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Mansfield police have arrested John Picard, 40, a former youth pastor who had inappropriate sexual relationships with young girls beginning in 1992 while serving at Grace Brethren Church in Mansfield. Detective Jeff Shook says the investigation involving multiple victims has been on-again, off-again. However, recent leads could result in additional charges against Picard, who now lives in Springboro, near Dayton. Mansfield Police Lt. Allen Vandayburg says Picard is being held in the Warren County Jail, pending an extradition hearing this week. Vandayburg is hoping more victims will now feel safe enough to come forward. He says the police will try...

He's asking a judge for leniency, claiming cultural differences ALEXANDRIA, Va. - An ex-diplomat convicted of having sex with teenage girls in the Congo and Brazil and taping the encounters is asking a judge for leniency, claiming that cultural differences in those countries make sex with girls more acceptable. Gons G. Nachman, 42, pleaded guilty in April to possessing child pornography after admitting that he had sex with 14- to 17-year-old girls while serving as a consular officer in Brazil and Congo and documenting the encounters in pictures and videos. (snip) Prosecutors rejected the notion that Nachman's victims somehow deserve...

It's something no parent wants to hear, their child telling them someone sexually abused them. But one Augusta mother says those are the words she woke up to this morning. Deputies arrested a man accused of molesting the woman's 11-year-old son. Edwin Hernandez is behind bars, and accused of molesting an 11 year old boy! Richmond County investigators were called out to a home on Heather's Way in South Augusta early Wednesday morning. The child's mother called 911 after her son told her Hernandez performed a sex act on him. She then chased him out of her home with a...

Police believe they have found the remains of Brooke Bennett, 12, of Braintree. Police say the remains were found on property on Crocker Road in Randolph near the home of Michael Jacques. Police found ground there that had been recently disturbed yesterday. Today, a search found the body there. Police say Brooke's body was recovered at 4:45 p.m. An autopsy will be performed in Burlington to confirm it is Brooke and to try to find the cause of death. Police do call the death suspicious. Brooke's family was notified of the discovery. Brooke disappeared a week ago. She was last...

Father Augusto Cortez, a priest who interacts with students at a Bushwick Catholic school has been arrested on suspicion of committing a sex crime. The 44-year-old priest, who worked at St. John the Baptist School, is charged with groping a 12-year-old student’s breast on May 29. The Diocese of Brooklyn was the first to hear of the student’s accusations, and, following a previous agreement with the Kings County district attorney, notified that office. The District Attorney’s Office has charged five priests with sex crimes since the agreement, which states that the District Attorney’s Office will keep an investigation confidential until...

The father of a Florida girl abducted and buried alive in a trash bag by a sex offender has blasted a Massachusetts politician who said he'd have to torment young victims on the witness stand if mandatory sentences for offenders passed the state Legislature. Mark Lunsford, whose 9-year-old daughter died in 2005, told the Boston Herald that Rep. James Fagan, a defense attorney, should take the rights of victimized children seriously. “Why doesn’t he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get...

By now, many of you have seen the outrageous comments of Massachusetts State Representative James Fagan, a Democrat. In defending a child rapist, he would tear apart the child on the stand and ruin the child's life forever. He made the comments arrogantly and shamelessly. Watch it here. FAGAN'S WEBSITE SHOWS HOW IS INVOLVED IN SEVERAL CHILDREN'S ORGANIZATIONS. ORGANIZATIONS: Massachusetts Academy of Trial Lawyers; Taunton Boys & Girls Club (Board of Directors); Taunton Little League; Taunton Youth Basketball Coach; Massachusetts Bar Foundation; Massachusetts Waterfowlers, Inc.; Babe Ruth League; High School Umpire; Bristol Ducks Unlimited; Southeastern New England Area Boys' Clubs...

As the Massachusetts State Legislature debates "Jessica's Law" -- named after Jessica Lunsford who was raped and murdered in Florida by a repeat sex offender -- one representative who is against the law expressed his displeasure on the floor of the House. Really expressed his displeasure. The representative, one James Fagan, said he'd “rip apart” 6-year-old victims on the witness stand and “make sure the rest of their life is ruined.” In a fiery soliloquy on the House floor, Fagan said he’d grill victims so that, “when they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they...

the rate of child marriage among females in Yemen reached 52 percent, compared to less than seven percent among males. On top of that, in rural parts of Yemen, girls usually get married at an average age of 12 to 13 years old. "Recently the case of early marriage in Yemen has come to light, especially after the divorce of a little girl last month," ... the case of 'Noujoud', the first eight-year-old child to obtained a divorce from her husband who is in his early 30s...

