Thursday, July 01 2010
By Phil Ferolito
Yakima Herald-Republic
WHITE SWAN, Wash. -- The Yakama Nation's sawmill has been hit with $59,850 in fines after a federal probe into the death of a Fort Simcoe Job Corps student turned up a slew of safety violations.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted the investigation into Yakama Forest Products after Job Corps student Tyler Challinor, 20, was crushed while working on a tractor. Its raised large bucket fell on top of him Jan. 7.
The investigation concluded that a locking safety bar designed to keep the bucket from falling when in an upright position wasn't used, and that safety procedures concerning the use of heavy equipment were lacking at the mill, according to the citations that were made public Wednesday.
Violations ranged from lack of fire extinguishers to unlabeled fuel tanks, the lack of safety rails along conveyers transporting logs, and the absence of a safety guard on one large saw blade.
Challinor -- described as a 6-foot-8, muscular young man -- was getting hands-on experience in a partnership program between the mill and Job Corps, a no-cost training program in White Swan that is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.
His mother, Shanda Jennings, still grieving over the tragedy, said she was happy that OSHA made public the safety deficiencies that led to her son's death.
"The biggest point for me is if the safety gear would have been in place, Tyler would have been alive today," she said by phone from her Libby, Mont., home. "It was right there, readily available and it just wasn't in place. I don't know why or who is to blame."
The tribe plans to contest the findings, said Yakama Tribal Council Chairman Harry Smiskin.
"When you look at it, we acknowledge the loss and are truly sorry," he said. "We're just not sure that the tactic that OSHA used was fair and conducive to a government-to-government relationship."
Smiskin alleges that OSHA investigators were too pushy when they arrived on scene, and were more concerned with doing a scrub of the entire mill rather than investigating the accident.
"We wanted them to first take a look at the accident itself," he said. "They wanted to look at the whole operation."
Owned and operated by the tribe -- a sovereign government -- the mill is situated in White Swan on tribal land where local and state law enforcement agencies lack authority.
The mill started as a timber sorting yard in 1995, and in 1998 began sawing logs into lumber. It employs about 200 workers.
Tribal authorities wouldn't allow OSHA investigators onto the property. They had to obtain a warrant from a federal judge to do so.
Challinor's mother didn't learn that her son had died in the accident until two days after it happened.
"The mill didn't call me, the tribe didn't call me, the tribal police didn't call me," she said. "I had to contact the coroner's office to find out my son was dead. To me, that was like adding insult to my nightmare."
The tribe in its own court filed a lawsuit against the family and its own insurance company, seeking that Challinor's estate only receive $2,000 offered under it's workmen compensation benefits and that it's insurance company reimburse the tribe for attorney fees and any additional costs.
Yakima attorney Brian Smith, who is representing Challinor's family, has filed a counter wrongful death lawsuit against the tribe seeking unspecified damages.
He points to an agreement the mill entered with the U.S. Department of Interior, promising to follow state and federal regulations when employing Fort Simcoe students, as grounds for the wrongful death lawsuit and a valid argument against the tribe's sovereign immunity in this case.
"If they have sovereign immunity and they can't be held accountable for any regulations, then this document is worthless -- it means nothing," he said.
Meanwhile, Challinor's parents are still struggling with the loss.
"It's been coming up on seven months, and it doesn't get better," Jennings said. "It gets different, but not better."
Challinor's father, who for years has been separated from Jennings, said knowing the exact details about the accident would help him with closure.
"Seven months later, we still haven't been told the truth out there -- those are the things that bother me the most," he said by phone Wednesday from his Orofino, Idaho, home. "With seven months ... you know ... hide behind their sovereignty. That's the deal that gets me."
* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 509-577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.
Wednesday, June 30 2010
By Chris Bristol
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. -- The state of Washington has settled the last of the lawsuits in the long-running Cowboy Mike case, making a total of $6.4 million the state agreed to pay.
The final two settlements were announced Monday by Yakima lawyer Blaine Tamaki, who sued the state Department of Corrections for failing to properly supervise Michael Braae.
The drifter and karaoke country singer came to be known as Cowboy Mike after he allegedly attacked two women in Yakima during a brutal crime spree in the summer of 2001.
