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An April trial has been set for former Lone Peak High School LDS seminary principal Michael Jay Pratt, who is accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female student earlier this year. Pratt, 37, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 15 felonies: one count of rape, eight counts of forcible sodomy and five counts of object rape, all first-degree felonies, and one count of second-degree felony forcible sexual abuse. Fourth District Judge Christine Johnson scheduled Pratt's trial to begin April 12. During an October preliminary hearing, the alleged victim, now 17, testified that her relationship with "Brother Pratt" started...

It starts with a little extra attention and affection, a personalized note on a term paper and chummy after-school banter. Before long it escalates to hugging and explicit text messages. It's called "grooming," small indiscretions that child abuse experts say should alert principals and parents to a developing sexual relationship between a teacher and student. But too often, these subtle cues go unnoticed until a relationship becomes inappropriate, or even criminal. Roy Junior High teacher Kenneth Taylor, who was charged 10 days ago with having sex with a former female student, is the latest addition to a growing list of...

Fillmore -- The father looked at Keith Gillins, his daughter's former teacher, and said he would never forgive him. "My daughter's life has been scarred forever by you," the father told Gillins. Then, the father addressed the people in Millard County who suggested his daughter was responsible: "Shame on you." Gillins on Wednesday received three sentences of three years to life in prison for a sexual relationship with a former Millard High School student. Fourth District Court Judge Donald Eyre also sentenced Gillins to two terms of 1 to 15 years in prison. All five counts will run concurrently and...

OGDEN -- The recent spate of cases of teachers being accused of having intimate or sexually abusive relationships with students is alarming law enforcement officials and many in the education profession. Since March, five Top of Utah teachers have been accused of having sex with their current or former students. One investigation concluded without charges. Three teachers have been charged, with dates pending in Second District Court. One investigation is ongoing. And that is just north of Salt Lake City. At least four other teachers have been arrested in other areas around the state in recent months. To the north,...

(ST. GEORGE)—Charges have been filed against a custodian at Sunrise Ridge Intermediate School in St. George for assaulting a 16-year-old girl. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Richard Burditt is charged with felony forcible sex abuse, lewdness and voyeurism, among other charges. Police say they became aware of the relationship, which occurred when the girl was at Sunrise Ridge, when the girl’s mother called police. Officers say Burditt and the girl had been sexually involved for more than two years, and that he admitted to the relationship when questioned.

(HELPER)—Two teachers at a small-town school are facing charges, accused of illegal sexual conduct with students. Both women had been working at Helper Junior High, until the Carbon School District learned of the cases at the end of July. Investigators say Melissa Andrini developed a sexual relationship this summer with a boy who may have been one of her students the previous year. Andrini has since resigned. Another teacher is accused of unlawful touching during the 2007-08 school year. Carbon School District Special Programs Director Robert Cox said she is currently on paid administrative leave, pending the investigation. Carbon County...

(DAVIS COUNTY)—Attorneys for a former Bountiful school teacher accused of having sex with a student presented their case in court for the first time Friday. At the conclusion of Friday morning’s preliminary hearing for Valynne Bowers, the judge ruled there’s enough evidence for Bowers to go to trial. The alleged victim, who is now 15 years old, testified Friday morning and gave mostly short “yes” or “no” answers to the attorneys. The teen admitted he initiated the relationship with Bowers, his former math teacher at Bountiful Junior High. After engaging in sex with the boy, Bowers faces first-degree felony charges...

(ST. GEORGE) – A former Dixie High School teacher awaiting trial on sexual battery charges now faces new sex-related charges. According to the Deseret News, court records show that 63-year old, Ronald Sherman faces charges in Iron County for allowing a seven-year old girl to see him naked. He told investigators it was at the girl’s request. Records indicate that Sherman now faces new charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and lewdness involving a child. Sherman already is accused of inappropriately touching students in his Dixie High ceramics class in 2007. He resigned from teaching and has pleaded...

The Archdiocese of New Orleans and its charitable arm, Catholic Charities, said Tuesday they will pay $5.182 million to an undisclosed number of adults who claimed that years ago as children they were beaten, berated and sexually molested at two Catholic orphanages that were supposed to shelter them because their families were in disarray. The archdiocese announced a package settlement of 20 lawsuits, most of them filed by adults alleging that in the 1950s and 1960s they were abused at Madonna Manor and nearby Hope Haven on the West Bank. "I hope these mediations and negotiations will bring some peace...