A Plano megachurch minister was taken into custody Thursday after authorities say he drove to Bryan, Texas, to have sex with a person he thought to be a 13-year-old. Joe Barron, a minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church, is accused of online solicitation of a minor.

CANON CITY, Colo. -- A Kent man who is an associate professor at Seattle University was arrested in connection with a variety of child sex crimes on Monday in Colorado, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News. Police said the arrest of Major Andrew Douglas Franz, 41, stemmed from an undercover Internet investigation by the Fremont County Combined Investigative Response Team. Police said Franz traveled from Washington to Fremont County in Colorado for the purpose of having sex with an underage girl. ...

TYLER, Texas — A jury again needed just four minutes Thursday to convict an organizer of an East Texas swinger's club where prosecutors say young children were forced to perform sexual acts for an audience. Shauntel Mayo, 29, faces life in prison after being found guilty on charges that she forced three siblings, ages 7 through 10, to have sex with each other or perform sexual acts for club members who paid to watch.

NEWARK, N.J. - A rare international alert seeking a man shown in dozens of raw child porn images quickly led to the arrest of a small-time actor, who painted faces at children's parties and performed as "the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen." Wayne Nelson Corliss told authorities he had sex with three boys in Thailand six years ago, an experience he described as "euphoria," a prosecutor said Thursday at Corliss' first court appearance. The arrest of the bespectacled, gray-haired 58-year-old at his Union City apartment late Wednesday capped a two-day global manhunt, just the second time Interpol has...

PARIS - Police detained a suspected pedophile in New Jersey Thursday, just two days after Interpol made a rare appeal for public help in the international manhunt to catch him, the police agency said. Wayne Nelson Corliss, 58, was detained in Union City, N.J., Interpol said. He is suspected of sexually abusing at least three boys from Southeast Asia thought to have been as young as 6 to 10 years old, the international police agency said. Interpol had asked for the public's help because two years of police investigations had failed to determine the man's identity, nationality and whereabouts. It...

LYON, France - Interpol launched a worldwide appeal to the public Tuesday to help identify a man suspected of sexually abusing young boys from Southeast Asia — hoping the rare move will lead to a quick arrest. It was only the second time that the international police agency has appealed directly to the public for help in identifying a suspected pedophile. An arrest was made shortly after the first time last October. The suspect in the latest case is a white man, shown with gray, thinning hair in photos released by Interpol. He appeared to be in his late 40s...

Census sheets found in a safe at a polygamous sect's ranch in west Texas both support and contradict the state's claim of a widespread culture of underage marriage. Texas authorities used the sheets to convince a judge that there was a "pervasive pattern" among the FLDS of marrying underage girls to older men. A review of the "Father's Family Information" sheets shows a handful of 16-year-old wives, 13 young monogamous couples and 24 men with multiple wives - including one man with 21 wives and 36 children. A Texas Ranger testified about the census sheets during an April 17-18 court...

Colorado Woman Makes Plea To Sisters In Polygamist Compound Story Of Arranged Marriages, Abuse Chronicled In New Book Lane Lyon, 7NEWS Reporter POSTED: 9:23 pm MDT May 2, 2008 UPDATED: 9:29 pm MDT May 2, 2008 DENVER -- When Texas authorities raided a polygamist compound last month, Laura Chapman took special interest."I thought about when I was little and thought about how I wanted to be adopted, and I wanted out of my family," Chapman said Friday.Now living in Durango, Chapman was born into a polygamist family in Utah.Chapman said she grew up on 6 acres in Sandy, a suburb...

ELDORADO, TEX. — The Yearning For Zion ranch a few miles west of nowhere was built to keep the secrets of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hidden from prying eyes. But the church's days of splendid isolation and impenetrable secrecy – only the top fringe of the temple's white limestone walls visible from a distant rural road at the edge of the 1,700-acre spread – are rapidly ending. The Texas Rangers raid of the secluded ranch in early April led to sensational allegations of grooming underage girls for marriage and sexual abuse. And the discovery...

When a renegade Mormon sect was looking for a quiet place to live out its polygamous beliefs, it made a Texas-sized mistake when it picked this state to move to. Texas responded by raising the age at which children can legally get married with parental consent, and law enforcement agencies immediately put the sect in its crosshairs. The result was raids this month that left 463 minors in state hands or foster care. With judges saying they will hear abuse cases individually, the sect's practices are sure of thorough legal scrutiny. "They made a big mistake when they came here,"...

