February 04, 2010
Pedophile Priest Linked To Boys Ranch Case
SPOKANE -- Patrick O'Donnell, whose infamy as the abuser of as many as 66 children was inextricably linked to the scandal that bankrupted the Catholic... Patrick O'Donnell, whose infamy as the abuser of as many as 66 children was inextricably linked to the scandal that bankrupted the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, also insinuated himself into a nonprofit home for troubled boys, a Superior Court jury was told on Wednesday. The former director and a former resident of the Morning Star Boys' Ranch testified in the case of Kenneth Putnam v. Morning Star Boys' Ranch about their acquaintance with the defrocked priest O'Donnell. Putnam accuses the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, 77, who retired as ranch director in 2006, and a now-deceased counselor of sexually molesting him at the ranch in the '80s.Click Here For The Full Story......
Related:
Former Boys Ranch Lawyer Denies Hearing About Alleged Payoff
A former attorney for Morning Star Boys' Ranch rebutted the testimony of a witness who said the ranch’s former director paid him to keep quiet about alleged abuse in the late 1970s. Matthew Daley testified Tuesday that he never discussed the alleged payoff with a potential witness he interviewed in 2005 while working for Keefe, King and Bowman, a now-defunct Spokane law firm that once represented the home for troubled boys. Daley was called as a defense witness in the case of former Morning Star resident Kenneth Putnam, who says he was abused by ranch director the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner and counselor Doyle Gillum, now deceased, in the late 1980s.
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