FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Statement Of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman On The Conviction Of Norman Seabrook, President Of Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association

“Norman Seabrook was once one of the most powerful union leaders in this City. Today he stands convicted of taking a $60,000 bribe to invest $20 million of his union members’ money in a fund that ultimately went belly-up, losing $19 million. Seabrook’s is the fifth major public corruption conviction by our Office in as many months: the governor’s right-hand man, the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, the Senate Majority Leader, and the key executive in the Buffalo Billion case. I commend the hard-working members of the FBI who worked on all of these investigations, and the career prosecutors of this office who prosecuted this case: Martin Bell, Lara Pomerantz, and the chief of our public corruption unit, Russell Capone. As long as there are public servants who put self-interest above the people they are sworn to serve, public corruption will remain a top priority of this Office.”

As country reels from new Catholic Church abuse allegations, victims group calls for California investigation

This week’s release of a scathing grand jury report in Pennsylvania detailing hundreds of previously unknown sexual abuse allegations against Catholic priests has sent disturbing new questions reverberating across California and the country: How many more victims are out there and how many more abusive priests are left to be exposed?

The answer is a lot, survivors, lawyers, prosecutors and others said Wednesday as the report ripped open old wounds and had a victims’ group calling for a similar statewide investigation in California.

“We’ve been waiting for this grand jury report,” said Melanie Sakoda, of the Bay Area chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP. The group, she said, plans to ask California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to impanel a Grand Jury and examine abuses in the Golden State, where dioceses in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Stockton and elsewhere were roiled in scandal in the early 2000s, with dozens of priests exposed.

More here:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/08/15/as-country-reels-from-new-catholic-church-abuse-allegations-victims-group-calls-for-california-investigation/amp/