Mystery after basketball coach, fiance murdered in parking lot

This post has been corrected. See the note below for details.

Family and friends had only praise for a Cal State Fullerton coach and her fiance Monday, a day after the recently engaged college sweethearts were found fatally shot in the parking structure of their condominium near UC Irvine.

The bodies of Monica Quan, an assistant women's basketball coach, and Keith Lawrence, who worked as a campus officer at USC, were discovered Sunday night in their parked car on the top floor of the parking structure at the upscale, high-security condominium complex.

They were each shot multiple times, and authorities said they have
tentatively ruled out the possibility of the crime being a murder-suicide or
motivated by robbery.

Those that knew the couple said they were shaken by the news.

Marcia Foster, the head basketball
coach at Cal State Fullerton, described her assistant as a special
person: "bright, passionate and empowering."

"I'm sorry we're gathered here today for news like this," Foster said at a campus news
conference Monday. "There just aren't words."

Friends said Quan shared a love of basketball with Lawrence, whom she met at Concordia University in Irvine, where the two played basketball. A tweet from Concordia on Monday described the two as "incredible alum."

Lawrence was a standout player, both at Concordia, where he helped lead his team to the 2007 NAIA national championship game, and at Moorpark High, where he was a starter.

Tim Bednar,
who coached Lawrence at Moorpark, said the point guard and shooting guard came from a family of athletes, was
talented, yet quiet and humble. After Lawrence graduated in 2003, he
continued to participate in summer youth camps.

When he returned for the camps, Bednar said, he was known as the "best basketball player that ever came through" the school.

"He was awesome with the kids," Bednar said. "They all wanted to be around Keith Lawrence."

Lawrence's friends and family put up a Facebook page. "RIP Keith
Lawrence, you will be missed," it said. Within hours, 840 people had
left comments or indicated they "liked" it. Concordia put up a link to
Lawrence's game-winning shot that carried the school into a post-season
tournament.

Michelle Thibeault, 27, said in a Facebook message that she had known
Quan for more than a decade. The two were on the same athletic teams
and went to junior high and high school together. "Monica was loved by
everyone," she said.

During a somber gathering at the Cal State Fullerton gymnasium Monday, Foster said: "We just shared a moment of incredible joy on her recent engagement. A bright light was just put out."

[Updated, 9:35 a.m. Feb.5: An earlier version of this post attributed a statement about Monica Quan to Quan's brother, Ryan. It should have been attributed to Marcia Foster, head basketball
coach at Cal State Fullerton.]

About 40 people later gathered at Walnut High School to remember Quan, whose aunt described her as "vivacious and energetic."

“Monica is like the daughter we never had,” Nicki Lew said.

ALSO:

2 women slain in rural Riverside County

Students sever fingers during game of tug of war

Woman and child abducted at Sam's Club in Orange County

-- Nicole Santa Cruz, Lauren Williams and Kate Mather

Read More..

Europol Investigation Shows Fixing Is Suspected in 680 Soccer Matches

Soccer is known throughout much of the world as the beautiful game. But the sport’s ugliest side — the scourge of match-fixing — will not go away.

With next summer’s World Cup in Brazil drawing closer, a European police intelligence agency said Monday that a 19-month investigation revealed widespread occurrences of match-fixing in recent years, with nearly 700 games globally deemed suspicious. The list of matches is staggering and encompasses about 380 games in Europe, covering World Cup and European championship qualifiers, as well as Champions League games, including one match played in England.

Officials of Europol, an agency that works with countries across the continent, offered details that strike at the sport’s core: nearly $11 million in profits and nearly $3 million in bribes were discovered during the investigation, which uncovered “match-fixing activity on a scale we have not seen before,” said Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol.

Fixers typically seek to dictate a game’s result by corrupting the players or the on-field officials, and officials said Monday that roughly 425 people were under suspicion because of the investigation, with 50 people having been arrested. The scope of the investigation covered games from 2008 to 2011.

