Former Wisconsin District Attorney Kenneth Kratz argued today that it was through the “conduct, negligence and behavior” of Stephanie Van Groll that she came to sue him for sending sexually explicit text messages while he was handling her domestic abuse case.
It gets… better, for lack of another word. Full scumbaggery: TPMMuckraker, January 17, 2011
Claims to fame: Former Cottonwood Heights, Utah, police officer; former police chief, South Salt Lake; former Salt Lake County undersheriff; failed candidate for Salt Lake County sheriff; failed candidate for U.S. Congress; former Democrat-turned-Republican; devout Mormon; accused thief (more…)
Video after the jump.
Meet Dave and Wendy Bitner, stars of our Sanctity of Submissiveness Story of the Month. We’ll get back to Dave and Wendy in a moment. First, we want to return to a question we asked just a few short weeks ago:
We think we know the answer now. (more…)
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Sentenced: Robert Michael Black, former pastor, New Home Baptist Church, St. Joseph, Missouri; girls’ basketball coach, Fort Osage Youth Basketball League; husband; father of three; to five years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of attempted enticement of a child. Black was arrested in an online sting after exchanging sexually explicit photos and attempting to arrange a “date” with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl, who turned out to be an undercover detective. Story: Conservative Babylon, August 13, 2009; Kansas City Star, January 14, 2011 (more…)
The short story: Tongan street gang mixes it up with rival Samoan street gang in Long Beach, California. One of the Tongans shoots and kills one of the Samoans (apparently plugging him at least once when he was already on the ground), then—
—leaves for Utah to prepare for his upcoming “two-year mission to ‘preach the gospel of the Church of the Latter Day Saints.’”
When the cops find him in Utah, he says he doesn’t know anything about the shooting in Long Beach… but, um, oh, yeah, well, maybe he does remember something, but he still didn’t do anything, and, uh, even if he did, he’s such a hotshot, he could get somebody else to take the fall for him. ‘Cause, you know, he had a mission to prepare for and everything!
The long version (which makes for most interesting reading) comes from the denial of Matangi’s appeal of his conviction of first-degree murder, among othe charges, filed January 13, 2011: (more…)
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Arrested again: Dino Cardelli, 49, staunchly anti-gay founder & former senior pastor, Calvary Chapel of Arcata, California, for violating a court order to refrain from contact with one of his alleged victims. Last September, Cardelli pleaded not guilty to four felony counts of sex abuse against one of his adopted daughters, a girl under 14 — the knowledge of which reportedly led his wife to kill herself in early 2010. In November, Cardelli was arrested a second time on new charges of three more counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, when a second alleged victim came forward. Story: Conservative Babylon, September 16, 2010; Conservative Babylon, November 2, 2010; Times-Standard, January 13, 2011 (more…)
Cross-posted from The Lavender Newswire
For those fortunate enough not to know of Scott Lively, he is the “former director of the California tentacle of the American Family Association and the anti-gay Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA)” and pastor of Abiding Truth Ministries “[a.k.a. Defend the Family]” — named to the SPLC’s latest list of anti-gay hate groups — “author of The Pink Swastika: Homosexuals and the Nazi Party, and Holocaust revisionist,” who is almost singularly responsible for fomenting the raging homophobia pervading Latvia and primarily responsible for inspiring Uganda’s Kill-the-Gays bill. (more…)
Because there’s no way we can track every sex crime and scandal in the Roman Catholic church — so we’ll just give you the headlines. Of the following, however, the more interesting cases may end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Archdiocese of Milwaukee
• The Back Story of a Sex Scandal, WLS, January 4, 2011
• Pursued by St. Paul attorney, Milwaukee Archdiocese files for bankruptcy protection, KARE11, January 5, 2011
• Archdiocese gets until Feb. 7 to file financial data, Journal Sentinel, January 5, 2011
• Milwaukee Catholic Archdioces Gets Bankruptcy Filing Extension, WTAQ, January 6, 2011
• Grass Roots: How far does cost of Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy reach?, Capital Times, January 6, 2011 (more…)
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Indicted: Tammy Futrell, 47, church day-care center director and wife of Melvin Futrell, pastor, Bethel Temple Church of Deliverance, Norfolk, Virginia, Futrell’s daughter Angel Hoskie, 27, and Dinnetta Feeney, 44, in the May, 2010, death of 7-week-old Dylan Cummings. All three women worked in the child day care center operated by the church, where the “cribs were tightly packed ‘almost like an orphanage’” inside a supply closet. All have been charged with child cruelty, child neglect and child abuse; Futrell is also charged with homicide, and has been denied bond. Dylan’s mother told WAVY: “They’re a church, you know. I trusted because it’s a church and I figured they’re good whole people.” Story: WAVY, January 7, 2011; WTKR, January 7, 2011; Virginian-Pilot, January 12, 2011 (more…)
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Sentenced to life in prison: Jason Robert Bourque, 20, described by his mother as a “good Christian young man,” and Daniel George McAllister, 22, Southern Baptist youth group members, for setting a rash of church fires in and around Tyler, Texas. Story: Conservative Babylon, December 28, 2010; Dallas Morning News, January 10, 2011 (more…)
David Tolliver quit his post as the executive director of the 600,000-member Missouri Baptist Convention over “immoral behavior.”
