by: Alonzo Small, Andy Koval, Christine Flores

ORLAND PARK, Ill. (WGN) — The allegation of sexual abuse involving a suburban private tutor and a juvenile has landed a 43-year-old behind bars.

According to Orland Park police, officers arrested Brett Smith on Wednesday, Jan. 28, after he turned himself in. Police say their investigation began when parents hired a tutor who identified himself as “BJ S. McAuliffe” to tutor their child.

Police say concerns grew when the name on a bank payment appeared as Brett Smith.

The parents ran an online search of Brett Smith, also known as Brett Zagorac. Police said they found news articles and videos referencing prior allegations against Smith involving children in other states.

Orland Park opened their investigation after the parents contacted the department.

Upon further investigation, area detectives found that Brett Zagorac legally changed his name to Brett Smith and used several aliases, including “BJ S.,” “BJ Smith,” and “BJ S. McAuliffe,” when advertising private tutoring services.

Detectives also found probable cause that Smith engaged in sexual contact with the 9-year-old during more than a dozen tutoring sessions, according to court documents obtained by WGN News.

The Archdiocese of Chicago informed parents that they are “deeply concerned” before stating that he has worked in South Side and South Suburban Catholic schools.

They stated he passed state background and fingerprint checks. They released the following employment timeline below:

• Working as a long-term substitute in St. Walter-St. Benedict School (Chicago and Blue Island) during the 2024-25 school year,
• Working as an employee of a third-party vendor assigned to Pope John Paul II School (Chicago) at the beginning of the 2025-26 school year,
• Working as a private tutor for at least one family with a student enrolled at a Catholic school in the south suburbs and possibly more than one family, and
• Working as a substitute teacher at Queen of Martyrs School (Evergreen Park) in January 2026.

The archdiocese said they barred him from schools and he was terminated after learning about the allegations.

“At this time, we know of no allegations of sexual misconduct against Mr. Smith during his time at St. Walter-St. Benedict, Pope John Paul II, or Queen of Martyrs schools. We have learned, however, that one family in the south suburbs filed a complaint against Mr. Smith with their local police for conduct that occurred while he was tutoring in their home,” the archdiocese said.

The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office charged Smith with felony aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Smith appeared in court on Friday. Prosecutors presented a flurry of allegations dating back to 2003, involving children between the ages of five and nine. A judge ruled that he remains behind bars, reportedly telling the suspect, “Mr. Smith, enough is enough.”

Orland Park personnel ask anyone who believes they, their child, or a child under their care may have been a victim of Smith to contact the police department where the incident occurred.

https://wgntv.com/news/southwest-suburbs/suburban-private-tutor-who-used-a-fake-name-accused-of-sexual-abuse-of-student/

Bill Gates has said he “regrets” ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein, as his former wife, Melinda French Gates, alluded to “muck” in their marriage, and insisted the Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender.

Allegations that Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with “Russian girls” surfaced in the latest release of the Epstein files, which have provided remarkable insight into the disgraced financier’s multiple celebrity connections and activities.

His office immediately issued a statement denouncing the “absolutely absurd and completely false” assertion, but until now, Gates, 70, has remained silent.

He finally spoke on Wednesday on the Australian television channel 9News to deny the claim as “false”, and suggested that Epstein was trying to extort or defame him by writing an email in 2013 that further alleged he subsequently tried to give antibiotics to Melinda surreptitiously in case she also became infected.

“Apparently, Jeffrey wrote an email to himself. That email was never sent. The email is false,” Gates said.

“I don’t know what his thinking was there. Was he trying to attack me in some way? Every minute I spent with him, I regret, and I apologize that I did that.”

His interview followed comments made by his ex-wife to NPR on Tuesday, in which she made clear her disapproval of his friendship with Epstein.

“For me, it’s personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage,” French Gates told the radio network’s Wild Card podcast.

“Whatever questions remain there of what – I can’t even begin to know all of it – those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband. They need to answer to those things, not me.”

