Free Republic

DAYTON — A woman accused of celebrating her 55th birthday by having sex with a 12-year-old boy pleaded guilty to one count of gross sexual imposition of a person under age 13 on Friday, Oct. 23. Gloria J. Murphy, of 5440 Rawlings Drive, appeared before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman, who set sentencing for Dec. 2. The charge is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Gloria J. Murphy, who uses a walker and an oxygen tube, appeared frail.

John Couey, convicted of killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, had died of cancer, according to Jessie's grandfather, Archie Lunsford. "We got a call from the warden this morning," said Lunsford. Mark's mother, Ruthie, said this "is the best news she has heard." Couey, 51, had been in Florida State Prison near Jacksonville. He died 11:15 a.m. today at a Jacksonville hospital, state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. "So far, no one has claimed his body," she said. "If no one claims it, he'll be buried in an inmate cemetery at Union Correctional Institution in Starke."

With the possible exception of the O.J. Simpson trial, it would be hard to think of a tabloid-ready celebrity scandal from the past 30 years that provokes a more purely, intensely, overheated-ly emotional response than the Roman Polanski rape case of 1977. (He fled the country early in 1978.) It’s a safe bet that a lot of people, upon reading the headline that Polanski had been arrested in Zurich, with the possibility of extradition to the U.S. to stand trial on that charge, greeted the news with more or less the following sentiment: “Good! It’s about time that the authorities...

“I know it wasn’t rape-rape. It was something else but I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like ‘You know what, this guy’s going to give me a hundred years in jail I’m not staying,’ so that’s why he left.” (video clip at link)

School districts, state agency blamed in molestation case Indiana child welfare officials and school districts in two states had a responsibility to protect children in Lee N. Tibbetts’ classroom, but a series of miscommunications and missteps among those agencies failed to catch a pattern of problematic behavior over three years. That breakdown allowed Tibbetts to remain in the classroom despite multiple accusations, including one that eventually led to the math teacher being arrested on charges alleging he molested a student while teaching for Indianapolis Public Schools. A review by The Indianapolis Star and The Cincinnati Enquirer shows that red flags...

It seems that untoward incidents are on the rise, the recent occurring at Idaho. Summer Nelson, a 28 year old baby sitter, hailing from Idaho, was charged of having physical terms with a 14 year old boy. She was actually appointed to take care of the boy in question with whom she allegedly had a physical relationship. Summer Nelson was appointed to take care of the minor, in August 2007. KXLY-TV reported on Tuesday, that the 28 year old baby sitter, Summer Nelson, was charged with four counts of lewd conduct with the child. Reports suggest that the accused baby...

A paedophile ring has been smashed after eight men were found guilty of a horrifying catalogue of more than 50 child pornography and abuse charges.Among the crimes was a shocking sexual attack carried out on a three-month-old baby boy by an executive adviser on child sex issues. James Rennie, chief executive of a publicly-funded gay rights group, was one of the men exposed yesterday as members of Scotland's biggest paedophile ring.   Rennie, 38, molested the toddler son of unsuspecting friends - a little boy he had been trusted to babysit - recording the abuse and sharing it with other...

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (WSAZ) -- A man from Scioto County is facing a rape charge after police say he sexually assaulted two young girls. Bobby Dean Boggs was arrested at a relative's house in the Clarktown area. He is accused of sexually assaulting two girls, aged 5 and 10, in Portsmouth. Investigators say more charges are expected when his case is presented to a grand jury. His preliminary hearing is set for July 2nd.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Vermont State Police say a nanny charged with molesting a 10-year-old boy may have other victims elsewhere. Vermont State Police Detective Ben Katz says the case is complex because 23-year-old Donald Shepherd traveled around the country and went by several aliases. He says Shepherd sought work as a nanny and at camps in 13 other states. Shepherd looked for his nanny jobs online. Vermont investigators are working with other law enforcement agencies and have been contacted by several nanny-networking sites. Katz says Shepherd may have sought work in California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey,...

The woman accused of raping and murdering 8-year-old Sandra Cantu of Tracy is facing new charges alleging that she poisoned a 7-year-old girl and a man in the months before Sandra died . ... In a complaint filed Thursday, prosecutors charged Huckaby with poisoning the 7-year-old girl, identified only as Jane Doe, on Jan. 17. That's the day that a woman at the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park said her daughter had apparently been drugged with muscle relaxants during a visit with Huckaby.... Huckaby was also charged with drugging a man identified as Daniel Plowman on March 2. The substance...

