The following article by Ralph Riegal appeared in the Irish Independant on Wednesaday 29th August 2007
Michael Flatley is poised to secure a multi-million euro settlement over false rape claims that were lodged against him.
However, a spokesman for the dancer last night stressed that he has not yet been informed of any specific compensation figure by his US lawyers. Four years ago, they lodged a $100m lawsuit on his behalf over the malicious claims.
The lawsuit was against former exotic dancer Tyna Marie Robertson and her lawyer, Dean Mauro. Robertson made the false claims after she had met Michael Flatley at the Venetian Casino in Las Vegas.
Tabloid media reports had claimed the dancer was set to receive more than €14m over the 2003 claims which, it subsequently transpired, were part of a scheme to secure $30m from the Chicago-born dance star.
Vindicated
A detailed statement on Flatley’s US lawsuit – which is being processed in California – is expected next month. Michael Flatley stressed earlier this year that he was totally vindicated by the decision to disbar a US attorney who tried to coerce him into paying $30 million to keep false rape claims quiet.
The dancer said he was still “angry and deeply hurt” about the manner in which the unfounded claims by Mauro and Tyna Marie Robertson were given such prominence by the US and world media.
Mauro has now been disbarred by the US legal association and cannot practise law for 12 months.
The penalty came after both the US law association and the California Supreme Court ruled that the millionaire dancer had been seriously wronged over Mauro’s demand for money in return for keeping false rape claims quiet.
Mauro had sought $30 million from Flatley over the false claims levelled by Robertson - and would have received 40pc of any payment.
“This kind of thing might have worked against someone else but they weren’t going to work against me. I wanted the truth to be known,” he said.
Robertson – who attempted a similar claim against a Chicago doctor – later refused to make a formal statement to Nevada police about the Las Vegas claim.
She has since taken a paternity claim against the American football and Chicago Bears star, Brian Urlacher.
Disgraceful
“I think it is disgraceful the way that some people should try to extort money with bogus claims,” Flatley told the Irish Independent.
He said he welcomed and fully supported the stance taken by the US authorities on Mauro’s actions and Robertson’s malicious claim.
The star had immediately contacted the FBI when the demand for money was made against him – and his $100m law suit against both Mauro and Robertson is still pending in the US courts.
The parishioners of St. Albert the Great in Burbank gathered Friday in support of their pastor, the Rev. Robert Stepek.
Stepek is accused of sexually molesting two young boys in the 1980s while serving as an associate pastor at St Symphorosa Church in Chicago. The two boys are brothers and had been family friends for many years with Stepek.
Around 200 supporters gathered at Niko’s Restaurant in Bridgeview to show support for Stepek. Most were from St. Albert the Great. However there were also people from St. Symphorosa and other priests who have known Stepek for years.
The atmosphere around the room was upbeat. Many in attendance were happy they were able to see their pastor for the first time in months. No one there believed the charges; instead, most think the brothers are out to hurt Stepek.
Among those attending was the Stepek family. Both his parents, his brother and sister, were in attendance as well as other family members, and all were very humbled by the turnout.
“It’s beautiful,” said Dorothy Stepek, the priest’s mother, talking about the turnout. “He couldn’t do it without all of this support.” ......
....... Father Stepek’s brother, Scott Stepek, also believes the brothers are trying to get money.
“The brothers are vindictive and are on the money train,” he said.
Scott Stepek also said he is suspicious that the allegations came out after his brother would not sponsor one of the brothers who wanted to become a priest. ......
...... On May, 13, 2006 —Father Stepek’s 25th anniversary as a priest — he received a letter from Cardinal Francis George, telling him to vacate the residence at St. Albert the Great immediately because there was an accusation against him for sexual abuse.
“It was supposed to be one of my proudest days as a priest, and it was one of the worst,” said Stepek.
