Free Republic

A churchgoing former child-abuse prosecutor and his wife allegedly beat their naked 8-year-old daughter for hours with a belt -- leaving bruises and puncture wounds on the girl's arms and legs... Norman White, 34, and Alegra White, 27, of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, surrendered late Thursday after the third-grader told her teachers. Wednesday's beating may have lasted up to seven hours, said sources... The 6-foot-1, 205-pound White worked in the Brooklyn DA's Office from September 2001 to June 2003 and spent his last year there in the Crimes Against Children Unit.

DENTON, Texas — A Denton County man accused of fatally shooting his 10-year-old daughter while recklessly handling a revolver has been investigated repeatedly by Child Protective Services. Authorities believe he had been drinking when he fired the shot, but a state investigator tells the Denton Record-Chronicle there's no indication it was intentional homicide.

PHOENIX — An Arizona couple accused of sexual abuse after taking bath-time photos of their children and then trying to have them developed at Walmart are suing the state and the retail giant. Lisa and Anthony "A.J." Demaree's three young daughters were taken away by Arizona Child Protective Services last fall when a Walmart employee found partially nude pictures of the girls on a camera memory stick taken to the store for processing, according to the suit. The Peoria couple's attorney said Walmart turned the photos over to police and the Demarees were not allowed to see their children for...

(Aug. 14) -- A California mother allegedly branded her young child by carving her first initial into the toddler's buttocks. Sergaye Lafayette, 23, was arrested Aug. 10 on a number of outstanding warrants after being pulled over with her children in the car, KCRA News reported. She does not have custody of the youngsters. The mark on her 15-month old daughter's bottom was discovered after her children were taken to a center for abused children. The kids were taken to a routine check-up where doctors discovered diaper rashes all over the baby as well as a letter "S" carved into...

Durham, N.C. — Duke University has fired an employee who faces federal child sex charges. Frank M. Lombard, 42, of 24 Indigo Creek Trail in Durham, was let go from his position as associate director of the Center for Health Policy at Duke, a spokesman said. Duke Vice President for Public Affairs Michael Schoenfeld said Lombard was placed on unpaid leave at the time of his arrest June 24 and was fired Monday. Schoenfeld added that the university was cooperating with the investigation. Lombard faces extradition to Washington, D.C., to face charges that he solicited an adult to have...

The link has not worked for too many so I will post the abstract below. I hope a freeper can access and if copyrighted, send me the article by freeper email. The train is on track to permanently removing our grandchildren (3 and 1 yr old) from our lives, forever. We suspect that we have an activist judge presiding over our family case and because of the color of different people involved, we may not be able to get a fair and balance outcome. So far the hearings have consistently gone against the biological paternal grandparents, solely based on social...

ELDORADO, Texas — It was a year ago that the outside world got its first glimpse beyond the battered green gate of the YFZ Ranch. And the view was mesmerizing: Women in pioneer-style dresses, their hair swept up in braids. Men who married multiple times — sometimes, it was said, to underage girls. Children snatched by authorities from their mothers, for fear that they might be abused. Officials had come looking for an abused teenage girl named "Sarah." Since then, it's become clear Sarah didn't exist, that calls made to a domestic abuse hot line were probably faked. And since...

A 16-year-old charter high school student allegedly struck out against a classmate who had been bullying him Wednesday by stabbing the youth with a scissors in a school hallway. Chicago Public Schools officials said the stabbing happened during a "conflict resolution" session -- in which the perpetrator and his father had come to meet with the dean of academics over how to address threats from the alleged bully. CPS officials said the father and son had been meeting with school officials on the issue just before 9 a.m., when the son left the dean's office and encountered the alleged bully...

SAN ANTONIO - Nearly two-thirds of the families living at a polygamist group's ranch - targeted in a high-profile raid last spring - had children who were abused or neglected, Texas child welfare officials said in a report released Tuesday.

System fails, kids die Agency workers' bad decisions leave children in hands of abusers Sunday, December 21, 2008 3:40 AM By Randy Ludlow THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH FAMILY PHOTO Nicholas Goodrich, 11 months old, died after his mother's boyfriend threw him across a room. Calls to social agencies were unheeded. Click here to enlarge Click here to enlarge Web Extra CHART: Ohio child abuse and neglect deaths by county, 2002-2007. Nicholas Goodrich would have been walking and talking by now. Instead, he rests beneath a stone, eternally 11 months old. He's dead in part because the government workers entrusted to protect...