Tamaki said officials also misclassified Braae, now 50, as a low-risk offender before the spree began despite a well-documented history of violence against women.
"They lost track of him, didn't even know they had lost track of him, and four women were killed or injured as a result," he said.
Braae has been linked to the deaths or disappearances of several women in the Northwest, and last year was sentenced to 48 years in prison for the murder of Lori Jones of Lacey, Wash. That sentence begins once he completes an Idaho prison term in 2012.
Settlements announced Monday by Tamaki were:
* $2.4 million to Marchelle Morgan, an Olympia woman who suffered permanent and disabling brain injuries after she was shot in the head and left for dead days later on a road south of Union Gap.
* $750,000 to the family of Susan Ault, a 39-year-old waitress from southwest Washington who was last seen with Braae a few weeks before Jones was killed. Her body has never been found.
In March, Tamaki won the largest single settlement in the case: $3 million to the family of Jones, 44, who was raped and murdered in her apartment in the Olympia suburb of Lacey in June 2001.
The state also agreed at the time to pay $250,000 to a Yakima woman who alleges she was raped by Braae during his crime spree.
Braae's crime spree began to unravel in the early morning of July 14, 2001, after Morgan was attacked and left for dead.
Morgan had been traveling with Braae and was seen bar hopping with him in Yakima hours before she was found on a rural road in the Parker area with a gunshot wound to the head.
By then Jones' body had been found, and investigators soon identified Braae as the suspect in both cases. After a six-day manhunt, police spotted Braae near the Idaho-Oregon border, leading to a desperate high-speed chase that ended when Braae made a spectacular 40-foot leap off a bridge into the Snake River.
He was given a 91/2-year sentence in Idaho for the escape attempt. He has a long history of escape attempts, including one in Yakima in which he picked a lock in his jail cell using a stubby toothbrush.
By the time of his capture in Idaho, detectives had connected him to the death of Jones, whose body was found stuffed under her bed days before Braae and Morgan had arrived in Yakima.
Hampered by Morgan's inability to testify, prosecutors in Yakima County failed to win a conviction against Braae for attempted murder when a lone juror voted for acquittal.
After the mistrial, authorities in Thurston County followed up with a successful prosecution of Braae for the murder of Jones.
No charges have been filed in connection with the disappearance of Ault, whose body has never been found.
Authorities have said Braae was also the last person known to have seen two other women who disappeared in 1997. No charges have been filed in those cases either.
Tamaki said Braae repeatedly violated the conditions of a conviction for drug possession in 1997 and was operating entirely without Department of Corrections supervision by 2000 despite a court order extending his parole through October 2001.
"They lost the court order," Tamaki said. "They thought he was off parole, when the opposite was true.
"He had a terrible history of violence against women, a detective in Portland had warned him in '98 that he was a suspect in a homicide there, and yet he was running around free the whole time."
Tamaki urged authorities to prosecute Braae in the disappearance of Ault, saying the state has a solid circumstantial case despite the lack of a body. Among other things, Braae was driving Ault's pickup truck during his famous escape attempt in Idaho.
"He's not your classic serial killer," said Tamaki. "He was more of an O.J. Simpson type, a domestic abuser, only he got away with it over and over again."
* Chris Bristol can be reached at 509-577-7748 or at cbristol@yakimaherald.com
The Michael Braae file
Authorities say Braae was the last person known to have seen these four women:
* Lori Jones, 44, of Lacey, whose body was found under the bed in her apartment July 8, 2001. Braae was convicted of her murder last year and sentenced to 48 years in prison.
* Susan Ault, 39, a waitress, who vanished after being seen arguing with Braae on June 24, 2001, at a friend's home in southwest Washington's Wahkiakum County. Her body has never been found.
* Velina Larson, 37, a homeless woman who disappeared from the Portland suburb of Gladstone, Ore., in September 1997. Her remains were found in a vacant lot in the Portland area in January 1998.
* Deb VanLuven, 45, of Lacey, who disappeared in March 1997. She'd been regular at the same Olympia bar where Jones was last seen with Braae and once shared a motel room with Braae.
Wednesday, June 30 2010
By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter
The state Department of Corrections (DOC) has agreed to pay $6.4 million on behalf of four women whose families say they were attacked, raped or killed by a man not properly supervised by the department.