The public airing of some of the lowest points in the Gateses’ 27-year marriage, which ended in a 2021 divorce, epitomises the fallout still being felt from the Epstein scandal, more than six years after his August 2019 death by suicide in New York’s Metropolitan correctional center as he awaited trial on sexual abuse trafficking charges.

Gates told 9News he met Epstein in 2011 and had dinner with him on several occasions to discuss investing in proposed scientific ventures. He insisted he never went to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, where countless girls and young women are alleged to have been abused, and did not have any relations with any women.

“The focus was always, he knew a lot of very rich people, and he was saying he could get them to give money to global health. In retrospect, that was a dead end,” Gates said.

“I was foolish to spend time with him. I was one of many people who regret ever knowing him. The more that comes out, the clearer it will be that, although the time was a mistake, it has nothing to do with that kind of behaviour.”

The interview with Gates French, meanwhile, will be released in full by NPR on Thursday. The network released snippets, and a three-minute video clip, on Wednesday, in which the 61-year-old spoke of the Epstein files’ release and scrutiny as a “reckoning as a society”.

Talking about Epstein’s numerous victims, she said: “No girl should ever be put in the situation they were put in by Epstein and whatever was going on with all of the various people around him. It’s beyond heartbreaking.

“I remember being those ages the girls were, I remember my daughters being those ages.”

She said she had “moved on” from a marriage she said she had to get away from, and was now “in a really unexpected, beautiful place in my life. I’m so happy to be away from all the muck that was there.”

Asked about her emotions at learning of the claims against her ex-husband, particularly that he tried to secretly procure her antibiotics, she said she felt “just unbelievable sadness”.

She added: “I’m able to take my own sadness and look at those young girls and say, ‘My God, how did that happen to those girls?’ I hope there’s some justice for those now women. What they went through is unimaginable.”

On Wednesday, the Republican South Carolina congresswoman Nancy Mace, said she supported French Gates’s position that her husband had questions to answer, and had written to James Comer, chair of the House oversight committee that is investigating Epstein’s activities.

“Last night, I watched Melinda Gates interview. I immediately asked the chairman of oversight, James Comer, to subpoena, Bill Gates. I have questions for Bill Gates about Epstein,” Mace wrote in a post on X.

On Monday, Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose names also feature in the Epstein files, said they had agreed to testify to the committee, days before the chamber was expected to vote to hold them in contempt for originally refusing to do so.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/04/bill-gates-epstein-relationship-melinda

January 28, 2026

By Peggy Fletcher Stack

Salt Lake City diocese confirms it conducted an investigation but says only that it “has taken steps to address its findings.”

William Hambleton alleged last year that he was abused as a teen by a priest in Utah, an assertion the Diocese of Salt Lake City later deemed “credible.”

Now Hambleton contends that the diocese has confirmed to him a wider issue: A powerful cleric occasionally destroyed documents in personnel files of priests.

Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald , the diocese’s longtime vicar general, told multiple priests about his purges of “information that could cast clergy in a poor light,” according to Robert Moriarty, a former priest in the diocese.

“I came to assume that this practice was common knowledge,” Moriarty, a friend of Hambleton, wrote in a letter provided last summer to the diocese’s internal review board during its investigation.

In a meeting earlier this month, Hambleton said, Bishop Oscar Solis told him that the diocese found “credible” the allegation that Fitzgerald had destroyed documents — but that its conclusions would never be made public.

“Such secrecy perpetuates harm rather than healing,” Hambleton said in a statement, “it denies justice and transparency, deepens the wounds borne by survivors of clergy sexual abuse, and further undermines the moral credibility of the church.”

The case

Hambleton first alleged in a December 2024 letter to Solis, leader of Utah’s 300,000 Catholics, that the Rev. Heriberto Castrellion Mejia molested him when he was 16 years old. After a seven-month independent investigation and the publication of an exclusive Salt Lake Tribune story last summer, the diocese determined that Hambleton’s allegations against Mejia were “credible” and publicly apologized for the priest’s actions.

