Dino Cinel

Dino Cinel was an Italian-American historian, priest and a Distinguished Professor of Italian-American Studies at College of Staten Island.^[1] He is known for evading prosecution and conviction of his self-made child sexual abuse material that he filmed and created at St. Rita's Parish in New Orleans while living there due to his ties to Harry Connick Sr., who was a St. Rita's parishioner at the time.

Life

In 1988, he was a Roman Catholic priest at St. Rita's Church, New Orleans. He was investigated over his possession of homosexual child sexual abuse materials, which he had created of himself abusing boys in the rectory of St. Rita's, where he was living at the time. The following lack of prosecution created public outrage and he was not charged by the New Orleans District Attorney until 1995. He was acquitted by the jury because child pornography laws had not yet been enacted at the time he filmed himself abusing the boys.^[2] He sued over the public release of the information^[3] and it wasn't until 2010 that the Vatican formally revoked his priesthood.^[4]

He taught at Tulane University. The scholarship of his book, From Italy to San Francisco, has been questioned.^[5]^[6] After his abuse in New Orleans came to light, he fled to Italy and later took a position at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. Upon learning of his eventual charges, he was suspended with pay from the university. He and his wife, fellow Tulane professor Linda Pollock, divorced in 2015 after many years of separation.

Cinel was stabbed to death in Medellin, Colombia in February 2018 by an 18-year-old man with whom he had been in a relationship.^[7]^[8]

Awards

1984 Merle Curti Award in Social History

Works

From Italy to San Francisco. Stanford University Press. 1982. ISBN 978-0-8047-1117-3.
The National Integration of Italian Return Migration, 1870-1929. Cambridge University Press. 2002. ISBN 978-0-521-52118-5.

References

^ "The porn prof on trial.", The Nation, November, 1993, Jon Wiener
^ "Unholy Alliances", Vanity Fair, Leslie Bennetts, December 1991
^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2010-01-25.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
^ [email protected] (2018-03-26). "Dino Cinel, ex-priest whose sex scandal rocked New Orleans, is killed in Colombia". NOLA.com. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
^ "The Disturbing Case of Dino Cinel", History News Network, Sebastian Fichera, 4-28-03
^ "Dino Cinel", History News Network, Andrew M. Canepa, May 7, 2003 Archived November 24, 2004, at the Wayback Machine
^ "Asesinan en Medellín a exsacerdote italiano envuelto en pornografía". El Tiempo (in Spanish). February 3, 2018. Retrieved January 26, 2019.
^ Clark, Maria (26 March 2018). "Dino Cinel, disgraced ex-Catholic priest, found murdered in Colombia". NOLA.com. Archived from the original on 24 July 2024. Retrieved 24 July 2024.

External links

"Review: The National Integration of Italian Return Migration, 1870-1929 by Dino Cinel, The Historical Journal, Volume 35, Number 4 (December 1992), pages 1004-1005
Pedophiles and priests: anatomy of a contemporary crisis. Oxford University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-19-514597-7.
Asesinan en Medellín a exsacerdote italiano envuelto en pornografía. El Tiempo; Medellin, Colombia, February 3, 2018.