A Turkish woman accused of cutting off her lover's penis must wait 18 months for a verdict and sentencing while a court determines whether his re-attached penis still functions, a court source said on Thursday.

YouTube Bans Video of Planned Parenthood Hiding Sexual Abuse, Abortion Washington, DC -- The popular video sharing web site YouTube has again censored a video exposing Planned Parenthood hiding a potential case of sexual abuse of a teenager. The video also shows the Planned Parenthood employee telling a woman posing as a teenager how she can evade the state's parental consent abortion law. See http://www.LifeNews.com/state4305.html for full story and link to full video.

A former champion surfer, Mary Setterholm suffered sexual abuse and turned to prostitution before finding a new path. Next month, she’ll begin the master’s of divinity program at Columbia University’s Union Theological Seminary. Real life stories of redemption and healing don't get much better than this. How long until Lifetime turns it into a movie? From the Los Angeles Times: It's another beautiful day in paradise and I'm out on the ocean, riding waves with a former national surfing champion and onetime prostitute who's about to join a seminary. Go ahead, try to name one other state where I could...

Last week when I discussed the case of Frank Lombard, Associate director of Duke University’s Center for Health Policy, who molested his adopted 5-year-old son and offered his son to other homosexuals for molestation, I also touched on the higher molestation rates of children by homosexuals. Judith Reisman, president of the Institute for Media Education, cites this research, as does a study by Dr. Gene Abel, director of the Behavioral Medicine Institute in Atlanta, which found that homosexuals sexually molest young boys with an incidence five times greater than the molestation rate of girls. Dr. Able’s study also found that...

Planned Parenthood Internal Probe Follows Abortion-Sexual Abuse Coverup Birmingham, AL -- The Planned Parenthood abortion business in Alabama has responded to new video footage showing one of its staff members hiding a potential case of sexual abuse. The video also shows the Planned Parenthood employee telling a woman posing as a teenager how she can evade the state's parental consent law. See http://www.LifeNews.com/state4271.h

Planned Parenthood Abortion Center: We Bend the Rules on Sexual Abuse Birmingham, AL -- A new undercover video shows what others have when it comes to Planned Parenthood and how it handles potential cases of sexual abuse. New footage shows a staffer at a Birmingham, Alabama abortion center telling a woman who appears to be a victim of statutory rape that "we bend the rules." Full story and video at: http://www.LifeNews.com/state4265.html

HIALEAH - When police wanted to question a teacher accused of having an affair with an eighth-grader at a private religious school, she was out of town -- vacationing at Disney World with the student. Upon her return Saturday, 32-year-old Maria Guzman Hernandez, a sixth-grade teacher at Hialeah's Our Lady of Charity, admitted to Hialeah police she'd had sex with the 15-year-old.

There was fresh controversy today over child sex abuse and the Catholic church when an archbishop's aide claimed the majority of paedophilia was being perpetrated by gay men. Father John Owen, the communications officer for the archdiocese of Cardiff and a Catholic chaplain at Cardiff University, was a guest on BBC1's The Big Questions. His remarks concerned last Wednesday's publication of the Ryan Inquiry, a 2,565-page report detailing the abuse and rape of children in Ireland's Catholic institutions, and came days after the newly-appointed archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, angered charities by saying it took courage for...

EVERYONE knew. When the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse issued its report this week, after nine years of investigation, the Irish collectively threw up their hands in horror, asking that question we have heard so often, from so many parts of the world, throughout the past century: How could it happen? Surely the systematic cruelty visited upon hundreds of thousands of children incarcerated in state institutions in this country from 1914 to 2000, the period covered by the inquiry, but particularly from 1930 until 1990, would have been prevented if enough right-thinking people had been aware of what was...

Repeatedly, the [Los Angeles Unified School] district failed to follow up on sexual misconduct complaints against employees once police or prosecutors dropped criminal actions. ... Prosecutors say molestation cases are extremely difficult to try because they often depend heavily on the accounts of young, frightened and shame-filled victims. But nothing prevents L.A. Unified from looking further into cases that police or prosecutors decline to pursue. Indeed, district policy has long required school officials to perform an independent inquiry. Under state law, the district can fire teachers for conduct it deems immoral or unprofessional, even if the acts fall short of...