When Stepek went in front of the Archdiocese’s review board, he said that sharing of information between attorneys and the rules of evidence did not apply. After meeting with the review board on Oct. 20, 2006 and Nov. 3, 2006, Stepek received a letter saying there was reasonable cause to suspect truth in the sexual abuse allegations.
According to Stepek, George wrote a letter stating there was no evidence of child abuse but, given the publicity of other cases and the strong testimony, he agreed with the board’s decision. ......
........ Stepek wants to have the ecclesiastic trial. Originally, according to Stepek, Cardinal George sent a letter to Rome asking for an administrative decision but has since sent a letter asking for a penal trial.
“This is becoming too political,” said Stepek.
Stepek added that if this goes to trial, that it will be interesting to see if the brothers get more than two statements.
“I am getting my guns ready, and I am going to go after them,” said Stepek to a standing ovation at Friday’s gathering ......
....... The Archdiocese cut Stepek’s pay in half, and he is no longer allowed to perform the activities of a priest. He is living with his family, and joked that he has been cutting a lot of lawns to try to make ends meet.
Some from St. Albert, he said, have told him to call them for a job, one of whom required that he take a polygraph test. Against his lawyers’ advice, he took the test and passed.
“Some of the questions they asked me were, ‘Have you ever sexually abused anyone?’, ‘Have you ever used excess force on anyone?’, ‘Are these truthful statements?’” And I passed with flying colors,” he said.
He challenged his two accusers to take a polygraph test too.
Original article by Chuck Salvatore, SWNewsherald
Our attention has been drawn to the following articles which appeared in the Times recently.
Their is also an interesting letter by Trevor Jones in the Camden New Journal concering the impact secrecy in Family Courts has on childrens' outcomes.
A school pupil has been reprimanded by police for making a false allegation of assault against a teacher.
Teachers union the NASUWT said the member was suspended after an allegation in 2006, but Flintshire Council and police proved the claim to be "malicious".
The teacher has now been reinstated at the school, the union said.
The NASUWT added it was a "huge step" towards showing students false claims against teachers were "unacceptable".
Suzanne Nantcurtis, NASUWT's national executive member for north Wales, supported the teacher involved.
She said: "The consequence of investigations was that we discovered the allegation was clearly malicious.
Precedent
"The pupil who made the allegation was reprimanded by police.
"These are cases we see all to often and they are clearly distressing for teachers.
"We see this as a positive development and some sort of retribution for the pain and anguish suffered by the teacher."
She added: "This sets a precedent. I spoke to officers in our legal department and they couldn't find any record of it happening anywhere else.
"This was a huge step."
A North Wales Police spokeswoman said the pupil was not cautioned formally but received a reprimand.
A Flintshire Council spokesman said: "We are not aware of any incident of this nature in a Flintshire school."
Source: BBC
The following case concerning a British man was reported in the Australian yesterday (28th August 2007)
CHILD sex charges against a former Anglican chaplain of an exclusive Adelaide boys school have been dropped, more than two years after his extradition from Thailand.
Reverend John Mountford, 52, said the decision by the Crown to enter a Nolle Prosequi today had taken him by surprise, but maintained the allegations against him were fabricated.
He had been charged with five counts of indecent assault, two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and one count of procuring an act of gross indecency, but today walked from the South Australian District Court a free man.
The charges related to the alleged abuse of a 14-year-old boy between 1991 and 1992, when Mr Mountford was a chaplain at Adelaide's St Peter's College.
He pleaded not guilty to all the allegations last year.
"The last three years have taken an enormous toll on me and my family," Mr Mountford said in a statement.
"I have spent my life savings defending maliciously fabricated allegations. I have now been deprived of an opportunity to clear my name."
Mr Mountford, a British citizen, said he intended to return to the UK to live with his family and be with his father who was seriously ill.
"Although I have steadfastly maintained that the case should never proceed, the eleventh hour abandonment of the case has taken me somewhat by surprise," he said.
"I haven't had time to think about my future, my immediate concern is the health of my father."
Mr Mountford said that for reasons unclear to him, the director of public prosecutions (DPP) had not explained why the charges had been dropped.
