NY – 8-year-old boy charged with sexual assualt

Article

The Associated Press

BUFFALO, N.Y. Authorities say that an 8-year-old boy who was charged with sexually abusing a 6-year-old boy told police he got the idea after watching an R-rated movie.

According to Buffalo police, the movie contained scenes of prison rape. A woman contacted police Friday after discovering the boys in her son’s room.The 6-year-old was treated in Women and Children’s Hospital.The Buffalo News reports that the 8-year-old, who was released to his mother, faces charges of criminal sexual act and aggravated sexual abuse, both felonies. He also faces charges of misdemeanor forcible touching and sexual misconduct.

IL – Law may deter sex offenders

Article

By KATE THAYER 

Law-enforcement officials hope that a new law will help solve cold cases while deterring repeat sex offenders.

The law, which takes Monday, requires convicted sex offenders to provide DNA samples as part of their sex-offender registration process. Officials say people convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses are those affected by the change.

Although treatment professionals support efforts to find repeat offenders, some say the new law won’t necessarily deter sex offenders.

The new law joins others addressing sex offenders in 2007. Other initiatives include revamping the state’s sex-offender registry so the public can look up offenders by a specific address; a global positioning system for paroled sexual predators; and stricter requirements on where offenders may live in relation to child-care facilities.

Sex offenders now will have to renew their driver’s licenses every year, as opposed to every four years. Another law prohibits custody or visitation by a father who was convicted of a sexual crime that resulted in the child’s conception.

In the new DNA law, samples will be kept by the Illinois State Police for analysis and comparison. State law already requires those convicted of sex offenses to provide their address, employer and other information to police.

Australia – Pedophile left alone with girl

Article

Carly Crawford

December 31, 2006 12:00am

A CONVICTED pedophile has been sleeping in the same bedroom as a nine-year-old girl.

And horrified friends of the girl say he has tried to befriend her with gifts of cash.The Department of Human Services launched an investigation into the scandal and wants a formal ban on contact between the child and the tradesman, 28, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The man served eight months’ jail after a jury convicted him of six counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16.

He and a friend abused two 14-year-old girls in 2003 after plying them with alcohol and marijuana.

The judge presiding over the case said the man’s history of lying to police, theft and driving offences indicated he disregarded the law when it suited.

The man was freed from prison in August and has lived in Melbourne’s outer suburbs with his sister, who has three children – a boy, 4, a girl, 3, and the girl aged nine who is in the permanent care of a family friend.

A concerned friend of the carer told the Sunday Herald Sun of the situation.

The friend said the man had given $50 notes to the girl, who stayed at the home every second weekend.

“He’s been sleeping in her room and showering her with gifts and he has no respect for the law,” the friend said.

“How can a mother put her children in that sort of danger?” The girl’s mother repeatedly hung up on the Sunday Herald Sun yesterday.

Department of Human Services officials investigated the arrangement in early December after the girl told her carer.

The girl also told worried department workers the pedophile slept on a mattress on the floor of her room while she slept on the bed.

The department has asked the Children’s Court to change her access orders so that contact between the man and the girl is explicitly banned. The matter is before the court.

The man is on the sex offenders’ register and Victoria Police said he was complying with the monitoring conditions.

A department spokesperson said it was “satisfied” the man no longer resided at the home.

 

 

PA – Sexual abuse of 2 girls nets woman time in jail

Article

By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer

GROVE CITY AREA— Laura M. Shaffer probably should not have been associating with 13-year-old girls, but she probably didn’t have any other friends, said her defense attorney Randall T. Hetrick.
Hetrick laid out a grim picture of his client, who admitted indecently assaulting and corrupting the morals of two 13-year-old girls.
Ms. Shaffer, 20, of 111 Dale St., Grove City, who will spend at least 8 months in Mercer County Jail, has a lengthy juvenile criminal record and mental health problems, Hetrick said. She has only a ninth-grade education, and a low IQ and self-esteem, he said.
“We would just ask the court for whatever leniency is possible,” Hetrick said Friday.
According to state police, Ms. Shaffer inappropriately touched a 13-year-old girl Sept. 15, 2005, at a home in Springfield Township. The girl told police the touching occurred more than 10 times over a year’s time at the home and a nearby park.
A second victim, also 13, told a similar story of multiple contacts over a month’s time. Ms. Shaffer was charged with more than 100 counts of corruption of minors, indecent assault and harassment.
In a second case also involving the first victim, Ms. Shaffer broke into the girl’s home Aug. 15, 2005, and awoke the girl by assaulting her, police said. She was charged with burglary, aggravated indecent assault, corruption of minors, harassment and indecent assault, a total of nine counts.
Ms. Shaffer pleaded guilty Oct. 10 in each case to six counts of indecent assault and one count of corruption of minors.
Assistant Mercer County District Attorney Timothy Bonner called Ms. Shaffer’s conduct “reprehensible” and said it was “damaging to the victims.”
Common Pleas Judge Thomas R. Dobson agreed.
“They move on,” he said. “Do they recover? Not really. They are changed. You have changed them for the worse.”
Dobson said that, in cases when juveniles are involved, you have to inquire if there is a level of horseplay involved.
“This seemed to be far more than horseplay,” he said. “An incident of bullying, perhaps.”
Both victims told police Ms. Shaffer ignored their pleas to stop.
“She is much bigger than me,” one victim said of her inability to thwart Ms. Shaffer.
Dobson sentenced Ms. Shafer to 8 to 18 months in jail, followed by a term of parole when she is released for the remainder of the 18 months, and then a year of probation.
He also ordered her to pay costs, be evaluated by Mercer County Behavioral Health Commission and obtain her general equivalency diploma.
While Ms. Shaffer was not deemed a sexually violent offender by a state review board or Dobson, she will have to report her whereabouts annually to state police or, if she moves out of state, to the local police department. She also will have to report when she moves or changes jobs.
Dobson also forbade her from associating with anyone younger thaan 18.
“You cannot be around young children again,” he said.

