This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Belgium: Brussels Archdiocese promises to compensate 500 victims of molestation by church workers. At least 13 suicides are thought to have resulted from the attacks.
North Carolina: Pastor John Jackson charged with additional felony counts of embezzling from his church. Last month Jackson was charged with using church funds to insure his five Cadillacs.
Ontario: Pastor Emmanual Animodi charged with sexual assault on a parishioner.
Alabama: Pastor James Hunter and his wife charged with dealing morphine.
New York: Rabbi Saul Kassin let off with two years probation in massive $50M international bank fraud scheme.
New Mexico: Pastor Steven Perez charged with child molestation.
California: Father William Myers placed on leave after following a minor boy into the changing room at a department store.
Texas: Pastor Theodore Baines sued by congregation for threatening them, abusing alcohol, and making lewd comments to young female parishioners.
Minnesota: Pastor David Radtke charged with molesting a foreign exchange student staying in his home.
Missouri: Diocese of Kansas City sued for covering up the actions of Father Shawn Ratigan, who is accused of taking photos of a nude underage girl.
California: Pastor Carlton Hammonds sentenced to four years in prison for child molestation.
Iowa: Pastor Patrick Eduoard charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse.
New York: Molestation trial of Pastor Joe Flowers delayed due to revelation of a second victim.

This Week's Winner
New Jersey: Members of the Walking With Christ sect have pleaded not guilty of causing the death of an eight year-old girl after forcing the child to fast in order to achieve holiness. Pastor Emanyel Kris told followers that even to swallow one's own saliva was a "sin" and a violation of his fasting edict. The victim's mother is charged with aggravated manslaughter. Pastor Kris has not been charged with anything.

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Wisconsin: Pastor David E. Radtke charged with sexual assault on a 16 year-old student.
Georgia: Pastor David Pope charged with child molestation.
Wisconsin: Father Michael Nowak charged with making obscene phone calls to underage girls.
Kentucky: Pastor Jeremy Caraway charged with child rape.
Arizona: Two Mormon bishops will not be charged for failing to report a church member who confessed to child molestation.
Missouri: Father Shawn Ratigan pleads not guilty to taking pornographic photos of young girls.
Nevada: Pastor Raymond Mosely charged with compelling a four year-old to touch his genitals.
Michigan: Pastor Christopher Settlemoir sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexual assault on a minor.
Delaware: Father James O'Neill has confessed to molesting a pre-teen boy hundreds of times over several years. The victim, now 43, has settled a lawsuit with the Diocese of Wilmington.
West Virginia: Pastor Matthew Jarrell kills himself in jail after being charged with rape.
New York: The ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America has ruled that rabbis must first be consulted before notifying police about child molestation.
Louisiana: Youth Pastor Angelo Golatt indicted on multiple counts of molesting children as young as nine years old.

This Week's Winner
Netherlands: A Dutch Catholic priest identified as Father Van B. has admitted to serving on the board of directors of a group lobbying for the legalization of pedophilia. The priest's superior says that he was aware of Father Van B's involvement with the group. The church is said to be investigating.

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

South Carolina: Pastor Charles Ledford arrested for embezzling over $250K from his church.
Louisiana: Pastor Elijah Mealancon busted for stealing $100K from an elderly parishioner.
New Brunswick: Father Charles Jean Picot found guilty of child molestation.
Georgia: Pastor Kenneth Terrell pleads guilty to embezzling $200K from his church. Terrell has been arrested 27 times in the past.
Missouri: Father Martin T. Sigillito charged in $52M Ponzi scam.
California: Father Antonio Cortes sentenced for child molestation.
New York: Rabbi Gavriel Bidany found guilty of groping the genitals of a sleeping female on a flight from Tel Aviv to JFK.
North Carolina: Pastor John Jackson arrested for using church money to insure his five Cadillacs.
Nevada: Pastor Raymond Mosley charged with molesting a four year-old girl.
Britain: Father Wojciech Jasinski charged with exhuming the corpse of a child saint in order to move the bones closer to his mother's grave. Happy Mother's Day!
Wisconsin: Pastor Travis Gandy convicted of child molestation and possession of child porn.
Arizona: Christian school teacher Joshua Carroll charged with child molestation.
Arkansas: Pastor Joel Church pleads guilty to possession of child pornography.
Wisconsin: Pastor Leon Piepenbrink charged with embezzling $68K from his church.
Missouri: White supremacist Pastor Robert Joos loses federal appeal on weapons possession conviction.
Virginia: Pastor Steve Dean charged with child molestation.

This Week's Winner
Ontario: Bishop Raymond Lahey has pleaded guilty to possession and importation of child pornography. Lahey was arrested at the Ottawa airport after nervously denying that he possessed a laptop. Noting that his passport contained stamps from countries infamous for child pornography, customs agents confiscated a computer and a memory stick found to contain over 500 images of young boys being "enslaved and degraded." In 2009, Lahey had brokered a $15M settlement from his diocese to victims of molestation by priests, saying at the time, "I want to formally apologize to every victim and to their families for the sexual abuse that was inflicted upon those young people who were entitled instead to the trust and protection of priests of the church."