But in a statement, DPP Stephen Pallaras said the decision not to take the case to trial followed recent consultation with the complainant.
Mr Pallaras said following those discussions, which included issues related to the man's health, he had decided it was no longer in the public interest to proceed with the prosecution.
"The complainant and the police were fully consulted prior to this decision being made and they understand and support the reasons for the decision," Mr Pallaras said.
Mr Mountford said he remained bitter about the lack of closure and also raised the prospect of taking legal action against the "person responsible for this fiasco" if he was not held accountable for his actions.
"If the South Australian authorities do nothing about it, I will ask my solicitors for advice about remedies available to me," he said
The allegations against Mr Mountford were detailed in an independent report in 2004 into the handling of sex abuse claims in the Anglican Church.
The report forced the resignation of then Adelaide Anglican Archbishop Ian George because it revealed Dr George met Mr Mountford on the day he fled to Thailand in 1992.
Mr Mountford was extradited to Australia in March 2005 after spending six months in Bangkok's Klong Prem prison fighting his return.
The following article by Eric Dexheimer which apeared in the American Statesmen (here) on Sunday, August 19, 2007 is typical of the UK experience.
Woman accused of sex with students five years ago got license back but not her job.
Joelle Ogletree was heading to a Friday night football game in Glen Rose, her picturesque hometown an hour's drive west of Fort Worth, when she first heard the rumors that she was having sex with some students in her French class. The then-24-year-old teacher laughed them off.
But the stories, turbocharged by relentless chat on a community Internet bulletin board, were unstoppable. "It was like a wildfire," recalls Ryan Anzaldua, a high school sophomore at the time. "If you went somewhere in Glen Rose, you could hear it talked about."
Five years after being accused of having sex with her students, and three years since charges were dropped, former Glen Rose High School teacher Joelle Ogletree still hears whispers.Joelle Ogletree, 28, spent more than $100,000 defending herself in court and getting her teaching license back. Now she's suing the school district for wrongful termination.
The next Tuesday, the school placed Ogletree on leave. Students were summoned from her classes to tell their stories behind closed doors. By that Thursday morning, without ever being interviewed, Ogletree was fired.
Two months later, the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services determined that it had "reason to believe" Ogletree had improper relationships with two boys.
Eventually, she would be charged with sexual assault and indecency with a child. The Texas Education Agency would fight to revoke her teaching license; Glen Rose school administrators banned her from their classrooms.
The tight-knit community of 2,000 was divided. Ogletree grew up in Glen Rose, returning to teach and raise her own family there. Many refused to believe that she was capable of molesting the town's sons.
But plenty did. Families seated next to her at the Flashback restaurant asked to be moved.
"You're walking into the post office, someone starts to say, 'Hi,' but then realizes who you are and stops," Ogletree says.
The vast social and government apparatus that protects children from predators had quickly mobilized to isolate and punish Ogletree.
But what if she didn't do it?
'No one wins'
Lawyers who defend teachers say that cases such as Ogletree's are of growing concern as state regulators step up their efforts to weed predatory teachers out of the classroom.
The number of Texas teachers accused of sexual misconduct has soared, from about 110 in 1997 to more than 400 in 2001, before leveling off around 250 in recent years.
Officials say the reason is more aggressive reporting of incidents and better information. Most charges are quickly proved or disproved. Many teachers voluntarily surrender their licenses when confronted with wrongdoing. Others accept lesser penalties for lesser offenses.
But contested sexual misconduct cases are heard regularly by administrative law judges who recommend whether a teacher should be banned from his or her profession. The level of proof is lower than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard necessary for a criminal conviction.
In recent years, Texas regulators and lawmakers have assumed a tough stance against errant teachers. "We're much more aggressive about taking a case to trial," says Christopher Jones, head of the Texas Education Agency's investigations and discipline office.
A 2003 law made it a crime for any secondary school teacher to have a sexual relationship with a student, regardless of age.