Michael Braae, who was known by the moniker "Cowboy Mike," had been incorrectly labeled a low-risk offender by the DOC before a spree in 2001 that left two women dead, a third alive but with a bullet in her head and a fourth choked and raped, according to lawsuits filed in Thurston County Superior Court.
"It is shocking that this man was not properly supervised," the victims' attorney, Blaine Tamaki, said in a news statement released Monday.
The DOC declined to comment on the settlement, saying that it had not yet been signed by a judge.
Over the past five years, the DOC has paid out more than $13 million to settle lawsuits alleging the department failed to properly supervise offenders.
The payments include $3.3 million to the family of King County sheriff's Deputy Steve Cox, who was fatally shot by parolee Raymond Porter in 2006; $2.5 million to the families of children killed by parolee Buford Furrow Jr. at a Jewish community center in California in 2001; and $6.5 million to the family of a Tacoma woman killed in a 1997 car accident caused by an offender who was high on drugs.
Braae, 50, was arrested on July 20, 2001, during a three-state manhunt after he leapt off a 40-foot bridge into the Snake River between Oregon and Idaho.
According to the lawsuit, Braae had a long criminal history that began in the 1970s, stretched from Washington to California, and included domestic-violence, drunken-driving, escape and rape charges.
In 2000, a Thurston County judge released him on parole but ordered the DOC to monitor him closely, according to the lawsuits.
The department failed to do so, the lawsuits claim, and four women were subsequently killed or assaulted by Braae.
Susan Ault, 39, of Cathlamet, Wahkiakum County, had been dating Braae when she disappeared after the two fought on June 25, 2001.
Less than two weeks later, the body of Lori Jones, 44, was found under the bed in her home in Lacey, Thurston County.
On July 13, Braae's on- and off-again girlfriend, Marchelle Morgan, was found with a bullet in her brain in an apple orchard in Yakima.
The following day, he met Karen Peterson at a Yakima tavern. The suit accuses him of following her home, and raping and choking her until she lost consciousness.
Braae was convicted of the rape and murder of Jones and sentenced to 46 years in prison, which he will serve after he completes a nine-year sentence for aggravated assault and eluding police in Idaho.
Braae is also a suspect in the disappearance of two Oregon women and is believed to have assaulted or raped at least five women in addition to those named in the recently settled suits.
According to the settlement agreement, Jones' daughters will receive $3 million.
Peterson will get $250,000.
Ault's family will receive $750,000, and Morgan and her son will share the remaining $2.4 million.
Information from Seattle Times archives is contained in this story. Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com
Friday, April 02 2010
By Leah Beth Ward
Yakima Herald Republic
Clara Vargas will tell her story of alleged childhood sexual abuse before an unusual audience on Saturday: the Italian Parliament.
Vargas, 50, a Colville tribal member who now lives in Tacoma, is traveling to Rome as part of a crusade by abuse victims to pressure the Vatican into taking more responsibility for the child sex abuse scandal that is closing in on the church and Pope Benedict XVI.
Putting pressure on elected officials is a way to force the Pope to take responsibility, said Vargas, who was a student at St. Mary’s Mission near Omak from second through eighth grade.
She and several Yakama tribal members are part of a lawsuit filed two years ago in U.S. District Court by the Tamaki Law Firm of Yakima against the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, which operated St. Mary’s in Okanogan County.
The case was dismissed because the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus filed for bankruptcy, but other claimants have recently won settlements from bankruptcy court, including one for 16 claimants worth $4.8 million.
“I’m going to tell them how the abuse and neglect affected me and how I reported it years ago and they never did anything,” Vargas said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Ken Bear Chief, a paralegal with Tamaki, said the firm is currently in mediation with the Portland-based Oregon Province over the claims.
The trip is the brainchild of the Rev. Kevin Annett, a Canadian minister who has championed the cause of native peoples harmed in Catholic boarding schools.
“Aboriginal elders from Canada will offer prayers for their friends and relatives who died or were killed in Catholic Indian residential schools, at the institution in Rome responsible for their death. And they will name Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, as the one ultimately responsible,” states the Web site, Hidden from History.org.
Wire services reported Tuesday that The Vatican dismissed any notion that Pope Benedict XVI should take personal responsibility for the scandal and defended his management of the problem (See story on Page 3A).
