Pedophile, Jimmy Saville, Knighted by Vatican, a Serial Pedophile

Another blunder by Pope John Paul II
The head of the Catholic Church in Britain asked the Vatican to revoke the honor. Vatican says too late

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Another report says the number of his victims approaching 300

Berlusconi, another Maicel type

The story of Marcial Maciel, the Great Houdini of all legal system, ecclesiastical and civil, is not alone. There are other swindlers, criminals and gangsters like him. One of them is Silvio Berlusconi who has been able to escape punishment for decades. Even no, he was sentenced to 4 years but it was reduced to 1; and if his lawyers are successful he will never to go court. Remind you of anyone?

Silvio Berlusconi sentenced for tax fraud

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been handed a jail sentence and barred from office after being found guilty of tax fraud.

The Milan court sentenced him to four years but later cut it to one year because of an amnesty law.

Mr Berlusconi condemned the sentence as "intolerable judicial harassment". He will remain free pending appeals.

He and others were accused of buying US film rights at inflated prices via two offshore companies under his control.

It is the first time Mr Berlusconi - who has faced a number of trials - has been convicted of any crime concerning his business activities.

He has in the past either been cleared, or cases have run beyond the judicial time limit.

In 1997 he received a suspended sentence for false book-keeping but that conviction was reversed on appeal.

In the case for which he was sentenced on Friday, prosecutors argued that part of the money declared for the purchase of film rights was skimmed off to create illegal slush funds, reducing tax liabilities for Mr Berlusconi's Mediaset group.

The court handed Mr Berlusconi a longer sentence than the three years and eight months requested by prosecutors. However, it later announced that the sentence would be cut to one year due to a 2006 amnesty law aimed at reducing prison overcrowding.

It ordered him and his co-defendants to pay 10m euros (£8m) in damages and banned him from holding public office for three years.

Both the jail term and the ban would only take effect if the sentence is upheld by a higher court, Italian news agency Ansa reported.

"It is a political, incredible and intolerable judgement," Mr Berlusconi said on Italia 1 - one of the TV stations he owns.

"It is without any doubt a political verdict just as all the cases invented against me are political."

In all, 11 people were on trial.

Three were acquitted including Mediaset chairman Fedele Confalonieri, a close associate of Mr Berlusconi, and four were cleared because the statute of limitations had run out.

The three others convicted alongside the former prime minister included Hollywood producer Frank Agrama, who received a three-year sentence.

The trial began six years ago and has been subject to repeated delays, in part because of an immunity law that protected Mr Berlusconi while he was prime minister.

Sex case

The BBC's David Willey in Rome says Mr Berlusconi is unlikely ever to serve his sentence as the conviction first has to be confirmed by two successive courts of appeal.

The appeals could take years, he adds.

In February a court threw out a corruption case against him after the statute of limitations had expired.

He is also currently on trial charged with paying for sex with an underage girl and trying to cover it up. He denies any wrongdoing.

Mr Berlusconi, 76, has dominated Italian politics for most of the past 20 years.

He was forced to resign as the prime minister of a centre-right coalition last November, and recently said he had no plans to stand again in elections due next year.

He has repeatedly claimed that he is a victim of persecution by a left-wing judiciary.

Mr Berlusconi is not the first Italian prime minister to be convicted of a crime.

Bettino Craxi, a socialist who helped Mr Berlusconi to build his media empire, fled the country in 1994 to avoid imprisonment in a corruption trial and died in exile in Tunisia.

Victim #1 of Jerry Sandusky, Tonight at 10pm

The story of brave survivor who overcame adversity after abuse to bring Sandusky to justice
ABC "20/20" report

He was known only as Victim 1 in one of the most infamous child sexual abuse cases in history. But this week, Aaron Fisher revealed his identity to the world and, in an exclusive interview with "20/20's" Chris Cuomo, told the story of those he said stood in his way as he struggled to bring now-convicted child predator Jerry Sandusky to justice: officials at his own high school.

"Here I am, beside my mom, crying, telling them and they don't believe me," he said in an interview with Cuomo airing on "20/20" tonight at 10 p.m. ET. "I knew they wouldn't."

