Former L.A. priest pleads guilty to molesting a child 20 years ago

George Miller, 70, faces up to three years in prison. He also admits to three other cases that he can't be charged with.

By Richard Winton
December 3, 2008

A former Los Angeles priest pleaded guilty Tuesday to molesting a young boy 20 years ago and admitted to three other cases that he cannot be charged with because of a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the district attorney's office announced.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ann Marie Wise of the Sex Crimes Division said the admission by George Miller, 70, means that the three victims whose cases cannot be prosecuted will be allowed to address the court when he is sentenced Jan. 30 by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ulfig.

Miller, who has been free on bail since his arrest in July 2007, faces a three-year prison term, Wise said. He must serve at least 85% of that term before being eligible for parole consideration.

"No amount of prison time is sufficient for the crimes he has committed," Wise said.

The defendant was charged with molesting a boy that he met while assigned to the Guardian Angel Church in Pacoima. Authorities said Miller befriended the victim's mother and became a frequent guest at the family home.

He was charged with molesting the boy between March 1988 and March 1991.

In 2002, Miller was charged with molesting the victim's older brother and two other boys. But those charges were later dismissed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the California law that had extended the statute of limitations on child molestation for decades-old sexual abuse.

The district attorney's office also had to dismiss more than a dozen other cases against priests or former priests accused of child molestation.

The new case against Miller was filed in July 2007 after the victim came forward. The defendant was charged with six molestation counts.

Miller pleaded guilty to a lewd act on a child under the age of 14. The remaining counts will be dismissed after Miller is formally sentenced.

Miller's victims were among the more than 500 civil plaintiffs who received a record $660-million settlement last year from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Miller's confidential church files are the subject of a more than four-year court battle involving the district attorney's office and the archdiocese. Church officials argued that their disclosure to a county grand jury would violate priest-bishop communications and priests' privacy rights.

The archdiocese yielded after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 declined to hear an appeal.

Church officials said they got complaints about Miller in 1977 and 1989. In both cases, he denied wrongdoing.

In 1996, after Miller was accused of molesting a child, he was placed on leave. Church officials said Miller never returned to ministry and was reduced to lay status by the pope in May 2005.

Winton is a Times staff writer.

richard.winton@latimes.com

Times staff writer Duke Helfand contributed to this report.

Hello Again, I'm back

To everyone that follows my blog I'm sorry for not posting for a while, I'm just dealing with personal health problems at the moment almost all my time has gone to dealing with that. About a month ago I started having nightmares of my abuser still being alive and coming after my own child, that really shook me to the core and diverted me from posting.

Now I'm back with more passion to bringing more awareness to this horrible tragedy that so many people around the world face.

Again I like to thank all who frequent my blog, thank you for all the encouragement and support.

Charity: Aid workers raping, abusing children

This is a article from CNN back in May of 2008, I feel that I really needed to post it on my site today.

By Stephanie Busari
For CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Humanitarian aid workers and United Nation peacekeepers are sexually abusing small children in several war-ravaged and food-poor countries, a leading European charity has said.

Children like this 15-year-old girl have suffered abuse at the hands of some UN soldiers and aid workers.

Children as young as 6 have been forced to have sex with aid workers and peacekeepers in return for food and money, Save the Children UK said in a report released Tuesday.

After interviewing hundreds of children, the charity said it found instances of rape, child prostitution, pornography, indecent sexual assault and trafficking of children for sex.

"It is hard to imagine a more grotesque abuse of authority or flagrant violation of children's rights," said Jasmine Whitbread, chief executive of Save the Children UK. Watch a report on the abuse »

In the report, "No One To Turn To" a 15-year-old girl from Haiti told researchers: "My friends and I were walking by the National Palace one evening when we encountered a couple of humanitarian men. The men called us over and showed us their penises.

"They offered us 100 Haitian gourdes ($2.80) and some chocolate if we would suck them. I said, 'No,' but some of the girls did it and got the money."

Save the Children says that almost as shocking as the abuse itself is the "chronic under-reporting" of the abuses. It believes that thousands more children around the world could be suffering in silence.