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

New York: Monsignor Charles Kavanagh has been defrocked after being found guilty of child molestation by a three-priest Catholic tribunal. He is the highest-ranked New York priest so judged and has not faced criminal charges.
Oklahoma: Pastor Baron Hopgood arrested for embezzlement.
Ireland: Father Oliver O'Grady charged with possessing thousands of child porn images.
Ohio: Pastor Mark Griggs charged with more than 100 felony counts of possessing and distributing child porn.
Britain: Monsignor Michael Smith arrested for child molestation.
Colorado: Pastor Loren Ankarlo pleads guilty to multi-million dollar securities fraud.
Ontario: Father Donald Grecco found guilty on 24 counts of molesting altar boys.
Missouri: Father Gerald Howard indicted on three counts of forcible sodomy of a child. Howard was previously convicted of similar crimes in New Jersey under a different name.
Ohio: Pastor Robert Jones fails to appear at his trial for brandishing a gun at a drive-thru bank teller.
Ireland: Father Tony Walsh likely to have molested hundreds, according to a new report.
Britain: Vicar Dominic Stone convicted of possessing child porn.
Nevada: Pastor Joshua De Los Santos arrested for assaulting a member of a "competing" church for not being holy enough.
Tennessee: Pastor David Hoschar indicted for possessing child porn.

This Week's Winner
Georgia: Bishop Eddie Long, who is already facing lawsuits from four young men who accuse him of sexual coercion, has been linked to a massive mortgage fraud operation being run from his church. According to CBS Atlanta, thousands may have lost their homes after paying $1500 during church seminars held by a company that promised to lower their house payments. CBS reports that the seminars are still being held.

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Virginia: Pastor J.P. Hale sentenced to six years in prison for indecent liberties with a child.
Pennsylvania: Father Robert Timchak sentenced to six years in prison for possession of child pornography.
North Carolina: Rev. Walter Donald Bradshaw arrested for the rape of an 11 year-old girl.
South Carolina: Pastor David K. Love arrested for the murder of a parishioner.
New York: Rabbi Milton Balkany convicted of extorting $3.5M from an investment fund.
Missouri: Pastor Terry McDowell arrested for the rape of a girl he was babysitting.
Washington: Pastor Steven Welty sentenced to 26 years to life in prison on six counts of child rape and incest. His youngest victim was four years old.
Massachusetts: Father Keith LeBlanc charged with stealing $83K from his parish to pay his online porn bill.
British Columbia: Hindu priest Karam Vir charged with sexual exploitation of a child.
Virginia: Pastor Dennis Erb charged with child molestation.
Florida: Pastor Rodney McGill charged with investment fraud. From prison. Where he's serving 20 years for the same crime.
Georgia: Pastor Brian Gray charged with child molestation and burglary.
Utah: Pastor Aaron Witcher charged with eight counts of rape of underage girls.
Pennsylvania: Father Francis J. Drabiska resigns after confessing to robbing parish of undisclosed amount.
New Brunswick: Court agrees to Catholic diocese's request to shield amounts paid to victims of priest molestation.

This Week's Winner
Kenya: Pastor Marcus Ondiegi has been sentenced to 50 years in prison for the rape and HIV infection of an 11 year-old orphan girl. Ondiegi had told the child's grandmother that unless he was allowed to pray over the child for one week, evil spirits would make her insane. Instead he raped the child nightly until she escaped.

Perez Hilton Under Fire For Tweeting Upskirt Photo Of Underage Miley Cyrus

Gossip queen Perez Hilton could face child pornography charges after posting an upskirt photo to Twitter that he claimed was 17 year-old pop star Miley Cyrus without underwear. Via Salon:

On Sunday, Hilton's Twitter account sent out the following message: "If you are easily offended, do NOT click here. Oh, Miley! Warning: truly not for the easily offended!" The photo in question has since been yanked down, but the image is allegedly of Cyrus climbing out of a car wearing a dress and no underwear (according to EarSucker.com, this is a censored version of the image in question). Now, Hilton has posted upskirt shots before of Britney Spears -- but Cyrus is roughly five months short of her 18th birthday. She's still a minor and it's legally considered child pornography.

Jeffrey Douglas, a Los Angeles criminal defense attorney who specializes in child pornography cases, told Salon that Hilton's liability is "extraordinary and intense" and that it was "suicidal for him to do this." He added: "We're not talking about a misdemeanor. You don't have to know what the definition of the law is; all you have to do is knowingly distribute the photograph" -- which Hilton, or someone with access to his Twitter account, most certainly did. It doesn't matter much whether Hilton took the photo, owns the photo or published the photo -- as long as he knowingly distributed the link.

Beyond creepy.

SCOTLAND: Top Anti-Gay Activist Confesses To Child Porn Charges

The Scottish school board administrator who was a leader in the campaign against repealing the UK's anti-gay Section 28 law has confessed to possessing and distributing child pornography. Enacted in 1986 during the Thatcher administration, Section 28 made it illegal to "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship."

Alan Smith - then Scottish School Board Association president - was a key figure in bus tycoon Brian Souter's failed fight to keep Section 28. The SSBA were bankrolled by Souter during the campaign that ended in 2000 when Donald Dewar repealed a bar on discussing gay issues in classrooms. Shamed dad-of-two Smith, 53, now faces jail a fter after being snared with 4000 child porn photos on his computer. He admitted distributing indecent photos of kids in 2006 and having the material at his home last year. While sending the sick images to other paedophiles, Smith was working in primary and secondary schools. He mixed with pupils as a director of the Learning Game, an education firm in Milngavie, Glasgow. Norma Corlette, his former boss at the firm who went into liquidation two years ago, said: "Crucially, no member of our staff was allowed to work with children without a member of the school staff accompanying them at all times. This policy was rigorously enforced across the organisation." Smith was caught when Metropolitan Police officers monitoring suspicious web activity tipped offcops in Scotland. His Paisley home was raided last June and on his laptop there were more than 4000 vile images. Police also found Smith had communicated with another chatroom user known as Babylover1.

Famed UK gay activist Peter Tatchell nails it: "Alan Smith's conviction for child pornography confirms the theory that people who oppose gay equality are often hypocrites. They pose in public as icons of moral virtue while privately leading immoral, debauched lives. Their attacks on gay people are diversions to disguise their own sexual crimes."