The Vatican also said the crisis would not interfere with his conservative agenda for Catholics.
The defense of the pope was outlined by the Rev. Federico Lombardi in an interview with The Washington Post, which reported that the church hierarchy is launching a public relations blitz in the United States and Europe to shore up the pope’s image ahead of Easter Sunday.
For Vargas, the moment of truth came a few years ago when the Catholic church held a training on how to identify and stop child abuse and neglect. The training, she said, was held at St. Mary’s.
“That brought a lot of things back. When I sat in that dormitory, it made me start reflecting,” she said. “I was abused and I witnessed abuse.”
Going to Rome is part of a healing process, said Vargas, who left Colville a few years ago for a new start. She said she left behind a traumatized people.
“The Colville reservation has a lot of trauma. It’s sad.”
Vargas now works for the Puyallup tribe and presides over a large extended family with nine grandchildren.
She’s not nervous about appearing before the parliament.
“I think if you speak from the heart and speak the truth, it’s OK. It will be liberating.”
Friday, March 05 2010
Yakima Herald-Republic staff, wire reports
Yakima Herald-Republic
The state will pay $3.25 million to settle a lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections by the families of two women, including one from Yakima, who were attacked by convicted killer Michael Braae.
The state filed the settlement agreement last Friday in Thurston County Superior Court.
The settlement resolves two of four lawsuits that were filed in 2008 by the Tamaki Law firm in Yakima on behalf of the family members of four women who were killed, thought to be killed or were otherwise victimized by the drifter and aspiring country singer known as "Cowboy Mike."
Most of the settlement, $3 million, goes to the family of Lori Jones, 44, who was raped and murdered in her apartment in the Olympia suburb of Lacey in 2001. Braae, 50, is now serving 48 years in prison for the slaying.
The rest of the settlement, $250,000, goes to a Yakima woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Braae days after Jones was slain.
Braae has been linked to the death or disappearance of at least four women in the Pacific Northwest, including Jones. He also was caught in at least five escape attempts from jail, including one in which he picked a lock in the Yakima County jail with a toothbrush.
Days after Jones' murder, but before her body was discovered, Braae showed up in Yakima. After he left the area, his traveling companion, Marchelle Morgan, was found near death on a road south of Union Gap with a gunshot wound to the head.
Spotted later near the Oregon/Idaho border, Braae led police on a wild chase capped by a spectacular 40-foot leap from an interstate bridge into the Snake River. Authorities fished him out two miles downstream.
The lawsuits alleged that Braae wouldn't have been able to victimize the women had the Department of Corrections correctly placed him on community supervision as ordered by a judge in 2000.
Instead of placing him on community supervision, the state agency made Braae pay fines and did not require home visits by probation officers.
Lawsuits brought by Morgan and the estate of another presumed homicide victim, Susan Ault, remain unresolved.
Braae remains a "person of interest" in Susan Ault's homicide, as well in another case involving Deb VanLuven, a former Lacey resident who lived with Braae in Oregon and Montana and went missing in 1997.
Ault, 39, disappeared from a friend's trailer in Wahkiakum County on May 21, 2001. The friend saw Braae and Ault arguing shortly before her disappearance.
Ault's purse, with identification, was found at a rest stop, but she has never been found. In July 2008, the Wahkiakum County coroner issued a death certificate for Ault, stating she was a homicide victim.
Braae was tried in the Morgan case, but it ended in a mistrial in 2006 after a jury deadlocked 11-1 for conviction. The prosecution's case was hampered when a judge ruled that Morgan was unfit to testify because of brain injuries.
Thursday, March 04 2010
OLYMPIA - The state will pay $3.25 million to settle two plaintiffs' claims in a lawsuit brought against the state Department of Corrections by the family of an alleged victim and daughters of a victim of convicted killer Michael "Cowboy Mike" Braae.
According to the settlement agreement filed Friday in Thurston County Superior Court, the payout from the state’s risk management pool includes a $3 million settlement to the two daughters of Braae’s 2001 homicide victim, Lori Jones of Lacey. The state will also pay $250,000 to the estate of Karen Peterson, who said that Braae sexually assaulted her in Yakima County in 2001.
In 2008, Braae was sentenced to nearly 48 years in prison for raping and murdering Jones in her Lacey apartment in summer 2001.