Tony the Twister won't be shaping balloons into animals at children's parties anytime soon. Anthony Stelter, who performs for children as Tony the Twister, was charged Monday with repeated sexual assault of a child and, if convicted, faces 25 years to life in prison. But that is not the end of Stelter's problems with the law. The Dane County Sheriff's Office has forwarded information on assaults of two other victims to the Dane County District Attorney's Office. Those charges could be filed this week, and at least two other cases are being looked at for possible charges. At Stelter's initial...

ENJOY THE SING-ALONG ABOUT MUHAMMAD'S 9-YEAR-OLD BRIDE

Pope Benedict XVI chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fueled the church's child sex abuse scandal, ahead of an open-air mass before tens of thousands here Thursday. Gates opened at Washington's new sports stadium before dawn so that an expected 48,000 people could trickle through stringent security measures to attend the mass at 10:00 am (1400 GMT). Benedict received a rapturous White House welcome Wednesday and met privately with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, before addressing the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church in a speech to US Catholic bishops. Thousands...

£120,000 executive's life ruined by ID thieves who used credit card details to download porn By LIZ HULL - More by this author » Last updated at 18:24pm on 3rd April 2008 Comments Comments Simon Bunce Fury: Simon Bunce was wrongly accused Buying his groceries online, businessman Simon Bunce had no reason to doubt that shopping over the Internet was any less safe than nipping to his local corner shop. But that simple credit-card transaction was to spark a seven-month ordeal, which would see his life collapse around him. Without his knowledge, Mr Bunce's name and card details were stolen...

Public's help needed to find missing sex offender William A. Blythe         Story Published: Mar 21, 2008 at 1:38 PM PDT Story Updated: Mar 21, 2008 at 3:00 PM PDT By KOMO Staff   Pierce County sheriff's detectives are seeking the public's help in locating a missing Level 3 sex offender with a history of child rape and molestation. A reward of up to $1,000 is being offered for information leading to the arrest of William A. Blythe, 29, who is considered very dangerous and at serious threat to re-offend. A felony warrant has been issued...

Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector and high-profile critic of the war in Iraq, will speak at Barnstable High School on Wednesday about the Bush administration's policy in Iran. A former intelligence officer in the U.S. Marines who worked as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, Ritter maintained back in 2002 that there was not enough evidence to support Bush's claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that therefore the war was not justified. He drew sharp criticism from conservatives at the time. In 2002, Time Magazine asked him about right-wing critics calling...

It would take months for the agency that licenses Oregon teachers to discipline a Salem-area teacher for inappropriately touching at least eight girls. To get Kenneth John Cushing, then 44, away from Claggett Creek Middle School students immediately, administrators cut him a deal: If Cushing resigned, they would conceal his alleged conduct — clutching students’ waists, touching their buttocks and massaging their shoulders — from the public. Cushing signed the pact — obtained by The Oregonian through public records requests — with Salem-Keizer Public Schools in 2004, and officials promised not to reveal the teacher’s behavior if potential employers called...

Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia, is refusing to remove medieval artistic depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, despite being flooded with complaints from Muslims demanding the images be deleted. More than 180,000 worldwide have joined an online protest claiming the images.... are offensive to Islam, which prohibits any representation of Muhammad. But the defiant editors of the encyclopaedia insist they will not bow to pressure and say anyone objecting to the controversial images can simply adjust their computers so they do not have to look at them.[snip]Muslims and argue the least Wikipedia can do is blur or blank out the faces....

James Michael McHaney, a former aide to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor announced Thursday. McHaney faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 at sentencing. No sentencing date has been set as of yet. While employed as a scheduler in Cantwell’s office, McHaney was arrested in late 2007 for attempting to sexually exploit a teenage boy. He was fired within hours of his arrest. Law enforcement agents suspected McHaney might be sexually interested in male minors after a cooperating witness informed...

A 34-year-old Italian man who had sex with a 13-year-old girl has had his sentence cut by a two-thirds because a court decided there was "real love" between the pair. Antonio de Pascale, a butcher from Vicenza, admitted that he had a four-month long relationship with the girl, who sent him a stream of torrid text messages on his mobile phone. His lawyers argued, however, that there was a "deep tenderness" between him and the girl and that he had "fallen head over heels in love" after a sexual encounter in his car. They said the girl had consented to...

Police, saying they were responding to citizen complaints, carted away two large promotional photographs from the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Lynnhaven Mall on Saturday and cited the manager on obscenity charges. Adam Bernstein, a police spokesman, said the seizure and the issuance of the summons came only after store management had not heeded warnings to remove the images. The citation was issued under City Code Section 22.31, Bernstein said, which makes it a crime to display "obscene materials in a business that is open to juveniles." He did not say what was being done with the pictures and when...