An organized crime syndicate based in Asia is believed to be the driving force behind the fixing activity, which stretches across at least 15 countries, officials said. Individual bribes were, in some instances, upward of $136,000, and fixers would place bets on the tainted matches through bookmakers in Asia. Various matches in Africa, Asia and South and Central America were identified as suspicious, though the European element of the investigation is the most significant.

“This is a sad day for European football,” Wainwright said at a news conference in the Netherlands, adding: “It is clear to us this is the biggest-ever investigation into suspected match-fixing in Europe. It has yielded major results, which we think have uncovered a big problem for the integrity of football in Europe.”

But officials at the news conference repeatedly dodged questions from reporters on how many of the 680 matches cited were previously known and how many were newly discovered.

Nor would they identify any of the teams and individuals newly linked to match-fixing, citing the need to guard the confidentiality of police procedures.

Still, the breadth of the investigation was significant, and it inspired strong reactions from global fans. Even as the news conference continued, fans took to social media to speculate on which matches might have been fixed, with a particular fascination as to what English Champions League contest drew the investigators’ scrutiny. Indeed, the notion that corruption has been identified in British soccer, home of the English Premier League, the world’s most popular grouping, will reverberate globally.

“It would be naïve and complacent of those in the U.K. to think such a criminal conspiracy does not involve the English game and all the football in Europe,” Wainwright said.

Europol and Interpol officials said an international arrest warrant had been issued for the ringleader of the Asian syndicate so that he can be extradited to Europe to face fraud and bribery charges.

Europol did not publicly identify the ringleader, but several knowledgeable law enforcement officials later said on condition of anonymity that it was a man based in Singapore known as Dan Tan. They said Tan had been implicated in match-fixing cases dating to 1999.

The conclusion of Europol’s investigation comes after a slew of high-profile incidents. Last month FIFA, the sport’s governing body, barred 41 players for fixing matches in South Korea; in December 2012 the president of the South African Football Association was suspended after FIFA determined that four exhibition matches before the 2010 World Cup had been fixed; and last summer a complex match-fixing network was discovered in Italy, rocking that country’s high-profile professional leagues.

David Jolly contributed reporting from The Hague.

Read More..

BlackBerry shares jump after Bernstein upgrades stock

TORONTO (Reuters) – Shares of BlackBerry rose more than 8 percent in on Monday after Bernstein Research said it was upgrading the stock to “outperform” after last week’s launch of the company’s new line of BlackBerry 10 smartphones.

The brokerage firm, which has not had an “outperform” rating on the stock for more than three years, also lifted its price target to $ 22 from $ 12, saying it has grown much more confident about the success of the smartphones, powered by the new BlackBerry 10 operating system.

Shares of BlackBerry, which is in the process of changing its legal name from Research In Motion, rose 8.9 percent to $ 14.18 in early Nasdaq trading. BlackBerry’s Toronto-listed shares were up 9.1 percent at C$ 14.21 at 10:30 EST.

The stock began trading under the “BBRY” symbol on Nasdaq on Monday and under the “BB” symbol on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The stock used to trade as “RIMM” on the Nasdaq and “RIM” on the TSX.

“We upgrade BlackBerry to outperform today as we believe BB 10 is set for a strong launch,” Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu said in a note to clients. “Even if the long-term prospects for the platform are very uncertain, we believe all is in place for BlackBerry 10 to enjoy a great debut.”

BlackBerry, a one-time pioneer in the smartphone industry, has ceded market share in recent years to the likes of Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy line and a slew of devices powered by Google Inc’s market-leading Android operating system.

In a make-or-break move to regain market share and return to profit, BlackBerry introduced its new line of smartphones to much fanfare on Wednesday. However, its stock fell more than 10 percent following the launch as investors were disappointed that the new smartphones will only go on sale in mid-March in the crucial U.S. market.

“The strength of this launch is overlooked by investors, creating strong opportunity to buy BlackBerry,” said Ferragu, adding that he expects strong initial corporate demand for the new devices.

“We believe BlackBerry should trade in the $ 20-$ 25 range once a decent launch for Blackberry 10 and a stabilized trajectory for fiscal year 2014 are priced in,” he said.