Hambleton, a former principal of The Madeleine Choir School who had dreamed of becoming a priest, was “grateful” for the diocese’s decision, he said back then. But he remained “deeply disappointed” that those priests he believed helped conceal the alleged abuse were not mentioned.

The 52-year-old educator pointed specifically to retired Monsignor Robert Bussen, who served as vicar general at the time, and Fitzgerald, who later took over that role.

Hambleton noted that Bussen and Fitzgerald together held the office of vicar general, essentially a deputy to the bishop, for 30 years. “Their moral and administrative failures contributed to a culture of sexual abuse and misconduct,” Hambleton wrote at the time. “Revoking their priestly faculties would represent a necessary step toward … transparency and accountability.”

But the diocese told him it wanted to investigate further.

Fast-forward to this year. Hambleton said he was invited to meet in person on Jan. 10 with Solis todiscuss the diocese’s findings about the two priests.

The bishop informed him in that meeting, according to Hambleton, that it had finished its investigation. The former seminarian had alleged that Bussen had “knowledge of” Mejia’s misconduct and “failed to act during his tenure as vicar general.”

Hambleton said in his response this month that Solis determined the assertion about Bussen was “unsubstantiated.”

The former parishioner said the bishop did conclude that Fitzgerald had “tampered with and destroyed official church documents during his tenure as vicar general.”

That claim was further buoyed by the letter from Moriarty.

Fitzgerald “first told me that he would destroy files after I returned from a leave of absence in 2000. As part of my return, I had undergone a psychological evaluation, and I was concerned that it remain confidential,” Moriarty wrote to the diocese’s review board. “He told me not to worry and that he had made sure there was nothing in my personnel file apart from basic biographical information. He went on to say that he would occasionally purge priest personnel files.”

Through the years, Fitzgerald mentioned to Moriarty “at least four more times that he engaged in this practice,” wrote Moriarty, who went on to become a Salt Lake City attorney . “Because I found it odd, I remember talking with four other priests (all of whom are now deceased) about what Msgr. Fitzgerald had told me regarding shredding files. All four of them said he had told them the same thing.”

Diocese responds

In response to questions from The Tribune about this month’s meeting between the bishop and Hambleton, the diocese reiterated in a statement that it found allegations about Mejia “credible and believable,” and repeated Solis’ earlier apology.

The statement said the diocese conducted an “internal canonical investigation” about the allegation that Fitzgerald, who died Jan. 14 at age 89, had destroyed documents.

“This internal investigation is complete,” the statement said, “and the diocese has taken steps to address its findings.”

The diocese did not detail any of those findings or if Fitzgerald or anyone else had disposed of records.

According to Hambleton, Solis told him in their meeting that Fitzgerald “would retain his status as a retired priest in good standing within the diocese.”

Among Hambleton’s other allegations was that Fitzgerald had “disparaged victims of sex abuse.” That was the reason, Hambleton said, why he never told Fitzgerald or any other clergy about Mejia at the time.

When Fitzgerald retired as vicar general in 2011, a Tribune profile quoted a leader in the diocese saying that “Fitzgerald met with every victim of abuse.” Fitzgerald himself said in that article that the diocese“ never had leadership that covered up abuse or transferred priests with problems.”

Yet “behind closed doors,” Hambleton insists in his statement, the vicar general “demeaned and insulted some of the very same victims who may have met with him in good faith.”

Hambleton said in his statement that Solis told him in their recent meeting that this accusation was “credible.”

The diocese’s statement made no mention of that.

“Bishop Solis informed me that he does not intend to remove Msgr. Fitzgerald’s faculties,” Hambleton said in his statement. “Instead, minimal penalties were imposed — amounting to little more than a private reprimand. Among them, Msgr. Fitzgerald must privately admit his misconduct and apologize to Bishop Solis. The bishop told me that he does not intend to disclose Msgr. Fitzgerald’s misconduct to the faithful, and that he will not issue a press release.”

