Living Beyond A Childhood Trauma™

Cutting and Self-Harm

2012-02-28T19:18:00.002-08:00

Signs and symptoms of cutting and self-harm

Self-harm includes anything you do to intentionally injure yourself. Some of the more common ways include:
cutting or severely scratching your skin
burning or scalding yourself
hitting yourself or banging your head
punching things or throwing your body against walls and hard objects
sticking objects into your skin
intentionally preventing wounds from healing
swallowing poisonous substances or inappropriate objects

Self-harm can also include less obvious ways of hurting yourself or putting yourself in danger, such as driving recklessly, binge drinking, taking too many drugs, and having unsafe sex.

Warning signs that a family member or friend is cutting or self-injuring

Because clothing can hide physical injuries, and inner turmoil can be covered up by a seemingly calm disposition, self-injury can be hard to detect. However, there are red flags you can look for (but remember—you don’t have to be sure that you know what’s going on in order to reach out to someone you’re worried about):
Unexplained wounds or scars from cuts, bruises, or burns, usually on the wrists, arms, thighs, or chest.
Blood stains on clothing, towels, or bedding; blood-soaked tissues.
Sharp objects or cutting instruments, such as razors, knives, needles, glass shards, or bottle caps, in the person’s belongings.
Frequent “accidents.” Someone who self-harms may claim to be clumsy or have many mishaps, in order to explain away injuries.
Covering up. A person who self-injures may insist on wearing long sleeves or long pants, even in hot weather.
Needing to be alone for long periods of time, especially in the bedroom or bathroom.
Isolation and irritability.

Source By helpguide.org/mental/self_injury

Parents arrested after severely malnourished boy, 9, found wandering naked in street

2012-02-17T18:16:00.000-08:00

Charged: The boy's father, Edward Bailey denied hitting the boy but admitted he allowed 'others' to hit him, police said

A North Miami Beach couple severely beat their 9-year-old son, who was found so starved that he weighed just 35 pounds, police said.

Marsee Strong, 34, and Edward Bailey, 40, appeared in court today, charged with aggravated abuse and neglect of a child.

They were arrested Saturday night on charges of aggravated child abuse.
Arrested: Marsee Strong faced court today after her son, 9, was found severely malnourished, wandering naked in the streets of North Miami Beach

Arrested: Marsee Strong faced court after her son, 9, was found severely malnourished, wandering naked in the streets of North Miami Beach

According to North Miami Beach police, neighbors found the naked boy wandering the streets.

Paramedics rushed the boy to the hospital, where he begged for food and told employees he had not eaten in three days. His body showed 'permanent marks of abuse all over,' according to an arrest report.Officials said the tiny boy was the same weight of a two year old.
His hands and feet were 'swollen from the lack of food,' and he told police he had not eaten in three days, the police report said.

In interviews with police both Strong and Bailey denied physically abusing the child.

Strong denied hitting the child but 'admitted to failing to protect her child from others and not properly supervising him and getting him medical treatment in a timely manner.'
Charged: The boy's father, Edward Bailey denied hitting the boy but admitted he allowed 'others' to hit him, police said

Charged: The boy's father, Edward Bailey denied hitting the boy but admitted he allowed 'others' to hit him, police said

A neighbor claimed he never saw anything amiss. 'I always seen a lovely family with the kids happy around their mother'

A neighbor claimed he never saw anything amiss. 'I always seen a lovely family with the kids happy around their mother'

Bailey also denied hitting the boy but admitted he allowed 'others' to hit him, police said.

Both suspects are unemployed. The family had a history with the Florida Department of Children and Families, according to an agency spokeswoman, although details were not immediately released.

Relatives are now caring for the boy’s siblings.

The severely malnourished boy is said to have jumped out of window and runaway from his home in North Miami, Florida.
Desperate: The boy, 9, was found wandering naked in this North Miami Beach street. He begged for food and said he had not eaten in three days

Desperate: The boy, 9, was found wandering naked in this North Miami Beach street. He begged for food and said he had not eaten in three days

He was spotted wandering around in a dazed state and taken into care by officials with the Department of Children and Families.

After being taken to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami he was found to weigh just 35lbs - the same weight for a two year old.

An arrest warrant revealed that the boy showed visible signs of abuse.

According to the arrest affidavit, Strong “admitted to failing to protect her child from others and not properly supervising him and getting him medical treatment.”
Police investigate: An arrest warrant revealed that the boy, 9, showed visible signs of abuse and weighed that of a toddler

Police investigate: An arrest warrant revealed that the boy, 9, showed visible signs of abuse and weighed that of a toddler

Neighbors told local10.com they were stunned to hear about the arrest.

'I was surprised. I was shocked. I didn’t even know what to say when the police were here and the mother was standing on the corner and then I heard the child had jumped out of the window and ran down the street naked,' said Mary Williams.

Willie Mitchell said he never saw any problems with his neighbors.

'I always seen a lovely family with the kids happy around their mother.'

Strong, 34, has been charged her with two counts of aggravated abuse and neglect of a child.

Bailey faces two counts of aggravated abuse and child neglect.
Source By: Ellen Connolly
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2094112/Parents-arrested-severely-malnourished-boy-9-wandering-naked-street.html#ixzz1mhB3gB00

School secretary 'enticed her stepson, 10, into sex while the boy's father watched'

2012-02-17T17:53:00.000-08:00

School secretary Annitta Roberts, now 39, is charged with sexually molesting her stepson six years ago when the boy was ten years old

A school secretary has been accused of enticing her 10-year-old stepson to have sex with her.

Annitta Nikki Roberts is alleged to have engaged in the sex acts while being watched by the boy's father.

The 39-year-old is alleged to have molested the boy six years ago when he was living with them in Valdosta, Georgia.
School secretary Annitta Roberts, now 33, is charged with sexually molesting her stepson six years ago when the boy was ten years old

School secretary Annitta Roberts, now 39, is charged with sexually molesting her stepson six years ago when the boy was ten years old

Details of the alleged abuse only came to light late last year when the boy, now aged 16, told his mother.

Police said Roberts and her husband Joseph Terrell, 42, were involved in the sex acts.

More...

Special Forces soldier 'used an electric dog collar on two young girls and forced them to run sprints'

Roberts works at Lowndes County Middle School as an admin assistant.

Since her arrest she has been banned from school grounds and told not to have any contact with students.
Joseph Terrell, the boy's father, allegedly watched and participated in the abuse, which came to light after the boy told his mother, with whom he now lives

Joseph Terrell, the boy's father, allegedly watched and participated in the abuse, which came to light after the boy told his mother, with whom he now lives

The Lowndes County school board released this statement saying: 'This is a personnel matter of a confidential nature. Lowndes County Schools will follow Georgia law and local school board policies in dealing with the situation.

'While this is under investigation, safety is our first priority. This employee will not be allowed on any Lowndes County campus or around any students.'

Roberts and Terrell were arrested and charged with child molestation and aggravated child molestation.

Terrell was also charged with enticing a child for indecent purposes.

Both were denied bail when they appeared before an arraignment hearing and are being held in Lowndes County jail.

Source By: Paul Thompson
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2092279/School-secretary-enticed-stepson-10-sex-boys-father-watched.html#ixzz1mh5UihVx

Burglar cleans woman's floor, cooks dinner!!!!

2012-02-16T17:46:00.000-08:00

Source By: http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=8539089

Baby left to die with alco mum

2012-02-16T17:37:00.000-08:00

A NEWBORN baby died of neglect after social services left him with his homeless, alcoholic mum,

The vulnerable child, known only as Baby Robert, was failed by a catalogue of blunders by agencies that should have been involved in his care.

He was just 34 days old when his lifeless body was found on a sofa next to his mother.

She had "consumed a large amount of alcohol the night before his death" a report said.

Social workers only discovered him after being tipped off by a worried member of the public three days earlier.

The helpless little boy should have been taken into care straight after birth.

But instead he was allowed to go home with his mother, who was sleeping on a friend's sofa and had no accommodation of her own. The woman, who has not been named, was known to social services, the police and the NHS.

She had a history of drink and mental problems and previously had multiple pregnancies and terminations plus a string of criminal convictions.

Bosses at Southend Council in Essex vowed that lessons had been learned to avoid another tragedy. It claimed the child protection workload had grown heavier as a result of the death of Baby Peter Connelly — which triggered a rise in referrals.

Peter known at first as Baby P, died from abuse in 2007, triggering widespread criticism of the council in Haringey, North London.

The facts about the Baby Robert case emerged in a Serious Case Review by Southend Council following the baby's death in 2009 and was completed in late 2010. The findings have just been made public.

The review concluded that the mother was known to social services, having been in and out of care herself.

Agencies, including primary care services, probation service and health visitors, had failed to access her past records.

The review concluded local health services had become "desensitised" after dealing with high numbers of patients affected by domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse and mental health problems.

The summary said: "The high level of need made it even more difficult to identify the most vulnerable of these individuals, resulting in the mother's unborn child's needs being minimised."

Social services had focused too much on the homelessness of the mother, and added "other services had failed to recognise the safeguarding needs of Baby Robert".

Southend Council Labour chief Ian Gilbert said: "This was a tragic case."

Source By:thesun.co.uk

Dissociative Identity Disorder / Multiple Personality Disorder

2012-01-19T15:58:00.000-08:00

First of all, what is Dissociative Identity Disorder?

When a person experiences devastating trauma or abuse, their mind may not be capable of coping with the pain and torture that their mind is subjected to. Either one of three things may happen; that person may mentally snap and wind up in a mental hospital, commit suicide because the trauma is too much to bear, or a part of their mind separates from the rest of their mind to hold the pain and hurtful memories, so that the rest of that person can go on with life.

When a person disassociates, a part of that person reaches out and encapsulates that hurt and painful memory until the time that healing is received. It is better for the hurt/pain/memory to be in the alter until it is healed, or else the person would likely be unable to bear the mental anguish of such unhealed memories, wounds, pain and hurt.

When dealing with an alter, in reality, you're really communicating with that part of their mind that has been locked up or separated, and it can seem like a whole another person in there. That is why they are known as multiple personalities. These personalities can seem like entirely different people, even carrying distinct tastes and yes, they can contain demons too. Yes, you may find an alter in a woman which is convinced that it's a guy, which goes on to show you how distinct and unique alters can be. I know that it seems hard to grasp, but when you begin to work with seriously tormented SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) victims, you will begin to see how much of a reality all this is. Some of these alters are formed when the person is subjected to torture that is humanly unthinkable. As a result of being subjected to unspeakable torture, that person's mind can fracture and cause many unique personalities that are much different from the core person.

Alters also have their own wills, just as part of us can wish to do what is right, but part of us can feel compelled to do just the opposite. Some alters can be good-hearted or bad-hearted.

Let's say that a person has went through unspeakable trauma in their childhood, and as a result, their mind has disassociated, and for some strange reason, parts of their childhood memories are somehow missing... they have absolutely no memory of what took place. Now, in some more extreme cases, a person may not remember anything at all from their childhood! Somehow those memories are separated from the rest of their mind, right? Now, when doing deliverance work, you may encounter a part of them that is quite aware of what took place during that time-frame but for some reason, during a normal conversation with the person, they have absolutely no memory whatsoever of what took place. A part of their mind where those memories are stored, is somehow separated from the rest of that person; should we dare call that part of their mind a demon? That part of their mind is holding trauma and therefore needs to receive healing, not to be treated like a demon. Yes, demons can and do work diligently to keep that part of their mind separate from the rest of the mind, but that does not mean that this separated part of their mind (an alter) is a demon.

How does male gender socialization affect the recognition of male sexual assault?

2012-01-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

How does male gender socialization affect the recognition of male sexual assault?
• Men who have not dealt with the symptoms of their sexual assault may experience confusion about their sexuality and role as men (their gender role). This confusion occurs for many reasons. The traditional gender role for men in our society dictates that males be strong, self-reliant, and in control. Our society often does not recognize that men and boys can also be victims. Boys and men may be taught that being victimized implies that they are weak and, thus, not a man.
• Furthermore, when the perpetrator of a sexual assault is a man, feelings of shame, stigmatization, and negative reactions from others may also result from the social taboos.
• When the perpetrator of a sexual assault is a woman, some people do not take the assault seriously, and men may feel as though they are unheard and unrecognized as victims.
• Parents often know very little about male sexual assault and may harm their male children who are sexually abused by downplaying or denying the experience.
What impact does gender socialization have upon men who have been sexually assaulted?
Because of their experience of sexual assault, some men attempt to prove their masculinity by becoming hyper-masculine. For example, some men deal with their experience of sexual assault by having multiple female sexual partners or engaging in dangerous "macho" behaviors to prove their masculinity. Parents of boys who have been sexually abused may inadvertently encourage this process.
Men who acknowledge their assault may have to struggle with feeling ignored and invalidated by others who do not recognize that men can also be victimized.
Because of ignorance and myths about sexual abuse, men sometimes fear that the sexual assault by another man will cause them to become gay. This belief is false. Sexual assault does not cause someone to have a particular sexual orientation.
Because of these various gender-related issues, men are more likely than women to feel ashamed of the assault, to not talk about it, and to not seek help from professionals.