Fisher has detailed his struggle to have his allegations against Sandusky, formerly a revered Penn State University football coach, taken seriously in a new book,"Silent No More: Victim 1's Fight for Justice Against Jerry Sandusky," published today.

He was 11 when he met Jerry Sandusky in the summer of 2005. Fisher was selected to attend a summer camp run by Sandusky's charity organization for disadvantaged children, The Second Mile, on Penn State's campus.

Fisher said Sandusky immediately took a special interest in him. He encouraged Fisher's athletic interests, taking him to both college and pro sports events.

"We sat in box seats," said Fisher. "He was just kind of like a giant stuffed teddy bear. He seemed like the all-natural father figure -- something that most kids wished their dads did."

Watch the exclusive interview on "20/20" tonight at 10 p.m. ET.

Young Aaron came from a struggling family and didn't have a father at home. Dawn Daniels, Fisher's mother, recalled the times Sandusky took the boy away for the weekend to give her a break.

"Everybody knew who he was," said Daniels, "He's a great guy. Everybody, even my own father, said he does great things for kids."

Sandusky's reputation had preceded him and put Daniels at ease as far as allowing her son to spend so much time with Sandusky. But according to Fisher, Sandusky slowly turned from a "father figure" into something much darker.

"He'd put his hand on my leg while we were driving," Fisher said, "My family never did that, so it was kind of weird."

By the time Fisher was 12, Sandusky was sexually assaulting him. Fisher said fear, shame and confusion prevented him from seeking help and telling anyone about his tormentor.

"There were so many emotions and thoughts running through my head," he said. "Being a kid, you never know what to do, and you don't know who to tell because you don't know who you can trust."

Fisher said Sandusky began seeking him out at his own high school, Central Mountain High School in Lock Haven, Pa. Sandusky was a volunteer football coach there and would pull him out of class, with school officials' blessing.

Daniels said the school never notified her about all of the classes her son missed because of Sandusky and Fisher said no teacher or administrator ever questioned Sandusky's motives.

It grew to be too much and Fisher said he tried to do everything in his power to stay away from the ex-Penn State coach, sometimes hiding in school bathrooms rather to avoid meeting with Sandusky. But Sandusky only grew more aggressive, Fisher said.

"He once followed my bus home from school," he said. "I took off running but he drove on the opposite side of the street, onto oncoming traffic to catch up with me. I ran up an alley and he went to my house and parked out front."

Daniels said she was alarmed by the hundreds of phone calls Sandusky made to the house. By the time Fisher was 15, he reached a breaking point and finally summoned the courage to tell his mother and the school's principal, Karen Probst, that Sandusky was sexually abusing him.

"Aaron was melting down in the office," Daniels said. "I immediately told them we need to call the police."

But the mother and son say they were shocked by the principal's response.

"They said that Jerry has a heart of gold and that he wouldn't do those type of things," Daniels said "They tell me to go home and think about it."

Daniels did not follow their advice. Instead she says she told Probst that she would be notifying Clinton County Children and Youth Services of the allegations directly.

Daniels and Fisher later learned that Central Mountain High School officials did call CYS, but they say the call only came after the mother and son left the principal's office. School officials are legally mandated to report all allegations of child sex abuse and have said that the allegations were reported immediately.

For Fisher, the initial suggestion that those meant to protect him did not believe his story was crushing.

Clinton County CYS psychologist Michael Gillum was one of the first to handle Fisher's case.

"It was obvious to me immediately that he was upset, that something had, in fact, happened to him," Gillum told "20/20."

Gillum said he was shocked by the claim that Central Mountain's principal, Probst, had told Fisher and Daniels to go home.

When confronted outside the school by "20/20", both Probst and football coach Steve Turchetta -- who pulled Fisher out of his classes for meetings with Sandusky -- declined to answer questions. In grand jury testimony, Turchetta said that he took kids out of class for those meetings even though he developed suspicions about the relationships.

Much to Fisher's dismay, coming forward with the allegations was only the beginning of a long battle to bring Sandusky to justice. It would take years for an arrest.

"The broken promises, the numbers of state troopers," Fisher said, "and he's not even in jail."

Sandusky was interviewed by CYS but he laughed off the allegations, painting Fisher as a troubled kid, Gillum said.