By not alerting Utah Catholics of substantiated misconduct by a senior diocesan official, Hambleton said, Solis “has chosen a course that prioritizes secrecy over accountability. Having investigated an entrenched culture of concealment that enables abuse within the church, he has now reaffirmed it through his own decision.”

Hambleton also said that “canon law rightly considers the destruction of church records to be a grave offense — so serious that it permits a bishop to remove priestly faculties from the offender.”

The diocese did not make Solis available for an interview.

In 2018, the Salt Lake City diocese released the names of 19 clerics facing “credible allegations” of sexual misconduct with minors. Meija, who had lost his priestly faculties in fall 1992, was not on that tally.

A year later, the diocese published an independent review that included Mejia on a list of 23 clergymen facing abuse allegations within its parishes.

Appealing to higher-ups

After meeting with Solis, Hambleton said he wrote to Archbishop George Leo Thomas , leader of the Las Vegas archdiocese, asking for “assistance and pastoral intervention.”

According to Hambleton, Solis had told him that he had consulted with Thomas and “the archbishop advised him to respond the way he did.”

After outlining the case, the allegations and the diocese’s findings in his letter to Thomas, Hambleton asked the archbishop “to consider the gravity of this situation and the dangerous precedent it sets … and to advise Bishop Solis to share the findings of his investigation with the faithful of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.”

Thomas replied that he had “consistently applied the principles of transparency and full disclosure when addressing claims of sexual abuse in these dioceses,” according to a copy of the letter provided by Hambleton. “At the same time, it is important to note that during the 1970s through the 1990s, bishops frequently received reports from treatment facilities after sending clergy to these centers for evaluation. During those decades, it was commonplace for treatment facilities to send their aftercare reports with a bold heading marked ‘READ AND DESTROY.’”

When reached this week, the Las Vegas archdiocese declined to comment further.

At a Jan. 20 funeral Mass for Fitzgerald, who had battled cancer and heart failure in his final years, Solis said the priest felt sorrow for any pain he caused others.

“He was grateful, had genuine sorrow for any hurt he had caused, asked for forgiveness with humility, and sought reconciliation and peace with God and with others,” said the bishop, according to the Intermountain Catholic.
“He personally expressed this to me when I last visited him in the hospital a few days before he died. He died in peace, confident of the mercy of God, and asked forgiveness of the church he loved and of the people he might have hurt.”

Going forward, Hambleton said, “the full extent of [the vicar general’s] destruction [of files] can never be known. Nor can it be known how many crimes may have been concealed, or how many victims of clergy sexual abuse may have been silenced or further harmed as a result.”

That, he said, “is the irreversible nature of document destruction.”

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2026/01/27/catholic-abuse-powerful-utah/

The Church of England has scrambled to defend the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury’s safeguarding record amid ongoing complaints from an “abuse” victim.

The Rt Rev Dame Sarah Mullally is the Bishop of London and is set to legally become the 106th – and first female – Archbishop of Canterbury at a ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday.

She has faced accusations of mishandling a complaint from an alleged abuse victim, known as Survivor N, who claims that he was groped and asked to perform a sex act by a priest.

The priest also allegedly invited Survivor N to his flat and proceeded to change clothes, which involved stripping down to his underpants, before talking about his sex life and suggesting there was a “sexual attraction” between himself and his guest.

Survivor N claims Dame Sarah mishandled his complaint against the priest and failed him by claiming that his complaint had been “fully dealt with”, and also by sending a confidential email about the allegations directly to the priest accused of the sexual assault. The allegations threaten to pile pressure on her ahead of her imminent installation as Archbishop.

The Church of England has come to Dame Sarah’s defence, claiming she addresses safeguarding concerns with “care and rigour”.