Two additional alleged Braae victims named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit against DOC – the estate of homicide victim Susan Ault and the estate of Marchelle Morgan – have yet to settle their civil claims, and their lawsuits are still active.
The lawsuit alleges that Corrections failed to supervise Braae when he was on probation around the time of Ault’s disappearance in June 2001.
The suit says that Braae wouldn’t have been able to victimize the four women had Corrections correctly extended Braae’s parole from October 2000 to October 2001. The suit further alleges that corrections lost the order that would have extended Braae’s parole to October 2001.
The suit also alleges that Corrections failed to correctly place Braae on community supervision in October 2000, as ordered by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Christine Pomeroy.
Instead, Braae was placed on the lowest level of supervision, “LFO,” which stands for legal, financial obligations only, and requires a person who is out of custody only to pay fines, Bryan Smith, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a prior interview.
A Corrections spokesman and Assistant Attorney General Paul James, who is representing the agency in the lawsuit, declined to comment on the settlement of the two plaintiffs’ cases Friday, citing the pending cases.
Reached by telephone late Wednesday, plaintiffs’ attorney Blaine Tamaki said: “The families wanted closure after so many years. Sadly, money is the only way for DOC to apologize to the families. Because of the pending cases, I cannot say more.”
Braae remains a “person of interest” in Susan Ault’s homicide, as well in another case involving Deb VanLuven, a former Lacey resident who lived with Braae in Oregon and Montana and went missing in 1997.
Ault, 39, disappeared from a friend’s trailer in Wahkiakum County on May 21, 2001. The friend saw Braae and Ault arguing shortly before her disappearance.
Ault’s purse, with identification, was found at a rest stop, but she has never been found.
In July 2008, the Wahkiakum County coroner issued a death certificate for Ault, stating she was a homicide victim.
Morgan was shot in the head and left for dead on a country road south of Union Gap on July 14, 2001. Braae was accused of attempted murder in her shooting, but the case ended in a mistrial after a judge ruled that Morgan was unfit to testify because of her brain injuries.
Jeremy Pawloski, Staff Writer for The Olympian: 360-754-5465
jpawloski@theolympian.com
Thursday, October 15 2009
Victim's family sues over state's handling of killer
JEREMY PAWLOSKI; The Olympian
The daughter of homicide victim Susan Ault has joined a civil lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections alleging that it failed to supervise convicted killer "Cowboy" Mike Braae around the time of Ault's disappearance in June 2001.
The lawsuit was filed by Ault’s daughter Cortney Satterthwaite on Oct. 8 in Thurston County Superior Court. The suit makes the same claims about the DOC’s liability as three other lawsuits filed by family members of women who were killed, are thought to have been killed, or otherwise were victimized by Braae, said Yakima attorney Blaine Tamaki. She is representing all four families.
Ault, 39, disappeared from a friend’s trailer in Wahkiakum County on May 21, 2001, her father, Bruce Ault, said in an interview last year. The friend saw Braae and Ault arguing shortly before her disappearance, Bruce Ault has said. Ault’s purse, with identification, later was found at a rest stop, but she has never been found.
In July 2008, the Wahkiakum County coroner issued a death certificate for Ault, stating that she was a victim of “homicidal violence of unknown type.”
In July 2008, Braae was sentenced to nearly 48 years in prison for raping and murdering Lori Jones in her Lacey apartment in summer 2001.
Braae remains a “person of interest” in Ault’s homicide, as well as in another case involving Deb VanLuven, a former Lacey resident who lived with Braae in Oregon and Montana and went missing in 1997.
The four plaintiffs in the lawsuits against DOC filed by Tamaki are the families of Susan Ault, Lori Jones, Marchelle Morgan and Karen Peterson.
Morgan was shot in the head and left for dead on a country road south of Union Gap on July 14, 2001. Braae was accused of attempted murder in her shooting, but the case ended in a mistrial after a judge ruled Morgan was unfit to testify as a witness because of her brain injuries.
Peterson alleges that Braae sexually assaulted her in Yakima County, also in July 2001.
The Tamaki law firm’s lawsuits all allege that Braae wouldn’t have been able to victimize the four women in 2001 had DOC correctly placed him on community supervision, as ordered by Thurston County Superior Court Judge Christine Pomeroy in October 2000.
