Articles Posted in Sexual Assault

The Diocese of Syracuse has agreed to pay $100 million to compensate parishioners abused by priests, employees, and volunteers in the diocese. According to NBC News, it appears to be the largest payout by a U.S. Roman Catholic diocese since at least 2018, when the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis settled with over 400 victims for $210 million.

Catholic entities across New York faced a surge of claims when the state temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on child sex abuse in 2019. After being hit with more than 100 lawsuits, the Diocese of Syracuse filed for bankruptcy in 2020. The proposed settlement — which is a part of bankruptcy proceedings and still requires court approval — would resolve 411 sex abuse claims brought by 387 people.

Clergy Sex Abuse Settlements Nationwide

Over 450 Catholic clergy members abused nearly 2,000 children in Illinois since 1950, according to a report released by the state attorney general last month. Before the start of the investigation, the church had publicly acknowledged only around 100 individual abusers. The report comes at a time when increasing numbers of Catholic priests across the nation are being accused of sexual abuse.

Hundreds of Priests Abused Thousands of Children

After a Pennsylvania grand jury found that over 300 Catholic clerics had abused over 1,000 children during a 70-year period, Illinois began its own state investigation into clergy sexual assaults starting in 2018. The nearly 700-page report released in May found evidence that 451 Catholic clergy members abused at least 1,997 children across Illinois between 1950 and 2019.

When defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was charged in 2021 with molesting a teenage boy in Massachusetts in 1974, he became the highest-ranking Roman Catholic official in the country to face criminal sex abuse charges. In April of 2023, he was charged again. This time, he faces accusations in Wisconsin of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old man in 1977. In addition to the criminal charges against him, McCarrick has been named in numerous civil suits alleging sexual misconduct.

The new accusations come as numerous states around the country are updating their sexual assault laws. Since 2018, more than a dozen states have made changes making it easier for sexual assault victims to seek justice. Some states suspended the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse altogether, some raised the age limit to make claims, and others created temporary “lookback windows” allowing survivors to sue their abusers no matter how many years ago the abuse happened.

McCarrick Accused of Dozens of Alleged Sex Assaults

A customer has filed suit against Massage Envy, its managers, and a therapist for a sexual assault she says occurred during a massage at the chain’s Medford location. According to the Boston Globe, the woman reported the assault to the manager on March 3, 2021, but the manager took no action. Two days later, the same therapist allegedly raped another customer.

The lawsuit argues that the company was negligent in hiring and supervising its therapists and violated consumer protection laws by claiming that its spas are safe. In addition, the woman has sued massage therapist Gilberto DaSilva for assault and battery. DaSilva was not criminally prosecuted in this case because law enforcement was already pursuing rape charges on behalf of the second woman, according to the report.

Medford Massage Envy Therapist

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) released the results of a major independent investigation in May 2022 indicating that church leaders ignored and covered up claims of sexual abuse for decades. The largest protestant denomination in America, the SBC is a loosely connected group of over 47,000 individual churches with more than 14 million members. The revelations suggested a pattern of inaction by high-ranking staff and prompted comparisons with the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

Accusations of Sexual Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches

 In 2019, the Houston Chronicle helped break the news about sexual abuse in SBC churches. The story indicated that not only did the Southern Baptist Convention routinely mishandle reports of sex abuse, but also that hundreds of church leaders and volunteers had been criminally charged with sex crimes. Reporters found nearly 700 alleged victims—mostly children—who were sexually abused in a 20-year span. This bombshell news prompted the SBC to request a third-party inquiry into the sex abuse claims.

While rideshare apps provide quick and easy ways for people to get from place to place in and around Boston, there are unfortunately several risks and dangers that can arise for people when using these services. With the rise in popularity of rideshare apps Lyft and Uber, the number of sexual assaults reported by passengers in Massachusetts continues to rise. If you or a loved one has been sexually assaulted while using Lyft, Uber or another rideshare service, consider hiring an experienced, compassionate Altman & Altman attorney to provide you with the empathetic, quality representation that you deserve.

Uber and Lyft Lawsuits

There have been several high profile lawsuits filed against both Lyft and Uber in recent years alleging that each company failed to put reasonable safety measures in place to protect patrons. In 2019, a group of more than 30 women sued Lyft for this reason. The same year, Uber released a safety report revealing that more than 6,000 incidents of sexual assault had been reported in 2017 and 2018. In cases like these, the courts have tried to determine whether the companies could have done more to prevent the attacks to determine if they are partially at fault for the attacks.  More extensive safety measures that the companies may have taken may include a more thorough background check. A more thorough background check  may reveal  prior sexual assault convictions for someone applying to work for the service. This information could be used to help prevent or ban a driver with a previous violent conviction from mistakenly being approved to be a driver for the rideshare app.

What Measures Are These Services Taking To Increase Safety?

In response to public outcry about these attacks, both Uber and Lyft have committed to increasing and improving their existing safety standards. Some examples of these increased safety standards to combat the risk of sexual assault include:

• In-app emergency assistance
• Continuous background monitoring on drivers – which resulted in the removal of over 20,000 Uber drivers within just a year of implementing the practice
• Mandatory feedback for rides that had less than a 4 star rating
• Enhanced background checks

Even with these additional safety measures, people continue to report incidents of assault while using the services of both of these companies. Continue reading

An airplane may seem like an unlikely place for sexual harassment or groping to occur. You are surrounded by people, flight attendants regularly patrol the aisle and it would seem difficult for a perpetrator to believe they could get away with such a blatant, criminal act. However, recent news shows this is unfortunately wishful thinking, and such activity does occur in our skies every year. If you or a loved one were sexually harassed or assaulted on a plane, contact an attorney from Altman & Altman LLP right away to get started on your case.

According to the FBI, there were 38 cases of in-flight sexual assault between 2013 and 2014, which increased to 63 cases between 2016 and 2017, according to an advisory that was published by the FBI in 2018.

Most recently, a U.S. Army veteran reported that she was groped while relaxing during a late-night flight in which the cabin was darkened for the passengers to get some sleep. When she alerted a flight attendant, she was reportedly simply told to return to her seat. Another passenger had a similar experience, ABC News reported recently.

Those two passengers’ experiences are now the basis of a first of its kind class action lawsuit against Frontier Airlines, the airline company on which the assaults allegedly occurred. The suit claims that Frontier employees “fail[ed] to have and/or follow policies and procedures to prevent, report and respond to sexual assault of its passengers on its flights.”

Although the problem of in-flight sexual assault incidents – most commonly incidents of groping – is well established, the suit makes the case that airlines are not doing enough to prevent them from occurring or, at the least, not doing enough to train staff in the event that such an event occurs. The attorneys from this class action suit allege that airlines handle these cases in “piecemeal fashion,” meaning that there is no uniform way in which they are dealt with or trained for.

In this case, the U.S. Army veteran who was allegedly assaulted reported not being allowed to move away to a different seat further away from the person she just said assaulted her. Additionally, the flight attendant apparently failed to report the incident to their superiors or request law enforcement officials to be standing by to take a report of the occurrence and question the accuser and accused, nor did the airline attempt to question any potential witnesses about what occurred.

The veteran told the pilots of the occurrence, who did alert local law enforcement and TSA agents, and she ultimately contacted the FBI – but no charges were filed as a result. She said the incident “humiliated” her and that she “went to the people who I thought would make it alright and they didn’t.” Continue reading