The archdiocese of Los Angeles apologized Thursday night and stripped retired Cardinal Roger Mahony of all public duties for allegedly covering up years of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

In a move that came hours after the release of personnel files detailing years of alleged abuse by Los Angeles priests, Archbishop José H. Gomez announced Thursday night that Thomas Curry, Mahony's longtime top aide, was also resigning as regional bishop of Santa Barbara.

The files indicated that Mahony and other top archdiocese officials maneuvered behind the scenes for years to protect molester priests.

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Mahony will "no longer have any administrative or public duties," Gomez said in a statement.

NBC 4 of Los Angeles reported that as Mahony's vicar for clergy, Curry assigned priests and deacons and was responsible for promoting "spiritual and physical well-being" for all priests and deacons in the archdiocese. 

Mahony was head of the Los Angeles archdiocese from 1985 to 2011, when Gomez succeeded him.

"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading," Gomez wrote in a letter to parishioners. "The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children." 

NBC Los Angeles: An ex-Mahoney aide, Santa Barbara bishop resigns amid church abuse probe

"We need to acknowledge that terrible failure today," he wrote.

Read the full letter (.pdf)

Gomez said the church would "immediately report every credible allegation of abuse" and promised to support victims of priests' abuse.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias ordered release of the personnel files a week after internal church records revealed striking evidence of a coordinated campaign to shield priests accused of abuse. 

The new files are especially damaging because they include the names of the accused priests, which the archdiocese — the largest Catholic diocese in the U.S. — had fought to protect.

Release of the files is expected to end years of legal battles over whether to identify the priests, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Jerry Sandusky lost a bid for a new trial Wednesday when a judge rejected his argument that his lawyers were not given enough time to prepare for the three-week proceeding that ended with a 45-count guilty verdict.

Judge John Cleland's 27-page order said lawyers for the former Penn State assistant football coach conceded that their post-trial review turned up no material that would have changed their trial strategy.

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"I do not think it can be said that either of the defendant's trial counsel failed to test the prosecution's case in a meaningful manner," Cleland wrote. "The defendant's attorneys subjected the commonwealth's witnesses to meaningful and effective cross-examination, presented evidence for the defense and presented both a comprehensive opening statement and a clearly developed closing argument."

He also rejected post-sentencing motions regarding jury instructions, hearsay testimony and a comment by the prosecution during closing arguments that referred to the fact that Sandusky, who did not testify at trial, gave media interviews after he was arrested in November 2011.

Cleland said the prosecution's closing was not presented in a way that "was either calculated to, or did, create in the jurors a fixed bias toward the defendant."

Sandusky also argued that charges should have been thrown out because they were not sufficiently specific, but Cleland said the lack of specific dates did not prevent Sandusky from pursuing an alibi defense.

"The defendant has simply argued the offenses did not happen," Cleland said.

Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence for sexual abuse of 10 boys, including violent attacks on the children inside Penn State athletics facilities.

Sandusky defense lawyer Norris Gelman said Wednesday that while he had not read the decision, Cleland's ruling means an appeal will be filed to the mid-level Superior Court within the next 30 days.

The state attorney general's office, which prosecuted Sandusky, offered no immediate comment.

Also Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Senate unanimously approved a bill that aims to keep Penn State's $60 million fine to the NCAA over the Sandusky scandal within the state.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Jake Corman, a Republican whose district includes State College, would require such fines of at least $10 million to be deposited into a state-administered account, and be spent on Pennsylvania programs that address childhood sexual abuse.

"It makes sense that it should stay here to benefit organizations and the children of the commonwealth," said Corman, who also recently filed a lawsuit over the fine, an action currently pending in Commonwealth Court. He said the money "could do an extraordinary amount of good right here in Pennsylvania."

Sen. Judy Schwank, D-Berks, said the Legislature needed to act quickly.

"The victims were from Pennsylvania, the abuse was perpetrated in Pennsylvania, and the crimes were investigated and prosecuted by Pennsylvania authorities — not authorities from other states, the federal government or the NCAA," Schwank said.

In response, the NCAA issued a statement saying it was monitoring the legislation, "including examining whether, if enacted, the proposed legislation would violate both the United States and Pennsylvania constitutions."