BlackBerry unveiled both a touch-screen device and a physical-keyboard device last week. While the traditional keyboard model only goes on sale in April, the touch-screen device is already on sale in the United Kingdom and hits store shelves in Canada this week.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry said the U.S. launch was delayed until mid-March because U.S. wireless carriers have a longer testing phase than carriers in other countries. The devices, which are set to retail for C$ 599 ($ 600) in Canada, are currently attracting bids of more than $ 1,000 each on auction site ebay.com.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn; and Peter Galloway)

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Baby Girl on the Way for Kathryn Fiore

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/04/2013 at 01:00 PM ET

Courtesy Katheryn Fiore

Cue the lullaby: The Wedding Band is prepping for its littlest fan yet.

Actress Kathryn Fiore, 33, and her husband, actor Gabriel Tigerman, 32, are expecting a daughter in late May, her rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.

“We are expecting a baby girl!” the couple tell PEOPLE. “This is our first and we are over the moon excited!”

Fiore — who is also known for her sketch comedy on MADtv — and Tigerman, who has had roles on Supernatural and Journeyman, tied the knot at Malibu’s Pepperdine University in October 2008.

Her godfather, movie critic Rex Reed, served as their officiant.

– Anya Leon

Read More..

APNewsBreak: Catholic hospital acknowledges error

DENVER (AP) — A Catholic hospital on Monday acknowledged it was "morally wrong" for its attorneys to argue in court that a fetus is not a human being under Colorado law.

The admission comes after executives of Catholic Healthcare Initiatives met with Colorado's Roman Catholic bishops to discuss its defense in a wrongful death lawsuit filed after a mother and her unborn twins died in the emergency room of St Thomas More Medical Center in Canon City in 2006.

Disclosure of the hospital's successful legal arguments last month drew sharp criticism because they appeared to contradict church doctrine that life begins at conception. Colorado's bishops vowed to review the case. Catholic Healthcare Initiatives operates Thomas More and dozens of other Catholic hospitals.

In joint statements released Monday morning, the Bishops and CHI said the operation was "unaware" of the lawyers' legal arguments. They said that CHI executives acknowledged "it was morally wrong" to make that contention because it "directly contradicts the moral teachings of the Church."

The statements also noted that, while the legal status of the fetus was key to getting the case dismissed before trial, the hospital also won on appeal by arguing there was no proof that medical error caused the fetuses' deaths. The father of the unborn children is asking the Colorado Supreme Court to hear the case.

The Bishops and CHI extended their condolences to the family. They also pledged to pursue stronger legal protections for unborn children.

"Catholic healthcare institutions are, and should, be held to the high standard of Jesus Christ himself, who is our divine and eternal healer," said the Bishops' statement.

Read More..

Priest molested girl who wore Snow White costume, records show

More disturbing stories of priests' molestations of children -- and questionable actions by church leaders -- emerged in 12,000 pages of once-confidential
personnel files.

The
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles posted the documents on its website Thursday night, an hour
after a Los Angeles judge ended 5-1/2 years of legal wrangling
over the release of the files with an order compelling the church to
make the documents public within three weeks.

Victims, their lawyers, reporters and other members of the public spent
hours Friday poring through records that stretched back to the 1940s and
provided details about the scope of abuse in church ranks never before
seen.

The archdiocese of Los Angeles learned in the late 1970s that one of
its priests had sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy so violently that
he was left bleeding and "in a state of shock." The priest said he was
too drunk to remember what happened and officials took no further
action.

But two decades later, word reached Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
that the same priest was molesting again and improperly performing the
sacrament of confession on his victim. The archdiocese sprang to action:
It dispatched investigators, interviewed a raft of witnesses and
discussed the harshest of all church penalties — not for the abuse but for
the violation of church law.

"Given the seriousness of this abuse of the sacrament of penance … it
is your responsibility to formally declare the existence of the
excommunication and then refer the matter to Rome," one cleric told
Mahony in a memo.

Full coverage: Priest Abuse Scandal

The case of Father Jose Ugarte is one of several instances detailed
in newly released records in which archdiocese officials displayed
outrage over a priest's ecclesiastical missteps while doing little for
the victims of his sexual abuse.