The Rt Rev Dr Joanne Grenfell, the lead bishop on safeguarding, published a statement saying she has seen Dame Sarah’s “full commitment to safeguarding – strengthening systems and processes, and improving the culture across a large, complex organisation”.

As a result, Survivor N criticised the “galling betrayal” of abuse victims and dismissed the praise as “a slap in the face” and “a cruel untruth”.

Survivor N said Bishop Grenfell’s defence of Dame Sarah epitomised “the very worst of the Church of England’s double-speak – talking out of both sides of your mouth – around safeguarding”.

He added: “For Joanne Grenfell to praise Sarah Mullally’s record of dealing with clergy abuse while there are live and active safeguarding complaints against her, which are currently being investigated by the Bishop of Winchester, feels like a galling betrayal of both Survivor O and myself.

Last week The Telegraph revealed that, as well as Survivor N, a second victim was allegedly targeted by the priest in question. The alleged second victim, a Church of England clergy member whom The Telegraph is referring to as Survivor O, claims that the priest confronted them, while fully naked, and sexually propositioned them.

Although Dame Sarah had no involvement in Survivor O’s case and no complaint was ever made, because Survivor O felt “intimidated”, the latest allegation has put renewed pressure on her.

Dame Sarah’s predecessor, Justin Welby, was forced to resign in a separate scandal over his mishandling of abuse claims.

Bishop Grenfell said: “[Dame Sarah] gets it, she cares about it and she prioritises it.”

In a statement released this weekend, she added: “In areas where poor practice had gone unchallenged in the past, she didn’t look away. She tackled issues with clarity and principle and made sure concerns were followed through with care and rigour.”

She added that Dame Sarah “has taken care to listen, resource and act, and ensure complaints are handled properly… She is committed to taking the next steps towards greater independence in safeguarding across the Church – as Synod has voted for – with external scrutiny underpinned by legislation, survivor engagement embedded and practice kept robust and accountable at every level”.

Documents seen by The Telegraph show that the Church’s own officials are currently looking into Survivor N’s case, which, he suggests, shows that six years after making his complaint, it is neither resolved nor “fully dealt with” as Dame Sarah claimed in a statement published last month.

As a result, Survivor N filed an official complaint, known as a Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM), against Dame Sarah. The CDM remains outstanding and is being looked at by the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen.

Archbishop of York dismissed Survivor N’s claims

Furthermore, earlier this month, a previous CDM made by Survivor N against Dame Sarah over her handling of his complaint against the priest was dismissed by her closest ranking colleague, the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell.

Survivor N has indicated that he will appeal the dismissal of this CDM. This would mean that there would be two live CDMs against Dame Sarah as she becomes the Church of England’s top bishop.

LANSING (MI)
Native News Online [Grand Rapids, MI]

December 19, 2025

By Levi Rickert

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel on Thursday announced the launch of a statewide criminal investigation into Indian boarding schools and related institutions that once operated in Michigan.

The Department of Attorney General will work to identify, document and investigate potential criminal conduct at the schools and pursue prosecutions when warranted.

The department is asking survivors, witnesses and others with firsthand knowledge to come forward with information that could assist the investigation.

“This investigation seeks to bring truth and accountability to a painful chapter in our state’s history,” Nessel said. “My office is committed to ensuring that survivors’ voices are heard and that any criminal acts uncovered are thoroughly investigated and, when possible, prosecuted.”

The Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition (NABS) reports that eight Indian boarding schools operated in Michigan. The two largest were the Holy Childhood of Jesus School, which operated in Harbor Springs from 1829 to 1983, and the Michigan Indian Industrial Boarding School, which operated in Mount Pleasant from 1893 to 1934.

On Aug. 13, 2022, then–Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland (Bay Mills Indian Community) held a listening session during the second stop of “The Road to Healing” tour at Pellston High School’s gymnasium. Throughout the day, dozens of Indian boarding school survivors and their descendants gave testimony, sharing stories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse that occurred at the schools.