Penn State agreed to the fine last summer as part of a deal that averted a potential shutdown of its football program by college sports' governing body. The university has already made the first of five $12 million payments.

Gov. Tom Corbett has filed a federal anti-trust lawsuit against the NCAA over the sanctions.

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Police in New Mexico found an 8-year-old girl locked in a cage in a darkened mobile home, authorities said on Tuesday, adding that they charged the girl's adoptive mother, who had gone to the movies, with child abuse.

Cindy Patriarchias, 33, and her boyfriend, Edmond Gonzales, 37, were arrested after police found the caged girl on Friday evening, Las Cruces Police Department spokesman Dan Trujillo said.

He said police, acting on a tip from the woman's estranged husband, found the girl in the corner of a bedroom locked inside the cage, about 4 feet high, slightly more than 2 feet wide and about 5 feet long.

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The homemade wooden structure had two latches and a baby crib mattress on the floor, Trujillio said.

He said Patriarchias had been charged with one count of negligent child abuse while Gonzales was charged with one count of negligently permitting child abuse. Patriarchias was released on bond on Tuesday but her boyfriend was still being held Wednesday, authorities said.

The girl was seen by medical personnel but showed no visible signs of physical abuse. She apparently suffers from microcephaly, a condition in which the head or cranial capacity is abnormally small, Trujillo said.

He said detectives did not know why the girl was left locked in the cage. She and three of Patriarchias' other children had been placed in state custody, he said.

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A judge in Indiana sentenced former Gary resident Riley Choate to 80 years in prison on Friday for neglect in the death of his son, a 13-year-old who had been regularly beaten, confined to a dog cage for two years, and fed a starvation diet.

The boy, Christian Choate, weighed less than 50 pounds when he died on April 4, 2009, of blunt force trauma to the head, the Chicago Tribune reported.

"The pain and the suffering, the degradation this baby went through for two years of his life is incomprehensible," Lake County Superior Court Judge Diane Boswell said, according to the report.

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A sister of the victim — one of as many as 10 children who lived with Choate and his wife in a trailer in Gary, Ind. — said that on the day of his death Christian had refused to eat, enraging his father, who punched the boy several times with "full force" before throwing him back in the cage, said the Tribune, citing court records.

Choate and his wife, Kimberly Kubina, the boy’s stepmother, were accused of burying the boy on their property and moving the family to Kentucky shortly thereafter, telling others that Christian had run away.

Deputy Prosecutor Michael Woods described Choate's abuse of Christian as persistent, cruel and depraved, according to a report in the Northwest Indiana Times.

"Christian Choate sat in that cage, losing his mind, losing his strength and probably his humanity,” Woods said, while his father sat at the desk next to the cage playing games on his computer, according to the report.

"There were many other children in this house. They all saw Christian suffer. Those images haunt their sleep and drive them back into counseling," the prosecutor said.

The boy’s body, buried under concrete with a Bible and a cross in the Gary, Ind. mobile home park, was found in May 2011.

"We feel very strongly that the system failed this child, this young man, Christian Choate," Lake County Indiana Sheriff John Buncich said at a press conference Friday. "The system failed him and a lot of information slipped through the crack and we feel his life could have been saved if things had been dealt with in a different manner."

In December, Choate pleaded guilty to a Class A felony for neglect of a dependent causing death, and felonies for moving the boy’s body and depriving his daughter, Christina, of an education. He also admitted to being a habitual offender for previous felony theft convictions, the Times said. In doing so, he avoided a jury trial on charges of murder, battery, criminal confinement and obstruction of justice. In the plea deal, he was sentenced to 80 years instead of a possible 120 if convicted of the original charges.

Before the sentencing on Friday, Choate apologized for his actions, the Chicago Tribune reported: "All my actions will haunt me forever. I loved my son."

Kubina, who was also charged with child abuse, divorced Choate in 2011 and cooperated in his prosecution. As a result, she is due to be released from jail in February, the Tribune said.

A sergeant in Saudi Arabia's air force was jailed in Las Vegas on charges that he pulled a boy into a hotel room and sexually assaulted him the morning of New Year's Eve.

Mazen Alotaibi, 23, faces charges including kidnapping, sexual assault with a minor and felony coercion that could get him decades in state prison, according to police and charging documents obtained Friday.

