Dale Pennington, 36 a Polk County teacher has been arrested for allegedly sending sexually explicit emails and text messages to a 16-year-old former student. Pennington, a Ridge Community High School teacher, has been arrested and charged with 15 counts of use of a computer to seduce a child, 16 counts of transmission of material harmful to minors by electronic device, computer pornography – traveling to meet a minor, and 15 counts of unlawful use of a two-way communication device. A judge set his bond at $5,000.
According to law enforcement officials, Pennington admitted to the behavior with the student and deputies are concerned that there may be other Pennington sexual abuse victims. Anyone with knowledge about this case or other children who may have been harmed by this teacher should contact the Polk County Sheriff’s Office at 1-800-226-0344.
The initial police investigation has determined that Pennington had been sending texts and emails to the young girl since May 2012.

In a surprising twist, the criminal case against Bishop Robert Finn, head of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph will be a bench trial tomorrow. It is expected a verdict will be returned that same day with Judge John Torrence presiding. Bishop Finn and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph are charged with one misdemeanor count of failure to report suspected child abuse to the state.
Bishop Finn, through his legal counsel, has argued that he is not a mandated reporter under state law. The charges stem from the criminal case involving diocesan priest Fr. Shawn Ratigan who had images of child pornography on his computer. Church officials knew about the images but didn’t report them to law enforcement for six months.

The Reverend Richard McCormick, a member of the Catholic religious order the Salesians of Don Bosco and a former teacher at St. Petersburg Catholic High School, has plead not guilty to five counts of raping a child in the 1980’s at the Salesians’ Sacred Heart Retreat House, a summer camp in Massachusetts. McCormick, now 71, taught English and theology at St. Petersburg Catholic high school before being removed from that post in 2002. His removal stemmed from a complaint from a student who told school officials that the priest had kissed her.
McCormick was arrested Thursday afternoon by New Ipswich police and charged with five counts of child rape that occurred in the early 1980’s. McCormick was arrested at the Salesian residence for priests in New Rochelle, New York.
Fr. McCormick is no stranger to sexual abuse allegations and sexual abuse lawsuits. At least nine other people have sued him and the Salesian Order to which he belongs for sexual abuse. Abuse allegations go as far back as 1963 until 1982 (not counting the one made in St. Petersburg in 2002). Three sexual abuse lawsuits were filed on behalf of young men who alleged McCormick abused them while he was the rector of the Salesian minor seminary in Goshen New York in the late 1970’s.

According to Hawaii media, “Father George DeCosta, who for almost three decades was the parish priest at Malia Puka O Kalani Catholic Church in Keaukaha, has been accused of abuse by two Hawaii men. The two were students at Damien Memorial High School in the 1960s when DeCosta was the chaplain there.”
The Catholic priest was working at the high school operated by the Christian Brothers, themselves no strangers to allegation of sexual abuse.
The allegations of Hawaii priest abuse sound very similar to those we’ve heard from survivors on the mainland-the priest plies the unsuspecting minor with alcohol, spends inordinate amounts of time with him, showers him with gifts, and then abuses him sexually.
Hawaii recently passed legislation providing a window to the statute of limitations in civil sex abuse lawsuits that provides survivors an opportunity to bring such claims in Hawaii courts.

A priest abuse lawsuit that named the Vatican as a defendant has been tossed out by an Oregon judge. The question at hand in this case was whether the Vatican has a supervisory, employer/employee relationship with Catholic priests. The judge ruled that he didn’t see such a relationship in his review of the court documents.
The Vatican is a sovereign state and the Catholic Church has argued that it should be immune from such civil prosecution.
The judge’s ruling marks the last case in which the Vatican had been named as a defendant in a sexual abuse lawsuit. Previous lawsuits have been thrown out or dropped.
Obviously, the Pope does have administrative control over the church’s priests and bishops. Even recently, the Pope has removed bishops when he views them as unfit. In the last 40 years, many priests have been removed from priestly ministry by the Vatican. Such priest theologians as Leonardo Boff, Hans Kung, and Charles Curran have either been removed from their priestly duties or fired from their academic positions in Catholic universities.

A California woman who’d had the C.R. Bard Avaulta Plus Vaginal Mesh Implant surgically inserted into her body has won a vaginal mesh lawsuit against the manufacturer. The woman had suffered through 9 separate revision surgeries attempting to correct the issues caused by the vaginal mesh implant.
According to the Sacramento Bee, “Bellwether trials are scheduled to set a “gauge” on the potential value of the thousands of lawsuits. Another trial is set for April 2013 in NJ, however if the California case is any indication it looks as if the general public believes that these Mesh Manufacturers may be liable for substantial damages.”
Vaginal mesh implants, manufactured and marketed by various medical device companies, were originally approved for the treatment of female urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse. However, many women have had to have the meshes removed because of faulty design issues which damage surrounding tissue.

The US Attorney’s Office is accusing Wright Medical Group of breaching its deferred prosecution agreement concerning alleged kickbacks to doctors. Wright Medical is a global medical device maker of artificial knees, hips, and other joints. The agreement breach may lead to further civil and criminal issues for the medical device maker.
According to one media report, Wright Medical has been notified by the US Attorney’s Office of two willful and knowing material breaches of its deferred prosecution agreement. According to law.com,
“The SEC documents filed Wednesday said:
• GC Raymond Kolls and two other executives resigned suddenly this week “without good reason,” which means they are not entitled to severance pay. Kolls couldn’t be reached for comment.
• Kolls was immediately replaced on Wednesday by interim GC Thomas McAllister, an assistant general counsel at Wright.
• The board recently received a tip about non-compliance and hired unnamed outside counsel to conduct an internal investigation. The probe found “credible evidence of serious wrongdoing,” which the board communicated to the U.S. attorney’s office on Wednesday.”
The deferred prosecution agreement between the federal government and Wright Medical was finalized last year and resulted in Wright Medical paying $7.9 million in civil and administrative claims. The terms of the agreement included the hiring of an independent monitor. The terms of the agreement was to last five years.

”Pfizer subsidiaries in several countries had bribery so entwined in their sales culture that they offered points and bonus programs to improperly reward foreign officials who proved to be their best customers,” said Kara Brockmeyer, chief of SEC’s foreign enforcement division.
So, Pfizer agreed to pay a $60 million penalty to settle the bribery charges. While $60 million may seem like a large amount of money, it’s really a drop in the bucket for a company like Pfizer. What’s left undetermined is if the penalty will effectively change the sales culture at the huge pharma company. Ethics aside, Pfizer officials may have determined that from a cost-benefit analysis it makes sense to pay these type of fines. The profits generated by the illegal activity surely outweigh the fine they paid. These allegations stem from as far back as 2001 and involve countries such as China,Italy, Russia, Croatia and other Eastern European countries.
As long as the bottom line isn’t severely affected, it’s business as usual for these big companies.

While his bishop continues his Quixotic effort to show that the images Fr. Shawn Ratigan possessed when he was arrested last year were not pornography, Ratigan himself plead guilty today to five charges of child pornography.
According to the Associated Press, “Under terms of the plea deal, Ratigan pleaded guilty to four counts of producing child pornography and one count of attempting to produce child porn. Eight other counts against Ratigan were dismissed.”
Ratigan was facing a trial later this month while Bishop Robert Finn is scheduled for trial in September relating to charges that he failed to inform law enforcement of suspected child abuse.