Neighbors Who See Stabbing Kick Ass
What Wouldn't Jesus Do?: Pope Benedict XVI Busted Again, Protected Priest Who Abused Over 200 Deaf Boys
Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 9:00 am
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The Catholic Church isn't the only institution with a history of giving safe haven to pedophiles. Apparently, the Boy Scouts of America has also been doing a fine job of keeping its own staff of perverts well shielded from public scrutiny.
It may seem odd to have a group like the Boy Scouts of America on this list. We'd like you to remember, however, that the group is adamantly Christian. Not only has it banned homosexuals from its ranks, but it has also been known to fire troop leaders simply because they were atheist or agnostic. Since the organization so boldly claims to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, we are so boldly inclined to call them out for failing to do so.
Last week, an Oregon judge ordered the Boy Scouts to release its top secret "Perversion Files" as part of $14 million lawsuit that has been brought against the group by a 37-year-old man who said he was sexually abused in the early 1980s by Timur Dykes, an assistant Scoutmaster who has been convicted of sexual abuse three times in the past twenty years.
While dozens of suits have been brought against the Boy Scouts for sexual abuse, this is only the second time in history that a judge has ordered the group to release its files on employees as evidence that it covered-up cases of sexual molestation.
Since it's inception, the Boy Scouts have kept detailed files on all Scout leaders where there were grounds for suspension or dismissal. Aside from the "perversion files," there are also criminal, financial, and "moral files," which include cases of where men were fired for being gay or non-religious. However, the bulk of the group's records are of the "perversion" persuasion.
Last week, 1,247 perversion files were released to the court, covering the years between 1965 and 1985. Each file documented the case of a specific Scout leader, some of whom were caught soliciting prostitutes or possessing child pornography, but the bulk of whom stood accused of sexual molesting Scouts.
What's even scarier is not the fact that for every pedophile priest there appears to be two Scout leaders, but that the Boy Scouts of America almost never contacts the authorities in cases of sexual abuse. Instead, they simply make note of the incident, quietly let the leader go, and then pretend like the whole thing never happened for fear of bad publicity.
We're pretty sure Jesus wouldn't do that.
4. Gina Lee
Regardless of whether Gina Lee was telling the truth, her story is sketchy as hell either way.
The 41-year-old preacher's wife recently faced murder charges in the March 4, 2005 shooting of George Green -- her sister Susan's ex-boyfriend.
Earlier that day, Lee got a call from her sister claiming that she'd been run off the road by Green. That's when Lee rounded up her father Ronnie Evans, as well as a 19-year-old neighbor, Greg Martin, and decided to take matters into her own hands. Lee later said that she was calm when she went to see Green, and was merely there to help her sister settle who would take possession of the couple's washer and dryer.
But the evidence told a different tale.
Green was not happy to receive the surprise guests at his Liberty, Kentucky home. Shortly after they arrived, he brandished a .22 caliber gun. That's when a struggle ensued and where the story gets a bit fuzzy.
Lee claims that her father was wrestling with Green when he shouted for her to grab the gun. As she leaned in to knock it away, she claims the gun misfired, but was unaware that Green had been shot. She says she thought he was simply suffering from a heart attack.
Nevertheless, neither Lee, nor Evans did anything to help Green. They did not call 911. Instead, Lee says she kneeled down next to Green's body and asked him if he would take Jesus Christ as his savior before he died. She claims he said yes just before slipping away.
However, that's not the story that Martin told. He says that during the struggle, he was the one who grabbed the gun from Green and threw it into the bushes, from where Lee retrieved it, before pointing it into Green's back and firing a shot with the intention to kill.
That's the story that convinced a grand jury to finally indict Lee on murder charges.
Just last week, Lee and Martin both recounted their stories for the jury sitting in on Lee's murder trial. However, they bought neither tale.
In a puzzling attempt to bring down some sort of justice, the jury acquitted Lee on the murder charges, and instead found her guilty of breaking and entering with the intent to commit a crime. They asked that serve at least seven years in prison. She will be sentenced on May 10.