The MBC issued a terse press release Friday: (more…)
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-SmugMeany, Tex.) wasn’t looking as sunny as he did in his years-old mug shot today, as he was sentenced to three years in prison for conspiracy, plus ten years’ probation for money laundering, after his November conviction on charges of “illegally funneling corporate money to help elect Republican candidates to the Texas legislature.” CNN has the full story.
We’re still catching up with the Conservative Babylon Class of 2010 — some we covered previously, some Babylonians we missed entirely, but all of whom deserve recognition (read: exposure) as holier-than-thou right-wingers who can’t seem to live up to the impossible “family values” standards they demand of everyone else. (No, we don’t know how many parts there will be to our catch-up.) In no particular order…
Too Bad the Legal System Doesn’t Move as Fast as Church Tribunals: Charged with 20 counts of felony theft for embezzling nearly $400,000, Donald Armstrong, 61, former Episcopal priest & rector, Grace and St. Stephen’s Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado, pleaded no contest in September. He’d already been defrocked in 2007. (more…)
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Sacked: Marshall Brown, 57, former associate rector, Truro Church, Fairfax, Virginia, “for repeatedly using a church computer to surf for pornography.” One of the largest Episcopal parishes in the U.S., Truro broke away from the American mother church to follow the radically homophobic Uganda-based Anglican strain; Brown, notes WaPo, “helped lead 14 Virginia parishes to break away from the Episcopal Church after the 2003 election of the denomination’s first openly gay bishop.” WaPo also notes that “Truro arranged for Brown, now 57, to receive treatment for an Internet addiction after he reported having a problem.” Story: Washington Post, January 7, 2011 (more…)
Backstory: “Michael McDonnell Stole from the Church Because He Was Abused by a Priest And, Anyway, He Needed the Money for His Girlfriend’s Breast Implants,” January 5, 2011
This story just writes itself — on headlines alone:
“Bucks County church thief with big-breasted girlfriend gets up to two years in prison,” Trentonian, January 6, 2011
See main entry for Ted Haggard
See all entries for Ted Haggard
Ted Haggard — who now, of course, is completely heterosexual — will be starring in a one-hour special “reality” show (and, in Haggard World, we use the word “reality” loosely) on TLC January 16th: “Ted Haggard: Scandalous.” Details: CNN
Because we could spend 24/7 tracking the sins of right-wing religionists (especially “youth pastors”) and never get caught up. Of the following, the more interesting cases will probably end up with their very own Conservative Babylon entries.
Arrested: “Choi” (or “Choe”), 60, and “Cho”, 52, vice (or associate) pastors, Somang Presbyterian Church, Seoul, South Korea, for assaulting 63-year-old head pastor Kim Jie-chul in a brawl that left Kim hospitalized with a broken cheekbone and other injuries. Another minister had to break open a door to stop the fight. The vice pastors “’seemed to have a grudge against the head pastor after they had been excluded from some pasturing [sic] work,’ a police officer said. … It is reported that the churchgoers have been in discord since Kim became the chief pastor of the church after the church’s founder Kwak Sun-hee stepped down in 2003. Two more brawls between worshippers and pastors have previously been reported.” Choi has since resigned — or been fired, depending on who’s telling the story. Story: Korea Times, January 4, 2011; Korea Joongang Daily, January 5, 2011 (more…)
Fifty-five year-old David Ladeau of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, former church choir director and organist (we’re pretty certain we know which church, but we don’t want to risk a mistake), had been sitting in jail, charged with possession of child pornography, since June of 2009 when he began exchanging letters with his 61-year-old brother Daniel Ladeau of Summertown, Tennessee… only this wasn’t the “How are you? I am fine” variety of correspondence. It was in code. The feds were called in, deciphered the messages, and discovered that the Ladeau brothers were exchanging tips on collecting child pornography over the Internet. (more…)
There are some sentences you just don’t hear every day, and this is one of them, from The Trentonian (”Bucks County man who stole $100K from archdiocese for breast implants to be sentenced”), January 5, 2011:
Sentencing is set for tomorrow for the Bucks County social worker who said he stole $100,000 from the Catholic church because he was abused by a priest as a boy and needed the money to buy implants for his girlfriend’s breasts.
How those two excuses possibly go together in the same sentence is beyond us. Maybe giving his girlfriend bigger boobies was supposed to cheer him up and help him get past the abuse trauma…?
McDonnell, by the way “worked for the Philadephia Archdiocese for years as the coordinator of the Bucks County Council on Alcoholism.”