Victims No Longer: Men Recovering from Incest and Other Sexual Child Abuse by Mike Lew, Foreword by Ellen Bass. (1990). HarperCollins; ISBN 0060973005
Wounded Boys, Heroic Men: A Man's Guide to Recovering from Child Abuse by Danial Jay Sonkin and Lenore E. A. Walker. (1998). Adams Media Corporations; ISBN 1580620108

Son turns dad in for molesting girl

2012-01-09T14:34:00.000-08:00

GLENDALE, AZ (KPHO) -

A Glendale man's son called police after he found a memory card containing videos of his father allegedly having sex with a 12-year-old girl, Glendale police said.

Jose Alfredo Rivera was booked into jail New Year's Eve on one count of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of sexual exploitation with a minor.

Police said one video showed Rivera telling the girl to undress. A second is of him raping her, officers said.

The 55-year-old claimed he made the videos to prove to police the little girl had been forcing him to do sexual things since she was nine.

The man's 30-year-old son said he found the SD card in a bathroom at his father's home.
source by :kpho.com
By Phil Benson -

Woman strapped to stretcher said paramedic raped her

2012-01-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

By WFSB Staff

HAMDEN, CT (WFSB) -

A paramedic has been arrested in connection with allegations he raped a 22-year-old woman while she lay strapped to a stretcher in the back of an ambulance.

Hamden police said Mark Powell, 49, of North Haven sexually assaulted the Hamden woman on Dec. 25 at 3 a.m. while she was being transported to Yale-New Haven Hospital after suffering a fall at a holiday party.

Police said the woman awoke in the ambulance to find Powell raping her. She told police she could not move because she was strapped to a stretcher.

The woman contacted police after being discharged from the hospital, police said.

"She awoke in the rear of the ambulance to find she was being sexually assaulted by the AMR employee at a time she couldn't speak or move due to fact she was strapped to a stretcher," said Hamden Police Capt.. Ronald Smith.

Detectives said the first-degree sexual assault lasted 5 to 7 seconds, but they can't discuss evidence.

On Thursday, police charged Powell with first-degree sexual assault and first-degree unlawful restraint. He was released on a $25,000 bond, and is scheduled to appear in court in Meriden on Jan. 19.

Powell, who was a paid paramedic with AMR in New Haven, has been put on administrative leave

Source By wfsb.com

James Mauldin And Jasmine Dawkins Charged for Child Abuse In Son's Death

2012-01-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

(WUSA) -- West Virginia State Police say they have taken a father and his girlfriend into custody after a child was found with head trauma and scars all over his body.

The father of a three-year-old child told a trooper that he called 911 after discovering that his child was not breathing. According to state police, James Mauldin told the trooper that the child was in his bedroom and collapsed.

When the trooper went to the hospital, however, he was told that the child had burn marks on his buttocks and both legs, say West Virginia State Police. The child has also suffered a fractured skull and "brain bleeds."

According to West Virginia State Police, the trooper asked the father's girlfriend about the incident and she said that the father had abused the child a few days before and that the child had been burned and suffered head trauma.

The trooper then took James Mauldin into custody on charges of child abuse, child neglect and presentation of false information regarding child injuries.

The girlfriend, Jasmine Dawkins, was also taken into custody. She faces a child neglect charge and misdemeanor charge of presentation of false information regarding child injuries.

The child was later taken to Children's National Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.

Authorities are in the process of refiling charges on Mauldin relating to the child's death.

Source By:(WUSA) -- West Virginia State Police say they have taken a father and his girlfriend into custody after a child was found with head trauma and scars all over his body.

The father of a three-year-old child told a trooper that he called 911 after discovering that his child was not breathing. According to state police, James Mauldin told the trooper that the child was in his bedroom and collapsed.

When the trooper went to the hospital, however, he was told that the child had burn marks on his buttocks and both legs, say West Virginia State Police. The child has also suffered a fractured skull and "brain bleeds."

According to West Virginia State Police, the trooper asked the father's girlfriend about the incident and she said that the father had abused the child a few days before and that the child had been burned and suffered head trauma.

The trooper then took James Mauldin into custody on charges of child abuse, child neglect and presentation of false information regarding child injuries.

The girlfriend, Jasmine Dawkins, was also taken into custody. She faces a child neglect charge and misdemeanor charge of presentation of false information regarding child injuries.

The child was later taken to Children's National Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.

Authorities are in the process of refiling charges on Mauldin relating to the child's death.

Source By:(WUSA) -- West Virginia State Police say they have taken a father and his girlfriend into custody after a child was found with head trauma and scars all over his body.

The father of a three-year-old child told a trooper that he called 911 after discovering that his child was not breathing. According to state police, James Mauldin told the trooper that the child was in his bedroom and collapsed.

When the trooper went to the hospital, however, he was told that the child had burn marks on his buttocks and both legs, say West Virginia State Police. The child has also suffered a fractured skull and "brain bleeds."

According to West Virginia State Police, the trooper asked the father's girlfriend about the incident and she said that the father had abused the child a few days before and that the child had been burned and suffered head trauma.

The trooper then took James Mauldin into custody on charges of child abuse, child neglect and presentation of false information regarding child injuries.

The girlfriend, Jasmine Dawkins, was also taken into custody. She faces a child neglect charge and misdemeanor charge of presentation of false information regarding child injuries.

The child was later taken to Children's National Medical Center where he later died from his injuries.Authorities are in the process of refiling charges on Mauldin relating to the child's death.

Vacation nightmare as daughter, 15, on a family Christmas cruise 'is lured from a teen dance and raped by two men in a private room'

2012-01-06T18:07:00.000-08:00

Jailed: Luiz Scavone, 20, is accused of one count of committing a lewd and lascivious act

A 15-year-old girl vacationing aboard a Royal Caribbean cruise liner for Christmas has accused two fellow passengers of raping her on the ship.

Luiz Scavone, 20, and a 15-year-old male are accused of luring the girl from a teen nightclub on the ship to a private room where the incident is said to have occurred.

Both suspects, Brazilian nationals, were arrested when the ship returned to Port Everglades, Florida on Tuesday.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports the girl's family, from Iowa, departed Fort Lauderdale on Christmas for a ten-day cruise to St Thomas, St Maarten, St Kitts and Haiti aboard Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas.

The teenager told police she met the 15-year-old male on the last night of the cruise at an on-board teen club called Fuel, and he invited her to a party in his private room, where Scavone was waiting.

According to arrest documents, both males refused to allow her to leave and raped her.

The girl immediately reported the alleged incident to ship officials, who alerted the FBI. Both suspects were arrested once the ship returned to Port Everglades.

Scroll down for video
Attack: The 15-year-old girl told police she was raped aboard Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas cruise liner during a ten-day family vacation

Attack: The 15-year-old girl told police she was raped aboard Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas cruise liner during a ten-day family vacation
Docked: Both suspects, Brazilian nationals, were arrested when the ship returned to Port Everglades, Florida on Tuesday (not pictured)

Docked: Both suspects, Brazilian nationals, were arrested when the ship returned to Port Everglades, Florida on Tuesday (not pictured)

Scavone is accused of one count of committing a lewd and lascivious act.

Appearing in court on Wednesday, the 20-year-old's bond was set at $10,000. Judge John 'Jay' Hurley also ordered him to relinquish his Brazilian passport. Scavone was being held at the Broward County Main Jail on Wednesday pending an immigration hold.

According to the probable cause affidavit obtained by the Sentinel, the second defendant was charged with lewd and lascivious battery and taken to Broward's Juvenile Assessment Center.

Source By:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082877/Daughter-15-Royal-Caribbean-cruise-raped-2-men-private-room.html#ixzz1ijZ48osg

Professor who helped youths in foster care systems charged with rape and sexual child abuse

2012-01-06T17:22:00.000-08:00

Dwain Pellebon, 54, arrested for rape and lewd acts
Denies charges but admitted being 'affectionate and sensual'
Admitted watching child porn

A social work professor accused of rape and performing other lewd acts on teenage girls has been formally charged.

Dwain Pellebon, 54, of the University of Oklahoma, was arraigned on two counts of rape, two counts of lewd acts with a child and two counts of sexual child abuse.

The professor was arrested last week after authorities received allegations from a child welfare worker he had sexually abused two teenage girls in the past two years. He denies all the allegations.
Paid leave: Dwain Pellebon, 54, of the University of Oklahoma, has been arrested for allegedly committing rape twice and lewd acts on a child under 16 years old

Paid leave: Dwain Pellebon, 54, of the University of Oklahoma, has been arrested for allegedly committing rape twice and lewd acts on a child under 16 years old

A state Department of Human Services worker told Norman police that a 13-year-old reported seeing Pellebon fondle another 13-year-old during a sleepover at the suspect's Norman home, according to a search warrant affidavit.

The girl was interviewed by police last week, according to NewsOk, and told them she woke up in his home on at least two occasions with Pellebon lying beside her touching her 'from her hair to her ankles'.

The alleged abuse started when she was 11.
'An affectionate, sensual man who liked to hug, kiss, cuddle and stroke young girls that he felt close to'

The social worker also said Pellebon sexually abused a mentally disabled 15-year-old at least twice.

The girl also told police the suspect would remove her from bed, take her clothes off and 'display her on a bed for viewing'.

Court documents also revealed the girl said Pellebon kept track of her menstrual cycle and showed her 'parts of the body you weren't supposed to see'.

The social work professor admitted taking off the girl's clothes but said he did it to apply cream to her 'chest, back and butt' while they were alone in his bedroom.

NewsOk reported that though Pellebon denies any sexual contact, he described himself to investigators as an 'affectionate, sensual man who liked to hug, kiss, cuddle and stroke young girls that he felt close to'.

He also told police that he had viewed child pornography once but did not download it.
University: Pellebon is on paid leave for now, but this could be changed to leave without pay when more facts emerge in the case

University: Pellebon is on unpaid leave from the university and free on $75,000 bail

In 2001, Pellebon was investigated by DHS under similar circumstances but no charges were filed because the alleged victim — the daughter of a former Norman police officer — failed to give investigators a statement, documents show.

He has been placed on administrative leave without pay and is free on $75,000 bail.

The 54-year-old was a director on a local board for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), which helps children in juvenile court and foster systems.

He took a leave of absence from the board earlier this year, a Cleveland County CASA spokesman told The Oklahoman.

Pellebon teaches a course on human sexuality that looks at ‘sexual behaviour, gender differences and sexual values’, reported CNN.

After he was arrested a university spokesman said they 'acted swiftly to suspend Pellebon from any contact with students and from use of any university facilities'.

Source By
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076602/Dwain-Pellebon-University-Oklahoma-social-work-professor-charged-rape-sexual-child-abuse.html#ixzz1ijOG5BHa

Counselor at prestigious military academy 'performed sex act on cadet, 16, and bought other teenage boys alcohol'

2012-01-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

Symantha Hicks, 30, allegedly performed a sex act on a cadet, 16, at Valley Forge Military Academy, where she worked as a guidance counselor. Three other teens say she bought them alcohol

A guidance counselor at a prestigious military academy is to surrender to police on charges of having oral sex with a teen student and supplying alcohol to others.

Symantha Hicks will be charged with unlawful contact with a minor when she hands herself in to police.

The 30-year-old is accused of performing oral sex on a 16-year-old cadet at the Valley Forge Military Academy in Radnor, Pennsylvania.
Symantha Hicks, 30, allegedly performed a sex act on a cadet, 16, at Valley Forge Military Academy, where she worked as a guidance counselor. Three other teens say she bought them alcohol

Symantha Hicks, 30, allegedly performed a sex act on a cadet, 16, at Valley Forge Military Academy, where she worked as a guidance counselor. Three other teens say she bought them alcohol

The victim told police he was alone with Hicks, his guidance counselor, in her office at the academy.

The teen told investigators Hicks touched his hand before leaning in to kiss him and unbuckling his trousers.

He said she performed oral sex on him.

Side Note:The prestigious military school in Pennsylvania and costs a whopping $39,000 a year to be boarder

The cadet told police a few weeks after the October incident Hicks sent him a text message inviting him to her bedroom while she was staying on the campus.