Four years ago, El Paso band teacher Jimmy Gonzalez, then 26, started a relationship with a 19-year-old student who wasn't in band. They later married and had a child. The state revoked his license, even though an administrative judge concluded in a November 2006 opinion that the two were "consenting adults."
Defense attorneys say the aggressive approach probably means more false accusations. "It's easier for a student today to make allegations with ill motives," says Daniel Ortiz, an Arlington attorney specializing in defending teachers accused of sex crimes.
Anecdotally, "I'd say a quarter to third are false," adds Thomas Martin, a Houston attorney who also represents accused sex offenders.
For teachers, being falsely accused is a nightmare. Unions can cap legal coverage at a pittance of the cost of a vigorous defense. Eventually, Ogletree would employ four attorneys and ring up well over $100,000 in legal fees, refinancing her home twice to cover the bills.
Once he or she is identified as a predator, a teacher's reputation may never recover, especially in small communities, where word spreads quickly and privacy is a relative term.
Accused of sexual abuse by a former student in 1998, Patricia Glodfelty was fired from her high school teaching job in tiny Peaster, outside Fort Worth. She was cleared, but the school district still refused to rehire her, maintaining that the damage to her reputation from gossip alone rendered her ineffective.
Years later, Glodfelty settled with the district, but only after an appeals court ruled in her favor, noting that if rumors were the standard for guilt, "a teacher is just one false accusation away from losing his or her career."
Contested cases where the truth may never be fully known are particularly brutal, says Austin's Kevin Lungwitz, a former attorney for the Texas State Teachers Association who now holds workshops for teachers called "Staying in the Schoolhouse and Out of the Courthouse."
"Either an innocent teacher's life is ruined, or a kid who is molested is now also being branded a liar," he says. "No one wins."
'Most wonderful place in the world'
Founded as a mill town on the Paluxy River, Glen Rose is mainly a commuter community with a visible Christian presence. It is home to both the Creation Evidence Museum, dedicated to disproving Darwin, and "The Promise," a large passion play staged every summer. People are identified as much by their congregations as by their jobs.
Everyone's path crosses at some point. The vice principal who first investigated Ogletree is married to her former baby sitter. The school's cop lives two doors down from her.
On Oct. 1, 2002, according to school investigation reports that are part of Ogletree's court records, a teacher who overheard students gossiping about Ogletree called the vice principal, who contacted the sheriff's deputy assigned to the school. He began interviewing boys.
Chayce, then 15, was the first to speak out.
Starting the previous spring, Chayce said, Ogletree had begun dressing "very vulgar" in class. Later, he added, she'd lured him into her empty classroom to watch her strip.
(Because they were minors at the time, the boys who accused Ogletree of molestation are identified in this story by first names only.)
Chayce's friend Matt was next. Ogletree had asked him to help move a piano at her house the previous summer, he said, but when he showed up, there was no piano, and Ogletree was alone. "She started coming on to me," he told an investigator. "Reluctantly, I gave in."
In the following months, the boys spilled more details of alleged sexual encounters — in and out of the classroom — to investigators.
Matt said he recalled an incident at a student camp out at the Ogletrees' house. Chayce said he remembered a time in the middle of the school day when he and his teacher ended up on her classroom floor, kissing and groping. He claimed four incidents in all.
In May, Sam, the son of the former mayor, said he and Ogletree had sex at her house when he'd stopped by to drop off a paper for her husband, a chemistry teacher at the high school.
No one from the school district or sheriff's department ever questioned her, Ogletree says.
To her supporters — among them, friends, colleagues, former teachers and students — tales of her illicit escapades were laughable. Glen Rose was too small for a secret life, they said, and Ogletree's entire life was Glen Rose.
"I loved growing up here," she says. "I thought Glen Rose was the most wonderful place in the world."
By the time she graduated, she'd already decided to become a teacher. She earned perfect grades at nearby Tarleton State University, graduating early to replace Glen Rose's retiring French teacher.
