Summary

Fog and rain hang over the Morning Star Boys Ranch on Moran Prairie in this file photo.

Morning Star Boys’ Ranch, a longtime group home for troubled boys in southeast Spokane, became the target of numerous lawsuits by former residents alleging physical and sexual abuse. Ranch supporters and its former director say the ranch has been sullied by the abuse allegations, which they vehemently deny. They say the Catholic-based nonprofit organization has provided a safe environment for more than 1,300 boys with behavioral problems for more than 50 years.

The first of 19 sex abuse lawsuits against the ranch went to trial early in 2010, and on Feb. 12 that year, a jury handed Morning Star a victory, ruling against plaintiff Kenneth Putnam, who claims he was molested while a resident in 1988 and ’89. Seattle attorney Tim Kosnoff’s law firm represents 14 other plaintiffs in suits against the boys’ ranch. Kosnoff said he intended to bring his strongest cases to trial first.

Defense attorney Jim King said he intends to defend Morning Star and its former director, the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, in every case that goes to trial. Attorneys for the ranch have shown no signs that they would consider a settlement, in contrast to the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, which in 2007 settled with 180 plaintiffs claiming to have been sexually abused by priests.

Allegations of abuse at the ranch surfaced in 2005, beginning with two former residents who accused ranch employees of sexual and physical abuse. More former wards of the ranch came forward with abuse allegations in the following months. The suits named Weitensteiner, defrocked priest and admitted pedophile Patrick O’Donnell, and several counselors.

The state continues to place boys in the care of the ranch.

Key People

  • Jim King

    Jim King, an attorney with Spokane law firm Evans, Craven & Lackie, is the lead defense attorney for Morning Star Boys’ Ranch. He has litigated many medical malpractice, employment, professional negligence, worksite/premises liability and wrongful death cases in Eastern Washington and North Idaho in his career.

  • Timothy Kosnoff

    Timothy Kosnoff is a Seattle attorney who specializes in child sexual abuse cases. His firm represents Kenneth Putnam and 14 other plaintiffs in lawsuits against Morning Star Boys’ Ranch. He has prevailed in abuse cases involving the Boy Scouts of America, several Catholic dioceses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the Salvation Army, the Jesuits and other religious orders.

  • Kenneth Putnam

    Kenneth Putnam was sent to Morning Star Boys’ Ranch as a ward of the court in 1986. He has alleged that the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner molested him when he was 13 or 14 years old on the priest’s boat, in his car and at his home at St. Patrick’s Parish in northeast Spokane. Also, Putnam says counselor Doyle Gillum, now deceased, molested him in a boy’s bedroom at the ranch on two occasions. Putnam has a criminal history dating to 1988 that includes felony theft, burglary, assault and drug convictions.

  • Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner

    The Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner retired as director of Morning Star Boys’ Ranch in 2006. He began as a ranch counselor in the 1960s and was promoted to director of Morning Star after he was ordained a Catholic priest in 1966. Weitensteiner had admitted to administering corporal punishment to ranch residents but has steadfastly denied more serious allegations of abuse of boys, including sexual abuse.

Complete Coverage

News >  Spokane

Diocese returns Morning Star ranch priest to ministry

The Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, the former director of Morning Star Boys’ Ranch, has been reinstated as an active priest after the last sex abuse claims against him were rejected by a retired federal judge hired to rule on the credibility of the cases. Referred to as “Father Joe” by a Catholic community that admired his decades of work with troubled boys, Weitensteiner, now 82, has never wavered in his insistence that he didn’t molest boys entrusted to his care at the ranch southeast of Spokane.
News >  Washington Voices

Morning Star boys care for goat litter

Four new kids arrived at Morning Star Boys’ Ranch on July 1. But unlike the 18 boys living there, these kids don’t get a private room. Instead, they are staying in a building out back with their mother, Angelina. Last week Angelina, a Nubian/Boer goat, rested in the shade while her four rambunctious, if a bit wobbly, sons huddled together in a nearby shed.
News >  Spokane

Parishes giving $1.5 million toward settling sex cases

Catholic parishes are contributing $1.5 million toward a broad legal settlement expected to help the church resolve clergy sex abuse claims and avoid the foreclosure of churches and schools. It’s the second settlement in five years that has been billed as ending the bankruptcy of the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, which has struggled with more than a decade of scandal.
News >  Spokane