The teen, who was interviewed in the presence of his parents, told police he was nervous about seeing Hicks and rejected her request.

Three other cadets later told investigators that Hicks had allegedly provided them with alcohol on several different occasions.
The prestigious military school in Pennsylvania and costs a whopping $39,000 a year to be boarder

The prestigious military school in Pennsylvania and costs a whopping $39,000 a year to be boarder

One cadet said Hicks had provided a six-pack of beer to him on the night of the school’s Ring Dance, according to an arrest affidavit.

She also allegedly purchased two bottles of alcohol for the same cadet at a Wine and Spirits Store a few weeks later.

Police began investigating Hicks in December after the sex and alcohol allegations began circulating at the academy.

Hicks’ attorney, Richard Hark, said she regrets her actions and takes full responsibility for them, knowing she will be banned from working at her chosen career in the future.

'She is well-credentialed individual who made a mistake and accepts responsibility for her mistakes,' he said.

'Ms. Hicks is voluntarily surrendering and we will be resolving the matter with the Delaware County District’s Attorney’s Office through a waiver of the preliminary hearing,' said Hark.

'She is regretful of the circumstances and is no longer working for the school and understands that this will affect her ability to be a teacher in the future.'

Hicks faces charges of Unlawful Contact with a Minor, eleven counts of Corruption of Minors, and ten counts of Selling or Furnishing Liquor or Malt or Brewed Beverages to Minors.
Source By:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082715/Symantha-Hicks-Valley-Forge-Military-Academy-counselor-performed-sex-act-cadet-16.html#ixzz1ijIKSiPb

Former Teacher of the Year jailed for sexual abuse tells police he also molested more than 20 other girls

2012-01-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

An Alabama schoolteacher who was jailed on charges of sexually abusing a fourth-grade female student, revealed to police that had molested more than 20 other girls over his 25-year career.

Alabaster police said Daniel Montague Acker Jr., 49, was charged with three counts of sexual abuse, and additional charges were possible.

'This is not a one-time event,' said Deputy Chief Curtis Rigney. 'This happened over a period of 25 years.'

Acker taught fourth grade at three schools and drove buses in the Shelby County school system from 1985 until he retired in 2009.

He was investigated on similar allegations in 1992, but grand jurors did not return an indictment, said Rigney.

A girl who is now 12 or 13 came forward within the last week claiming Acker molested her around 2009, when he was a teacher at Thompson Intermediate School, Rigney said. He wouldn't say what drove the girl to go to police.

At least one instance of alleged abuse occurred in a classroom in front of other students, Rigney said, but it wasn't clear whether the children saw anything or realized what had happened.

An attorney for Acker did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Acker was being held in the Shelby County jail with bond set at $225,000. A jail mug shot showed him wearing a vest meant to prevent prisoner suicides.

Acker remained on the school payroll as a substitute bus driver until this week, Rigney said.

Acker's father, Dan M. Acker, is a longtime commissioner in Shelby County, just south of Birmingham, but Rigney said there was no indication his father's position helped the teacher avoid charges earlier.

Shelby County schools spokeswoman Cindy Warner said Acker was placed on leave while child abuse allegations were investigated in October 1992, and the county school board voted against firing him in February 1993 after grand jurors did not indict him.

She said Acker was reinstated as a fourth-grade teacher at Creek View Elementary, where he worked before moving to Thompson Intermediate.

In a statement, Superintendent Randy Fuller said the district was cooperating with police and would no longer use Acker as a substitute bus driver or in any other capacity.

'We can only say that the allegations are shocking,' Fuller said. 'We, as a school district, understand that child abuse is horrible with devastating consequences to victims and their families.'

Confronted by police, Acker admitted molesting the girl who went to officers. He also told investigators he had abused more than 20 other girls but did not name any alleged victims, Rigney said.

Acker is no longer cooperating with investigators, he said.

Investigators believe most if not all of the girls were in Acker's classes, Rigney said.

But police are trying to see if some of the girls were students in other teachers' classrooms.

'He was in a school. We don't know what contact he might have had with other kids,' said Rigney.

Acker's arrest stunned residents in the Birmingham suburb of 28,000, where he was well-known for his long teaching career.

'Everybody knows Danny,' said former city councilman Bobby Harris, shaking his head.

Source By:
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083176/Daniel-Montague-Acker-Jr-Former-Teacher-Year-jailed-sexual-abuse.html#ixzz1ijG55zDc

A Riviera Beach mother was arrested Tuesday after allegedy beating her 3-year-old son with a belt

2011-12-31T15:57:00.000-08:00

RIVIERA BEACH — A Riviera Beach mother was arrested Tuesday after allegedy beating her 3-year-old son with a belt, bruising the child's buttocks and right leg.

Quanteria Harris, 28, is being held at the Palm Beach County Jail on a charge of child abuse.

According to the probable-cause affidavit, Riviera Beach police learned of the incident from the state Department of Children and Families investigation. The state had received a request from Riviera Beach Head Start to investigate the alleged abuse.

The victim's Head Start teacher told the case worker that on Dec. 15, she was in the children's bathroom with the boy when she noticed bruises, the affidavit said.

The teacher said she asked the child if the bruises hurt. "My mommy did that," he said.

The case worker then took the victim to his residence to the 1500 block of Martin Luther King Boulevard where he interviewed Harris. After 20 minutes of denying she had hit her son, Harris admitted that she whipped him with a belt, the affidavit said.

The case worker took the boy to a state Child Protection Team health office in West Palm Beach where a doctor examined him, the affidavit said. The doctor said the corporal punishment the boy received was excessive.

Harris told police that she asked her son to put his toys away, and the boy threw one of the toys at her, the affidavit said. She then proceeded to spank him with the belt.

She said she accidentally struck him on his legs and the lower part of his buttocks because he was moving around.

Harris said she did not realize that she was hitting the boy that hard.

She is being held in lieu of a $3,000 bond.

Source by UK News

A girl was sexually assaulted inside a Walmart

2011-12-31T15:30:00.000-08:00

Anoka County [Minnesota] investigators say a a girl was sexually assaulted inside a Walmart on University Avenue in Fridley on Monday.

Authorities say a man around the age of 30 followed the girl around the store and then groped her–while her mother and a sibling stood next to her. They were in the electronics department at the time, and there were hundreds of people in the store.

The crime was caught on a numerous security cameras throughout the store, and footage shows the man stalking the victim and her family for as long as five minutes before he assaulted her.

“He kind of swoops in and does the assault,” said Commander Paul Sommer. “It’s particularly disturbing to us because if he is willing to go to these lengths to accomplish this type of crime, we’re very concerned about what he is capable of in the future.”

The suspect immediately fled.

“We see the reaction of the little girl, how she tells her mother, how the scene played out,” Sommer said. “She is clearly traumatized by the experience but she is not physically hurt.”

The suspect is described as a white male with an average build and sparse facial hair. He was wearing a duck-brown colored hooded jacket and a black stocking hat with red flames on the top.

Multiple Personality Disorder

2011-12-27T07:45:00.000-08:00

A basic knowledge of how Multiple Personality Disorder is described is needed to continue. MPD is hypothesized to be caused by severe childhood trauma that creates a mental split or "dissociation" as a defense against that trauma (Spanos, 1994). The different personalities that occur are called alters. These different parts develop separately and in adulthood help the sufferer deal with stress by expressing resentment or help calm the main personality. Each patient possesses two or more selves and each identity has it's own mood, memories, behaviors, and experiences.

The disease theory of Multiple Personality Disorder is that unhappiness in adulthood stems from trauma in childhood (Gleaves, Hernandez, & Warner, 1999) and the trauma is so severe that the individual creates multiple identities to cope with it (Spanos, 1994). The severe trauma is thought to be a result of physical or sexual abuse in childhood. Likewise, most modern patients are women who have been diagnosed with other disorders before being diagnosed with MPD. This is because the intense trauma caused by abuse may create other disorders as well. Because it is associated with other disorders, it was not long before MPD appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It first appeared in the 3rd edition (DSM-III); however the name was changed to Dissociative Identity Disorder in the DSM-IV (Dunn, 1992).

Dissociative Disorders and Dissociative Identity Disorder
Unlike Multiple Personality Disorder, which is more like a disease, where a person has it or does not have it, most professionals feel that dissociation ranges from a "normal" state, daydreaming, to more pathological forms (Waller, Putnam, & Carlson, 1996). So it's not hard to conclude that Dissociative Disorders are rather rare but dissociative experiences are very common (Kihlstrom, Glisky, & Angiulo, 1994). The next step is to explore the most common personality traits that are related to dissociation. These are hypnotizability, absorption, fantasy proneness, and some aspects of openness to experience (Spiegel, & Cardeña 1991). These can be risk factors for dissociative problems.

A clinician named Janet, in 1889, who worked with hysterics at the Salpertriere, felt that dissociation is a response to stress but some people are predisposed to the disorders (Kihlstrom, Glisky, & Angiulo, 1994). Janet also coined the term dissociation which was used to describe the split in consciousness that resulted when patients were exposed to traumatic events (Pica, 1999). From his theories it was found that there are distinguishable types of Dissociative phenomena. Dissociative Disorders are groups of syndromes that at the core alter the sufferer's consciousness, affecting memory and identity, which also follow Janet's work (Kihlstrom et al., 1994).

Janet also theorized about when vulnerability was at its highest. The developmental window of vulnerability is 18 months to 8 years old (Pica, 1999). This is important because it helps to predict how many alters may appear. There is a significant negative correlation between the age of appearance of an alter personality and the number of personalities. This can bring up other arguments, which are not covered in this paper, regarding Freudian explanations.
Source By
http://www.personalityresearch.org

Recent Charges of Sexual Abuse of Children in Hollywood Just Tip of Iceberg, Experts Say

2011-12-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

Recent Charges of Sexual Abuse of Children in Hollywood Just Tip of Iceberg, Experts Say

Allison Arngrim (left) starred on 'Little House on the Prairie." She said stories about Corey Feldman and Corey Haim (right) being abused as child stars were common in the 1980s and 90s.

If a spate of recent allegations proves true, Hollywood may have a hideous epidemic on its hands. The past two weeks have brought three separate reports of alleged child sexual abuse in the entertainment industry.

Martin Weiss, a 47-year-old Hollywood manager who represented child actors, was charged in Los Angeles on Dec. 1 with sexually abusing a former client. His accuser, who was under 12 years old during the time of the alleged abuse, reported to authorities that Weiss told him "what they were doing was common practice in the entertainment industry." Weiss has pleaded not guilty.

On Nov. 21, Fernando Rivas, 59, an award-winning composer for “Sesame Street,” was arraigned on charges of coercing a child “to engage in sexually explicit conduct” in South Carolina. The Juilliard-trained composer was also charged with production and distribution of child pornography.

Registered sex offender Jason James Murphy, 35, worked as a casting agent in Hollywood for years before his past kidnapping and sexual abuse of a boy was revealed by the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 17. Murphy’s credits include placing young actors in kid-friendly fare like "Bad News Bears," "The School of Rock," "Cheaper by the Dozen 2” and the forthcoming "Three Stooges.”

Revelations of this sort come as no surprise to former child star Corey Feldman.

Feldman, 40, himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, unflinchingly warned of the world of pedophiles who are drawn to the entertainment industry last August. "I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia,” Feldman told ABC’s Nightline. “That's the biggest problem for children in this industry... It's the big secret.”

Another child star from an earlier era agrees that Hollywood has long had a problem with pedophilia. “When I watched that interview, a whole series of names and faces from my history went zooming through my head,” Paul Peterson, 66, star of The Donna Reed Show, a sitcom popular in the 1950s and 60s, and president of A Minor Consideration, tells FOXNews.com. “Some of these people, who I know very well, are still in the game.”

“This has been going on for a very long time,” concurs former “Little House on the Prairie” star Alison Arngrim. “It was the gossip back in the ‘80s. People said, ‘Oh yeah, the Coreys, everyone’s had them.’ People talked about it like it was not a big deal.”

Arngrim, 49, was referring to Feldman and his co-star in “The Lost Boys,” Corey Haim, who died in March 2010 after years of drug abuse.

“I literally heard that they were ‘passed around,’” Arngrim said. “The word was that they were given drugs and being used for sex. It was awful – these were kids, they weren’t 18 yet. There were all sorts of stories about everyone from their, quote, ‘set guardians’ on down that these two had been sexually abused and were totally being corrupted in every possible way.”

In fact it is the very nature of a TV or movie set that invites predators, experts tell Fox News.