"We are very fortunate to have Mrs. Ogletree," the school district's director of personnel wrote in March 2000. "She was an outstanding student in high school. She will be a great asset to the high school."
Early evaluations praised her for going beyond class hours to help her students.
"Mrs. Ogletree was an awesome teacher," says Beau Young, a 2004 graduate. "She made French interesting, so you wanted to learn."
"She certainly didn't do anything inappropriate" in class, adds Megan Prast, who shared Ogletree's sophomore French class with Chayce and Matt.
Ogletree was formally indicted in the spring of 2003. She faced up to 20 years in prison.
'Because I didn't do it'
Legal proceedings against Ogletree moved slowly; her trial was finally set for summer 2004. At home, she taped inspirational sayings on the walls. "Sometimes the Lord calms the storm, sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child," one read.
She shopped for her trial clothes at a thrift store. Her lawyer instructed her to cut her hair to look more mature and wear long sleeves and a modest, but not too frumpy, skirt.
A month before the trial prosecutors offered a deal: If Ogletree pleaded guilty only to public lewdness, she wouldn't have to go to prison or register as a sex offender, although she'd still forfeit her teacher's license.
"I urged her as strongly as I ever urged anyone to take that plea bargain," recalls Bruce Beasley, her lawyer.
"Take it," her husband, Doug, urged. "We'll sell everything; we'll move."
She decided one afternoon as she lay on her living room couch after a long cry. "I had this feeling wash over me, of pure peace," she recalls. "I told them 'no.' Because I didn't do it."
The trial began that Aug. 16. What the jury didn't know was that Sam already had confessed at a church camp that he'd fabricated his story of sex with his teacher. According to a deposition, he said he'd felt pressured by school administrators, whom he estimated had interrogated him between 10 and 20 times.
Matt was the first to testify against Ogletree. Under questioning, though, his stories changed. Details about the alleged encounters were added, forgotten or altered.
The next morning, prosecutors suddenly asked the judge to end the trial, claiming that Ogletree's husband was intimidating Matt by glaring at him through the courtroom door as the boy testified. The judge agreed and declared a mistrial before Chayce could testify.
Beasley says prosecutors made the unusual request because their case was falling apart.
"The level of investigation I observed was comparable to what you would expect in a traffic ticket case," he says. "If anyone had stopped to investigate it even cursorily, they would have found (the charges) not to be true."
Three months later, all charges against Ogletree were quietly dropped. Johnston/Somervell County prosecutors did not return repeated phone calls about the case.
'The teacher put one over on us.'
The dismissal of criminal charges meant little to the Texas Education Agency, which soon informed Ogletree that it still intended to take away her license.
At the June 2006 hearing, Matt again told his story, but this time, former students and teachers vouched for Ogletree's character and version of events. Several said Matt and Chayce were untrustworthy. One boy said he helped Matt move the piano at the Ogletrees' house on the day Matt claimed he had been alone with Ogletree. Details of the sexual encounters Chayce had described — positions, times, conversations — also changed or were called into question.
Calling Chayce and Matt's allegations "implausible and even impossible," the judge last summer ordered Ogletree's teaching certificate to be "granted without delay." Regulators appealed but lost again; Ogletree was issued a new license in November.
For many in Glen Rose, however, Ogletree's legal victories suggest only that she beat the system. School officials still won't allow her to volunteer at her daughter's elementary school.
Ogletree's wrongful termination lawsuit against the school district is pending.
Current and former district officials did not return numerous phone calls from the American-Statesman. But in a taped school board meeting, Superintendent Wayne Rotan said he still believes Ogletree is guilty.
He's not alone. "I believe the teacher put one over on us," says the Education Agency's Jones. "For the rest of my life, I'll be mad about it."
Sam, who graduated from college this year, declined to discuss Ogletree, other than to confirm that he'd retracted his allegations. Matt was voted Glen Rose's prom king and moved away. He could not be reached for this story.