LOS ANGELES, (AP) -- A Los Angeles judge has dismissed Roman Polanski's bid to throw out a 31-year-old sex case because the fugitive director failed to appear in court. . . . The judge said Polanski's lawyer informed him the director doesn't intend to submit himself to the jurisdiction of the court.

Lawmakers have secretly approved awarding an illegal immigrant child molester more than $4 million because he was beaten by fellow inmates while in custody. Fernandez Ramirez, 24, is an illegal immigrant from Mexico who molested a 6-year-old girl in a park. The back door settlement, paid with tax dollers, gives the illegal alien's family $3.75 million and $900,000 will go to medical liens rendered while in custody. Orange County (CA) Board of Supervisors refused to comment on the settlement even though constituents have the right to know since it's their money.

The judge in the Sandra Cantu murder case agreed to seal her autopsy report Friday, saying if the results were released, there would be "public outrage." "We haven't seen anything like this in San Joaquin County," Superior Court Judge Linda L. Loftus said. "A lot of courts have never seen this kind of case." Both prosecution and defense attorneys were in favor of sealing the report. "In the interest of a fair trial, for both sides in this case, that is the only option," Loftus said. "There would be overriding prejudice if the record is unsealed." She said there would...

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- A Santa Maria elementary school principal has been arrested for allegedly molesting a 14-year-old girl. Police arrested 32-year-old Brookann Collier at her home Thursday morning. . . .

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - A former county official in Magoffin County has pleaded guilty to a federal charge that he used a computer to attempt to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity. Federal prosecutors say former deputy Judge-Executive Walter Edward Hardin also pleaded guilty on Wednesday to receiving child pornography images. He faces a minimum of 10 years in prison. Hardin was charged after chatting online with an undercover officer from the Kentucky State Police. A statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in Lexington says the officer was posing as a 14-year-old. Hardin was arrested after arriving at...

A former crossing guard who admitted molesting seven children in Columbia was sent to prison for at least 230 years and up to 460 years. A judge in Columbia County said Dale Hutchings of Berwick is a sexually violent predator and should never able allowed near children again. That's why he was sentenced to hundreds of years behind bars. Assistant District Attorney Anthony McDonald said the evidence in the case was overwhelming. A former crossing guard who admitted molesting seven children in Columbia was sent to prison for at least 230 years and up to 460 years. A judge in...

LOS ANGELES -- An appeals court has rejected a bid by Roman Polanski's attorneys to disqualify all Los Angeles Superior Court judges from considering a request to dismiss a rape case against the fugitive film director. A three-judge panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal on Monday also lifted a stay on all proceedings in the 31-year-old case, sending the case back to Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza. The court will schedule another hearing to decide whether Polanski has to be present for the court to hear his motion to dismiss a charge that he raped a 13-year-old...

What I loved most about my father, was that we had the same name, Mark Johnson, but only mine included the middle name Antoine. By the time I was three, I had only seen my father, Mark Johnson Sr., two or three times. He had been in prison for molesting two children. He claimed he never did molest those children, and I used to believe him. I was nine when my father got out. God knows how happy I was to see him - the father I had always wanted to have in my life. My father found work doing...

KOKOMO, Ind. -- A man was arrested Monday on two counts of child molesting after the victim's father caught the man in the act with his 5-year-old daughter, police said. Larry Joe Nester, 46, of Kokomo, was taken into custody in the 3100 block of North Washington Street. Police said their investigation began on Nov. 28 when the girl's father reported the incident. Investigators said they found that Nester had also molested the girl on several occasions prior to the Nov. 28 incident.

RIPLEY, Tenn. - A former West Tennessee teacher accused of having sex with a student has been convicted of child abuse. Amy Elder, a 28-year-old former teacher and softball coach at Ripley High School, was accused of having sex with a 15-year-old girl. She went to trial charged with sexual battery and statutory rape by an authority figure but was convicted Wednesday night in Ripley on lesser charges of child abuse. Elder testified in her own defense and denied having sexual contact with the teenager.

EAST PALO ALTO -- A woman beat up her brother after she caught him sexually assaulting her 2-year-old daughter in his East Palo Alto home, police said today. Joel Aguilar Guizar, 23, was allegedly attacking the child when his sister broke down a locked bedroom door about 1 p.m. Wednesday, said East Palo Alto police Detective Jeff Liu. The woman, whose name was not released, saw Guizar pulling up his pants, grew enraged and "beat the crap out of him," Liu said. Police were called to investigate reports of a domestic battery in progress. When they arrived, officers heard the...