Herald Staff Writer Matthew Snyder contributed to this report.

 

IL – Sex offender held on $2.5 million bond

Article 

By George Houde
Special to the Tribune
Published December 30, 2006

A Wheeling man charged with molesting an 8-year old boy at a suburban Wal-Mart store was ordered held on $2.5 million bond Saturday.

Kenneth J. Vernon, 38, of the 1600 block of Hadley Court, appeared before Judge James Etchingham in the Rolling Meadows branch of the Cook County Circuit Court. Vernon is charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse and battery stemming from a Dec. 9 incident at a Mt. Prospect Wal-Mart.

Authorities identified Vernon, a registered sex offender, from the store’s video surveillance tapes and tried to question him at his home after the incident too place, authorities said. But, he managed to escape.

Shortly thereafter, he fled and was found in Oklahoma where state police arrested him Dec. 15, authorities said. Prosecutors asked Etchingham to set bail at $2 million but the judge raised it to $2.5 million, citing concerns about Vernon being a flight risk.

In Saturday’s hearing, prosecutors alleged that Vernon stalked the boy in the store for about 30 minutes and led him to an area where he fondled the child. The man allegedly told the boy “it’s our secret” before letting him go.

The boy told his mother of the incident and she notified authorities, police said.

Following his capture, Vernon waived extradition from Oklahoma and was returned to Illinois by Mt. Prospect police on Friday.

Prosecutors said Vernon made a video tape statement to police. In that statement, he claims to have been motivated to carry out the crime by something he heard while attending sex-offender counseling. 

CA – Fearing conflict, attorney quits molestation defense

Article

By Kelly Pakula

MediaNews

The attorney for a Daly City man accused of keeping a teenage girl captive in his parents’ home for more than a year stepped down Friday because of a conflict of interest.

Jeffrey Neubarth has decided he can no longer represent John Paule France Gonzales because he earlier provided some legal assistance to Gonzales’ alleged victim.

Gonzales, 22, has pleaded not guilty to 142 felonies, including 68 counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a child, forcible penetration and domestic violence.

Neubarth became Gonzales’ attorney immediately after his arrest Nov. 18, having previously handled immigration-based cases for Gonzales’ parents. However, he now worries that his involvement with the criminal case could compromise Gonzales’ future court proceedings.

More than a year ago, Neubarth said, he helped the girl obtain a financial settlement stemming from a car accident. He said he decided to bow out of the case after consulting with fellow attorneys about the apparent conflict.

“I wasn’t looking to get out, but I had no choice but to leave,” Neubarth said Friday. “I recognized the potential conflict.”

As a result of Neubarth’s departure, Gonzales’ preliminary hearing, scheduled for Friday, was postponed. He will return to court on Jan. 4, at which time a new preliminary hearing date will be set.

Gonzales, a pharmacy technician, met the alleged victim in 2000, when she was 10 and living in San Bruno with her aunt, whom Gonzales was dating. Gonzales, who has a 5-year-old son, allegedly molested the girl for the first time in 2002 when she was 12, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office.

Gonzales maintained his relationship with the girl for several years. According to prosecutor Melissa McKowan, the victim told authorities she and Gonzales had sexual relations more than 500 times in five Bay Area counties.

Prosecutors say the girl continued to see Gonzales because he threatened to hurt her if she broke it off. Neubarth said Gonzales denies harming the girl.

In August 2005, Gonzales allegedly took the girl from her grandmother’s home in Healdsburg and told her she could not return. Prosecutors say he eventually moved her into a bedroom at his parents’ Daly City home, where she remained from October 2005 until this past October, when his parents’ house was foreclosed on. Gonzales then returned the girl to a family member’s home in La Honda.

Several weeks later, she told a family member about her ordeal, and Gonzales was arrested. He remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail.

MO – Man loses appeal in molestation

Article

A man convicted of first-degree statutory rape and statutory sodomy has lost an appeal in a Lawrence County case.

Daniel P. Skipper was accused of molesting a child younger than age 12 in early 2000.

A public defender argued on appeal that Skipper’s trial attorney was ineffective for not objecting to a jury instruction.

Appellate judges determined in an opinion released this week that if the attorney had objected, there was no “reasonable probability” of a different outcome.

