gates about Epstein,” Mace wrote in a post on X.

On Monday, Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose names also feature in the Epstein files, said they had agreed to testify to the committee, days before the chamber was expected to vote to hold them in contempt for originally refusing to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/bill-gates-epstein-relationship-melinda

January 28, 2026

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

Salt Lake City diocese confirms it conducted an investigation but says only that it “has taken steps to address its findings.”

William Hambleton alleged last year that he was abused as a teen by a priest in Utah, an assertion the Diocese of Salt Lake City later deemed “credible.”

Now Hambleton contends that the diocese has confirmed to him a wider issue: A powerful cleric occasionally destroyed documents in personnel files of priests.

Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald , the diocese’s longtime vicar general, told multiple priests about his purges of “information that could cast clergy in a poor light,” according to Robert Moriarty, a former priest in the diocese.

“I came to assume that this practice was common knowledge,” Moriarty, a friend of Hambleton, wrote in a letter provided last summer to the diocese’s internal review board during its investigation.

In a meeting earlier this month, Hambleton said, Bishop Oscar Solis told him that the diocese found “credible” the allegation that Fitzgerald had destroyed documents — but that its conclusions would never be made public.

“Such secrecy perpetuates harm rather than healing,” Hambleton said in a statement, “it denies justice and transparency, deepens the wounds borne by survivors of clergy sexual abuse, and further undermines the moral credibility of the church.”

The case

Hambleton first alleged in a December 2024 letter to Solis, leader of Utah’s 300,000 Catholics, that the Rev. Heriberto Castrellion Mejia molested him when he was 16 years old. After a seven-month independent investigation and the publication of an exclusive Salt Lake Tribune story last summer, the diocese determined that Hambleton’s allegations against Mejia were “credible” and publicly apologized for the priest’s actions.

Hambleton, a former principal of The Madeleine Choir School who had dreamed of becoming a priest, was “grateful” for the diocese’s decision, he said back then. But he remained “deeply disappointed” that those priests he believed helped conceal the alleged abuse were not mentioned.

The 52-year-old educator pointed specifically to retired Monsignor Robert Bussen, who served as vicar general at the time, and Fitzgerald, who later took over that role.

Hambleton noted that Bussen and Fitzgerald together held the office of vicar general, essentially a deputy to the bishop, for 30 years. “Their moral and administrative failures contributed to a culture of sexual abuse and misconduct,” Hambleton wrote at the time. “Revoking their priestly faculties would represent a necessary step toward … transparency and accountability.”

But the diocese told him it wanted to investigate further.

Fast-forward to this year. Hambleton said he was invited to meet in person on Jan. 10 with Solis todiscuss the diocese’s findings about the two priests.

The bishop informed him in that meeting, according to Hambleton, that it had finished its investigation. The former seminarian had alleged that Bussen had “knowledge of” Mejia’s misconduct and “failed to act during his tenure as vicar general.”

Hambleton said in his response this month that Solis determined the assertion about Bussen was “unsubstantiated.”

The former parishioner said the bishop did conclude that Fitzgerald had “tampered with and destroyed official church documents during his tenure as vicar general.”

That claim was further buoyed by the letter from Moriarty.

Fitzgerald “first told me that he would destroy files after I returned from a leave of absence in 2000. As part of my return, I had undergone a psychological evaluation, and I was concerned that it remain confidential,” Moriarty wrote to the diocese’s review board. “He told me not to worry and that he had made sure there was nothing in my personnel file apart from basic biographical information. He went on to say that he would occasionally purge priest personnel files.”

Through the years, Fitzgerald mentioned to Moriarty “at least four more times that he engaged in this practice,” wrote Moriarty, who went on to become a Salt Lake City attorney . “Because I found it odd, I remember talking with four other priests (all of whom are now deceased) about what Msgr. Fitzgerald had told me regarding shredding files. All four of them said he had told them the same thing.”

Diocese responds

In response to questions from The Tribune about this month’s meeting between the bishop and Hambleton, the diocese reiterated in a statement that it found allegations about Mejia “credible and believable,” and repeated Solis’ earlier apology.

The statement said the diocese conducted an “internal canonical investigation” about the allegation that Fitzgerald, who died Jan. 14 at age 89, had destroyed documents.

