Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Dallas, Texas, USA · 1998

United States: Rudolph Kos sentenced to life after altar boys' testimony of years of abuse

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Dallas diocesan priest

Organization

Diocese of Dallas

Spiritual nexus

Altar boys under a priest's direct religious supervision, kept accessible by a diocese with written warning in hand.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 1998-04-02 · jury conviction and life sentence

    Texas state court, USA. Rudolph Kos was convicted in April 1998 on three counts of aggravated sexual assault and four lesser counts against former altar boys — trial testimony described roughly 1,350 assaults over five years — and sentenced to life plus consecutive terms. A 1997 civil jury had already returned a $120 million verdict against the diocese, whose bishop admitted not reading a 1992 therapist's warning describing Kos as a 'classic textbook pedophile'.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • religious supervision of altar boys
  • diocesan inaction on a 1992 therapist warning

Primary record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report 'Life Sentence for Abusive Priest', The Washington Post, 2 Apr. 1998.

Reports the conviction, testimony, sentence and civil-verdict backdrop.

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