A teacher who worked at two Queens yeshivas and a Long Island elementary school was arrested after cops found child pornography on his home computer, cops said yesterday. Two online tipsters told state police that Timothy Holt, 44, of Baldwin, sent child pornography over the Internet last month. Cops seized the divorced father's computer and allegedly found nine videos and pictures depicting sexually explicit images of children. Holt, who pleaded not guilty to felony child-pornography raps on Friday, worked as a third-grade teacher's assistant at the Birch Elementary School in Merrick and taught Earth science at Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim and...

There is a first-hand undercover investigation being done in Al-Farooq mosque in Nashville, TN. What has been exposed is unthinkable. This is video footage of a first-hand undercover investigation done in Al-Farooq mosque. Listen to a 7 year old talk about her husband and how they are beaten during shariah class. The video is just the sound, as these kids are in tremendous danger and the undercover person inside needed to hide the camera deeply. We are working on the sound quality. Listen to the girl stating how kids are beaten as she begins to cry.The teachers, "they hit...

A law that took effect in Ohio Tuesday requires abortion clinics to post signs on patients' rights and allows limited access to clinic records. The law also includes a mandatory jail term of up to a year for assaulting a pregnant woman, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.A lawsuit brought by the parents of a girl who had an abortion at Planned Parenthood in 2004 when she was 14 helped inspire the law and could be affected by it. The girl had been impregnated by her soccer coach, who was seven years her senior.The Ohio state Supreme Court has asked lawyers for...

Another elementary school teacher is being accused of molesting a former student. This time it's happened at Rosa Parks Elementary School in City Heights. The teacher, 35-year old Adrienne Feistel, is accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy she befriended. The molestation allegedly occurred while the boy was in 7th grade. Feistel's neighbors are in disbelief. "She's always seemed very sweet. Very nice to me. Very loving at her son. This doesn't seem like something she would do," says a neighbor who did not want to be identified. At one point Feistel was reportedly living with the boy's family. She no...

Two more Planned Parenthood clinics in Phoenix, AZ were caught on tape concealing statutory rape. In a developing multi-state child abuse scandal, these are the fourth and fifth Planned Parenthood clinics implicated. Employees deliberately neglect their legal obligations to report statutory rape, and instead offer secret abortions. Lila Rose and Jackie Stollar, both college students posing as 15-year-old girls, entered two Phoenix Planned Parenthood clinics undercover and told employees at one clinic that Stollar needed an abortion because her adult "boyfriend" had impregnated her, giving his age as 27-years-old at the second clinic. Arizona state law requires law enforcement to...

"What we've been told is that he's a sexual pedophile," said Haleigh's mother Crystal Sheffield. The child's grandmother, Teresa Neves, said Croslin described him as a "jerk" and she was worried. "I couldn't tell you anything about him," a distraught Neves told reporters Friday, adding that she only knew of the cousin by his first name Joe. "I can't tell you how they could have taken her from a family that absolutely adores her."

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...

The domestic violence industry has a habit of attracting unsavory characters into its ranks. And now three former operatives are doing hard time. Take Barbara Dehl of Nampa, Idaho. Ten years ago Dehl single-handedly lobbied for passage of Cassie's Law, a bill aimed at stopping dating violence. That achievement landed her on the Montel Williams Show, and Sen. Mike Crapo hailed Dehl as the "Spirit of Idaho." Her crowning moment came in 2002 when she was invited to serve on the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women. But then Dehl got caught up in drug trafficking charges and a...

COLEBROOK - State Rep. George Wilber, D-63, told The Register Citizen Monday night that he will resign from his House seat just two days after the newspaper uncovered a $100,000 payment he made to keep a woman silent about childhood sex abuse allegations and just two weeks before the Nov. 4 election. Wilber said his resignation from the House is "effective today," and is due to health reasons related to stress brought on by the revelation. "My dialysis and stuff is shutting down due to nerves," said Wilber. "I'm not going to take this." Wilber said his health has been...

ARLINGTON, VA, October 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Students for Life of America (SFLA) has released a video exposing two Planned Parenthood clinics in Winston-Salem and Charlotte, North Carolina covering up statutory rape of young girls. To view the video, go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkakpcWSyWY In June of 2008, two college women volunteering for Students for Life of America entered two clinics in North Carolina posing as underage girls, 15 and 14, who just had unprotected sex with their mother's live-in boyfriend who was in his 30s. Each girl told the clinic workers that he suggested she come get the morning the Morning...