The files also suggested that the attempts to protect abusers from
law enforcement extended beyond the L.A. archdiocese to a Catholic order
tasked with rehabilitating abusers.

"Once more, we ask you to PLEASE DESTROY THESE PAGES AND ANY OTHER
MATERIAL YOU HAVE RECEIVED FROM US," the acting director of the order's
treatment program wrote to Mahony in 1988 in a letter detailing
therapists' reports about a prolific molester. "This is stated for your
own and our legal protection."

The order, the Servants of the Paraclete, closed the New Mexico
facility where many Los Angeles priests were sent amid a flood of
lawsuits in the mid-1990s. A lawyer for the order declined to comment,
but indicated in a 2011 civil court filing that all treatment records
were destroyed.

Mahony disregarded the order's advice, and therapy memos are among the most detailed records in the files.

One evaluation recounts how Father Joseph Pina, an East L.A. parish
priest, said he was attracted to a victim, an eighth-grade girl, when he
saw her in a costume.

"She dressed as Snow White … I had a crush on Snow White, so I
started to open myself up to her," he told the psychologist. In a report
sent to a top Mahony aide, the psychologist expressed concern the abuse
was never reported to authorities.

"All so very sad," Mahony wrote years later after Pina was placed on leave. He was defrocked in 2006.

The limitations of the treatment at the Servants' center are evident
in the file. After months of therapy in 1994, Father John Dawson was
allowed to leave the facility for a weekend. Among the first things
Dawson, who had been accused of plying altar boy victims with pot and
beer, did was apply for a job at the Arizona Boys School in Phoenix.

Treatment center staff found out only after the school phoned Dawson to
arrange an interview. "Had they not called the Villa, it is doubtful
that Fr. Dawson would have informed us of that job application and
interview," according to a 1994 letter to Mahony's vicar for clergy,
Msgr. Timothy Dyer.

Responding to a public rebuke by his successor, Mahony
insisted Friday that he tried his best to deal with the priest molestation
scandal but fell short because not enough was known about the problem
early in his career.

In an extraordinary open letter to Archbishop Jose Gomez, Mahony
insisted Friday that he ultimately instituted state-of-the-art
protections against child sexual abuse
within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He seemed to
suggest that Gomez had acted unfairly by publicly announcing that he was
stripping the cardinal of any public role in the local church.

"Not once over these past years
did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices or
procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct
involving minors," he wrote.

PHOTOS: Cardinal Roger Mahony over the years

"Unfortunately, I cannot return now to the 1980s and reverse actions and
decisions made then," he added. "But when I retired as the active
archbishop, I handed over to you an archdiocese that was second to none
in protecting children and youth."

Mahony posted the letter on his blog Friday afternoon, hours after he said he had sent it to Gomez.

In a letter Thursday to parishioners, Gomez announced that "effective
immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have
any administrative or public duties." The move came a week after the
release of church records showing Mahony worked to conceal abusers from
police in the 1980s.

-- Harriet Ryan, Victoria Kim, Ashley Powers, Mitchell Landsberg and Teresa Watanabe

Photo: At a news conference Friday at the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Esther Miller, 54, holding photos
of other victims, breaks down while talking about being abused by a
Catholic priest when she was a young girl.
Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Read More..

Lino Oviedo, Candidate in Paraguay, Dies in Crash

RIO DE JANEIRO — Lino Oviedo, a candidate in Paraguay’s presidential elections and one of the country’s most polarizing political figures, was killed in a helicopter crash on Saturday night while returning from a political rally in northern Paraguay, government officials said Sunday.

The fiery crash, which killed Mr. Oviedo, 69, an aide and the pilot of the helicopter, opens a new phase of uncertainty in Paraguay, one of Latin America’s most politically unstable countries. After authorities confirmed his death and called it an accident, officials in his party, the National Union of Ethical Citizens, immediately questioned whether Mr. Oviedo had been assassinated.

