Black Collar Crime Round-Up: July 22, 2012
Mistrial declared: Stephen Douglas Berry, 39, former associate pastor, New Life Baptist Church, Union County, South Carolina, charged with criminal sexual conduct involving a “mentally defective” person (apart from a separate charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a 15-year-old girl). WSPA reports that “the jury told the judge that they could not reach a verdict… They were sent them back for further deliberations.” By the end of the day, “the judge dismissed them and declared a mistrial.” Berry “has been released and is on electronic monitoring.” Story: Conservative Babylon, March 26, 2011; Conservative Babylon, July 19, 2012; WSPA, July 20, 2012
Released provisionally: Paolo Gabriele, “Italian Deep Throat,” 46, personal butler to Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican City, accused of possessing and leaking secret papers exposing corruption in the Vatican. La Stampa reports: “After being held in prison for almost 60 days on charges of illegal possession of confidential documents belonging to the Pope,” Gabriele “has been released from his security cell in the Vatican Gendarmerie building… He will finally be able to re-embrace his wife and children and spend Sunday, his first day of freedom with them. … The examining magistrate will pronounce a sentence” for Gabriele, “who is accused of aggravated theft and is so far the only person being investigated for the Vatican document leak: he will either be committed for trial and his case opened for public debate or he will receive an acquittal.” Story: Conservative Babylon, May 27, 2012; La Stampa, July 21, 2012
Resigned: James Liguori, 69, as executive director, Fordham University (“The Jesuit University of New York”), Westchester campus, Harrison, New York; and former president, Iona College (“An academic organization in the tradition of the Christian Brothers and American Catholic higher education”), New Rochelle, New York; following a lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused a teenage boy in 1969. Fordham issued a statement: “On Thursday, July 19, 2012, Fordham University learned that an advocacy group has claimed a lawsuit alleging child abuse was filed in 2008 against Brother James A. Liguori, associate vice president and executive director for Fordham Westchester. Brother Liguori passed a criminal background check in fall 2011, when he was hired by Fordham. University officials began investigating immediately, and on Friday, July 20, Brother Liguori submitted his resignation, effective immediately.”
The advocacy group is SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), which details the allegations in its own statement: “A man who says he was sexually abused by the former president of Iona College has filed a sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit in the New York courts. The suit charges that the victim, known as John Doe, was sexually abused by Brother James Liguori in 1969 when the boy at a Cardinal Farley Military Academy in New York. Liguori is a member of and the school was run by the Irish Christian Brothers, a New Rochelle-based Catholic religious order. Doe now lives in Orange County, California, and reported his abuse to church officials there in 2008. Catholic staffers, including Bishop Tod Brown, met with him and, in emails, a lawyer for the diocese said that she believed his allegations. The Irish Christian Brothers, however, claimed that Doe’s allegations were ‘without merit,’ so they took no action against Liguori. At the time of the victim’s report, Ligouri was the president of Iona College in New Rochelle. He retired in 2011.”
SNAP adds: “Liguori is not new to cover-up. In 2010, Sister Marie Thornton, a nun and the school’s vice president of finance for the school, embezzled more than $800,000 from Iona. Liguori and school officials did not call law enforcement to report the matter. Federal prosecutors were tipped off to the crime when the US Department of Education reviewed the school’s tax forms, which did disclose the missing money.” The Poughkeepsie Journal notes that Liguori “is a member of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers, and it was the religious order’s bankruptcy case, filed last year as the order’s assets were being drained by sex-abuse cases, that opened the window for the case to emerge, according to Joelle Casteix, SNAP’s western regional director.” Story: SNAP, July 19, 2012; Poughkeepsie Journal, July 21, 2012
Charged: Jeffrey Mackintosh. 46. former youth pastor, Glad Tidings Assembly of God, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, with aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child, stemming from allegations he sexually assaulted a then-12-year-old boy repeatedly “between January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2000 in a private room in the church,” reports MyCentralJersey.com. Mackintosh is currently being held on $100,000 bail. Story: MyCentralJersey.com, July 20, 2012; NJ.com, July 20, 2012
Sentenced: Rickey Alan Reed, 55, “part-time” pastor, Living Faith Ministries, and former pastor, First Free Methodist Church, Smyrna, Tennessee; to four years’ probation and a “judicial diversion program,” after pleading guilty to attempted aggravated burglary. Reed was caught on video stealing prescription drugs from a parishioner’s home. The Tennessean notes that the victim “said some church members shunned or tried to shame her for reporting Reed to police. … She said church members pressured her to hide the incident, but, wanting Reed to get help, she reported him anyway.” It is believed Reed had burglarized other parishioners’ homes for drugs, but no one else is willing to press charges. Story: WKRN, October 10, 2011; Tennessean, July 20, 2012; WKRN, July 21, 2012
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