“A set in Hollywood with children can become a place that attracts pedophiles because the children there may be vulnerable and less tended to,” explains Beverly Hills-based psychotherapist Dr. Jenn Berman. “One thing we know about actors, psychologically speaking, is that they’re people who like a lot of attention. Kids naturally like a lot of attention, and when you put a kid on a set who is unsupervised and getting attention from someone who is powerful, it creates a vulnerability for a very dangerous situation.”

Feldman, who claims he was “surrounded” by pedophiles when he was 14, says the sexual abuse by an unnamed “Hollywood mogul” led to the death of his friend Haim at the age of 38. "That person needs to be exposed, but, unfortunately, I can't be the one to do it," Feldman told Nightline.

“There’s more than one person to blame,” says Arngrim. “I’m sure that it was not just one person who sexually abused Corey Haim, and I’m sure it wasn’t only him and Corey Feldman that knew about it. I’m sure that dozens of people were aware of the situation and chose to not report it.”

Arngrim, a board member and the national spokeswoman for protect.org, an organization that works to protect children from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, says greed in Hollywood allows sexual predators to flourish. “Nobody wants to stop the gravy train,” says Arngrim. “If a child actor is being sexually abused by someone on the show, is the family, agents or managers – the people who are getting money out of this – going to say, ‘OK, let’s press charges’? No, because it’s going to bring the whole show to a grinding halt, and stop all the checks. So, the pressure is there is not to say anything.”

“It’s almost a willing sacrifice that many parents are oblivious to – what kind of environment do they think that they’re pushing their kid into?” said Peterson. “The casting couch is a real thing, and sometimes just getting an appointment makes people do desperate things.”

Arngrim, who revealed her own sexual abuse in her 2010 autobiography, “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch,” explains: “I’ve heard from victims from all over the country. Everyone tells the same kind of story, everyone is told to keep it secret, everyone is threatened with something. Corey Feldman may have opened a can of worms by speaking out, but yes, this does go on.”

Even though Feldman spoke candidly about the abuse, he hasn’t named the predator. “People don’t want to talk about this because they’re afraid for their careers,” says Peterson. “From my perspective, what Corey did was pretty brave. It would be really wonderful if his allegations reached through all of the protective layers and identified the real people who are a part of a worldwide child pornography ring, because it’s huge and it respects no borders, just as it does not respect the age of the children involved.”
Source By: FOX411

Four arrests of Christian pastors in one week on charges of sexual abuse of minors.

2011-12-25T16:56:00.000-08:00

Source By: Martin Barillas

An Evangelical church pastor was arrested on December 17 near Orlando FL on five counts of sexual battery on a child. Arnold Mathis (40) remains in custody at a Polk County facility after being arrested at his home in Winterhaven. The alleged perpetrator of the crimes is scheduled to appear before a local court later this week, having now secured a court-appointed defense attorney.

Mathis is an assistant pastor at Higher Praise Ministries, in Lake Wales FL. Officials say the incidents occurred in 2005 while Mathis was senior pastor at Saint City Power and Praise Ministries in Winterhaven. Mathis is alleged to have been a mentor to the young male victim, having met her at a basketball game, but then subjected him to abuse. The sheriff’s department claim that Mathis approached a boy and offered financial help, as well as new shoes. The fatherless boy apparently felt that Mathis was trying to serve as a father figure. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said of Mathis, "He's a monster." The sheriff added, “Arnold Mathis was the master of grooming. He had grooming children down to an art." "Children are not safe around him," Judd said.

This is fourth such arrest of a church pastor in Polk County in which alleged perpetrators have been charged with one or more child sex-related crime.

Polk County Sheriff Department said the boy victim advised on December 16 of the abuse he suffered at the hands of Mathis six years ago in Mathis’ home and other places. The then 34-year-old Mathis met the victim at a local park, according to reports, and took him to his home and engaged in oral copulations with the 14-year-old boy. Mathis then allegedly gave the boy $100 and told him to buy a prepaid phone to allow communication between the two. Over the succeeding months, Mathis continued to assault the then 14-year-old boy and provide gifts and money. The victim is now 21 years old.

History of sexual abuse

Despite having a history of abuse, Mathis was serving as an associate pastor in an unpaid position at the Higher Praise Ministries church. Mathis was arrested by Polk County Sheriff's deputies in August 2004 and in January 2011 for failing to register as a sex offender. He had been required to register, following a 1997 conviction in Leon County for which he served 4 years in prison. Judd said "the shock of this investigation is, he's already a sex offender, he's already been to prison and he's still a youth pastor or associate pastor? That's terrible."

Also arrested this week were Mulberry FL youth pastors Ricardo Navarro, 28, and Edward Demoreta, 30. Navarro was a youth pastor at First Assembly of God church in Mulberry until he was asked to leave one year ago. The alleged 14-year-old victim in his case received text messages from Navarro asking her to send nude photographs of herself. He has admitted to inappropriate relations with the girl.

Demoreta was found to have engaged in sexual relations with the same girl when she was 13 years old. Demoreta was also a teacher at a local public school.

On December 11, a 25-year-old youth ministry leader at an Auburndale church was arrested following an investigation that began in November 2010. Darryl Leonard Taylor, Jr. is facing lewd molestation charges. The boy revealed to a church elder and his father of the abuse.

Topping off the sex crimes in Orlando, home to DisneyWorld, the head football coach at a high school in nearby Lakeland was arrested on December 13 and charged with having sex with a 17-year-old girl, according to Sheriff Judd. Matt Thompson (30) stands charged with having sex with the female student on at least three occasions.

Elsewhere in Florida, another coach, Robert Francis of St. Petersburg College is out on bond after being arrested in a December 6 sting operation. According to Orange County sheriff’s deputies, Francis (31) had planned to engage in sexual behaviour with a 14-year-old girl he met on line. The unwitting Francis did not know that in reality he had been communicating with an undercover sheriff’s deputy who suggested the hook-up near Tampa.

Dad charged after posting photo of bound, gagged child was he say he was 'only joking'

2011-12-25T16:36:00.000-08:00

A South Side father who allegedly posted a Facebook photo of his 22-month-old daughter bound and gagged was just joking around and the whole case has been “blown out of proportion” by the Internet, his attorney and family said today.

Andre Curry, 21 -- who has no criminal background -- was charged with aggravated domestic battery, a felony, after turning himself in to police on Tuesday.

A woman who answered the phone at the family home Wednesday and identified herself as Curry’s grandmother said he loves his daughter and would never do anything to harm her.

“He’s so playful, always laughing,” said the woman, who would not give her name. “Everyone who knows him saw the photo and laughed too…He was only joking.”

She also said he knows what he did was a mistake and “feels awful," especially now that the photo has gone viral on the Internet.

The photo shows the toddler bound and gagged with blue painter’s tape. Across the top of the photo are the words: "This is wut happens wen my baby hits me back" and then a smiley face, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Erin Antonietti.

Curry’s attorney, Anand Sundaran, said his client was just joking around and that the child was never harmed or in danger. “Unfortunately due to the Internet, this case has been blown out of proportion,” Sundaran said.

He asked the judge to release Curry on electronic monitoring, but she denied the request.

Instead, Judge Laura Sullivan set bond today at $100,000 and ordered Curry to have no contact with his daughter or any other children and barred him from using the Internet while his case was pending.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had already intervened and placed the girl with her mother and Curry was granted supervised visitation, he said.

Chicago police said they began investigating Dec. 14 after someone brought the photo to their attention. DCFS also said they were investigating the incident and that the agency had no prior contact with the family.

Curry, of the 6100 block of South Racine Avenue, works at an Applebee’s restaurant and graduated from Chicago Vocational High School in 2007, according to records. He appeared in court in a white hooded sweatshirt and dark pants and did not address the judge.

Source By Jason Meisner | Tribune reporter

Fmr. High School Coach Accused of Sexual Assault Due in Court

2011-12-25T16:27:00.000-08:00

BELLFLOWER, Calif. (KTLA) -- A former Bellflower High School girls basketball coach is expected in court Thursday to face child sexual assault charges.

Bryan Shepherd, 47, of Long Beach, was a girls track and basketball coach at the school since 2007, according to a news release issued by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Shepherd was charged Wednesday with 20 counts of molesting a girl starting at the age of 13.
The counts include child molestation, oral copulation of a minor, sodomy of a minor, sexual penetration by a foreign object and unlawful sexual intercourse.

The victim was Shepherd's stepdaughter, who was a member of Bellflower High School's basketball and track teams, school district officials said in a statement.

Shepherd is accused of molesting the girl from the time she was 13 in 2005 until she was 17 in 2010.

The alleged sexual assaults did not happen at school, officials said.

Shepherd was arrested Tuesday and is being held on $3 million bail.

Bellflower Unified School District officials said Wednesday that Shepherd has been fired.

Sheriff's detectives believe there could be other victims and are asking them to come forward.

Anyone with information is urged to call the sheriff's Special Victims Bureau at 866-247-5877.

Source By:ktla.com

History Teacher Arrested After Having Nearly 2-Year Long Relationship With 8th Grader

2011-12-25T16:05:00.000-08:00

By KIRSTEN COLE pix11.com

A history teacher received a lesson in criminal justice Thursday after being arrested for having a year and a half long sexual relationship with one of his own 8th grade students.

And it was his wife who dropped the dime on him.

Sex Ed was on the curriculum at the Susan B. Anthony school in Queens, except it was private lessons between a 13-year-old girl and her 44-year-old history teacher Charles Oross, officials said. Oross, a married father of 2 from East Islip, Long Island was charged with statutory rape Thursday morning of his 8th grade student.

The Special Commissioner of Schools started an investigation after an anonymous caller to the Crimestoppers hotline made the allegations and used the student's first name.

Commissioner Richard Condon elaborated, "They both had access to the school, and would find an unoccupied classroom at 6 in the morning. In early 2009, they started engaging in sexual touching and oral sex. Within a few months it progressed to intercourse."

The year and a half long relationship was on again and off again as the student said she "broke up" with her teacher saying she wanted to "hang out" with students her own age.

The morning encounters happened in the school and in the teacher's car, according to interviews with the female student, who is now a 16-year-old high school student. The report stated Oross told her he had a vasectomy and did not use a condom.

Commissioner Condon elaborated, "The tipster told us he heard it from Wendy Oross, the teacher's wife."

Interviews uncovered the wife suspected Oross' infidelity, and posed as him on Facebook to talk to the student. The girl confirmed she and Oross were lovers. The report on the statutory rape also revealed inappropriate Facebook and email messages from Oross to the girl.

Parents at the school were horrified by the charges.

Michael Batts, who was picking up his niece as he usually does at IS 238 said directly, "That is so disgusting. You expect your children to get an education. That is abuse!"

Oross taught for 8 years for city schools making $64,000. He was arraigned Thursday, and was taken out of the classroom a month ago. The Dept of Ed has begun proceedings to fire him.

Young Couple Pleads Not Guilty To Murdering And Abusing One Of Own 2-Month Old Twins

2011-12-15T14:42:00.000-08:00

Two young parents have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and abuse of one of their children.
Prosecutors say 22-year old Antonio Brandon abused his two-month-old twin sons-killing one and injuring the other. Investigators say the boys had been abused for about a week.
Their mother, 18-year old Nicole Roberts, is accused of allowing the abuse to go on because she didn’t want her boyfriend to leave her.
Cayden Brandon died Monday after being rushed to the hospital from a Westland mobile home. An autopsy shows he died from asphyxia and blunt force trauma to the chest.
The father admitted to police that he abused the little boy. Westland Police Sgt. Todd Adams told the court, “He placed his hand over Cayden’s mouth for 10 to 20 seconds. He also admitted that he squeezed Cayden’s body tightly to his and also beat on his chest with a closed fist, all in an effort to stop Cayden from crying.”
Roberts knew the abuse went on for a week before Cayden died. “She peeked into the living room, and saw the defendant Brandon striking Cayden with an open hand three times in the abdomen,” Adams testified. “She went back to her room and ignored the beating, as she was afraid to cause a conflict with him.”
Police say Brandon also hurt Cayden’s twin brother Cameron. “He swung Cameron upside down by his legs within the last couple of weeks, which he believed caused the fractured femur. And also squeezed Cameron’s body tightly to his, causing the fractured ribs.”
Cameron is now in protective care.
Not guilty pleas were entered for both defendants.
As they were being led from the courtroom, Roberts’ mother yelled out at her daughter, “I hate you, Nicole.”
People who know the couple are still trying to understand what happened. “I’ve spent a lot of time with both of them and the babies. And I couldn’t see it happening,” the twins’ Godmother Sarah Eaton said.
As Roberts’ best friend, she said she could never imagine this happening to the boys. “Nicki, I’m very, very hurt that you did this to the babies, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for this,” she said between sobs.
If Roberts and Brandon are convicted, they could face life in prison without parole.
Each is being held on a $1 million bond.
Source By Fox 2

Transgenerational trauma and child sexual abuse: reconceptualizing cases involving young survivors of CSA

2011-12-09T18:36:00.000-08:00

While current research on child sexual abuse (CSA) has delineated the immediate and long-term effects of sexual trauma, little has been written about intergenerational influences on the presence and etiology of CSA among young children. Dass-Brailsford (2007) defined transgenerational trauma as trauma that has been passed down from one generation to another, either directly or indirectly. In this paper the authors review the literature on CSA, the influence of primary caregivers, and transgenerational trauma, followed by a case illustration. Specific interventions are pointed out to offer mental health counselors innovative tools for ameliorating the effects of transgenerational trauma with this client population. The authors also highlight effective clinical programs on CSA among young children that acknowledge the influence of intergenerational trauma.