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The boy, who is younger than 14, told police the man forced him into a room at the Circus Circus hotel on the Las Vegas Strip and raped him. Police arrested Alotaibi after being called to the hotel before 9:30 a.m. Dec. 31.

"There was a kidnapping and sexual assault with force," Las Vegas police Lt. Dan McGrath said. "The victim said he was forced into the room and sexually assaulted. We have a strong case based on the evidence."

The boy, who lives out of state, was staying at the hotel with his family, McGrath said. He was taken to a hospital for medical treatment and evidence collection and released later to family members. His name was not made public.

McGrath said Alotaibi produced a Saudi Arabian military identification and said he was stationed at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland near San Antonio, Texas. U.S. federal authorities and Saudi military officials were notified, the police lieutenant said.

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Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland spokesman Brent Boller told The Associated Press that records showed Alotaibi is currently stationed at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. Boller said he could not immediately verify if Alotaibi had been at Lackland, but noted that international military students attend a Defense Language Institute English Language Center on the base to improve their English-language skills.

Alotaibi's lawyer, Don Chairez of Newport Beach, Calif., said Friday he had been in contact with U.S. military authorities at both air force bases and with the Saudi government. He said Alotaibi had come to Las Vegas for the New Year's celebration and will plead not guilty.

Alotaibi also is charged with burglary, which in Nevada can stem from a person entering a building with intent to commit a felony.

The alleged attack took place on the sixth floor of a 15-story hotel tower. Circus Circus has a total of 3,767 guest rooms in three towers and five three-story motor lodge-style buildings dubbed Circus Circus Manor.

The arrest was first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It cited a police report saying the boy was 13.

Alotaibi was being held without bail at the Clark County jail pending an evidence hearing Jan. 17.

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In just over a month, more than 120 sexually exploited children -- one just 19 days old -- were identified in an international operation that found them depicted in child pornography on the Internet, U.S. officials said Thursday.

In Operation Sunflower, led by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigation unit from Nov. 1 to Dec. 7, 123 victims of child sexual exploitation were identified, ICE Director John Morton said at a press conference in Washington. 

Of that group, 44 children had been living with their abusers, and 79 children were exploited by people outside of their home or were victimized as children and are now adults. Seventy female and 53 male victims rescued; 110 of the victims were identified in 19 U.S. states and the rest were identified in six foreign countries.

“Results [of the operation] were significant but grim, a sad reminder to us all that child online exploitation is a real part of our lives and absolutely demands our full attention,” Morton said. “The rescues highlight the depth and global nature of this problem.”

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In the investigation, HSI and partner law enforcement agencies arrested 245 people. Among them were a first-grade teacher from Chula Vista, Calif., and an airline pilot, NBCSanDiego.com reported.

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“As satisfying as the arrests have been, today is a day of mixed emotions because this operation is ultimately a tale of the perverse, pervasive and violent exploitation of children, very young children to satisfy a very dark pleasure of twisted adults,” Morton said. 

Of the victims identified during Operation Sunflower, five were under the age of 3, and one of those was just 19 days old. Thirty others were below the age of 10, officials said.

“The age of the victim has always been a problem. The Internet has just allowed a much greater immediacy to the abuse, and we’re seeing numerous instances of life child abuse that has been streamed over the Internet,” Morton said.

From the results of Operation Sunflower, named after ICE’s first successful case under the new Victim Identification Program, Morton said a few trends emerged.

Most notably, younger children were more often abused and more women were directly involved in carrying out the abuse, he said.

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Additionally, the victims of child sexual exploitation increasingly have an international nexus, said John Ryan, CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

“The problem of child exploitation is hardly confined to the United States,” Ryan said Thursday. “The Internet has made this problem such that almost every case we touch and investigate has a very strong overseas component.”

"We know that there's more work to be done," Ryan said. "Anyone could know these victims, not knowing that they're being harmed. They could be your neighbors' children, your child's classmate, or even your own child."

Morton said the only answer to child exploitation is "a relentless fight."

"Whenever our investigations reveal the production and distribution of new child pornography online, we will do everything we can to rescue the victim and prosecute the abuser, even if takes us years or around the world to do it," he said.

