Former priest arrested at LAX
Los Angeles A former priest allowed to remain in the ministry after telling Cardinal Roger M. Mahony he had molested children was arrested Thursday on suspicion of committing lewd acts with a child in the 1990s. Deputies apprehended him as he disembarked from a plane at Los Angeles International Airport.
The arrest caps a four-year effort by prosecutors to build a case against Michael Stephen Baker, who authorities said ranks among the most prolific alleged abusers in the church. More than 20 people told the Los Angeles Archdiocese that Baker molested them during his 26 years as a priest.
Mahony has said Baker’s case is the one “that troubles me the most.” Baker told Mahony in 1986 he had molested children, according to the archdiocese and Baker. Mahony did not alert police, but rather sent Baker for treatment, after which he was assigned to a series of nine other parishes.
Baker was about to stand trial in 2003 on different molestation charges. But his case and those of hundreds of other priests were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court barred the revival of decades-old childhood sexual abuse prosecutions.
Thursday’s arrest involves a molestation case that authorities say took place within the statute of limitations. It involves allegations that Baker sexually assaulted a young boy, now 27, in the rectory of a church somewhere in Los Angeles County.
Reid apologizes for slamming senators
Washington Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., apologized Thursday to 33 Republican senators for a hard-hitting news release that accused them of ethical and legislative lapses, in an awkward about-face that tripped up his party’s effort to keep the GOP majority on the defensive over alleged corruption.
“I am writing to apologize for the tone of this document and the decision to single out individual senators for criticism in it,” Reid said of the 27-page statement sent Tuesday by his communications office. The release, titled “Republicans cannot be trusted to end the culture of corruption,” triggered sharp complaints from GOP officials who said it violated Senate decorum and brought campaign-style mudslinging into the Capitol.
Reid, who headed a Democratic Party event Wednesday at the Library of Congress calling for clean government, basically agreed.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the senator did not see the document before it was e-mailed to hundreds of journalists and others, but Reid did not make that claim in his one-page letter.
Fatal crash caused by falling Labrador
Livonia, Mich. A dog apparently fell from a freeway overpass and crashed through a car windshield, fatally injuring the driver, police said Thursday.
Charles G. Jetchick, 81, died Wednesday of injuries suffered in the accident over the weekend in suburban Detroit. A passenger suffered minor injuries.
Investigators do not believe the 60- to 70-pound Labrador retriever was thrown, but rather fell while trying to avoid a car, state police Sgt. Michael A. Shaw said. Police questioned the dog’s owner. The dog died after the fall of about 16 feet.