**********

Each year, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 new cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) are reported (McLeer, Deblinger, Atkins, Foa & Ralphe, 1988). Finkelhor (2007) has charged that the problem with CSA research is the focus on adults, when CSA is more common with children under 5. In addition to developmental problems, many such children have an increased risk of severe psychosocial, emotional, and behavioral problems (Bosquet, 2007; Gil, 2006). The purpose of this paper is to introduce transgenerational trauma as a lens for conceptualizing and treating young survivors of CSA and their primary caregivers. Defined as trauma that has been passed down from one generation to another, either directly or indirectly (Dass-Brailsford, 2007), transgenerational trauma extends the current discussion on trauma theory (Goodman & West-Olatunji, 2008). The authors illustrate how intergenerational issues impact the presentation of CSA symptomology among young children, particularly those under 5, and their nonoffending primary caregivers. We offer both recommendations for practice to address the multilayered effects of transgenerational trauma due to CSA and suggestions for research to advance knowledge in this emergent area.

Kimberly N. Frazier, Cirecie A. West-Olatunji, Shirley St. Juste, Rachael D. Goodman
CSA and Trauma
http://findarticles.com

An Amber Alert!!!!!!! Update

2011-12-09T18:14:00.001-08:00

Since this posted The highway patrol found the young girls and perpetrators a few hours ago.

An amber alert was just issued for missing Solano 17-year-old Christina Almanza:
AMBER ALERT ***** ON DECEMBER 7, 2011, AT 05:00 PM, CHRISTINA ALMANZA WAS POSSIBLY ABDUCTED FROM SOLANO COUNTY, CA. CHRISTINA ALMANZA IS A 17 YEAR OLD, HISPANIC, FEMALE, 5 FEET 7 INCHES TALL, 130 POUND, JUVENILE WITH BLACK HAIR, AND BROWN EYES. THE VICTIM WAS LAST SEEN DRIVING A NAVY BLUE OLDSMOBILE SILHOUETTE, WITH A... CA LICENSE PLATE OF 4EBS066. THE VICTIM IS POSSIBLY BEING HELD AGAINST HER WILL BY MULTIPLE MALE SUSPECTS, UNKNOWN DESCRIPTIONS. THE VICTIM IS POSSIBLY BEING HELD WITH THREE OTHER FEMALE JUVENILES WHO MAY BE IN DANGER. THE OTHER VICTIMS WERE IDENTIFIED BY FIRST NAMES ONLY AS: CHRISTINA, JESSICA AND MARTA. IF SEEN CONTACT SUISUN CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT AT (707) 421-7373. CHP ENTAC/JMH 1323458739681

Child Abuse May Change The Brain, Study Says

2011-12-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

Victims of child abuse may experience changes in their brains similar to those seen in soldiers, according to a new, small study.

The findings, published in the December 6 issue of Current Biology, is the first to use functional brain scans to examine the effects of abuse on children's emotional development.

"This research...provides our first clues as to how regions in the child's brain may adapt to early experiences of abuse," lead author Eamon McCrory of Britain's University College London told Reuters.

McCrory and his colleagues observed brain responses in 43 12-year-old children to pictures of male and female calm, angry and sad faces. The 20 children in the study who had been abused at home showed more activity in two regions of the brain that are involved in detecting threats. The brains of soldiers who have been exposed to violent combat show similar patterns in these areas, according to Reuters.

The findings suggest that abused children and combat soldiers "tune their brains to be hyper-aware of environmental danger," reports The Daily Mail.

This may keep children out of harm's way in the short term, McCrory said in a press release. But given that childhood abuse is one of the most common precursors to mental illness, these brain changes may also set the stage for anxiety and depression later in life.

Of course, not every child will face these mental health challenges. In fact, "many bounce back and lead successful lives," McCrory told The Daily Mail. "We want to know much more about those mechanisms that help some children become resilient."

Doing so may lead to new treatments to help the victims of child abuse. Until then, Peter Fonagy, a psychology professor at UCL who was not involved in the study, told The Daily Mail, "the report should energize clinicians and social workers to double their efforts to safeguard children from violence."

The study is not the first to link maltreatment during childhood to mental illness later in life. Previous research has tied abuse to personality disorders, anxiety disorders, social isolation, relationship problems and suicidal behavior, among other mental health problems. Victims of child abuse may also face physical health problems, such as an increased risk of heart attack, heart disease and stroke, according to findings presented in November at the American Heart Association's 2011 scientific sessions.

Source By: huffingtonpost.com

Dothan man guilty of molesting 8-year-old girl

2011-12-09T18:02:00.000-08:00

A Dothan man faces 99 years or life in prison after a jury convicted him of sodomizing and molesting an 8-year-old girl.

Assistant District Attorney Banks Smith said a Houston County jury returned a split verdict in the felony cases filed against 32-year-old David Anthony Poole. Smith said the jury found Poole guilty of felony first-degree sodomy and felony sex abuse of a child under the age of 12. He said the jury also found Poole not guilty of a felony first-degree rape charge and felony incest charge.

Smith said Poole, who will be sentenced by Circuit Court Judge Butch Binford next month, faces 99 years or life in prison for the first-degree sodomy charge because of two prior felony convictions on his record. Those prior convictions include second-degree robbery and fraudulent use of a credit card.

Houston County Sheriff’s investigators arrested Poole on Dec. 2, 2010, on the four felony charges.

Smith questioned during his closing arguments how credible it would for an 8-year-old girl to make up a story about being sexually assault.

“She told you the truth and nothing but the truth,” Smith said.

Attorney Shaun McGhee, who represented Poole, said every sexual assault case he’s taken to trial involving children has also involved custody issues and extended family members. McGhee said they plan to file an appeal of the jury’s verdict.

“It was our position that he was not guilty, and didn’t do any of it,” McGhee said.

McGhee said a defense witness, a Tuscaloosa doctor, testified how he did not see any evidence of injuries from a sexual assault on the victim after he’d reviewed photographs taken.

“He saw a perfectly normal exam,” McGhee said.

Smith said the nurse, who testified for the prosecution, came up with the opposite conclusion after she actually examined the child.

McGhee also suggested the girl was given “leading” questions during her interview at the Southeast Alabama Child Advocacy Center.

“In some cases a not guilty is justice too,” McGhee said.

Source by dothaneagle.com

Report By: Matt Elofson

Hearings reveal sickening details of physical, sexual abuse of toddler

2011-12-09T17:53:00.000-08:00

GASTON COUNTY, NC (WBTV) - Court hearings Wednesday for a couple charged with killing a Gaston County toddler revealed sickening details about the child's abuse.

"She suffered," a prosecutor told the judge. "Extremely."

Addison Lanham died from an untreated sepsis infection July 21. She was two years old.

Investigators said the girl also had a broken leg that had been untreated for more than a week.

The toddler's mother, Shanna Lanham, 32, and her boyfriend Jason Wells, 33, pleaded guilty to second degree murder Wednesday morning.

Wells was sentenced to 124 to 158 months in prison (10-13 years) for murder and babysitting a child when he was a registered sex offender.

Shanna Lanham was sentenced to 108 to 139 months in prison for murder.

During the hearings, a prosecutor told the judge disturbing details about Addison's abuse.

Neighbors reported Wells forced the little girl to walk on her untreated broken leg, telling her it would make it stronger as she limped across the courtyard of their home, a Bessemer City motel.

The prosecutor also spoke about the infection that eventually took the toddler's life.

"She had boils all over her body. They were popping. She had a boil behind her ear and on top of her head that had popped to the point where you could actually see part of her brain," said the prosecutor.

The state also revealed details about Addison's sexual abuse, saying investigators found evidence of vaginal and anal penetration. The prosecutor said a rape kit did not reveal DNA or other evidence that could lead to additional charges.

Throughout their hearings, Lanham and Wells showed little emotion. Wells only shook his head when the district attorney talked about the signs of sexual trauma.

The prosecutor said both adults displayed "extreme disregard for human life."

Source By WBTV

DNA helps ID another victim of Houston killer

2011-12-05T16:50:00.000-08:00

HOUSTON — A Houston teenager who left for work four decades ago and was never heard from again was among at least 28 young men and boys who were kidnapped, tortured and killed by a serial killer in the early 1970s.

Harris County forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick said Wednesday that DNA and circumstantial evidence enabled investigators to identify Roy Eugene Bunton as one of Dean Corll's many victims, the Houston Chronicle reported (http://bit.ly/tjRwvV ).

Bunton was last seen leaving for work at a Houston shoe store, and the medical examiner's office said that was in 1971 or 1972, when he would have been 17 or 18. Like many of Corll's victims, investigators believe Bunton may have accepted a ride from Corll or one of Corll's two teenage accomplices.

Corll's known victims were found in three mass graves. Four bodies were buried in St. Augustine near Lake Sam Rayburn in East Texas; seven were buried on the beach at High Island in Southeast Texas; and 17 were buried in a Houston boathouse of Corll's. Authorities say Corll forced some of his victims to write false runaway letters to their families.

Corll's killing spree ended when he was slain by one of his two accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., in August 1973.

Henley and another accomplice, David Brooks, were convicted in the teen murders and remain in prison.

Bunton's body had been one of two still unidentified victims of the serial killer.

A Houston woman contacted Derrick in 2009 to say Corll might have killed her missing brother.

Derrick reviewed her files, but found no unsolved cases that could have matched Bunton, an unusually long-legged teen with blonde hair and a wide smile who was 6-feet tall.

But in 2010, Derrick discovered an error had been made back in 1973: A body buried in a family plot thought to be that of Michael Baulch, another Corll victim, was not Baulch after all.

The body was recently exhumed and examined by Derrick and her team.

"As I kept working, I kept seeing things that reminded me of Roy Bunton. He would have gone missing at the same time and he was either 18 or 19," Derrick said.

Derrick also found the body had unusually long legs, just like Bunton, and the shape of the teeth also matched.

Ultimately it was a combination of DNA and circumstantial evidence that led to Bunton's identification.

Bunton's family plans a private burial.

Derrick is working to identify the last unnamed victim of Corll. The unknown boy likely went missing in 1971 or 1972 and died while wearing distinctive red, white and blue striped swim trunks and a tan shirt with a huge peace symbol. When examined under a microscope, the shirt revealed several tiny letters that might be LB4 MF or possibly LBHMF.

Derrick said she is hoping for yet another relative to call about this boy whose body was discovered buried near Bunton's.

Source by :http://palestineherald.com

Father killed 4 kids, wounded wife

2011-12-05T16:22:00.000-08:00

BAY CITY — Laura Gonzalez was happy to be back at work after three weeks away that included a stay at a battered women's shelter. She saw it as the beginning of a new life. One without her husband and the father of her four children, she told co-workers. She wasn't going back to him this time, she said, and left for home.

Less than an hour later, her 24-year-old husband, Jose Avila, launched a brutal final assault. First he shot his wife three times. Then, he began shooting the children. Avila's final act was to kill himself.

Two of the children died at a hospital Thursday, a day after their two siblings were killed in the shooting that rattled the small southeast Texas town of Bay City. Their mother remains hospitalized.

As details trickled out, a picture emerged Thursday of a family long struggling with violence, including an assault reported by Gonzalez just before Thanksgiving. After that, she went to a battered women's shelter.

"I asked her how she was doing because I knew she was at the crisis center. She said she was trying to make something of her freedom and a better life for herself and her children," said Alejandro Gonzalez, a fellow waiter at La Casona, the Mexican restaurant where Gonzalez worked.

"She wanted to make a better life for his kids because they see all the violence," he added, recounting the conversation he had with Gonzalez hours before Avila turned on her.

Although Gonzalez left the trailer home she shared with her husband after reporting the assault, Bay City Lt. Andrew Lewis said she refused to press charges. He didn't know how long she stayed at the shelter.