“This internal investigation is complete,” the statement said, “and the diocese has taken steps to address its findings.”

The diocese did not detail any of those findings or if Fitzgerald or anyone else had disposed of records.

According to Hambleton, Solis told him in their meeting that Fitzgerald “would retain his status as a retired priest in good standing within the diocese.”

Among Hambleton’s other allegations was that Fitzgerald had “disparaged victims of sex abuse.” That was the reason, Hambleton said, why he never told Fitzgerald or any other clergy about Mejia at the time.

When Fitzgerald retired as vicar general in 2011, a Tribune profile quoted a leader in the diocese saying that “Fitzgerald met with every victim of abuse.” Fitzgerald himself said in that article that the diocese“ never had leadership that covered up abuse or transferred priests with problems.”

Yet “behind closed doors,” Hambleton insists in his statement, the vicar general “demeaned and insulted some of the very same victims who may have met with him in good faith.”

Hambleton said in his statement that Solis told him in their recent meeting that this accusation was “credible.”

The diocese’s statement made no mention of that.

“Bishop Solis informed me that he does not intend to remove Msgr. Fitzgerald’s faculties,” Hambleton said in his statement. “Instead, minimal penalties were imposed — amounting to little more than a private reprimand. Among them, Msgr. Fitzgerald must privately admit his misconduct and apologize to Bishop Solis. The bishop told me that he does not intend to disclose Msgr. Fitzgerald’s misconduct to the faithful, and that he will not issue a press release.”

By not alerting Utah Catholics of substantiated misconduct by a senior diocesan official, Hambleton said, Solis “has chosen a course that prioritizes secrecy over accountability. Having investigated an entrenched culture of concealment that enables abuse within the church, he has now reaffirmed it through his own decision.”

Hambleton also said that “canon law rightly considers the destruction of church records to be a grave offense — so serious that it permits a bishop to remove priestly faculties from the offender.”

The diocese did not make Solis available for an interview.

In 2018, the Salt Lake City diocese released the names of 19 clerics facing “credible allegations” of sexual misconduct with minors. Meija, who had lost his priestly faculties in fall 1992, was not on that tally.

A year later, the diocese published an independent review that included Mejia on a list of 23 clergymen facing abuse allegations within its parishes.

Appealing to higher-ups

After meeting with Solis, Hambleton said he wrote to Archbishop George Leo Thomas , leader of the Las Vegas archdiocese, asking for “assistance and pastoral intervention.”

According to Hambleton, Solis had told him that he had consulted with Thomas and “the archbishop advised him to respond the way he did.”

After outlining the case, the allegations and the diocese’s findings in his letter to Thomas, Hambleton asked the archbishop “to consider the gravity of this situation and the dangerous precedent it sets … and to advise Bishop Solis to share the findings of his investigation with the faithful of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.”

Thomas replied that he had “consistently applied the principles of transparency and full disclosure when addressing claims of sexual abuse in these dioceses,” according to a copy of the letter provided by Hambleton. “At the same time, it is important to note that during the 1970s through the 1990s, bishops frequently received reports from treatment facilities after sending clergy to these centers for evaluation. During those decades, it was commonplace for treatment facilities to send their aftercare reports with a bold heading marked ‘READ AND DESTROY.’”

When reached this week, the Las Vegas archdiocese declined to comment further.

At a Jan. 20 funeral Mass for Fitzgerald, who had battled cancer and heart failure in his final years, Solis said the priest felt sorrow for any pain he caused others.

“He was grateful, had genuine sorrow for any hurt he had caused, asked for forgiveness with humility, and sought reconciliation and peace with God and with others,” said the bishop, according to the Intermountain Catholic.
“He personally expressed this to me when I last visited him in the hospital a few days before he died. He died in peace, confident of the mercy of God, and asked forgiveness of the church he loved and of the people he might have hurt.”

Going forward, Hambleton said, “the full extent of [the vicar general’s] destruction [of files] can never be known. Nor can it be known how many crimes may have been concealed, or how many victims of clergy sexual abuse may have been silenced or further harmed as a result.”

That, he said, “is the irreversible nature of document destruction.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/01/27/catholic-abuse-powerful-utah/