The death of Mr. Oviedo, a retired general who had led Paraguay’s army, brought an end to a tumultuous political career.

He initially gained prominence in 1989, when he helped topple Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, the dictator who ruled Paraguay for 35 years.

Mr. Oviedo fled the country in 1996, seeking exile first in Argentina then in Brazil, after being charged of organizing an aborted coup attempt against Juan Carlos Wasmosy, then Paraguay’s president.

The authorities also indicted Mr. Oviedo on charges of masterminding the assassination of Luis María Argaña, the vice president who was killed by gunmen outside Asunción in March 1999. But after Mr. Oviedo returned to Paraguay in 2004 and served time in prison in connection to the coup-plotting conviction, Paraguay’s Supreme Court absolved him of the various charges.

He then took up a hard-charging political career, campaigning as a populist who nimbly used Guaraní, Paraguay’s widely-spoken indigenous language, in his speeches. He became known as the “bonsai horseman,” in a nod to his short stature, and came in third in the country’s last presidential vote, in 2008.

Paraguay was officially commemorating Stroessner’s overthrow on Sunday, making the timing of the helicopter crash questionable for some of Mr. Oviedo’s political supporters. Paraguayan aviation authorities, while claiming that the helicopter went down in an area of northern Paraguay with stormy weather on Saturday night, said they would investigate the causes of the crash.

“Twenty-four years ago today General Oviedo overthrew the dictatorship,” César Durand, a spokesman for Mr. Oviedo’s party, told Radio Ñanduti. “This is a message from the mafia,” he said, employing a blanket term often used by Paraguayans to refer to shadowy organizations involved in drug trafficking and the contraband of pirated goods into neighboring Brazil.

Mr. Oviedo’s chances of winning Paraguay’s presidential election, scheduled for April, appeared to be slim, political analysts said. According to recent polls, support for Mr. Oviedo remained in the single digits, placing him far behind the front-runner in the race, Horacio Cartes, a banking and tobacco magnate.

The election comes after a stretch of political turmoil in Paraguay in which Paraguay’s Senate hastily ousted the president, Fernando Lugo, from office in June. Mr. Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, had ended six decades of one-party rule when he was elected, but faced fierce opposition from lawmakers to his attempts to reduce Paraguay’s disparity in landholdings.

If Mr. Cartes, 56, holds his lead, the presidency will return to the Colorado Party which long dominated Paraguay. Still, his campaign is facing questions over his business dealings. State Department diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks revealed claims in 2007 that a bank under Mr. Cartes’s control was involved in a great deal of Paraguay’s money-laundering activities.

Mr. Cartes has rejected the money-laundering claims, calling them “laughable rubbish.”

Read More..

The Duchess of Cambridge Reveals Royal Baby Bump

By Maggie Coughlan

02/03/2013 at 01:20 PM EST

Royal baby-watchers, rejoice: Here's comes the bump!

Although she was wearing an oversize, tartan-print cape, Kate stepped out on Wednesday in West London revealing a new curve – and we're not just talking about her smile!

With her hair back in a ponytail, the Duchess of Cambridge, 30, pulled her look together with a black scarf, black leggings and riding boots.

The mother-to-be was also recently spotted in London's Chelsea neighborhood shopping for jeggings at the Gap.

The public outings show that Kate's health is on the upswing after being hospitalized with severe morning sickness in the early days of her pregnancy.

The baby is due in July.

Read More..

New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

Read More..

Priest molested girl in 'Snow White' costume, files reveal

More disturbing stories of priests' molestations of children -- and questionable actions by church leaders -- emerged in 12,000 pages of once-confidential
personnel files.

The
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles posted the documents on its website Thursday night, an hour
after a Los Angeles judge ended 5-1/2 years of legal wrangling
over the release of the files with an order compelling the church to
make the documents public within three weeks.

Victims, their lawyers, reporters and other members of the public spent
hours Friday poring through records that stretched back to the 1940s and
provided details about the scope of abuse in church ranks never before
seen.

The archdiocese of Los Angeles learned in the late 1970s that one of
its priests had sexually assaulted a 16-year-old boy so violently that
he was left bleeding and "in a state of shock." The priest said he was
too drunk to remember what happened and officials took no further
action.

