Phil Saviano carried a terrible secret for much of his life — that in the early 1960s, when he was 11, he was sexually molested by his parish priest in Massachusetts.
Nearly 30 years later, suffering from AIDS and believing he would soon die, he decided to go public about the abuse and disclosed his experience to The Boston Globe. As it happened, Mr. Saviano lived, and he went on to play a pivotal role in bringing to light the widespread pedophile priest scandal coursing through the Roman Catholic Church.
He provided key information and guidance for a series of articles by The Globe’s Spotlight team, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. And his role was dramatized in the Academy Award-winning 2015 movie “Spotlight,” which showed how the church had hidden its crimes and how The Globe had uncovered them.
Accused child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell is prepared to take the stand at her highly anticipated upcoming trial in order “to save her own life,” according to reports.
Maxwell, 59, faces life in prison if convicted of procuring underage girls as young as 14 years old for her longtime friend, Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted pedophile, between 1994 and 2004.
Sources close to the disgraced British socialite told The Daily Mail that she will take the stand to defend herself if necessary after the prosecution rests its case. Defendants in sexual abuse cases typically do not testify, instead opting to let the prosecution prove its case.
Mennonite boys and young men were made to do unpaid labor, deprived of food and schooling, and subjected to physical abuse on a Pennsylvania farm where families in a conservative offshoot of the Mennonite Church sent troubled youths, a federal lawsuit alleges.
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Hot off the press – “The Diversity and Complexity of Child Marriage” a new supplement featuring compelling research and evidence on #ChildMarriage, including our partner’s findings, Unchained At Last, on the prevalence of child marriage in the U.S.
Volume 69, Issue 6, Supplement,
DENVER (CBS4)– The way sex offenders are labeled is changing in Colorado. The board that sets state standards voted today to change the term “sex offenders” to reflect so-called “person-first” language.
The Sex Offender Management Board, which is made up of everyone from public defenders to prosecutors, sets standards and guidelines for treatment providers so the new terminology will only be used in that context. It doesn’t change the term sex offender in law or the criminal justice system but some worry it’s a step in that direction.