NEW BEDFORD - A convicted sex offender arrested this week on charges of raping a 6-year-old boy in the public library had been released from prison a year ago, despite the strenuous objections of the district attorney and three psychologists who argued that he posed a serious threat to children. Superior Court Judge Richard Moses denied the prosecutor's motion to keep Corey Saunders in custody indefinitely, arguing that he had a low IQ and had suffered physical and sexual abuse as a child. The judge said Saunders, who was sentenced to four years for the attempted rape of a 7-year-old...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Former radio talk show host Bernie Ward was given a date of June 9 in federal court in San Francisco on Thursday for a trial on charges of receiving and distributing child pornography on his computer. The trial date was set by U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, who also scheduled a hearing on pretrial motions for April 24. Ward, 56, a former host on KGO radio in San Francisco, is accused of three counts of receiving child pornography, knowingly distributing it and attempting to distribute it in December 2004 and January 2005. His defense attorney, Doron Weinberg,...

Teacher screens fail students, even after prison termsBy Scott Reeder, Small Newspaper Group Published: Thursday, January 17, 2008 3:54 PM CST SPRINGFIELD - In July 1977, Mark Wolff was a 12-year-old attending music camp at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Ill. "I was an irresponsible kid and didn't lock the door to my dorm room before I went to sleep. Someone entered my room, and, well, he violated me," said Wolff, who is now a 43-year-old college professor in Oneonta, N.Y. "I'd never seen the man before. I have no idea why he picked me. Maybe he spotted me somewhere...

Florida men sentenced for production and receipt of child pornography following ICE and Martin County Sheriff's Office investigation MIAMI - Randy Charles Harris, 37, and Salvador Pascual Aguirre, 23, both of Indiantown, Fla., were sentenced yesterday in the Southern District of Florida to serve prison sentences for their involvement in a child pornography case in which video clips of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct between January 2005 and June 2007 were produced. The announcement was made yesterday by Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta for the Southern District of Florida...

ARLINGTON, Va. - A high school teacher has been arrested for soliciting sex with a minor on the Internet, according to Arlington County Police. Matthew McGuire, 29, of Alexandria was arrested Wednesday night at his home on West Myrtle Street. John Lisle, spokesman for the Arlington County Police Department, says McGuire "made contact with someone who he believed was a young girl on the Internet, and during the course of this contact, he engaged in sexually explicit communications." McGuire, a teacher and coach at Chantilly High School in Fairfax County, is being held without bond on charges of using a...

A Canadian pedophile suspect arrested last year after a global manhunt pleaded not guilty Friday to molesting underage boys in...

AUGUSTA, Ga. --- A 14-year-old girl said she was molested by a 36-year-old man. Richmond County investigators said the man involved was her youth pastor at Bibleway Church of our Lord Jesus Christ Apostolic, on Grand Boulevard. Investigators said the 14-year-old girl and her youth pastor had a relationship that started a year and a half to two years ago. The incident report said they were alone together four different times. And there were three days of instant messaging back and forth. 5-7 pages to be exact, all filled with inappropriate conversation. "They were very sexual oriented. Showing the desires...

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.

A Nebraska man has been arrested in connection with charges against a Dodge City second-grade teacher. Zachary Noble, a 28-year-old resident of Falls City, Neb., was arrested Tuesday in relation to similar charges levied against Sacred Heart Cathedral School teacher Tabitha Adams. Noble, an ex-husband of another former Sacred Heart teacher, was charged with first-degree sexual assault of a child, a class one felony. Adams, 35, was charged with sexual exploitation of a child, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Noble's ex-wife, who taught at the private Catholic school in 2006, is not suspected of any...

A 35-year-old Sacred Heart Cathedral School second-grade teacher was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of having sexual contact with a student at the school. Tabitha Adams is currently being held in the Ford County Detention Center on charges of sexual exploitation of a child, aggravated criminal sodomy and aggravated indecent liberties with a child. Her bond was set at $500,000, and her preliminary hearing was tentatively set for Dec. 27. Adams, who has taught at the private Catholic school for the past three years, was arrested after the Dodge City Police Department presented the school's principal with a search warrant Monday....