Boys’ Ranch reaches deal

Nineteen lawsuits against the Morning Star Boys’ Ranch have been settled, part of a larger settlement that’s expected to sew shut all of the outstanding legal issues surrounding the clergy sex abuse problems of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Spokane. The seven years of litigation damaged the reputation of Morning Star and its revered longtime director, the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, who had been affectionately called Father Joe by legions of former ranch residents, Catholic parishioners and supporters.
News >  Spokane

Boys ranch joins talks on abuse claims

A mediation effort designed to resolve ongoing legal problems faced by the Catholic Diocese of Spokane now includes the Morning Star Boys Ranch, according to court records. It sets up the possibility that a far-reaching agreement would sew shut most if not all of the outstanding clergy sex abuse litigation that continues to plague the two Catholic ministries a decade after the scandal broke in Spokane.
News >  Spokane

Morning Star joins diocese in mediation effort

A mediation effort designed to resolve ongoing legal problems faced by the Catholic Diocese of Spokane now includes the Morning Star Boys Ranch, according to court records. It sets up the possibility that a far-reaching agreement would sew shut most if not all of the outstanding clergy sex abuse litigation that continues to the plague the two Catholic ministries a decade after the scandal broke in Spokane.
News >  Spokane

DSHS settles abuse case from ’70s for $1.7 million

A Spokane man molested in the 1970s after being placed as a foster child in the home of a convicted child molester will be paid $1.7 million by the state Department of Social and Health Services as part of a settlement that avoids a civil trial that was to begin Monday. Attorneys informed Superior Court Judge Tari Eitzen that they reached the settlement Sunday night, which avoided a civil trial scheduled to last five weeks.
News >  Spokane

Judge overturns contempt finding of Catholic Diocese

A senior federal judge in Spokane reversed a lower court order Monday and cleared the Spokane Catholic Diocese and its lawyers of contempt. It was a rare legal win for the diocese since it reopened its bankruptcy case last year to fight a group of newly filed sex abuse claims.
News >  Spokane

Ruling puts parishes at risk of foreclosure

The Spokane Catholic Diocese must raise more than $800,000 this fall, some of it due in two weeks, to pay sex abuse claims or risk defaulting on its bankruptcy obligations and losing parishes to foreclosure. The diocese lost a legal fight Tuesday that could have forestalled such a drastic step. Diocese officials did not respond to messages left Tuesday after U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Patricia Williams cleared the way for collection efforts.
News >  Spokane

Abuse payments sap diocese fund, putting churches at risk

The Catholic Diocese of Spokane is broaching a consequence of its bankruptcy once thought unthinkable – the sale of churches to pay victims of clergy sex abuse. New claims of abuse that occurred decades ago continue to be filed, approved and paid, draining a special $1 million fund that now needs replenishing as part of the legal settlement the diocese signed to end its bankruptcy.
News >  Spokane

Rulings upheld in boys ranch case

A state appeals court panel has declined to review a judge’s decision to limit the number of witnesses who may testify in the second child sex abuse lawsuit against Morning Star Boys’ Ranch. George H. Minehart II has sued Morning Star, claiming to have been abused by the ranch’s former director, the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, and other staff members while a resident of the ranch in 1980 and 1981.
News >  Spokane

Former resident sues Morning Star

An Alaska man is suing Morning Star Boys’ Ranch, claiming that he was sexually abused nearly 30 years ago by the ranch’s former director, as well as by other residents. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane, names the ranch and its former director, the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner, as well as the Morning Star Boys’ Ranch Foundation, to which the ranch has transferred the bulk of its assets. It’s the first such case to be filed in federal court.
News >  Spokane

Morning Star suit awaiting ruling

A lawsuit against Morning Star Boys’ Ranch by a former resident who claims to have been abused there has been stayed by the state Court of Appeals while that court hears a motion to review a ruling limiting testimony in the trial. Attorneys for George H. Minehart II, a former resident of the ranch, appealed Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor’s decision to limit the testimony of other former residents, most of whom have filed their own cases against Morning Star.
News >  Spokane

Court delays Morning Star trial pending review

A lawsuit against Morning Star Boys’ Ranch by a former resident who claims to have been abused there has been stayed by the state Court of Appeals while that court hears a motion to review a ruling limiting testimony in the trial.
News >  Spokane

Boys ranch trial delayed one week

A Spokane County Superior Court judge agreed on Thursday to delay trial of the second child sex abuse lawsuit against Morning Star Boys’ Ranch for one week while the state Court of Appeals for Division III decides whether to review her decision to limit the testimony of former residents who claim to have been abused.
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