Wisconsin Attorney General Provides Update on Effort to Find Victims of Clergy/Faith Leader Abuse

Thursday, April 21st, 2022 -- 12:00 PM

(Raymond Neupert, WRN) It's been a year since the State Department of Justice started an effort to find victims of clergy and faith leader abuse in Wisconsin.

Attorney General Josh Kaul says the state has started charges against one person, but that a lot of cases are outside the statute of limitations. "Certainly, if we get information that can lead to a prosecution, we're going to work with local law enforcement to pursue that. But we also want to provide victim services and support to individuals, many of whom, again, had never come forward."

Kaul says they've completed over 200 reports, including 51 from people who never before reported their abuse. He's hopeful that the process will continue to help victims. "First and foremost identify as many people as possible, who committed abuse. And then secondly, so we can move the healing process forward and hope and work to prevent this from ever happening again."

Kaul says that continuing this process and giving victims a chance to come forward will allow the Justice Department to better do its job of protecting young people. "We need to make sure that any form of institutional abuse, if we can put safeguards up against that, that we're doing that to make sure that we are keeping kids and others safe, as safe as possible from abuse."

One new prosecution has started, but Kaul says that will likely be a rarity because of the age of these cases.

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