“I am pleased with Attorney General Nessel for taking steps to hold accountable any individuals, institutions, or systems that abused Native American children during the Indian Mission and Boarding School era, which lasted until 1984,” Sault Ste. Marie Tribal Councillor Aaron Payment said to Native News Online. “During Secretary Haaland’s Road to Healing tour, one by one, victims stood in solidarity and testified, often weeping and naming their perpetrator as Sister X or Father Y. Case by case, such physical assault and corporate punishment could be excused away, but collectively, you see a clear pattern of systemic racism and abuse that was allowed to happen. These schools operated by states with federal funds under the guise of civilizing and educating the “savages.”

“The true intention was to decimate the very fabric and social systems of American Indian life that have had lasting impacts called historical and intergenerational trauma,” Payment continued.

Anyone with information related to the investigation may contact the Department of Attorney General by email or by phone at 517-897-7391. Tips may be submitted anonymously. Additional information is available on the department’s Native Boarding School Investigation webpage.

https://nativenewsonline.net/currents/michigan-attorney-general-opens-criminal-investigation-into-indian-boarding-schools

NEWARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com [Woodland Park, NJ]

December 30, 2025

By Amanda Wallace

A judge has denied the Delbarton School’s request for a new trial, months after a jury unanimously awarded $5 million to a former student who sued the all-boys Catholic school, alleging sexual assault by one of its monks nearly five decades earlier.

In a decision filed Dec. 29, state Superior Court Judge Louis Sceusi denied a motion brought by the Morris County school, ruling that the record fails to establish “clear and convincing evidence” of any miscarriage of justice that would require a legal do-over.

The jury arrived at a “fair and well-reasoned verdict” after its five-week trial this fall, Sceusi wrote.

The unanimous Oct. 8 verdict was a milestone, hailed by clergy abuse victims and advocates. It was the first civil sex abuse lawsuit against the Catholic Church to go to a jury in New Jersey since the state extended its statute of limitations in 2019. It was also the first of dozens of clergy abuse claims against Delbarton to reach a trial, though the school has settled others.

During the trial, the 65-year-old plaintiff, identified only as “T.M.” to protect his privacy, alleged that the Rev. Richard Lott abused him on New Year’s Day in 1976, when he was attending the Morris Township school.

Lott, 89, denied the accusations, stating in his testimony that he was not on campus on the date of the alleged assault and was instead serving as a parish priest in Lakewood. He said he had never had sex with anyone.

The six-person jury at the Morris County Courthouse ultimately ruled that the abuse had occurred and that both Lott and Delbarton were liable for T.M.’s suffering. Jurors spared Delbarton a further financial hit, however, when they decided not to award punitive damages on top of their $5 million compensatory award.

The case for retrial

In an Oct. 28 state court filing, Delbarton and the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which operates the school, complained of a “litany of errors” from “start to finish” at the trial, requesting a retrial.

The defendants applied for a mistrial six times but were denied by Sceusi each time, the motion noted.

In the filing, the Morris County school and the Order of St. Benedict argued that terminology used by the plaintiff’s attorney at the trial was “intentional and inflammatory” and “irreparably tainted the jury’s perception of the case.”

The filing also cited the exclusion of the order’s medical expert from testifying, allegedly improper statements by T.M.’s attorney, and misconduct by a juror that led to his removal. A new trial is “required to preserve the integrity of the judicial process,” it added.

More: Can Delbarton recover from $5M sex assault verdict? ‘Stakes are high’ as jury reconvenes

On top of that, James Barletti, a lawyer for Delbarton and the Order of St. Benedict, deemed the $5 million award “excessive.” The school was found 65% liable for the award, with Lott responsible for the rest.

Rayna Kessler, an attorney for T.M., dismissed the motion as “nothing more than Delbarton and OSBNJ’s continued refusal to accept accountability.” The $5 million award was not excessive, she told NorthJersey.com.

