Prosecutors investigating 50 complaints of child sexual abuse

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce is investigating about 50 separate complaints of child sexual abuse received in the last week, including allegations against "multiple" Roman Catholic priests.

While she declined to comment specifically on all but one of those under investigation, Joyce said she believes all of the complaints received since she made a public appeal last Tuesday are "credible."

"I expected to have some where I would roll my eyes," said Ed Postawko, chief of the sex crimes and child abuse unit in Joyce's office. "I have yet to have one where I roll my eyes."

The announcement came Thursday, the day after Joyce filed three counts of sexual misconduct involving a child against one of the individuals named in many complaints her office has received. James A. Beine, 60, was arrested around 4 a.m. Thursday at a residence in Highland, Ill.

Joyce said between 20 and 22 of the complaints her office has received involved Beine, a Roman Catholic priest dismissed from the clergy in 1977 who until last week was employed by the St. Louis Public Schools as an elementary-school counselor.

"This is one of the most serious predators I have ever dealt with in my years as prosecutor," Joyce said.

Beine is being held in Madison County, Ill., on a $100,000 cash bond, which was requested because there were indications he had planned to flee the area, Joyce said. She did not know if he has an attorney or would waive extradition to Missouri.

The three counts Beine now faces stem from incidents that allegedly took place at Patrick Henry Elementary School. Prosecutors said Beine exposed himself to two brothers, ages 9 and 10, in the boys bathroom at the school.

"He would go to the little boys room instead of the faculty bathroom and he would spend a lot of time in there," Joyce said.

Joyce only spoke in general terms about the other complaints her office has received and is investigating, although she said no one person has been implicated on the same scale as Beine. Some of the complaints came from outside the city of St. Louis, and Joyce said she planned to provide information on those allegations to other prosecutors.

Rich Fanning, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said the church has not been contacted by Joyce's office regarding the new complaints.

"Until we have information from her office on those cases, we wouldn't be able to make any statement," Fanning said.

On Wednesday, the archdiocese announced the resignation of one priest and placed another on leave. Archbishop Justin Rigali made extensive comments about the ongoing scandal in the church involving sexual abuse of minors at that time, but Fanning said Thursday he doubted Rigali would comment further until after Easter.

Last week, the city's schools suspended Beine after learning the church spent $110,000 to settle two lawsuits accusing Beine of sexually abusing boys while a priest. Cleveland Hammonds Jr., the district's superintendent, said the schools knew about the lawsuits when they were filed in 1994 but did not know the outcomes until last week.

At the time the lawsuits were filed, the district said it had removed Beine from any duties with children, although he eventually returned to his job as a counselor. School officials said last week they had been unable to find anything in the district's files explaining how that was allowed to happen.

Joyce said Thursday Beine was taking trips with students from the school as late as a few weeks ago. She said her investigation would likely look at the actions of school officials, which she called potentially criminally negligent.

"They have a duty to report, and anyone at a school has a duty to protect children," Joyce said.

In all, eight lawsuits were filed charging Beine with sexually molesting nine boys while working as a priest at two St. Louis-area parishes, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The paper reported four of the suits are sealed and there is no indication of cash settlements in the other two.

Ordained in 1967, Beine was suspended by the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1977. Two years later, the archdiocese publicly disassociated itself from Beine because he had set up his own rogue ministry and claimed to offer Catholic sacraments.

The late Rev. John L. May, then archbishop of St. Louis, wrote a letter in 1990 to all parish pastors warning that "many have been victimized or defrauded" by Beine's independent ministry.

The city's schools hired Beine as a counselor in January 1991, based in part on a recommendation Hammonds said the district received from the archdiocese, which he declined to release. The archdiocese said it's highly unlikely such a recommendation was provided, since by then Archbishop May had publicly attacked Beine's reputation.