Ogletree's friends have speculated why students might make up a destructive story about their new teacher: perhaps teenage boasts spun out of control. In a letter of support submitted as part of Ogletree's license hearing, one of the boys' teachers described them as "liars, cheats and plagiarists."
But Chayce, who returned to work in the family real estate business after attending Bible college, says he told the truth. "It happened," he says. "I don't know if it happened the way I said it did; it was very unclear to me. I didn't write down in my daytime planner, 'I messed around with my teacher today.' I tried to forget it."
Ogletree says that though she still hears the occasional whisper as she travels about town, she intends to stay in Glen Rose.
"Why would I leave?" she says. "I didn't do anything to be ashamed of."
An MP in the South Australian Parliament has called for compulsory lie detector tests for parents facing the Family Law Court.
South Australian independent MP Ann Bressington says current family law is a divisive "cash cow" that harms those it aims to protect - children.
The federal government must intervene and rewrite the law, just as it is acting to protect indigenous children in the Northern Territory, Ms Bressington told AAP in Sydney, where she is attending a Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission conference.
"We have to ask why the Attorney-General (Philip Ruddock) and the Prime Minister (John Howard) would be seen to support such a dysfunctional (Family Law) Act when they can take the action they did in the Northern Territory to supposedly protect Aboriginal children," she said.
A draft bill to introduce polygraph (lie detector) tests for individuals before Family Court proceedings would be introduced in the South Australian parliament in the next session, said Ms Bressington.
However, she said the use of polygraph tests needed to be implemented federally.
"There is no recognition of perjury. A man or a woman can go into a Family Law Court and lie about the conduct of their partner and it can be proven to be false but there is no course of action that's taken," Ms Bressington said.
"I believe the research and evidence to support the use of polygraphing, not for court but pre-court is very strong. It has a 98 per cent accuracy ...
"If we can save resources in the social services departments and thousands of hours spent by social workers investigating false allegations ... that's a good thing."
Ms Bressington said the family law system was biased against men, but children suffered too.
"On top of the dysfunctional family law system we have a corrupted child protection agency.," she said.
"We have children being coerced in interviews to support false allegations.
"It's a feeding ground, it's a cash cow, people are literally striped of any assets and use it (the court) against one another," she said.
Ms Bressington said her main focus was on drug and alcohol issues but through this she had experienced first hand the difficulties people faced with family law.
In 2006 she introduced a bill calling for random drug testing of SA school children.
She is the chief executive officer and founder of DrugBeat South Australia, a treatment and rehabilitation centre
Acknowledgement: Sydney Morning Herald
Derbyshire Police have warned how it is a criminal offence to waste officers' time after a 14-year-old girl wrongly claimed she had been sexually assaulted.
The youngster sparked a man-hunt when she lied to police she had been attacked at Linear Park, Clowne, about 5.30pm, on August 10, near a disused railway line.
A police spokesman said: "Wasting police time is something we take very seriously because it ties up resources which could be needed elsewhere on genuine matters.
"Those who waste police time, make false allegations and false statements can face criminal charges."
Officers told how the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has admitted the offence did not happen and they intend to speak to her about the implications and problems related to this matter.
The girl had claimed she was pinned down in an overgrown area of Linear Park and her bogus attacker was forced to run away when a friend called her name.
Police were forced to carry out house-to-house inquiries and issued press releases with witness appeals through the media with a CD photo-fit of the bogus attacker.
A police spokesman added: "Police investigate all allegations professionally and thoroughly in good faith and hope this kind of incident doesn't deter genuine victims from coming forward."
Source: Derbyshire Times
A woman who demanded money for sex from four men then cried gang rape is facing jail for wasting police time.
Carol Morton, 26, offered the Spanish men a group sex session in return for £20 each.
However, when the men tried to steal the money back, she became hysterical and claimed to police that she had been gang-raped.
Officers discovered it was consensual after one of the accused produced a video of the evening.
The investigation cost police £25