Spokane, Wash. (AP) -- Sherry Jones knew it would be hard to get her first novel published. Getting "The Jewel of Medina" into bookstores was even harder. After overcoming the formidable hurdles any new author faces, Jones was overjoyed to sell the book to Random House. Then Random House canceled its publication at the last minute for fear the historical novel about Aisha, child bride of the prophet Muhammad, would incite riots in the Muslim world.

Raynham father warns Market Basket shoppers of ‘predator’ employee he says groped his 4-year-old son A father says he was horrified to find out that a janitor accused of groping his son in a bathroom stall at Market Basket is still working there. RAYNHAM, MA — One Raynham father is taking justice into his own hands, warning other parents this week about an alleged “predator” who he says groped his 4-year-old son in a supermarket bathroom last month. Police said the suspect, an elderly janitor at Market Basket, allegedly reached under a bathroom stall partition and touched the boy’s calf...

SOLEDAD - A 30-year-old convicted child molester is dead after being killed at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad. Lt. Eric Moore of the prison said Donald Jones was assaulted by a group of prisoners Friday morning in the general population maximum-security yard. He was pronounced dead about 90 minutes later. Prison officers recovered a stabbing weapon at the scene. Jones had been in the facility since 1995, serving a 20-year sentence out of Los Angeles County for sodomy on a child under 14. Authorities said six men are suspected in Jones' death. They already are serving sentences for convictions...

In broadening the legal definition of rape, Maryland's highest court has rightly expanded women's rights, recognizing the importance of their being able to assert control at times of particular vulnerability. The seven judges may have relied on different legal reasoning, but they were unanimous in concluding that a woman can change her mind and withdraw consent during sexual intercourse - and that a man has to honor her decision. Making that more clear in the law is a welcome advance that should help juries as they weigh the facts in individual cases. Rape generally involves physical or psychological power and...

A team mother of a private basketball team has posted bail following her arrested for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old boy on the team, police said Monday. Janice Marie Niccoli, 37, was arrested at her Vacaville home Friday on two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor more than 10 years younger, Sgt. Charlie Spruill said. Niccoli posted bail Saturday afternoon, Spruill said. Niccoli, the single mother of two boys, allegedly met the victim while traveling with a private club boys basketball team last year. Spruill said the alleged sexual encounters happened at Niccoli's home in April and...

A top official in the Patrick administration has been placed on unpaid leave because he was arrested in Florida and charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old male in a steam room at a $500-a-night Gulf Coast resort. Carl Stanley McGee, 38, assistant secretary for policy and planning, is scheduled to be arraigned next week for sexual battery in Lee County, Fla. McGee helped draft Patrick's casino bill, life sciences legislation, and his plan to bring broadband Internet service to the farthest reaches of the state. According to police reports, McGee was arrested Dec. 28 and accused of performing oral sex...

Omaha, Neb. (AP) -- A 14-year-old boy who fled to Mexico with his former teacher will be allowed to return to the United States for a year, his lawyer said Thursday. The Department of Homeland Security has granted the boy, an illegal immigrant, humanitarian parole, according to a letter sent to his lawyer, Amy Peck. "(The boy) is going home," Peck told reporters. "At the very least, he gets to speak about what happened to him." Marilu Cabrera, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Services, said she couldn't comment on specific immigration cases. The boy's former teacher, Kelsey Peterson, 25,...

Atwater, Calif. (AP) -- Prison officials say a convicted child molester and kidnapper died last month after choking on a hot dog. Forty-five-year-old Frederick Fretz was serving a 20-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Atwater.

13-year-old initiated sex, judge says Article from: Herald Sun December 17, 2007 01:51pm A JUDGE has labelled a man's rape of a 13-year-old boy "adolescent experimentation" and said the teen and the perpetrator were "both victims". Judge Michael Kelly's comments come a month after a prosecutor accused him of making inappropriate and disrespectful statements about the sexual assault victim during a plea hearing. The Melbourne County Court was told that in March 2001 a 24-year-old man began a relationship with a 13-year-old boy.

Men Jailed in Sudan for Selling Book on Mohammed's Child-Bride By Patrick Goodenough CNSNews.com International Editor December 18, 2007 (CNSNews.com) - A Sudanese court reportedly has sentenced two Egyptian men to six months' imprisonment for harming Islam after they marketed a book deemed critical of one of Mohammed's wives. The men, who work for an Egyptian publishing house, were arrested at an international book fair in Khartoum while promoting a book on Aisha, who Muslim historians record as one of Mohammed's 12 wives and concubines. According to an authoritative Hadith -- the traditions and sayings of Mohammed -- the middle-aged...