Wednesday's violence unfolded on a quiet street in Bay City — a town about 65 miles southwest of Houston — just as two nearby schools were letting out. The couple started arguing inside the trailer, and Avila shot his wife twice, Lewis said. She ran out to the front yard, where Avila shot her a third time. Then, he turned on the children.

"We heard ... that he was walking around waving a gun," Lewis said, describing the violent scene that unfolded on a lawn now decorated with a makeshift memorial of teddy bears, candles and prayer books. At least one student witnessed the incident.

Two brothers, aged 3 and 5, died of their wounds at a Houston hospital on Wednesday. The other two children, ages 2 and 4, had been on life support but died Thursday. Gonzalez is also at a Houston hospital, but Lewis did not know her condition.

Police have not officially released the names of the victims, but co-workers and neighbors identified Avila's wife as Laura Gonzalez.

The family had moved into the trailer home near Bay City's Western-style downtown about a year ago, neighbors said. They appeared to live a quiet life. On occasion, next-door neighbor Isuro Perez heard them arguing, but it appeared to be nothing out-of-the-ordinary. Just a run-of-the-mill dispute between a married couple.

"He always plays soccer out here in this field out here, plays soccer with his kids," Perez said, pointing to a grassy area opposite the row of trailer homes. "They were nice people, nothing went wrong really. They were a happy family."

At work, though, Gonzalez portrayed a different picture. Alejandro Gonzalez said he once saw her with a black eye. And Ruby Gomez, a waitress at La Casona, said Laura Gonzalez had told her about problems she had with her husband.

"She had to leave to get the kids in the afternoon because he threatened her that if she left him he was going to kill the four kids and her," Gomez said.

Once, Gomez said, Gonzalez told her Avila had locked her in the house and gone to work. She escaped through a window and went to a shelter, Gomez recounted. That was the second time she left him, and vowed not to go back.

The first time "he convinced her that he was going to change and that he really loved his kids, and convinced her to return to live with him," Gomez said.

Still, the tragic outcome of the relationship came as a shock to Gonzalez's co-workers and to other residents of Bay City — a town of just over 17,000 people surrounded by large ranches and farmland. The shooting was the talk of the town Thursday, as residents drove slowly past the couple's home.

Some stopped to add something to the growing memorial. Others cried. Several prayed.

"It's going to be sad for the momma when she wakes up and finds out she lost her children," said Gloria Carranza, a 41-year-old Bay City native who added pink and blue balloons to the memorial.

"Things like this don't happen in a small town like Bay City," she said.

Source By: http://palestineherald.com

Texas doctor fired over sex abuse allegations

2011-12-05T16:17:00.000-08:00

SAN ANTONIO — A child psychiatrist fired over allegations that he sexually abused two residents at a state hospital for the mentally disabled had been accused of sexually abusing patients several times during his 21 years working there, state officials said Thursday.

State investigators looked into all of the allegations of sexual abuse involving Dr. Charles Fischer when they were made, but they found no confirmation of abuse until last month, said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family Protective Services. Fischer was fired Monday from the Austin State Hospital, where he worked in a supervisory role at the Child-Adolescent Psychiatric Services Unit.

Austin police said Thursday that Fischer, 59, is under investigation but has not been charged. He did not immediately respond to a phone message left Thursday at his Austin home, and it was not clear whether he had an attorney.

State officials declined to release even the most basic details of the allegations against Fischer, including how many people accused him of sexual abuse and how old they were when the alleged abuse occurred.

“We are all heartbroken over these allegations. We’re investigating the situation and considering our next actions,” Texas Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams said. “These kids come to us to heal, and the situation is very sad and extremely troubling for everyone involved.”

Fischer’s firing was first reported by the Austin-American Statesman.

Disability Rights Texas, a federally funded nonprofit tasked by the government to help monitor state facilities for the mentally ill and disabled, said its records indicate there have been as many as eight allegations against Fischer. Beth Mitchell, an attorney for the organization, said there is indication the allegations go back a decade.

Mitchell said her organization is now trying to uncover why previous allegations against Fischer were unfounded. Mitchell said that while she doesn’t believe the state’s standard for “confirming” an allegation is too high, she said investigations commonly end with the alleged victim being discredited.

Mitchell also wants to know whether the state previously took action against Fischer given the multiple allegations.

“At some point you have a person being accused of the same thing over that period of time, you think that should also be looked into,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell said Fischer has never popped up on her organization’s radar before.

Fischer had worked since 1990 at Austin State Hospital, which is part of a system of 11 state hospitals for people with mental illnesses. Crimmins said state caseworkers have received “several reports alleging sexual abuse by Dr. Charles Fischer dating back several years,” but would not elaborate.

Last year, state investigators confirmed 39 cases of sexual abuse in facilities that are either state-run or contracted by the state. Yet investigators “confirming” an allegation of abuse are rare: Fewer than 2 percent of more than 2,100 abuse allegations made in state psychiatric hospitals in 2010 were confirmed by the state.

State residential institutions in Texas have come under scrutiny before for abuse and mistreatment of residents. In 2008, nearly 270 employees were fired or suspended for abusing or neglecting residents of large, state-run institutions for the mentally disabled, which are separate from the state’s psychiatric hospitals.

Source By :palestineherald.com

SCATTERED SOULS

2011-12-02T08:39:00.000-08:00

SCATTERED SOULS

People that have formed soul ties with many people through fornication and promiscuity, their souls have become fragmented and scattered among all their sexual partners.

If you are unable to give yourself fully to your mate (husband) it is because your thoughts and emotions are being continually drawn back to their past lovers. This is also adultery in your heart.

If a woman has sexual relations with several men, her spirit and soul seek out every one of them. Her spirit is scattered and torn apart

If you have ever been raped, but yet you find yourself thinking or desiring the one that raped you, it is because the two souls have knit together.

A man’s spirit is so built that for each woman he enters his spirit is built to find, protect, bless and nurture and provide for that woman. Guys have you been divorced and remarried, but you still seem to want to protect or take care of your ex-wife?

CHP's Swaim charged with lewd, lascivious conduct with a child

2011-11-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

Lt. John Swaim, the commander of the Winterhaven office of the California Highway Patrol, has been formally charged with four felony counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child under the age of 14.

Swaim, who has been placed on administrative leave, turned himself in to the Imperial County Jail on Thursday, where he was arraigned during a hearing held at the courtroom inside the jail building.

During the nearly half-hour-long hearing, Swaim's attorney, Bob Espinoza, entered pleas of not guilty on behalf of his client on each of the four charges, which stem from allegations made by two different victims that Swaim sexually abused them on separate occasions more than 10 years ago.

Lt. George Moreno of the Imperial County Sheriff's Office said Swaim was taken into custody following the hearing after he informed the judge that he could not pay the $100,000 bond that had been set in his case.

Swaim, who was placed in handcuffs and booked into jail, has since made bail and is now out of custody.

In August, two girls, who are now ages 16 and 19, claimed that Swaim had committed acts of sexual misconduct against them when they were younger.

While they claim the alleged misconduct began about a decade ago when they were 7 and 8 years old, they say that some of the sexual misconduct has occurred since then.

Moreno said as the investigation into the allegations unfolded, several more witnesses and possible victims were discovered and interviewed.

Swaim, who is the highest ranking CHP officer at the agency's Winterhaven office, is scheduled to be back in court at the beginning of next month.

Source By yumasun.com
BY JAMES GILBERT - SUN STAFF WRITER

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or call him at 539-6854.

Teacher at Schaumburg Christian School arrested after he masturbated in class

2011-11-23T16:06:00.000-08:00

A teacher at Schaumburg Christian School was charged with sexual exploitation of a child Tuesday after a student told administrators he masturbated while students were in his classroom, police said.

On Friday, Paul LaDuke, 75, of Hanover Park, was seated behind his podium when he unzipped and lowered his pants and masturbated, Schaumburg police said. A student saw him and reported it to a teacher, who relayed it to school administrators, according to police. LaDuke lost his job the same day, police said.

LaDuke is schedule to have a bond hearing in Rolling Meadows Branch Court on Wednesday.

Police said they had no evidence that LaDuke had inappropriately touched or physically harmed any student, though they asked current or former students or their parents who have information about the case to contact investigators.

LaDuke has been at the school since 1985, according to his Facebook page. An online Father’s Day tribute written by his son said LaDuke taught math, and had earlier worked at a Christian school in Colorado.

Officials at Schaumburg Christian School, a ministry of Bethel Baptist Church that serves students from preschool through high school, declined comment.

Source By John Keilman and Kate Thayer | Tribune reporters

Couple arrested in child abuse, torture case

2011-11-16T15:57:00.000-08:00

HESPERIA • Authorities arrested a mother and a Hesperia man for the torture and abuse of at least one of the woman's children, San Bernardino County Sheriff's officials said Friday.

Desiree Perez, 30, and Daniel Knutte, 23, both of Hesperia, were arrested Thursday for abuse of a child, torture and kidnapping.

The arrests came after school officials noticed injuries on the woman’s kindergarten-aged child and called deputies, Cindy Bachman, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, said. The nature of the child’s injures were not immediately released as the investigation continued Friday.

Hesperia officials received a call from Lime Street Elementary at about 11 a.m. Thursday to report the possible abuse. School officials asked authorities to respond immediately, as the school day for the kindergarten class ended early and they wanted the case investigated, Bachman stated.

After gathering evidence, authorities were able to obtain a search warrant for Perez’s home in the 9100 block of Topaz Avenue near Main Street. Perez was soon arrested.

Deputies brought Knutte to the sheriff’s station where he was also arrested and booked into Victor Valley Jail. The relationship between Knutte and the victim was not released.

The victim had younger siblings, though it was unclear Friday if they were also abused. All of the children were placed into the care of Children and Family Services.

Neither Perez or Knutte have previous criminal records in San Bernardino County, according to court records.
Source By
Beatriz Valenzuela
Staff Writer
Beatriz E. Valenzuela may be reached at (760) 951-6276 or at BValenzuela@VVDailyPress.com.

A Soul Tie Can Serve Many Functions.......

2011-11-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

The Bible speaks of what is today known as soul ties. In the Bible, it doesn't use the word soul tie, but it speaks of them when it talks about souls being knit together, becoming one flesh, etc. A soul tie can serve many functions, but in it's simplest form, it ties two souls together in the spiritual realm. Soul ties between married couples draw them together like magnets, while soul ties between fornicators can draw a beaten and abused woman to the man which in the natural realm she would hate and run from, but instead she runs to him even though he doesn't love her, and treats her like dirt. In the demonic world, unholy soul ties can serve as bridges between two people to pass demonic garbage through. Other soul ties can do things such as allow one person to manipulate and control another person, and the other person is unaware to what is going on or knows what is going on, but for no real reason, allows it to continue.

Port Orange man charged with molestation of girl, 11

2011-11-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

A 36-year-old Port Orange man, a registered sex offender, is accused of fondling an 11-year-old girl as she slept at his home this month, police said.

Steven James Davis was arrested and charged Thursday with lewd and lascivious molestation of a child younger than 12.

The girl told authorities she was spending the night at the home of her best friend, who is "under the control" of Davis, according to an affidavit from the Port Orange Police Department.

She said she awoke early Oct. 15 in her friend's bedroom and Davis was sitting between her legs, fondling her, according to the affidavit. She yelled at him to stop and he left, authorities said. But he later came back in the bedroom but the girl yelled at him and he left, the affidavit states.

Detectives interviewed a friend of Davis' who told them the man was intoxicated and she had to remove him from the bedroom on more than one occasion.

Authorities say they tried to interview Davis, but he refused to make any comments.

During the course of the investigation, detectives also learned Davis is a registered sex offender, according to the affidavit.

In 1994, he pleaded no contest to lewd and lascivious assault on a child and was sentenced to probation, according to Volusia County court records. He later violated his probation and served a little over two years in prison, according to the state Department of Corrections website.

Davis was being held without bail Friday at the Volusia County Branch Jail.

Source By news-journalonline.com
By CHRIS GRAHAM, STAFF WRITER

Boyfriend faces murder charge in Fresno toddler's death

2011-11-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Fresno police have arrested a 20-year-old man and charged him with murdering a toddler Sunday in a horrific case of child abuse.

The man, Xavier Christopher Hawkins, was the live-in boyfriend of the boy's mother, police said. Hawkins also goes by the last name Weeks.

He was arrested Thursday and booked in Fresno County Jail on charges of murder, child abuse causing great bodily harm and penetration with a foreign object. He is on probation for weapons charges, police said.

"It was very apparent that the child as a result of the injuries was tortured," Chief Jerry Dyer said at a news conference Thursday evening.

The child was identified as Syre Bridges, who would've been 2 years old on Nov. 25. Police said Syre died of blunt force trauma.

