Covenant House

[2] Covenant House aids young people facing homelessness and survivors of human trafficking with a number of data-supported programs.

[5] In the late 1960s, the Reverend Bruce Ritter, a Franciscan priest, retired from his job as a professor at Manhattan College to begin a new ministry serving the city's poor.

Now, as an established nonprofit organization, Covenant House began to fundraise to shelter youth facing homelessness in Lower Manhattan and on Staten Island.

In a widely publicized case, Ritter was forced to retire from Covenant House in 1990 after extensive allegations of sexual misconduct and minor financial irregularities.

Then-Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau began looking into possible financial improprieties or the use of false documentation by Covenant House officials.

[10] The Manhattan District Attorney's office announced that it was ending its investigation of Ritter's alleged financial misconduct and would not file criminal charges, on the day after his resignation.

After a five-month investigation, 150 interviews, and the examination of thousands of pages of documents, their report noted that on the subject of sexual misconduct, "none of the allegations, when viewed individually, can be proved beyond any question."

[6] Sister Mary Rose McGeady, then associate director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Brooklyn, became President of Covenant House, instituting both financial and program-related reforms.