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3. Bryan Bramley
We promise that, here, at What Wouldn't Jesus Do?, there is no institutionalized affirmative action -- no racial quotas for those of the non-Christian persuasion or anything like that. Our only explanation for the weekly appearance of at least, but not more, than one rabbi is really just pure coincidence. We swear on our haggadahs.
We could have chosen to ignore the actions of Rabbi Bryan Bramley -- or looked really hard for another pervert rabbi to make our stats (Christians, 4, Jews, 1) a lot less consistent. But that would have been almost as wrong as the crime Bramley stands accused of.
Last Tuesday, Bramley was arrested outside the Temple Beth Shalom Synagogue in Chandler, Arizona, where he's served as a rabbi since 2006.
But it wasn't at the Synagogue where he allegedly committed his crime. It wasn't even in Arizona or in the last decade.
Bramley was arrested for a crime he allegedly committed more than 10 years ago, when he was still living in New York City and attending rabbinical school.
In August 2009, a 17-year-old girl came forward and said that Bramley raped her when she was just 7. A friend of the family, she had been spending the night at the Bramley's home when the incident occurred.
But the NYPD didn't press charges until after Bramley was brought in for questioning. Now, he is being held in an Arizona jail while he awaits extradition back to New York, where he has been charged with first-degree rape.
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2. Shea Huffman
The only thing worse than raping a child is raping lots of them, which is exactly what Shea Huffman did.
Huffman was working as Sunday School teacher at the Calvary Assembly of God Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia when the incidents occurred.
Police first got wind of Huffman in June 2008, when someone came forward to say that a child in Huffman's care had been sexually abused since January of that same year. After investigating, Huffman became their prime suspect. But that child wasn't his only victim.
After recovering Huffman's computer, police found photos of video footage of Huffman sodomizing other young children.
Last week, he was sentenced to 280 years in prison -- 230 of those suspended -- on five counts of aggravated sexual battery, four counts of forcible sodomy, and two counts of filming his horrific deeds. All the children he'd raped were either 4 or 5-years-old.
While 50 years may sound like a decent enough sentence, he still has a very good chance of making it out of prison alive. After all, Huffman is only 19-years-old.
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1. Pope Benedict XVI
For the second week in a row, it's none other then the supreme ruler of the Catholic Church himself that has secured the number one spot. And believe us when we say that we're just as shocked as you.
Just a day after we shared the news that Pope Benedict had been implicated in the overt cover-up of a pedophile German priest, the New York Times reported yet another cover-up case on the Pope's conscience. And this one was even more atrocious and a lot closer to home.
According to the Times' story, Pope Benedict refused to defrock a Milwaukee priest whom he knew had molested more than 200 deaf boys at the school where he worked.
The Reverend Lawrence Murphy was working at the renowned Wisconsin school for the deaf from 1950 to 1074. While thousands of sexual abuse accusations have poured into dioceses across the country, his is one of the few that made its way all the way to the Vatican because of its extreme and horrific nature.
At the time, Pope Benedict, then known as Cardinal Ratzinger, was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- the office that decides whether accused priests should be defrocked for their crimes.
In 1996, Benedict received two letters from Milwaukee's archbishop with regard to Rev. Murphy's case. He ignored both of them. It wasn't until another Cardinal was contacted that the Vatican finally decided to place Murphy on trial.
However, Murphy wrote Benedict directly, protesting his trial and claiming that he'd already repented and was in bad health. Benedict didn't ignore that letter. Murphy's case was quickly dismissed.
Not only was Murphy never disciplined by the Vatican, he also managed to evade prosecution by the State of Wisconsin, which ignored complaints from his victims. Instead, he was quietly moved to another parish, where he freely worked with children at a juvenile detention center until his death in 1998.
While Murphy is hopefully burning in the fiery flames of hell that he so well-illustrated for his poor students, his victims are not done with seeking justice here on earth. At least five of Murphy's victims are currently suing the Diocese of Milwaukee.
Still, the Pope remains untouchable and unapologetic for his actions. But, hey, what more would you expect from a former member of the Nazi Youth?
Read last week's What Wouldn't Jesus Do?: Pope Benedict Implicated In Cover-Up of Priestly Pedophilia.
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