FL – Man charged with child molestation

Article

By CAROLYN QUINN

PUNTA GORDA — When police asked Richard A. Jackson whether he had engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with three boys during a sleepover at his house, he confessed that he had, according to a report.

“The defendant admitted to having a problem and that he needed help,” a Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office report said.

Jackson, 63, a retired man who lives at 6908 Bernadean Blvd. in Punta Gorda, was charged with two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation and three counts of lewd or lascivious exhibition Wednesday.

According to the report, Jackson had arranged for three boys, ages 11, 8 and 7, to stay with him at his home. The 8- and 7-year-olds were brothers. Jackson picked them up at their homes in Tampa and drove them to Punta Gorda. He had permission from the boys’ parents to take them for the night.

“Apparently, this man befriended them,” said CCSO spokesman Bob Carpenter. “They’re not related.”

During the drive, Jackson made the three boys masturbate and urinate into a bottle, the report said. The 11-year-old asked Jackson to take him back to his home in Tampa, which Jackson did. After Jackson left, the boy told his mother what had occurred. She called the other boys’ mother, who contacted the Tampa Police Department. Tampa police asked the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office to check on the children.

The boys were asleep when deputies arrived, the report said. Deputies took custody of them and returned them to their mother. They told police that Jackson had touched their genitals and spanked them.

Cpl. Sean Griffin interviewed Jackson, who said he had watched the boys masturbate, the report said. He also admitted to touching the younger boys’ genitals.

Jackson has no arrest record in Charlotte County and is not one of the county’s 169 registered sex offenders. He was held at Charlotte County Jail on $250,000 bond.

GA – Indiana man arrested for attempted child molestation

Article

By CAMERON JOHNSON

After having lengthy, explicit Internet conversations with a person he believed to be a 13-year-old female, an Indiana man who was in Coweta County for the holidays was taken into custody Wednesday while allegedly attempting to make contact with the 13-year-old.

Justin Adam Reimer, 23, of Columbia City, Indiana, was charged by Coweta County Sheriff’s Office investigators with criminal attempt to commit child molestation, obscene Internet contact with a child, and child molestation, Capt. Tony Grant said Thursday.

“That Internet will get you every time,” Reimer allegedly said while being interviewed after his arrest. “You just can’t trust nobody on the Internet.”

Reimer, a volunteer firefighter and student, is being held in the Coweta County Jail without bond. He was taken into custody at approximately 2 p.m. at a Newnan Crossing Bypass cafe.

The case began, said Grant, when Reimer began chatting with a school resource officer who had put a profile online identifying herself as a 13-year-old female.

CA – Youth coach arrested, accused of molestation

Article

SOFTBALL FIELD: Witnesses reported the incident but didn’t know the child’s name.

10:00 PM PST on Friday, December 29, 2006

By PAUL LAROCCO
The Press-Enterprise

YUCAIPA – A girls softball coach with years of involvement in youth sports throughout the East Valley was arrested Friday on suspicion of molesting a 12-year-old player, raising detectives’ concerns that there could be other victims.

Andrew John Likins, 44, of Yucaipa, was booked on one count of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, stemming from an incident that authorities say took place in November 2005 at a softball field in eastern San Bernardino.

Witnesses reported seeing a coach inappropriately touch a young girl, said Sgt. Brooke Wagner, who oversees the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department’s Crimes Against Children Detail.

Likins was immediately identified as the coach, but it took a lengthy investigation to determine the girl’s identity because no one came forward, sheriff’s officials said.

“They had to do dozens of interviews to find this girl,” said Sgt. Richard Ells, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman. “They had to seek her out.”

Detectives finally interviewed a girl who said she was the one touched by Likins. After further investigation, Likins was brought into sheriff’s headquarters for a statement and was arrested.

He was transported to West Valley Detention Center. Bail has been set at $100,000.

Likins has coached youth baseball and softball in Yucaipa, Redlands and Highland, and he was active up until his arrest, Wagner said. Sheriff’s officials suspect there are more victims.

“It’s kind of a hunch on our part,” Wagner said. “He coached in all these places, and certainly, there is the likelihood that there may be more things going on.”

The leagues in which Likins is known to have coached include the San Bernardino Girls Fast Pitch Softball Association and Redlands Baseball/Softball for Youth. In the latter, Likins coached 12-year-old girls softball for one season about two years ago, and he was not asked back, said Jeff Ohs, the league’s safety coordinator.

Likins was disciplined for on-field behavior, Ohs said. The league screens all its coaches through the Megan’s Law database of registered sex offenders, he said.

No criminal record could be found for Likins in either Riverside County or San Bernardino County. State prison records were not available Friday.

The arrest surprised Likins’ father, who was reached at his Elsinore, Utah, home late Friday. Roy Likins said his son, a U.S. Army veteran who is married and has a grown daughter, is passionate about the local sports leagues where he volunteers.

“If you said he got mad and busted somebody in the mouth, I would have said, ‘That’s my boy,’ ” Likins said. “But this I find hard to believe.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact the sheriff’s Crimes Against Children Detail at 909-387-3615.

Reach Paul LaRocco at 909-806-3064 or plarocco@PE.com