Xavier Christopher Hawkins

Fresno toddler's mom didn't suspect abuse

Police said Syre's mother, 19-year-old Emiley Bridges, was not at the couple's apartment when the abuse happened and has not been charged in the case.

Police said Syre was unconscious and in cardiac arrest just after 1 p.m. Sunday at the Villa Hermosa apartments on Marks Avenue, just west of Highway 99 and north of McKinley Avenue.

Initial reports indicated Syre had bruises all over his body.

CPR was in progress when paramedics arrived and continued until they got to Community Regional Medical Center 11 minutes later, according to Emergency Medical Services reports. The child died about a half-hour after paramedics first reached him.

Police said Hawkins had lived in the apartment since June. He is not Syre's father. Police didn't name the biological father but said he doesn't live in the area.

Police said both Fresno County social workers and police officers had tried numerous times to make contact with the mother and child at the apartment based on allegations they received that the child was being abused – but officials were never able to make contact with the mother. Police said this evening that Child Protective Services workers went to the home six times, and police officers went there three times before Sunday.

Police said Syre's grandmother was among the tipsters. Police said the woman, whom they didn't name, saw bruising.

Source by By Eddie Jimenez / The Fresno Bee

Mother-Daughter' Bikini Shoot Turns Into Child Porn, Authorities Say

2011-11-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

By ALYSSA NEWCOMB

A Massachusetts mother is facing child endangerment charges after authorities said she forced her daughter to pose nude in hopes of winning a $20,000 mother-daughter bikini photo shoot.

Ann Lussier, 41, of Attleboro, Mass., allegedly made her daughter strip down to her bra and underwear and then completely disrobe while a man who identified himself as a Florida-based photographer watched over Skype.

Lussier and her daughter were unable to see the photographer, who claimed his camera was broken.

"The parent had to show the man what both she and the Victim looked like with no clothes on, reportedly so he could see the shape of their bodies," court documents stated.

A reportedly frustrated Lussier told her twin sister about the incident and how "uncooperative" her daughter was, according to court documents, which also stated the aunt heard her niece crying in the background.

The sister contacted authorities, who began a month-long investigation that culminated in the arrest of Lussier and Joshua Dunfee of Oxford Junction, Iowa, the man allegedly on the other end of the camera.

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"There are sickos out there, and they let them go. But I get locked up. I'm a victim," Lussier told the Attleboro Sun Chronicle in a brief interview after she was freed on bail under the condition she stay away from her children.

Dunfee is being sent to Massachusetts to face federal child pornography charges.

Lussier's lawyer, Ernest Solomon, told ABCNews.com that his client is a victim of a "pervert."

"The intention the twin sister had was to report that someone, this pervert, was taking advantage of someone vulnerable and their goal was to get him," he said.

Solomon would not comment on whether the mother admitted to the circumstances in the court documents, citing pending court action, but said she was seeking professional help while staying with relatives.

ABCNews.com reached John Lussier, the girl's father. "This is a very sensitive matter and that's all I have to say," Lussier said.

The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families is currently investigating the case.

"We will continue to provide any assistance that is necessary," spokesperson Cayenne Isakson told ABCNews.com. Isakson declined to comment on specifics.

Solomon said he is looking forward to the day where the truth will come out in court and Ann Lussier can be reunited with her children.

"This whole event has been devastating for my client and her family," he said.

Source by abcnews.go.com

Elderly man kidnapped, raped near Socorro park

2011-11-10T18:19:00.000-08:00

SOCORRO, Texas —
Socorro police and the FBI are looking for four men who police say attacked and raped an elderly man who was out on his early-morning walk.

Investigators said the 70-year-old was walking Thursday around 6 a.m. at Valle del Sol Park on Valle Rico Road and Valle Fertil when they said four black men got out of a late-'90s Ford or Chevrolet van or minivan and demanded the Mexican-American man to give them money. When he said, "No," they allegedly grabbed him, threw him in the van and raped him.

Socorro spokesman David Garcia said the men yelled racial slurs at the victim as they assaulted him.

"These four people know each other well enough to do something like this in front of each other. This is an atrocity!” Garcia said. “This man was somebody's dad. This man was somebody's brother, somebody's friend."

He said the victim was so badly hurt, he had surgery and is in serious condition at a hospital.

“I think that's ridiculous. A 70-year-old man getting taken and raped by an unknown vehicle, you know,” Christian Nevarez, 23, said. He lives in the neighborhood and said he usually wakes up early and sees several people taking walks along the park. He said children also walk to school early in the morning.

Police said the attackers are in their mid-20s to 30s. Call Socorro police at 915-858-6986 if you have any information in this case

Source By:By Jacob Rascon
KFOX-14

Noticing the Signs and Symptoms of Eating Disorders

2011-11-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

Noticing the Signs and Symptoms

BE AWARE: A sufferer DOES NOT need to appear underweight or even "average" to suffer ANY of these signs and symptoms. Many men and women with Eating Disorders appear NOT to be underweight... it does not mean they suffer less or are in any less danger.

Anorexia/Bulimia

Dramatic weight loss in a relatively short period of time.
Wearing big or baggy clothes or dressing in layers to hide body shape and/or weight loss.
Obsession with weight and complaining of weight problems (even if "average" weight or thin).
Obsession with calories and fat content of foods.
Obsession with continuous exercise.
Frequent trips to the bathroom immediately following meals (sometimes accompanied with water running in the bathroom for a long period of time to hide the sound of vomiting).
Visible food restriction and self-starvation.
Visible bingeing and/or purging.
Use or hiding use of diet pills, laxatives, ipecac syrup (can cause immediate death!) or enemas.
Isolation. Fear of eating around and with others.
Unusual Food rituals such as shifting the food around on the plate to look eaten; cutting food into tiny pieces; making sure the fork avoids contact with the lips (using teeth to scrap food off the fork or spoon); chewing food and spitting it out, but not swallowing; dropping food into napkin on lap to later throw away.
Hiding food in strange places (closets, cabinets, suitcases, under the bed) to avoid eating (Anorexia) or to eat at a later time (Bulimia).
Flushing uneaten food down the toilet (can cause sewage problems).
Vague or secretive eating patterns.
Keeping a "food diary" or lists that consists of food and/or behaviors (ie., purging, restricting, calories consumed, exercise, etc.)
Pre-occupied thoughts of food, weight and cooking.
Visiting websites that promote unhealthy ways to lose weight.
Reading books about weight loss and eating disorders.
Self-defeating statements after food consumption.
Hair loss. Pale or "grey" appearance to the skin.
Dizziness and headaches.
Frequent soar throats and/or swollen glands.
Low self-esteem. Feeling worthless. Often putting themselves down and complaining of being "too stupid" or "too fat" and saying they don't matter. Need for acceptance and approval from others.
Complaints of often feeling cold.
Low blood pressure.
Loss of menstrual cycle.
Constipation or incontinence.
Bruised or calluses knuckles; bloodshot or bleeding in the eyes; light bruising under the eyes and on the cheeks.
Perfectionistic personality.
Loss of sexual desire or promiscuous relations.
Mood swings. Depression. Fatigue.
Insomnia. Poor sleeping habits

Compulsive Overeating/Binge Eating Disorder

Fear of not being able to control eating, and while eating, not being able to stop.
Isolation. Fear of eating around and with others.
Chronic dieting on a variety of popular diet plans.
Holding the belief that life will be better if they can lose weight.
Hiding food in strange places (closets, cabinets, suitcases, under the bed) to eat at a later time.
Vague or secretive eating patterns.
Self-defeating statements after food consumption.
Blames failure in social and professional community on weight.
Holding the belief that food is their only friend.
Frequently out of breath after relatively light activities.
Excessive sweating and shortness of breath.
High blood pressure and/or cholesterol.
Leg and joint pain.
Weight gain.
Decreased mobility due to weight gain.
Loss of sexual desire or promiscuous relations.
Mood swings. Depression. Fatigue.
Insomnia. Poor Sleeping Habits.

Source By:something-fishy.org

Associated Mental Health Conditions and Addictions- Dealing With Issues of Eating Disorders

2011-11-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

Below you will find some of the psychological illnesses and addictions that can sometimes co-exist with an Eating Disorder.

In people who suffer from Eating Disorders it is not uncommon to find other associated psychological disorders that co-exist with their Anorexia, Bulimia and/or Compulsive Overeating. In some cases, their Eating Disorder is a secondary symptom to an underlying psychological disorder (such as some people who also suffer with Multiple Personality Disorder), and in other cases, the psychological disorder may be secondary to the Eating Disorder (as with some people also suffering with Depression). Men and women may also suffer from both an Eating Disorder and other psychological disorder(s) that completely co-exist with one another... or they can suffer from an Eating Disorder and have little or no signs of an additional psychological disorder (Note: The longer a person suffers, the more probable that they may be dealing with Depression or Anxiety as well). It is important to the recovery process and treatment that all these issues are addressed, and that a proper diagnosis be determined.

Some of the psychological illness that can be (but are not always) found in people suffering with Anorexia, Bulimia and Compulsive Overeating are: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, BiPolar and BiPolar II Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Panic Disorders and anxiety, and Dissociative Disorder and Multiple Personality Disorder.

In addition, some people suffering with an Eating Disorder may also be exhibiting other addictive or self-destructive behaviors. As an Eating Disorder is a reaction to a low self-esteem, and a negative means of coping with life and stress, so are other types of addictions. These can include alcoholism, drug addiction (illegal, prescription and/or over-the-counter medications), and self-injury, cutting and self-mutilation.

Harming oneself, also known as cutting, self-mutilation, or SIV (self-inflicted violence) is a coping mechanism that is sometimes found in people also suffering with an Eating Disorder. For some, they may find it easier to deal with real physical pain than to deal with their emotional pain, or some may feel emotionally numb and using SIV reminds them that they are alive. They may even feel that they deserve to be hurt. It can be used to block out emotional pain, or to make the person feel "strong". It is a way to cope with stress and anger, shame and guilt, sadness, and as a release for emotions that have built up inside. SIV can be mild to severe, but it should never be confused with a conscious attempt to commit suicide (though some may die as a result of their actions, this is relatively uncommon). SIV can include cutting, burning, punching, slapping, hitting oneself with an object, eye-pushing, biting and head-banging, and less common methods would be those that have long-lasting or life-long effects such as bone breaking, or amputation.

Source By:something-fishy.org

Baby raped by parents' roommate near New Smyrna Beach

2011-11-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

A man accused of raping a 9-month-old baby ran to a neighbor for help after seeing the baby bleeding, then tried to hide in a store bathroom, sheriff's investigators said.

The grandparents of the child went to court Friday asking for the baby to be put into their care.

The suspect, Edwin Wren, 19, ran to a neighbor Thursday afternoon and told her there was an emergency at the house where he was staying near New Smyrna Beach, according to a 9-1-1 call. The neighbor ran to the house and found blood on the carpet, she told a dispatcher.

"I went in there to check on the baby ... and it looks like the baby has been raped," a sobbing and distraught neighbor said. "She was crying really bad when I got there."

The child was discovered Thursday afternoon bleeding profusely from physical trauma to her body, said Gary Davidson, Volusia County sheriff's spokesman.

Wren was arrested and charged with sexual battery on a person younger than 12 and aggravated child abuse. He was being held in the Volusia County Branch Jail without bail, Davidson said. Wren made his first appearance in front of a judge Friday and could not be reached.

Wren was living with the child's mother and her boyfriend, who sometimes left him to tend to the baby. On Thursday the parents left Wren with the child while they went to the doctor and grocery shopped, a charging affidavit shows.

The neighbor said the parents often left the baby alone with Wren.

"They kinda leave the baby with him (Wren) a lot," the 9-1-1 caller said.

The child's Ormond Beach grandparents, who are not being named by The Daytona Beach News-Journal to protect the identity of the baby, went to court Friday hoping the child will be placed with them.

"This whole situation is about the safety and well-being of a (baby) girl," the grandfather said. "The baby is guaranteed a safe and clean environment with us."

The court recommended the child be placed in foster care until a home study is done of the maternal grandmother and other potential relatives, said Linda Mandizha, the program administrator for child protective investigations in Volusia.

The grandfather said he is contemplating pressing charges against the mother of the child.

"The nurse at the emergency room said she has been working as a nurse for 22 years and that this is the youngest child she has seen raped," the grandfather said, breaking down.

"We have no plans at this time to charge the parents with anything," sheriff's spokesman Davidson said. "However, the incident is still under investigation by both us and DCF (the Department of Children & Families)."

Sandra Billings, a licensed sex therapist who practices out of Avon Park, said the child will likely not remember being raped but there could be devastating side effects later in life.