Last year, Agustin Uribe’s conviction for sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl was overturned by California’s Sixth Court of Appeals. Why? The San Jose Mercury News reports that the hospital at which the girl was examined maintained a videotape of the examination which showed that no abuse had occurred. Read the story here. Now it develops that the hospital has some 3,000 videotapes of similar examinations in child abuse cases since 1991. As you might expect, defense attorneys in pending and closed cases are seeking access to those tapes. So far we don’t know what was on the tape in the...

After years on the run, the saga of Tina Loesch and her lover, Sky Hanson, ended hours after AMW aired their story on Nov. 15, 2008. While the couple took their own lives in what cops are calling a suicide pact, the investigation is far from over as authorities in three states search for Kristopher Loesch. Capture archive: http://www.amw.com/fugitives/capture.cfm?id=59857

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — A Gresham man has been sentenced to 6 years in prison for attempted rape after a mother discovered his inappropriate text messages on her 12-year-old daughter's cell phone. Prosecutors said 29-year-old Patrick Lee Kenney also pleaded no contest to attempted sexual abuse and furnishing obscene material to a minor. Kenney met the girl on the MySpace site.

Texas officials say more than 440 children seized during an April raid on a polygamist ranch can safely live with their parents or guardians. Authorities feared some girls were being forced into underage marriages and boys were being raised to be perpetrators. The Texas Supreme Court later ruled the action was too broad and ordered the children back to their parents. The Associated Press has learned that so far the custody cases for 235 children have been dropped, and Texas Child Protective Services says more cases are likely to be dropped. Only one child - a girl allegedly married FLDS...

ELDORADO, Texas — When a grand jury meets here later this month, criminal indictments could be handed down against more members of the Fundamentalist LDS Church. .... Some of that evidence has been used in child-custody cases over the hundreds of FLDS children taken into state protective custody during the raid. Texas Child Protective Services has said it has evidence of at least 10 underage marriages. A CPS caseworker testified during a court hearing last week that an investigation revealed "48 percent of the men at the ranch were involved in underage marriage practices." ..... "Sheriff Doran advised affiant that...

I was too tough on Illinois State Senator James Meeks. Last week, I offered both a commentary and rigorous interview of Rev. Meeks on the WLS airwaves as to Meeks' controversial declaration that he will bus thousands of Chicago Public School (CPS) students up to New Trier High School on Chicago's ritzy North Shore for the first day of school next month to protest state education funding inequities. While I stand by the substance of what I said, I violated a cardinal rule of politics in making the perfect the enemy of the good. On The Don & Roma Morning...

A month after their children were returned, FLDS parents are getting the first word about parenting classes the state of Texas has required them to complete. Marleigh Meisner, a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services spokeswoman, said the classes will begin to be scheduled within the next 10 days. They will be standard parenting classes consisting of two four-hour sessions. "The curriculum will be much like those that the agency uses with other clients," Meisner said in a statement. "The instructors will be trained on how to best deliver this information to these FLDS parents."

Josh Raykin had never spent even a night away from his parents. That is, until Arapahoe County snatched the 8-year-old from his home after an abuse allegation that social workers dragged their feet investigating. The ordeal began while Josh was playing outside one day before dinner in April. A neighbor knocked on the door to tell his dad that police had come to take Josh away. The strawberry-blond kid with pale blue eyes was born in 1999 after Michael and Melanie Raykin tried for 15 years to conceive. Michael, a courier, and Melanie, a hairstylist, work extra hours to send...

As Texas officials sort evidence that could lead to new criminal charges against polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs, charges against him in another state are shrinking. Just two of five cases originally brought against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints leader in Arizona are still in play, and a significant portion of those two cases have been dismissed. Now, a judge has set a July 11 hearing on whether the remaining charges, based on Jeffs' alleged role conducting marriages for underage girls, came out of a tainted grand jury proceeding. Defense attorney Michael Piccarreta argues...

FORT WORTH, Texas — The cost of the April raid on a polygamist compound in West Texas is expected to top $14 million, about one-third of it in lawyers' fees, according to a published analysis of state records. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram published its findings Saturday after reviewing more than 400 pages of invoices, e-mails and other state records that it obtained under an open-records law request. More invoices for overtime, travel and professional services are expected to boost the final tab, the records indicate.