Meanwhile, the police made Fisher retell his story four times over the course of three years. He was forced to go before two grand juries. Yet still, the attorney general prosecuting the case said authorities needed more victims to charge Sandusky.

To Fisher, it meant his suffering was not enough.

Fisher said every delay in the case caused him to grow increasingly desperate and drove him to contemplate suicide.

"I thought maybe it would be easier to take myself out of the equation," he said. "Let somebody else deal with it."

Finally, in 2011, there was a break in the case. Allegations surfaced from a Penn State coach, Mike McQueary, that he had witnessed Sandusky molesting a boy in a university locker room years earlier.

On Nov. 5, 2011, just before Fisher's 18th birthday, Jerry Sandusky was arrested following an indictment by a grand jury on more than 40 counts of child sexual abuse. In June 2012, Sandusky was tried and convicted on 45 of 48 counts. He was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison, a virtual life sentence for the 68-year-old man.

"I wasn't expecting it," Fisher said, "I was kind of thinking that he'd get off scot free with this."

Though the conviction was a victory, Sandusky was not the only adult who Fisher felt betrayed his trust. Fisher still has questions for the teachers and administrators at his high school.

"It's a fact that I lost a good portion of my childhood," he said. "I endured heartaches and numerous amounts of people who didn't believe me and walked away from me."

Watch the full story on "20/20" tonight at 10 p.m. ET.

Chilean Bishop accused of Sex Abuse Resigns

bishop and now 30 year old victim who went public to bring bishop to justice

Suggest you read this emblematic story which illustrates how these cases can occur; you will see parallels with cases of abuse described on this and other blogs (www.regainnetwork.org) and in Vows of Silence (book and documentary) perpetrated by Fr. Maciel and by other Legionary of Christ members.

The Vatican appears to have taken a strong stance in this case

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The pope on Tuesday accepted the resignation of a Chilean bishop who is under investigation by the Vatican for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor.

The resignation of Bishop Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez of Iquique, Chile, marks one of the few times that the Vatican has acknowledged publicly that it was investigating a bishop for sex abuse allegations. Advocates for clerical sex abuse victims have long complained that the Vatican has looked the other way when bishops have been accused of abuse or of covering it up.

The Vatican said Tuesday that the pope has accepted Ordenes' resignation under the code of canon law that says a bishop must resign if he is sick or because some other "grave" reason makes him unsuitable for his job.

The 47-year-old Ordenes suffers from a liver ailment and has been seeking medical treatment. But the Vatican Embassy in Santiago confirmed Oct. 2 that it had been investigating Ordenes since April, and was offering psychological and other care to "those affected."

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that the link between the resignation and the investigation "can be considered obvious."

Ordenes is accused of abusing a 15-year-old altar boy in the northern city of Iquique. The former bishop admits he had "an imprudent act" with his accuser but says that he met him in 1999 when he was 17 and that they had a relationship when he was no longer underage.

"My conscience is clear before God and that's what matters," Ordenes told Chilean newspaper La Tercera in a recent interview.

His accuser, Rodrigo Pino, 30, says the abuse began when he was 15. At first, he said it was forced, but then they became lovers.

The Associated Press doesn't normally name victims of alleged sexual abuse, but Pino has gone very public with his claims.

"We began a friendship because I showed him my interest in becoming a priest. I became very involved with him and then the abuses began," Pino told Chilean ADN radio. "He would tell me that he was like a father to me and I was like his son, his lover, his brother and friend. ... At first the abuse was forced because I was a boy who fell in love."

The Vatican embassy is taking charge of the investigation because Ordenes is a bishop. Usually, a priest accused of sexually abusing children is investigated by his bishop, who then sends the case to the Vatican for review if he finds a semblance of truth to the accusations.

Lombardi said the fact that the case was now before the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles cases of clerics accused of the sexual abuse of minors, indicates that the investigation concerns the allegation that Ordenes abused Pino when he was underage.

A handful of U.S. bishops have resigned after facing sex abuse allegations. More recently, the then-Bishop of Bruges, Belgium, Roger Vangheluwe, quit in 2010 after admitting he had molested his nephew for years starting when he a young boy. The Vatican later sanctioned him. Earlier this year, the Vatican laicized a Canadian bishop who was convicted of child porn possession.

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