According to the charity, children told researchers they were too frightened to report the abuse, fearful that the abuser would come back to hurt them and that they would stop receiving aid from agencies, or even be punished by their family or community.

"People don't report it because they are worried that the agency will stop working here, and we need them," a teenage boy in southern Sudan told Save the Children.

The charity's research was centered on Ivory Coast, southern Sudan and Haiti, but Save the Children said the perpetrators of sexual abuse of children could be found in every type of humanitarian organization at all levels.

Save the Children is calling for a global watchdog to tackle the problem and said it was working with the U.N. to establish local mechanisms that will allow victims to easily report abuse.

"We are glad that Save the Children continues to shed a light on this problem. It actually follows up on a report that we did in 2002 with Save the Children. I think every population in the world has to confront this problem of exploitation and abuse of children," said Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.

"The United Nations has a zero-tolerance policy. It's one that UNHCR takes very, very seriously. In refugee camps, we have implemented very strong reporting mechanisms so that refugees can come forward to report any abuses or alleged abuses."

In 2003, U.N. Nepalese troops were accused of sexual abuse while serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Six soldiers were jailed.

A year later, two U.N. peacekeepers were repatriated after being accused of abuse in Burundi, and U.N. troops were accused of rape and sexual abuse in Sudan.

Last year, the U.N. launched an investigation into sexual abuse claims in Ivory Coast.

The vast majority of aid workers were not involved in any form of abuse or exploitation but in "life-saving essential humanitarian work," Save the Children's Whitbread said.

But humanitarian and peacekeeping agencies working in emergency situations "must own up to the fact that they are vulnerable to this problem and tackle it head on," she said.

The aid agency said it had fired three workers for breaching its codes and called on others to do the same. The three men were dismissed in the past year for having had sex with girls aged 17, which the charity said is not illegal but is cause for loss of employment.

Other UK charities said they supported Save the Children's call for a global watchdog.

"Oxfam takes a zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct by its aid workers. All our staff across the world are held accountable by a robust code of conduct," said Jane Cocking, Oxfam charity's humanitarian director.

"We support Save the Children's calls for a global watchdog. We will do all we can to stamp out this intolerable abuse."

Disabled man pleads guilty to sex abuse in Niagara County

By Thomas J. Prohaska - NEWS NIAGARA BUREAU

LOCKPORT — A developmentally disabled man who has been deaf since birth pleaded guilty to three felony counts of child sexual abuse last week.

Christopher L. Eckert, who has been in a state psychiatric institution for the past five years, is expected to be spared prison time, although the maximum penalty for his offenses is 21 years behind bars.

Instead, he is likely to be placed on probation and committed to a state mental health facility, Niagara County Judge Sara Sheldon Sperrazza said Thursday. She scheduled sentencing for Dec. 18. In the meantime, Eckert signed a voluntary commitment order.

Eckert, 38, formerly of Limehouse Drive, Clarence, communicated with Sperrazza through American Sign Language used by his court-appointed attorney, Thomas Caserta Jr., and an official interpreter.

Caserta said Eckert reads at no more than a first-grade level and is “unable to perform daily tasks.” Despite that, he graduated from St. Mary’s School for the Deaf in 1991.

Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth R. Donatello said Eckert was ruled competent to stand trial earlier this year after almost five years of treatment by staff from the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities.

Eckert touched the private parts of three girls under the age of 11 in Niagara Falls and North Tonawanda.

“I did it. It’s my fault,” Eckert said. He pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct against one girl for a series of incidents between January 1999 and September 2001. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual abuse for single incidents with two other girls, both on March 22, 2003.

Eckert was indicted in June 2003 and arraigned in July of that year. By September 2003, Sperrazza had committed him to an institution.

Caserta said doctors concluded that Eckert’s brain damage and deafness were caused in the womb, because his mother contracted rubella, also known as German measles, while she was pregnant.

Sperrazza said there were many lengthy conferences in her chambers with Donatello, Caserta and state mental health officials, trying to resolve the case appropriately. The judge said Eckert is likely to be assigned to some type of residential facility.

Eckert, who wore a coat and tie to court, said through the interpreter that he would like to go home and see his brother. Not being allowed to do so “hurts my heart,” he said.