But two decades later, word reached Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
that the same priest was molesting again and improperly performing the
sacrament of confession on his victim. The archdiocese sprang to action:
It dispatched investigators, interviewed a raft of witnesses and
discussed the harshest of all church penalties — not for the abuse but for
the violation of church law.

"Given the seriousness of this abuse of the sacrament of penance … it
is your responsibility to formally declare the existence of the
excommunication and then refer the matter to Rome," one cleric told
Mahony in a memo.

Full coverage: Priest Abuse Scandal

The case of Father Jose Ugarte is one of several instances detailed
in newly released records in which archdiocese officials displayed
outrage over a priest's ecclesiastical missteps while doing little for
the victims of his sexual abuse.

The files also suggested that the attempts to protect abusers from
law enforcement extended beyond the L.A. archdiocese to a Catholic order
tasked with rehabilitating abusers.

"Once more, we ask you to PLEASE DESTROY THESE PAGES AND ANY OTHER
MATERIAL YOU HAVE RECEIVED FROM US," the acting director of the order's
treatment program wrote to Mahony in 1988 in a letter detailing
therapists' reports about a prolific molester. "This is stated for your
own and our legal protection."

The order, the Servants of the Paraclete, closed the New Mexico
facility where many Los Angeles priests were sent amid a flood of
lawsuits in the mid-1990s. A lawyer for the order declined to comment,
but indicated in a 2011 civil court filing that all treatment records
were destroyed.

Mahony disregarded the order's advice, and therapy memos are among the most detailed records in the files.

One evaluation recounts how Father Joseph Pina, an East L.A. parish
priest, said he was attracted to a victim, an eighth-grade girl, when he
saw her in a costume.

"She dressed as Snow White … I had a crush on Snow White, so I
started to open myself up to her," he told the psychologist. In a report
sent to a top Mahony aide, the psychologist expressed concern the abuse
was never reported to authorities.

"All so very sad," Mahony wrote years later after Pina was placed on leave. He was defrocked in 2006.

The limitations of the treatment at the Servants' center are evident
in the file. After months of therapy in 1994, Father John Dawson was
allowed to leave the facility for a weekend. Among the first things
Dawson, who had been accused of plying altar boy victims with pot and
beer, did was apply for a job at the Arizona Boys School in Phoenix.

Treatment center staff found out only after the school phoned Dawson to
arrange an interview. "Had they not called the Villa, it is doubtful
that Fr. Dawson would have informed us of that job application and
interview," according to a 1994 letter to Mahony's vicar for clergy,
Msgr. Timothy Dyer.

Responding to a public rebuke by his successor, Mahony
insisted Friday that he tried his best to deal with the priest molestation
scandal but fell short because not enough was known about the problem
early in his career.

In an extraordinary open letter to Archbishop Jose Gomez, Mahony
insisted Friday that he ultimately instituted state-of-the-art
protections against child sexual abuse
within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. He seemed to
suggest that Gomez had acted unfairly by publicly announcing that he was
stripping the cardinal of any public role in the local church.

"Not once over these past years
did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices or
procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct
involving minors," he wrote.

PHOTOS: Cardinal Roger Mahony over the years

"Unfortunately, I cannot return now to the 1980s and reverse actions and
decisions made then," he added. "But when I retired as the active
archbishop, I handed over to you an archdiocese that was second to none
in protecting children and youth."

Mahony posted the letter on his blog Friday afternoon, hours after he said he had sent it to Gomez.

In a letter Thursday to parishioners, Gomez announced that "effective
immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have
any administrative or public duties." The move came a week after the
release of church records showing Mahony worked to conceal abusers from
police in the 1980s.

-- Harriet Ryan, Victoria Kim, Ashley Powers, Mitchell Landsberg and Teresa Watanabe

Photo: At a news conference Friday at the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Esther Miller, 54, holding photos
of other victims, breaks down while talking about being abused by a
Catholic priest when she was a young girl.
Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Read More..