TITLE: The ‘faith-based’ leader for Philly’s Moms for Liberty chapter is a registered sex offender
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/philadelphia/moms-for-liberty-philadelphia-pastor-sex-offender-20231120.html
EXCERPT: Phillip Fisher Jr. is a pastor and Republican ward leader who coordinates faith-based outreach for Philadelphia’s Moms for Liberty chapter.
He’s also a registered sex offender, due to a 2012 felony conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy when Fisher was 25.
Fisher insists that he did nothing wrong, despite pleading guilty to one of 12 counts filed against him after an investigation by the Chicago Police Department, according to court records obtained by The Inquirer.
Fisher was living in Chicago at the time. But he’s from Philadelphia and has since returned and become active in local politics.
He is the pastor at the Center of Universal Divinity in Olney and works with Moms for Liberty, a national conservative organization that bills itself as a defender of parental rights, by connecting the Philadelphia chapter with other local faith leaders in an effort to grow the group.
He said his conviction is the result of a “railroad job” concocted by the political action committee for Lyndon LaRouche, a fringe conspiracy theorist who ran repeatedly for president.
Fisher, who worked for LaRouche’s organization, called it “a cult” and said he was set up while trying to break free.
His criminal history came as a shock to Vince Fenerty, chair of Philadelphia’s Republican City Committee.
Fenerty said he was unaware of Fisher’s conviction until asked about it by The Inquirer last week. On Friday, he demanded and received Fisher’s resignation as leader of the 42nd Ward, which includes the neighborhoods of Olney, Feltonville, and Juniata Park.
A national spokesperson for Moms for Liberty did not respond to a request for comment about Fisher’s criminal history.
TITLE: Arizona judge rules church leaders are not responsible for reporting sexual abuse
https://baptistnews.com/article/arizona-judge-rules-church-leaders-are-not-responsible-for-reporting-sexual-abuse/
EXCERPT: Dickerson’s end-of-week ruling dismissed a high-profile child sexual abuse lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the basis of the state’s clergy-penitent privilege.
Clergy-penitent privilege is a legal privilege that protects information from being disclosed in criminal proceedings, such as in a deposition, if that information was obtained during a confidential conversation between clergy and penitent. This privilege allows those seeking clergy counsel to communicate freely with their religious leaders with the understanding that information shared in a counseling session or other private setting will not be disclosed without their express consent, even if that information contains the confession or discovery of a crime.
This privilege was relevant to Dickerson’s ruling because the case involved the disclosure to multiple defendants including “two bishops and several other officials with the church” to whom LDS church member Paul Adams allegedly confessed he was sexually abusing his daughter.
Although Adams was excommunicated from the church, his alleged crime never was reported to civil authorities, nor was it investigated by law enforcement officials or Child Protective Services. The defendants were not responsible for reporting Adams, Dickerson explained, “because their knowledge of the abuse came from confidential communications which fall within the clergy-penitent exception.”
However, the failure of these church leaders to report this alleged abuse allowed Adams to continue to sexually abuse his daughter for seven more years. During this time, he also began abusing a second daughter “starting when she was just 6 weeks old,” court records indicate. The abuse did not end until videos of Adams abusing his daughters that he recorded and posted on the internet were discovered by authorities in New Zealand and the United States. Before his trial, he died by suicide.
Lynne Cadigan, an attorney representing the two victims who filed the lawsuit, plans to appeal Dickerson’s ruling because she believes it misuses the clergy-penitent privilege by applying it to members of the church who were not accredited clergy. She says the defendants protected by this ruling include Adams’ wife, Leizza, and non-clergy members of the church disciplinary council.
Only accredited clergy, if the situation in which a confession occurs meets the criteria laid out in the clergy-penitent privilege, are exempt from reporting requirements. Yet Dickerson’s ruling treated the group’s knowledge as exchanges that “collectively amounted” to confidential communication protected under this law.
TITLE: Ohio priest sentenced to life in prison for sex trafficking
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/256059/ohio-priest-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-sex-trafficking
EXCERPT: Parish priest Michael Zacharias was convicted on five counts of sex trafficking by a federal jury in the Northern District of Ohio in May.
The priest had been arrested in 2020 on the charges, which included “coercion and enticement, sex trafficking of a minor, and sex trafficking of an adult by force, fraud, or coercion.”
Zacharias had engaged in sexual conduct with minors since the late 1990s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said at the time.
Upon his conviction in May, he faced a minimum of 15 years in prison. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Friday that the priest received a life sentence for the crimes.
Luis Quesada, an assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, said in the release that Zacharias “met his victims when they were as young as 5 and began exploiting them for commercial sex acts and enabling their resulting opioid addictions.”
The release said the priest met the victims “when they were minor parochial school students through his affiliation with their school.”
Zacharias “exploit[ed] his victims over extended periods as they developed opioid addictions and criminal records,” the release said. The priest later reportedly “manipulated the victims’ fears of opioid withdrawal and homelessness” to abuse them further.
“Michael Zacharias used his position as a trusted spiritual leader and role model for young boys and their families to exploit them in the most insidious ways, coercing his victims from childhood and beyond to engage in commercial sex with him,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in the press release.
“This sentence sends a very clear message that those who abuse their positions of power and authority to sexually assault and exploit children will be held accountable,” she continued.
“The Justice Department stands ready to fully enforce our federal human trafficking statutes while seeking justice for the survivors of these treacherous crimes.”
Upon learning of the abuse charges in 2020, Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas placed Zacharias on immediate administrative leave, forbidding him from exercising public priestly ministry or presenting himself as a priest while the claims were being investigated.
After his conviction earlier this year, the diocese said Zacharias’ case would “be presented to the Holy See, who will make the final judgment, which will lead to a determination of his status as a priest.”
In a statement on Friday, Thomas said Zacharias’ sentencing “marks another step towards justice for all of those harmed by his actions.”