TEACHERS should NOT be prosecuted for having sex with pupils over 16, claim union bosses. The NASUWT says it is UNFAIR to treat teachers who have affairs with students who are over 16 as sex offenders, insisting all they are guilty of is an “error of professional judgement”. In 2001 it became illegal for teachers to have any intimate or sexual affair with any pupil in their school under 18. If found guilty of doing so, the teacher would face instant dismissal, be made to sign the sex offenders register and possibly face jail. But NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates...

“Annoying and misleading” is what Sulpician ethicist Fr. Gerald Coleman has called a retired Australian bishop’s attempt to link celibacy with clergy sexual abuse of children. Writing in the July 11 San Francisco archdiocesan Catholic San Francisco, Coleman, the former rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and currently the vice president for ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System, challenged Geoffrey Robinson, a former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia. In May, Cardinal Roger Mahony forbade Robinson to speak in the Los Angeles archdiocese, as did Bishop Tod Brown in the Diocese of Orange and Robert Brom of...

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...

I have been told by a social worker that 1 in 4 children will be sexually abused by the time they are 18 years old. She is offering no proof to back up her numbers other than one advocacy website. I simply do NOT believe these numbers.

The case of a first-grade teacher convicted of molesting his own students has taken a new twist. The school's principal is now accused of knowing about the abuse and not reporting it. Frank Laine Hall is currently serving a 15-years-to-life prison sentence for molesting students in his Riverton classroom. Now, the school's principal is charged with one count of failure to report abuse, a misdemeanor that could destroy her career. Parents of Hall's victims have mixed emotions about this new charge. Shelly Nordick is a well-liked principal, who one parent says helped the children heal after Hall's conviction. But could...

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...

Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit with victims of church sex abuse cast light on how reports of sexual abuse are handled in other churches. CBS 42's Annalisa Petralia sat down with an Austin woman who says she was sexually abused at her Baptist Church. She's a mother, a lawyer, and a victim of sexual abuse in her church. Christa Brown launched a web site and crusade against sexual predators in the Baptist Church. She shared her story Thursday and talked about how the experience prompted her to help others. "I want kids in Baptist churches today to be a very...

Washington DC, Apr 17, 2008 / 07:36 pm (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI has now raised the topic of the sex abuse scandal three times in the last two days, and on Thursday afternoon, he held a private meetings with a group of sex abuse victims. The director of the Vatican’s Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, told the Associated Press that Pope Benedict and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, “met with a group of five or six victims for about 25 minutes in the chapel of the papal embassy, offering them encouragement and hope.” According to Lombardi, the Holy Father told the...

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...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Three victims of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the RC Church described an emotional, frank and ultimately hope-filled meeting with Pope Benedict on Thursday. They were part of a small group of people abused by clergy who were asked to share their stories with the pope in a Washington chapel. "They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterwards listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope," said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a papal spokesman. The exchanges were frank and unscripted, according to some of the victims. "I told him that he...

PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday he was "deeply ashamed" of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church and will work to make sure pedophiles don't become priests. Benedict was answering questions submitted in advance by reporters aboard a special Alitalia airliner as he was flying from Rome to Washington to begin his first papal pilgrimage to the United States. "It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States and for the Church in general and for me personally that this could happen," Benedict said. "It is difficult for me to understand...

EthicsDaily.com reported 11 arrests, three convictions, two lawsuits and one suicide involving alleged sexual abuse by clergy in 2007.Other stories included a church that allowed a convicted sex offender to preach from its pulpit while knowing about his past and comments by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention denying clergy predators are a "systemic" problem and accusing victim advocates of using the issue for personal gain. Those stories were part of ongoing coverage of efforts by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to pressure the 16.3 million-member convention to establish an independent review board for clergy sex...

Court papers suggest a $1.75 million jury award in a sexual abuse lawsuit was vacated by a judge because of questions raised about a key witness’ credibility. U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf dismissed the verdict and award in response to a motion to vacate them from Friedman Law Offices, the firm that represented the woman alleging the abuse. Herb Friedman, one of the lawyers who represented the woman, this week said he could not comment on the motion, filed late last year. Lincoln attorney Allen Tate, one of the attorneys representing the defendant, a former Lincoln pastor, also declined comment....

