Jan 19, 2006

Father Baker arrested today



He had just returned from Thailand.

NBC 4 News reports ...
LOS ANGELES -- A former Los Angeles Archdiocese priest who escaped prosecution for sexual abuse on children in 2003 because of a Supreme Court ruling was arrested Thursday at Los Angeles International Airport.

Michael Stephen Baker, 58, was arrested at 2 p.m. on suspicion of commiting lewd acts upon a child, according to Sgt. Dan Scott, of the sheriff's Special Victims Bureau.
The report continues ...
Baker left the ministry in 2000, said Tod Tambergm of the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

Baker told Cardinal Roger Mahony in 1986 that he had molested children, according to the archdiocese and Baker. The archbishop did not alert police, but rather sent Baker for treatment, after which he was assigned to a series of nine other parishes.

"Cardinal Mahony has already acknowledged and apologized for the mistakes made in handling Father Michael Baker, a case that taught many important lessons," the diocese noted in its 2004 "Report to the People of God."

Baker had been accused of sexually abusing 23 boys and girls from 1974 to 1999, including at least four after he admitted his molestations to Mahony, the archdiocese has reported.
Father Baker just might be Mahony's Father Shanley. We shall see.

For more, go HERE.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thailand, eh? A pedophile's paradise.

I do recall that Shanley had just returned from there when he got nabbed in Palm Springs.

This is the week of Wempe's trial and now Baker's arrest. Maybe finally this will blow the lid off of the clergy abuse scandals and cover-ups in Mahony's archdiocese.

I really hope that this time next year the Cardinal of Los Angeles will be anywhere but LA.

And I won't shed a tear. He has so much to answer for. It's hard to pray for him but I guess we have to. He really needs it.

6:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, one last debauch before you go in, eh padre???

9:09 PM  
Blogger CDE said...

There's more on Baker's arrest and history in today's LA Times.

6:14 AM  

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