$121.5M settlement in New Mexico clergy sex abuse scandal
One of the oldest Catholic dioceses in the United States announced a settlement agreement Tuesday to resolve a bankruptcy case in New Mexico that resulted from a clergy sex abuse scandal.
The tentative deal totals $121.5 million and would involve about 375 claimants.
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The proposed settlement comes as the Catholic Church continues to wrestles with a sex abuse and cover-up scandal that has spanned the globe. Some of the allegations in New Mexico date back decades.
The chairman of a creditors committee that negotiated the agreement on behalf of the surviving victims and others said it would hold the Archdiocese of Santa Fe accountable for the abuse and result in one of the largest diocese contributions to a bankruptcy settlement in U.S. history.
It also includes a non-monetary agreement with the Archdiocese to create a public archive of documents regarding the history of the sexual abuse claims,
Chicago archdiocese settles sex abuse suit for $1.2 million
The Archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay $1.2 million to a man who alleged that he was sexually abused when he was 12 years old by a defrocked priest who was convicted of sexually abusing several boys, the man’s attorney announced on Tuesday.
The settlement of the case before a lawsuit was filed was announced in a news release by attorney Lyndsay Markley and marks the latest chapter in the story of Daniel McCormack, one of the most notorious pedophiles in the history of Chicago’s archdiocese.
McCormack, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing five children while he was a priest at St. Agatha’s parish in Chicago, was released from prison last fall and has registered as a sex offender with the Illinois State Police. According to published reports, he was listed at that time as living in Chicago’s Near North neighborhood.
The settlement follows other similar settlements
Minneapolis to pay Jaleel Stallings $1.5 million
The city of Minneapolis has agreed to pay $1.5 million plus costs and attorneys’ fees to Jaleel Stallings, an Army veteran who sued the city after being acquitted on the grounds of self-defense after he was charged with shooting at Minneapolis police who first fired marking rounds at him.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the FBI are investigating the incident, which took place five days after the police murder of George Floyd.
As the Minneapolis Police Department struggled to regain control of the city, a SWAT team drove around Minneapolis in an unmarked van at night, firing 40-mm marking rounds at civilians out after curfew. They then beat Stallings and his companion after Stallings fired back with a pistol, unaware they were cops. He said he purposefully missed them.
Nearly a year after a jury acquitted the former St. Paul man of eight charges, including attempted murder, Stallings
Women almost twice as likely to be trapped in crashed vehicle, study finds
Women are almost twice as likely as men to become trapped in a motor vehicle after a crash and they also sustain different patterns of injury, data suggests.
The research – the first large UK study to compare sex differences in injury patterns and the likelihood of becoming trapped after a collision – could help vehicle manufacturers improve car design and safety features to reduce rates of injury in both sexes. It also strengthens calls for the inclusion of more biologically accurate crash test dummies in simulations of vehicle collisions, to investigate their impact on women.
Prof Tim Nutbeam, an emergency medicine consultant at University Hospitals Plymouth, and colleagues were motivated to carry out the study after reading Caroline Criado Perez’s bestselling book Invisible Women, which highlighted how women were more likely to be seriously injured in car crashes, because crash test dummies were modelled on the “average male”.