A former Claiborne County schools teacher aide faces rape charges after allegedly engaging in oral sex with two of her teenage students. Christy Michele McCartt, 25, of Tazewell is charged with two counts of statutory rape and two offenses of contributing to the unruliness of a minor, according to Claiborne County Sheriff's Office Detective David Daniels. McCartt is free on a $25,000 bond. She is slated to appear Dec. 27 in Claiborne County General Sessions Court. The statutory rape charges involve 16- and 17-year-old boys, Daniels said. The contributing charges also involve male students ages 16 and 17, he said....

SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) -- WAVE 3 has learned that a man who is a local high school wrestling coach, a substitute teacher and a youth minister has been arrested. The Bullitt County Sheriff's Department says the Shepherdsville man sexually abused a 15 year old girl at the church. WAVE 3 Investigator Scott Harvey has the details. We had a chance to speak to the victim's mother who -- obviously distraught -- described 25-year-old Clayton Pruett as a wolf in sheep's clothing. She now has a strong warning for all parents. "Don't trust people that are alone with your children," said...

NASHVILLE - Nashville police are investigating why a registered sex offender was allegedly driving drunk with five young boys in his car. An officer stopped Michael Wayne Ingram early Saturday after seeing him drive recklessly. Police say Ingram was convicted of raping a boy in 1991. Officers said they tried to conduct a field sobriety test, but Ingram was nearly too intoxicated to stand. Authorities say Ingram may have met one of the 12- and 13-year-old boys in his car through a Web site. The report says the boys were having a sleepover when Ingram called one of them and...

Former labor leader Carl "Bubba" Scarbrough is pleading guilty this morning to molesting a teenage boy in the sauna at Fort Sanders Health and Fitness Center in West Knoxville in June 2005. The plea in Knox County Criminal Court comes after newly filed court records indicate the 13-year-old boy might not be Scarbrough's only victim. In a stunning set of records filed in Knox County Criminal Court by Assistant District Attorney General Willie Lane, witness after witness recount Scarbrough allegedly spied on them in either a fitness center shower or sauna while masturbating. "Surely, he's not doing what I think...

BERKELEY -- Berkeley police on Tuesday arrested a 64-year-old Sea Scout leader on six felony counts of sexual assault on boys ages 13 to 17 who are members of the maritime youth group. Eugene Evans of Kensington, who has been the skipper of the Berkeley group's boat for 35 years, was booked into the Berkeley police jail. Police served search warrants at his home and "several other locations," according to a police statement. The group maintains its boat, the Farallon, at the Berkeley Marina. Police said charges could include lewd and lascivious acts against a minor younger than 14, oral...

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties. The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events. "This man did unjust things, and he's being...

SAN JOSE -- A man who allegedly kidnapped and tried to sexually assault a 12-year-old San Jose girl after he deliberately struck her with his car has been arrested, police said today. San Jose police made the arrest late Wednesday, Officer Enrique Garcia said. He would not release more information on the suspect or how he was caught. "We have the right guy in custody," Garcia said. "It's a big relief for us and for the community." . . . Police said the girl and her younger sister were crossing the street as they walked home from a store near...

INTERPOL is seeking the help of the public to try to identify this man, photographed sexually abusing children in a series of images posted on the Internet. The photos shown here are from a series of around 200 pictures involving 12 different young boys, believed to have been taken in Vietnam and Cambodia in 2002 or 2003. These pictures have been produced by specialists from Germany’s federal police force, the Bundeskriminalamt, working from originals found on the Internet, which had been digitally altered to disguise the man’s face. Extensive police efforts worldwide to identify the man have so far failed...

A former West High School student teacher whose affair with a student led to murder snatched her children from her mother’s Nashville home last week and hasn’t been seen or heard from since, her estranged husband’s attorney confirmed today. Erin McLean climbed through a window of her mother’s home on Gale Lane in Nashville last Saturday, grabbed her two sons, ages 11 and 8, and left, defense attorney Bruce Poston said, citing information from Erin McLean’s grandmother and younger sister. “She told an uncle she was going to California to meet a man she met over the Internet,” Poston said....

OAKLAND - Alameda County has agreed to pay $188,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by three women who said the late leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery, Yusuf Bey, sexually assaulted them and abused them as minors after the county placed them in his home. The three women, identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe 1, 2 and 3, were foster children or wards of the court from 1978 to 1994 and were placed in Bey's home by county social service workers. Bey routinely raped them, defecated on them, forced them to drink his urine and semen and threatened...