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HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Gov. Tom Corbett said Tuesday he plans to sue the NCAA in federal court over sanctions imposed against Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal. 

The Republican governor scheduled a news conference for Wednesday on Penn State's campus in State College to announce the filing in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg.

The sanctions, agreed to by the university in July, included a $60 million fine that would be used nationally to finance child abuse prevention grants. State and federal lawmakers have raised objections to the money being spent outside Pennsylvania.

A message seeking comment on the expected lawsuit was left with the NCAA on Tuesday.

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Last month, a Pennsylvania congressman said he was unhappy with how the NCAA responded to a request from the state's U.S. House delegation that the whole $60 million in Penn State fines be distributed to causes within the state.

NCAA president Mark Emmert had said in a Dec. 12 letter that a task force had been charged with allocating at least 25 percent of the fine money to programs in Pennsylvania.

Republican Rep. Charlie Dent said days later in a statement that Emmert's response was "unacceptable and unsatisfactory."

The NCAA said then that it stood by what Emmert said.

The fine was just part of college sports' governing body's sanctions on Penn State for its handling of the abuse scandal involving Sandusky, a former assistant under head football coach Joe Paterno. The landmark sanctions also included a four-year ban from postseason play and significant scholarship cuts for the marquee football program, which avoided being suspended, the so-called death penalty.

Sandusky, a former defensive coordinator, was convicted in June on charges he sexually abused 10 boys, some on campus. The 68-year-old was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in state prison.

Eight young men testified against him, describing a range of abuse they said went from grooming and manipulation to fondling, oral sex and anal rape when they were boys.

Sandusky didn't testify at his trial but has maintained his innocence, acknowledging he showered with boys but insisting he never molested them. 

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A Massachusetts man raped and sexually abused more than a dozen young children in their homes and videotaped the assaults, a prosecutor said Thursday.

The purported victims were as young as 8 days old, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said.

“This is among the most troubling and disturbing cases of child abuse ever prosecuted in Middlesex County,” Leone said in a statement.

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John Burbine, 49, of Wakefield, was indicted Thursday by a Middlesex grand jury on more than 100 counts of child sex offenses. He gained access to many of the children through a child care service operated by his wife, Leone said at a news conference Thursday.

According to authorities, Burbine and his wife advertised child care and tutoring services on various websites including parenting websites and coupon service websites. They also transported children to another family’s home for day care and ran a summer activities program in which they took children to various places, prosecutors said. 

Burbine raped and sexually assaulted at least 13 infants and young boys and girls who were in his care from August 2010 through August 2012, according to the indictment. Many of the children were abused multiple times over several months or years, the charges allege.

The victims ranged in age from 8 days to 3½ years old and are from Stoneham, Medford, Newton, Reading, Melrose, Woburn and Waltham, prosecutors said.

Investigators said they found images and videos on Burbine’s home computer of the victims “posed in various states of nudity and engaged in sexual acts”  “It is alleged the defendant videotape recorded the assaults on the victims,” the prosecutor’s office said.

“He committed these unspeakable crimes in the victims’ homes and communities. Further, the defendant filmed the repeated, unthinkable abuse,” Leone said. “The defendant gained access and opportunity to abuse young children through advertising child care services with his wife, who operated a tutoring and child care business, which was not licensed. Children are our most vulnerable victims and we will continue to prosecute to the fullest extent those who harm or exploit them.”  

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Burbine’s wife, Marian Burbine, 46, of Wakefield, has been indicted on charges of reckless endangerment of a child and operating an unlicensed day care business. Prosecutors said she was not present during the alleged rapes and did not know about them. She is free on bail, with conditions that she wear a monitoring bracelet, stay in her home from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m.,  and have no contact with alleged victims, clients, former emloyees, and any children under 16.

John Burbine was originally arrested Sept. 28 in Reading by Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office after an investigation into allegations of unlicensed child care at Waterfall Education Center, the business run by his wife, purportedly uncovered evidence of a sexual assault on a child.

Leone said his office obtained a court order shutting the business down while the criminal investigation continued. Following John Burbine’s arrest, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said it discovered more victims as well as video evidence allegedly showing the assaults on the victims, leading to the indictment Thursday.

Burbine will be arraigned Dec. 12 in Middlesex Superior Court.  

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