A retired pastor from Canada was sentenced to three years in prison today after telling a McHenry County judge he was sexually harassed by the 4-year-old Lake in the Hills girl he pleaded guilty to molesting. Kenneth R. Cooke, 73, appeared to have reasonable chance at a probation sentence given his age, health problems and lack of criminal history heading into his sentencing hearing this afternoon. But the Calgary man who once headed his own ministry likely blew his chance of avoiding prison when he took the witness stand and painted his pre-school age victim as a sexual aggressor. "On...

Union Parish Sheriff’s deputies arrested Kenneth Duchesne, the pastor at Beulah Baptist Church Tuesday afternoon, and charged him with two counts of aggravated incest. Duchesne, 35, was arrested at approximately 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the parking lot of Wal-Mart after the Sheriff’s Office received a complaint on Monday. Dusty Burroughs, a deacon at the church, said the congregation was shocked by the arrest. “It’s hurt the church pretty good,’’ Burroughs said. “We’re trying to deal with it and move on.’’ Duchesne had been the preacher at Beulah Baptist, located north of Farmerville between Farmerville and Spearsville, for less than...

BLOOMINGTON -- A former minister and substitute teacher accused of sexually abusing teenage boys won’t go to trial in December because of a defense move to try to get concurrent sentences if he is convicted in state and federal courts. Defense attorney Steve Skelton asked that the state trial of James Love be delayed because of federal child pornography charges pending in Peoria. He said his client has a better chance of receiving a concurrent sentence if he pleads or is found guilty on the local charges after the federal trial, rather than before. The state charges say he sedated...

Daughter's pregnancy signs raised suspicion 20 Nov 2007, Pinak Priya Bhattacharya,TNN JALPAIGURI: A 36-year-old man who married his teenage daughter, apparently after convincing his wife that he was carrying out divine instructions, kept the event under wraps for more than six months. Until, his 15-year-old daughter began showing signs of pregnancy. Villagers of Kasiajhora found out about Afazuddin Ali's wedding when one of them found the girl showing pregnancy's swelling signs. The sordid drama of what happened, however, unfolded on Monday when Ali was produced in court. When Ali, a daily labourer who has three daughters and two sons moved...

The Rev. Robert Gray, the former Trinity Baptist Church pastor awaiting trial on child molestation charges, died Saturday, according to his attorney. He was 81. Gray had been hospitalized since mid-October and suffered from a variety of health problems. An exact cause of death was not available Saturday. Attorney David Barksdale, who represented Gray, released a statement saying Gray's family prays that everyone involved in the court cases can find peace and that the family would not comment further on Gray's passing. This month, a judge ruled Gray was too ill to stand trial Tuesday on six counts of capital...

Matron at Oprah Winfrey's £30m girl school accused of 'sexually abusing pupil' Last updated at 10:23am on 23rd October 2007 Oprah Winfrey made a weekend dash to South Africa amid allegations of sexual abuse at her girls' school. It was the chat show host's second visit in 10 days after serious claims of misconduct were made against a matron at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, a school for underprivileged children near Johannesburg. Chief executive John Samuel said the South African police child protection and sexual offences unit had been told of the internal investigation. Oprah Winfrey at the...

SALT LAKE CITY, October 15, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A male homosexual was the teacher most apt to have sex with his pupils in a study encompassing 7 countries. Overall, 43% of teachers who made the news for having sex with their pupils over the last 27 years engaged in homosexuality. Homosexual teachers violated 1,925 (56%) of the 3,457 pupil-victims. Women were 11% of perpetrators, but a heterosexual female teacher was least apt to have sex with pupils. Sexual abuse incidents are frequently kept hidden by victims out of fear and shame and so the actual numbers of such teacher...

by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com EditorOctober 5, 2007 Frankfort, KY (LifeNews.com) -- Kentucky's gubernatorial candidates, abortion advocate Steve Beshear and pro-life Gov. Ernie Fletcher, debated the issue of abortion on Wednesday in a televised debate. Beshear, a Democrat, tried to play down his pro-abortion views in a state that is strongly pro-life, regardless of political party.Kentucky is one of just handful of states to have significant off-year elections this year."Abortion is a tragedy anytime it happens, under any circumstances, and as governor, I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that women have choices other than that," Beshear said in...