The estranged wife of a North Knoxville man who shot her alleged teen lover has reportedly lost a teaching job in Middle Tennessee after claims of “inappropriate contact” with another teenage boy. The CBS television affiliates in Nashville and Knoxville are reporting that Erin McLean got a job teaching English at Pioneer Christian Academy. She used her maiden name, WTVF-TV in Nashville reported this evening. WVLT-TV in Knoxville picked up its sister station’s story on its Web site. The stations reported that McLean started about a month ago but that students went to the headmaster recently, complaining she made several...

A Superior Court judge Friday ordered self-described pedophile Jack McClellan to stay away from children for the next three years, issuing a permanent injunction sought by two local attorneys after McClellan had visited the Santa Clarita Valley to watch little girls. The judge issued a permanent injunction narrowing his initial order earlier this month and also issued a three-year-restraining order that was given to all law enforcement agencies in the state. "We will not be seeing him again," Rick Patterson, one of two lawyers who sought the injunction, said following Superior Court Judge Melvin Sandvig's ruling. "Jack will not be...

PARIS - A French prison doctor accused of prescribing Viagra to a paedophile suspected of raping a child after his release said he did not know the man was a sex offender, a newspaper reported on Tuesday. Francis Evrard, a 61-year-old repeat offender who spent 18 years in prison for raping children before being freed on July 2, snatched a five year-old boy from a street in the northern town of Roubaix last Wednesday, police say. The pair were discovered later that day partly clothed in a garage used by Evrard. He said he had been prescribed the anti-impotence drug...

Santos Was Trusted Member Of The Community; Illegal Alien; Alleged Child Rapist William Santos was a trusted member of his community, until a young boy came forward with a scary story. William Roberto Santos worked as a laborer at a horse farm in Owensboro, Ky. Nobody seemed to know much about his past, but his behavior and personality quickly made him a trusted member of the community. He attended church regularly, and parents felt safe leaving their young children in his care. One child in particular, who spent time at the same horse farm where Santos worked, spent four or...

Neighborhood alarmed to learn ice-cream truck vendor is registered sex offender 01:13 AM PDT on Saturday, July 14, 2007 By SARAH BURGE The Press-Enterprise A group of Perris homeowners has launched a campaign to run their local ice cream man out of the neighborhood. Anthony G. Toles, his neighbors discovered recently, is a registered sex offender who has been living and driving his ice cream truck in the Villages of Avalon, a newer housing development near Lake Perris. On the Fourth of July, about 10 neighbors distributed 500 custom-printed door hangers alerting residents to "a potential threat to our children"...

CAMBRIDGE CITY, Ind. -- Police officers on Tuesday arrested a registered sex offender in connection with the death of a 16-year-old girl whose body was found the night before in a wooded area. Leonard Wesley Dickey, 47, of Cambridge City, was being held in the Wayne County Jail on a murder charge following his arrest after he crashed his car in Connersville while being chased by officers, police said. The arrest came after investigators identified him as the suspect in the death of Tarra Pickett, a sophomore at Cambridge City High School. Her body was found about 10:30 p.m. Monday...

A Middle Georgia man has been sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole after being found guilty of enticing a 12-year-old child to travel with him to Florida to engage in sexual conduct, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office news release. Samuel Robert Cole reportedly befriended the victim's family and took the child to Florida without parental permission on Sept. 16, 2006. While at a motel, Cole had sexual contact with the victim. The child later reported the incident to a parent, who notified law enforcement, according to the release. Further investigation reportedly revealed Cole had been convicted of...

A psychologist cast doubt Wednesday on defense claims that the man convicted of killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford is mentally retarded, rating John Evander Couey as average in ability to hold jobs and get through daily life. The testimony by prosecution expert Harry McClaren is important as a jury weighs whether to recommend a life prison sentence or the death penalty for Couey. McClaren's remarks suggest that Couey is able to adapt adequately despite any mental challenges, including low IQ. Mentally retarded people cannot be executed under both Florida law and a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision. But a key factor...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court unanimously reinstated a Nevada child molester's conviction Wednesday in a decision that continued the justices' refusal to apply recent rulings on criminal procedure to older cases. Marvin Bockting was convicted in 1988 on the strength of his stepdaughter's statements to police. But then-6-year-old Autumn Bockting did not testify at Bockting's trial so his lawyers never had the opportunity to question the child. In 2004, the court ruled that defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses against them. The question in this case was whether that rule would apply to older cases like Bockting's....