Pomeroy made that order during a hearing that month after Braae was found to be in noncompliance with his conditions of release following a 1997 conviction for escaping from the Thurston County Jail.
Instead, DOC placed Braae on its lowest level of supervision, LFO, which stands for legal, financial obligations only and requires a person who is out of custody only to pay fines, Bryan Smith, one of Tamaki Law’s attorneys, said last year.
“This is a case where there were red flags all over the place that he was a bad actor,” Smith said last year. “He was placed on the lowest level of supervision. This guy needed geographical range restrictions, field visits and drug testing.”
Tamaki said Wednesday that DOC misplaced or lost Pomeroy’s order extending Braae’s community custody. During the period in which Braae should have been on community supervision, Ault disappeared and Jones was raped and murdered in Lacey, Tamaki said.
Tamaki said his office has learned additional information about DOC’s mishandling of Braae’s supervision as part of its discovery in the other lawsuits. That information is included in the new lawsuit filed on behalf of Ault’s family last week, and it includes the following:
• In 1998, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Lt. Wendi Babst notified the Washington DOC of her investigation of a suspicious death of one of Braae’s girlfriends, Velina Larson, in Oregon. She asked to be notified about Braae’s release from DOC custody.
• “Had the DOC bothered to call Lt. Babst when assessing Mr. Braae’s risk to society, Lt. Babst would have informed the DOC that her investigation led her to interview numerous victims of extreme violence committed by Michael Braae in 1998, 1999, and 2000 in Washington, Oregon and California,” reads the lawsuit. “These acts of violence included forcible rape, battery (including beatings with his closed fist) and death threats.”
• Being left without active supervision “enabled Mr. Braae to wander freely, continuing his well-documented pattern of perpetrating violent crimes against women.”
• The lawsuit concludes: “Rather than viewing Mr. Braae as the highest risk to society, the DOC failed to inquire about all of the above criminal and behavioral history, ignored the court order imposing community supervision, incorrectly scored Mr. Braae using the LSI-R, and failed to report his numerous probation violations to the court which would have resulted in jail time.”
The first of the lawsuits filed by Tamaki is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in Thurston County in July.
Washington Assistant Attorney General Paul James, who is defending DOC in all four of the civil lawsuits, declined to comment on the lawsuits Wednesday. When interviewed about the lawsuits last year, James said, “I think DOC has a difficult job in supervising offenders who are free to walk about in the community.”
Jeremy Pawloski: 360-754-5465
jpawloski@theolympian.com
Friday, October 09 2009
Great Falls Tribune
greatfallstribune.com
By TRAVIS COLEMAN
Tribune Staff Writer
Native Americans sexually abused by Jesuit priests have less than two months to seek damages from the bankrupt church.
The Society of Jesus, Oregon Province filed for bankruptcy protection in February in the wake of more than 200 lawsuits alleging that priests sexually abused children in northwestern states.
One condition was that victims have until Nov. 30 to file an abuse lawsuit against the Jesuits. After that, no claims can be brought against them. The Jesuits have since 2001 paid out more than $25 million to sex abuse victims.
Attorneys have in recent weeks canvassed the state looking for Native Americans to come forward with claims, and one group stopped in Great Falls and the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation on Thursday.
Attorneys Kenneth Roosa of Alaska and Rebecca Rhoades of California accompanied Elsie Boudreau, a clergy sex abuse victim who is now reaching out to other victims. Boudreau said the church routinely dumped their "problem priests" in remote Native American communities, where they continued to molest and rape children. Boudreau added that there are nearly 300 victims of clergy sex abuse in her native Alaska.
Boudreau was abused by Father James Poole starting when she was 10. The molestation continued until she was a student at Carroll College in Helena. She wrote him a letter when she was 19 demanding that the abuse stop and it did. Poole later admitted the abuse and Boudreau settled with the Jesuits.
"It has allowed me to find my voice and for the first time be OK in my body," Boudreau said.
The attorneys believe there are clergy sex abuse victims in Montana because priests who molested elsewhere were relocated to Indian mission schools in Montana.
"It's highly unlikely they stopped molesting down here," Roosa said, adding that they have gotten no claims yet.