Judge denies Delbarton’s request for new trial

In his ruling Monday, Sceusi wrote that he found no evidence that the plaintiff’s counsel’s remarks “irreparably influenced the jury” and said the exclusion of the medical expert’s testimony was justified.

The court also found that the issue of juror misconduct was handled as required by law, according to the ruling.

“In review of the entire record the court sees no substantial prejudice or injustice to either party. The proceedings as a whole were even handed and fair,” reads the decision. “The court acted appropriately, under the circumstances, and the jury’s verdict represents a sound reasonable evaluation of the evidence.”

The judge also determined that the $5 million award is “neither excessive nor unsupported by the evidence.”

“The court has spoken, and the jury’s voice has been upheld,” Kessler said in an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon. “This case was the first of many to go to a jury under the 2019 law, and this ruling ensures that the precedent set by this jury stands firm.”

She continued, “After nine years of contentious litigation, it is time for Delbarton to stop fighting the truth and start accepting accountability. True healing for its many victims cannot occur until the school finally reconciles with its past failures.”

Barletti did not respond to a request for comment on the judge’s decision. Delbarton spokesperson Jessica Fiddes declined to comment, citing the school’s policy against speaking on active litigation.

By Amanda Wallace

 

by Sam Borcia

A leader at a church in Winthrop Harbor was arrested and gave a full admission that he repeatedly sexually assaulted a child, beginning when she was as young as six years old and spanning years.

Greg R. Douma, 58, of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, was charged with one count of repeated sexual assault of a child, three counts of first-degree child sexual assault and one count of incest.

The Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin Police Department responded on November 23 to the 9100 block of 39th Avenue in Pleasant Prairie to meet with a DCFS worker for a report of a sexual abuse allegation at the residence.

Police learned the female victim was a patient at a mental health hospital where she told staff that she had been sexually abused by a relative, identified as Douma, according to a criminal complaint.

The child, who is under the age of 13, said that Douma was “doing things to her that make babies.”

The girl was transported to the child advocacy centre for an interview on December 3.

The victim told investigators that when she was six or seven years old, Douma asked her if she wanted to watch something on a phone, the complaint said.

The girl said she was obsessed with watching kitchen videos at the time. She laid on the bed on her stomach watching the videos on the phone, and Douma sexually assaulted her, the complaint said.

The victim explained to investigators in detail how it occurred and said that it continued to happen because she “got to watch videos, and he got to do his… You know when men and women put private to private, and it makes them feel good.”

The complaint said Douma told the girl that he should not do that and that it was illegal, while saying to the girl that if she told anyone, then his wife would divorce him.

The assaults continued for years until she was approximately 12 years old.

The child told investigators that she called Douma this month and he asked her not to tell anyone, but she told him she was not going to lie anymore, to which he responded, “Okay,” according to the complaint said.

Detectives interviewed Douma on Friday at the Pleasant Prairie Police Department, and he confessed, on video, that everything the girl had claimed about sexual assault was true, the complaint said.

Douma said the assaults occurred on and off over the years, and he did not know how many times in total,l but that it happened most frequently over the past two years, the complaint said. He added that it “happened an awful lot over the years.”

Douma was an elder at The Point in Winthrop Harbor where he served with the church’s AIM children’s ministry doing security. The church has since removed Douma from its website and YouTube channel.

Court records show Douma appeared in Kenosha County Court on Monday and was ordered held in the Kenosha County Jail on a $50,000 cash bond.

Douma posted the bond and was released from jail with pre-trial conditions. He is scheduled to appear in court again on December 16 for a preliminary hearing.

Douma faces a potential combined prison sentence of 280 years if he is convicted of all charges, sentenced to the maximum for each, and each sentence runs consecutively.

by Sam Borcia

A deacon at a church in Round Lake has been suspended after the Archdiocese announced an investigation into him regarding the sexual abuse of children.

Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich announced the news in a letter to members of St. Joseph Catholic Church, 114 North Lincoln Avenue in Round Lake, on Wednesday.