PHOENIX -- Police have arrested a man who they say sexually assaulted a 4 year old girl at a playground at University Park. Suspect booked into 4th Avenue Jail Police say the girl was at the playground with her family near by. Several witnesses say they saw suspect William Speed grab the girl while she played on the jungle gym and begin sexually assaulting her. The girl screamed and her family had to fight Speed to get him off of the girl. The family and nearby witnesses restrained Speed until police arrived. Suspect William Speed is a Level 3 sex...

A RUNAWAY teen has married her Egyptian lover after searching for him for two months. Amy Robson fled her home near Carlisle in September to track down internet cafe owner Mohamed El Sayed, 30. Amy, who has just turned 18, met Mr El Sayed, nicknamed Noby, on a previous visit to Egypt when she split up with another boyfriend. She sparked an international hunt when she left the village of Beaumont in April to meet up with a boat hand she had met on a family holiday the year before. Unknown to her parents - electrician James, 43, and teacher...

Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter says that the danger of waging war on Tehran is that “it is just not worth it”. In an interview with Detroit's weekly Metro Times, the weapons expert and dissenting patriot Ritter said unless there is a radical reawakening in the Congress, the chances of American lawmakers blocking military strikes against Iran are very low. ""What we can lose is everything, and what we gain is nothing,"" the former Marine Corps intelligence officer warned. When asked what the U.S. should do to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons, Ritter dismissed the issue as...

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. -- Police in West Hartford are working to identify what they said were hundreds of children who could be victims of child pornography after more than 50,000 slides were found in a home that once belonged to a prominent physician. Police said they believe the photos might have been shared with others, and are working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to identify the victims in the images. The photos were discovered when the new owners of a home that once belonged to Dr. George Reardon began renovating the basement and removed some paneling,...

SAN DIEGO -- There was a surprise in a downtown San Diego courtroom Thursday, as an illegal immigrant changed his plea and admitted to luring a boy into a canyon near a school and raping him. [...] Nava pleaded guilty to committing a lewd act by force on a child under 14, admitted to being a stranger to the child when the crime was committed, and acknowledged that the act involved force and or fear to the child, prosecutors said.

Sheriff: Men confess to crime By Debbie Robinson news@joplinglobe.com STELLA, Mo. — Both defendants in the brutal rape and murder of 9-year-old Rowan Ford have confessed to the crime, the Newton County sheriff said Sunday. David Spears, 25, of Stella, and Chris Collings, 32, of Wheaton, are charged with one count each of first-degree murder, forcible rape and statutory rape in the girl’s death. Spears is Rowan’s stepfather. Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said investigators allege that Rowan was abducted early Nov. 3 from her home in Stella in Newton County, murdered in Barry County, and her body dumped in...

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas unveiled a $1.75 million mausoleum for Yasser Arafat on Saturday, in a pomp-filled ceremony that helped him draw on the continued popularity of his iconic predecessor as he headed into peace talks with Israel. The mausoleum, made of glass and beige Jerusalem stone, is surrounded on three sides by water, and a piece of rail track is entombed underneath Arafat's grave. The water and piece of track are meant to symbolize the temporary nature of the grave, officials said, with Palestinians planning to rebury their leader one day in Jerusalem, their hoped-for...

Police: Burned, Headless Body Of Sex Offender FoundPOSTED: 12:08 pm EST November 8, 2007 UPDATED: 3:52 pm EST November 8, 2007 NORTHVILLE TOWNSHIP -- Construction crews found a torched and headless body Thursday morning on Hidden Ridge Drive in Northville Township. Police were able to identify the body as 26-year-old Daniel Gene-Vincent Sorensen by using a partial fingerprint technique, despite the severe burns on Sorensen’s hands. Police said the severely burned hands seemed to be an effort to hide his identity. Police confirmed that Sorensen was a registered sex offender. A neighbor called to report a fire on Wednesday night,...

In Chandler Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) there is a serial rapist on the loose. All of the 12-15 year old girls who have been raped by this man have given a similar description. The suspect is described as Hispanic, 5-feet-8, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans and boots. The police are sharing this information with all the local media in the hopes of getting some information from the public that will help catch this son-of-a-bitch. But local Spanish language radio stations are refusing to include the word “Hispanic” in the description because they feel it unfairly targets the Hispanic...

Official at Children's Museum Is Charged in Child Pornography Case By Mary Beth Sheridan and Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, November 7, 2007; B01 A senior executive at the National Children's Museum was arrested yesterday and charged with distributing child pornography over the Internet, officials said. Robert A. Singer, 49, a married father of two who lives in Falls Church, was suspended from his job as chief operating officer and barred from the museum. "We are horrified by the charges," museum officials said in a written statement. According to a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, Singer sent...