Attorneys are focusing on claims against multiple now-deceased priests, including Father Augustine Ferretti and Father Bernard McMeel, who were believed to have spent time on either the Flathead, Rocky Boy's or Fort Belknap Indian Reservations. They had histories of molesting children, Roosa said.
Another law firm — Tamaki Law Offices of Yakima, Wash. — has also been in Montana to search for clergy sex abuse victims. Another group of attorneys, the Northwest Attorneys for Justice, are also looking for victims.
Tamaki attorney Bryan Smith said they have been holding meetings on the Flathead, Fort Belknap and Crow reservations. They have about 15 claims so far from Montana.
"We have been slowly but surely turning up survivors," Smith said.
According to attorneys, there are claims against at least five priests who served at the St. Paul's Indian Mission during and before the 1970s.
"The more people we can bring forward, the better," Smith said. "There really is no harm in coming forward in telling your story and making a claim."
The Jesuits' bankruptcy filing does not mean that the society won't be able to pay claims, but there also is no guarantee of compensation if a claim is filed.
Boudreau's abuse victim's network can be reached at 907-529-2843. Tamaki Law Offices can be reached at 800-801-9564.
Monday, October 05 2009
Yakima Herald Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. -- A deadline is pending for people alleging they were abused by a Jesuit priest or brother at an Indian boarding school in Okanogan County or other locations around the Northwest during the 1960s.
Alleged victims must come forward by Nov. 30 to file a claim against the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province (a Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church). The deadline was set by a federal court in Portland.
Because the Oregon Province filed for bankruptcy protection in February, a judge has ruled that claimants must file a form before the November deadline, or they could lose their rights to claim physical, sexual or mental misconduct against the Society.
Several hundred people have alleged abuse by Jesuits assigned to work in missions, urban areas, parishes, schools and churches in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Alaska, reported several attorneys, including Blaine Tamaki of Yakima, who represents some of the claimants.
About 200 claims were settled over a period of years by the Jesuits before bankruptcy proceedings began.
Many of the alleged victims, now adults, were Native American children living at remote missions and on other reservations in Washington.
Yakama tribal members are among those filing suit, alleging that they were abused at St. Mary's Mission near Omak, Wash., an Indian boarding school in Okanogan County.
The Yakamas' claims were originally raised in a lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court by Tamaki.
For more information on obtaining a claim form, write the Society of Jesus, Oregon Province Case, c/o BMC Group Inc., P.O. Box 3020, Chanhassen, Minn., 55317. Or call 888-909-0100, or visit www.bmcgroup.com/sjop.
Tuesday, April 28 2009
Yakamas part of lawsuit over alleged Jesuit abuse
by MARK MOREY
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Yakama tribal members are among those suing a Northwest order of Catholic Jesuits over allegations that they were abused at an Indian boarding school in Okanogan County.
The claims were originally raised in a lawsuit filed last year in U.S. District Court by 18 anonymous plaintiffs, represented by the Tamaki Law Firm of Yakima.
That case was dismissed because the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus in February filed for bankruptcy because it is facing hundreds of similar claims.
Attorney Blaine Tamaki said he now represents close to 30 claimants who will be submitting requests as creditors in the bankruptcy case. Some of those are members of the Yakama tribe, he said.
The original plaintiffs are not named in the federal lawsuit, a move which defense attorneys objected, and Tamaki would not name any of the Yakama claimants.
The Oregon Province covers Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. Society of Jesus priests, known as Jesuits, staff and manage a variety of schools around the Northwest.
The lawsuit filed by Tamaki alleges that priests in the order who were assigned to St. Mary's Mission near Omak, Wash., were responsible for abuse against the claimants. Most of the alleged activity took place in the 1960s.
Tamaki said in a news release that the order had a history of sending pedophile priests to isolated Indian reservations, where they were able to continue their abuses. The St. Mary's school is on the Colville reservation.
In public statements, the province has emphasized that the abuse allegations involve only a small percentage of the order's priests. Most of the suspects are dead or elderly.
Because the province has paid millions to cover legal claims by alleged victims, bankruptcy reorganization is the only way to keep the organization viable, according to statements on the provincial Web site.
Tamaki urged any other victims to come forward if they want to join the bankruptcy process.
The Oregon court handling the matter is expected to soon establish a deadline for any claims against the province.