"They may be promiscuous and may molest," said Billings, adding she has only counseled two people who were raped as infants in her 30 years of providing therapy. "Oftentimes there are also emotional and mental issues."

Sheriff's investigators said that just before 3 p.m. Thursday, Wren went to a neighbor's house and then disappeared from the area. The neighbor found the injured baby.

The baby was taken by EVAC ambulance to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach, where she underwent surgery to repair the tears to her body, Davidson said.

Wren had called the boyfriend of the child's mother several times asking for ride out of New Smyrna Beach, the charging affidavit said.

Deputies, with assistance from New Smyrna Beach police and a Sheriff's Office helicopter, scoured the neighborhood looking for Wren.

Several hours later, leads took deputies to a nearby Walmart. Deputies and New Smyrna Beach police found a shirtless Wren in a bathroom stall inside the store and arrested him, Davidson said.

Wren claimed he had left the baby alone to go to McDonald's and that when he returned, he found the baby bleeding. But sheriff's investigators checked the restaurant's surveillance system and found no evidence Wren had been at the fast-food restaurant Thursday afternoon. Wren refused to answer any more questions, Davidson said.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the Sheriff's Office Sex Crimes Unit at 386-323-3574.

Source By: news-journalonline.com
PATRICIO G. BALONA, STAFF WRITER
Chris Graham contributed to this report as well.

BackStory-Music Minister David Pierce led a secret life for two decades.

2011-11-03T22:10:00.000-07:00

First Baptist Church of Benton music minister David Pierce led a secret life for two decades. Then it all unraveled.

David Pierce is led from the courthouse after entering a guilty plea.
If you need a reason why music minister David Pierce was able to do what he did for so long ? to sexually victimize scores of boys at the First Baptist Church of Benton over the past 20 years or more ? you probably need to look no further than the inch-thick stack of letters that flooded into the Saline County prosecuting attorney's office in the days and weeks after his arrest last April. The letters urging leniency for Pierce, some from Benton's most powerful citizens, kept coming in even after he had been booked on 54 counts of sexual indecency with a child; even after it started to seep out that dozens might be involved; even after the rumors about his crimes spread through the city like brushfire.

Reading those pleas on his behalf, it quickly becomes clear that Pierce was trusted completely by a great many people. It also becomes clear that comprehension of his crimes by those who knew and loved him has only come grudgingly, if at all.

There are a few letters in that stack encouraging Saline County Prosecutor Ken Casady to throw the book at Pierce. Most beg for probation, saying that ? no matter what the truth of the allegations ? stripping Pierce's livelihood and reputation from him was punishment enough. They cite his devotion to the congregation, his age, his diabetes, the danger to child molesters in prison, and his failing health. The writers speak of times when Pierce ministered to their dying relatives, sang at their weddings and planned their loved ones' funerals. A pastor at a large Little Rock congregation, after acknowledging that Pierce's crimes were “sick, twisted and perverted,” asked that Pierce receive probation, or ? in the event he was sent to jail ? be allowed to serve his sentence at a minimum security prison or a treatment facility for sex offenders.

Despite these calls for leniency, 56-year-old David Pierce sits behind bars at this writing, waiting for transfer to the Arkansas Department of Correction. The church, meanwhile, faced with the possibility of civil litigation, has largely closed ranks. Pastor Rick Grant provided brief written statements in response to questions posed by the Arkansas Times. But representatives of the church declined to be interviewed about the case. Unless otherwise noted, the quotes attributed to church officials and the victim known as “Kurt” in this story are all taken from interviews conducted by the Saline County sheriff's office during the investigation. For many of the boys who were caught in Pierce's strange web of voyeurism, control and lust, his arrest and conviction still hasn't brought them peace.

No one but Pierce knows long it had really been going on, but for First Baptist Church as an institution, it began in late October 2008. One night after Sunday evening services, Senior Pastor Rick Grant was approached by the father of a young man we'll call Robert. By then in his early 30s, Robert had once been an energetic member of FBC's 130-strong youth choir, known as Pure Energy. During his time with the choir, Robert had been closely mentored by the church's associate pastor of music, David Pierce. That night after services, Robert's father told Grant that there was more to that relationship than prayer.

Robert's father told the pastor that while talking to Robert about some recent marital troubles, his son had confided that “something wasn't right” with his once-close relationship with Pierce. While the father wouldn't elaborate to Grant, he urged the pastor to look into it. Grant told him that the charges were “a big deal” and urged him to meet with him again soon to discuss it further.

It's easy to see why Grant may have initially doubted the allegations. David Pierce had been the music minister at FBC ? one of Saline County's biggest churches, with a congregation that hovers right around 2,500 ? for 29 years by then, and was beloved and respected in both the church and the community. At least one church member had gone so far as to name his son after Pierce. Grant himself had been employed at the church for 26 years, and had been senior pastor for 10. Grant later told detectives that if ? prior to Pierce's arrest ? they had polled those in the pews at First Baptist Church as to who the most Godly man in the room was, a majority would likely have said David Pierce.

Robert's father came to another meeting with Grant, and reiterated vague charges of inappropriate conduct. Grant told the father that he should address it with David. If the father didn't, Grant told him, he would.

Before that could happen, however, the situation seemed to resolve itself. Two or three weeks after the initial allegation, Robert's father and mother found Grant in the foyer of the church after Sunday services. “He said: ‘Pastor Rick, I met with David. Everything's OK,' ” Grant told investigators. “At that point, I didn't really do much about that. I just tried to ask him just to affirm that, number one, he did talk to David and, number two, it was legit as far as what they talked about.” The issue seemed to be resolved in the minds of Robert's parents, so Grant let it drop.

Then, on a Friday morning in December a few weeks before Christmas, a young woman came to Grant's office, visibly upset. Just before Thanksgiving, she told Grant, she and her husband ? whom we'll call Kurt ? were arguing when Kurt made a shocking revelation. His once-close relationship with David Pierce, forged since he was in junior high, hadn't stopped at mentoring.

Now in his 20s, Kurt is a successful professional who still lives in Saline County. Having grown up at FBC, where David Pierce was trusted above all, he didn't think anything sinister was going on when Pierce approached him in the 7th grade and offered to guide him on his walk of faith. In the church, Pierce was well known for closely mentoring boys as they grew into young men.

“David would always have a group of three guys at a time,” Kurt told police. “He always said that Christ had twelve apostles, then he had three that he was closer to than the others. He always said that those were the three that he chose to kind of disciple a little bit more in-depth.”

After Kurt agreed to allow David Pierce to be his mentor, he began spending a good bit more time with the older man. Pierce was an avid fly fisherman, and they would often take trips on the river or a lake near Benton in Pierce's pickup truck. The first overtly sexual talk between Kurt and Pierce happened during one of those trips.

“It was one of those very vivid memories for me,” Kurt said. “He asked me if I masturbated much. After that, it got more detailed. How many times? What do you think about? How do you do it? Then it got to: How big are you? That led to the measuring.”

In a pattern that would become all too familiar to detectives investigating the case, Kurt related to them that soon after his discipleship with Pierce began, Pierce told him about something he called “accountability,” and the “Four S's” of development. Though the list of S-words that Pierce told each of his young disciples was different ? some heard he was interested in their Scholastic Health, others in their Social Health ? the one constant was his interest in their Sexual Health.

“It started out very benign,” Kurt told police. “But the longer it went on, the more emphasis was placed on: 'How are you doing sexually?' and the questions got more detailed and more explicit. That was over the course of months, maybe a year. Everything was very methodical and systematic.”

Around the time Pierce told Kurt about the Four S's he also introduced him to something he called “charting” ? taking measurements of boys' bodies to chart their growth during puberty. Pierce carried a seamstress's tape in his truck, and had another in his desk at the church. Many of the older boys had allowed him to measure their bodies, Pierce told Kurt. As proof, he showed Kurt a spreadsheet chart, with columns of entered numbers. Beside those entries were the names of many older boys Kurt knew, and some of his closest friends.

“He was real slick,” Kurt said. “He would throw out names of older guys, I guess to make me feel OK.”

With Kurt, as with most of the boys, the charting started out with Pierce measuring biceps and chest, but eventually progressed to measuring his penis. Always very careful about not allowing himself to touch a boy's genitalia (of all the witnesses interviewed, only two said Pierce ever touched his penis; once while Pierce put his hand down a victim's pants while ostensibly trying to teach him to sing from his diaphragm, and another who says Pierce grabbed his penis outright), Pierce would first measure the boy's flaccid penis for length and circumference. Then he would tell the boy to stretch his penis to make it erect. Once that measurement was taken, Pierce would often tell the boy that since he was hard, he should “finish” by masturbating. Pierce would usually stay in the room while the boy brought himself to orgasm.

Once the charting started, the relationship between Pierce and his young disciples became increasingly sexualized. In his office and truck, Pierce kept bottles of flavored lube, and would often invite boys to masturbate with him in a windowless room near the bell tower in the church. In the summertime, Pierce would take boys ? sometimes three at a time ? to the Saline River, ostensibly to fish. In fact, they were making trips to a place Pierce called “Goober Heaven,” a low spot in the river where Pierce claimed the rushing water was perfect for giving a man an erection. Pierce and the boys would sit in the water naked, then masturbate.

“He would take a boy fishing,” Rick Grant told police, “and nobody would think anything of it. If a parent did think [something, it would be], well, it's just David. Everybody loves David. David is the Golden Child. There's a lot of guilt that a lot of us carry because they didn't see that. … People come up and say: you know, I knew that didn't look right, but it was David.”

For Kurt and many of the other boys, the slow but steady initiation into David's clique meant that they were largely blinded to the fact that what Pierce was doing was wrong. While Pierce often told his young proteges not to tell the adults in their lives about their sexual activities, he would share information freely about his experiences with other boys in the church.

“He was pretty open about the things that he would do with the other guys,” Kurt told investigators. “[He'd say] 'Me and [another boy] went to the river the other day, and found a great new spot to sit. Let‘s go check it out.' ”

As was the case with many of the young men involved, Pierce's quasi-sexual relationship with Kurt lasted well into his 20s. It only ended when Kurt came to Pierce to tell him he planned to get engaged. In response, Pierce produced a synthetic vagina, placed it on a couch, and instructed Kurt to have sex with it as a way, Pierce said, of “practicing” for his wedding night.

“That was the one time that I finally realized that he was watching,” Kurt told detectives. “That it wasn't this thing that we were separately doing in the same room or area. He was watching.”

These were the memories Kurt was struggling with by the time he told his wife the truth the day before Thanksgiving 2008. For Pastor Rick Grant, who had already heard the vague allegations by Robert's father regarding David Pierce, Kurt's story must have hit him like a brick. During a series of meetings between Kurt and Grant, Kurt told the pastor everything.

After calling in church personnel committee chairman Dennis Byrd, Grant brought Pierce in and confronted him about the allegations. Byrd and Grant had discussed how it might go; that Pierce might possibly get emotional, cry, or resign. Instead, Byrd was taken aback by how little emotion Pierce showed at hearing the news.

“I wouldn't say he showed no emotion,” Byrd told investigators. “But he just didn't seem repentant to me. He said he was sorry that we were having to go through this, Rick and I, and he said something to the effect of ‘Boy, you really picked a bad time to be on the personnel committee.' ”

At that meeting, Pierce didn't deny any of the allegations leveled against him by Kurt. Instead, Pierce spoke of the events Kurt had described as a one-time run of bad decision-making, during a time when he was “questioning his manhood.”

“He said, 'I thought all of that was behind me,' ” Byrd told police, “indicating to us, at least ? I don't know, maybe it was what we wanted to hear at the time ? that this was something that had occurred to him during a season in his life.”

Believing that it had been a one-time occurrence, mostly consisting of sexual talk, church officials decided that Pierce would be allowed to keep his job as long as he met certain conditions. During a Feb. 8 meeting with Byrd, Grant and Kurt, Pierce was made to sign a document saying that he would disclose the names of all the boys whom he'd had inappropriate contact with, would apologize, admit wrong, and ask for forgiveness, and would report to the pastor as to the outcome. A record of the event would be placed in his permanent record, the document states, adding that if Pierce was untruthful in any way during the process, he would be fired immediately. Eventually, he would provide Grant with a list of 12 names.

“David talked for a long time,” Kurt said, “and he offered this big long explanation, and his whole point was to convince Rick that it wasn't something that was happening anymore. It was kind of a rough patch in his life and he was through it.”

After the meeting, Pierce approached Kurt and asked him if he'd like to go out to lunch sometime to talk. Then he gave him a photocopied page from a devotional pamphlet about forgiveness.

That might have been that, but as winter turned to spring, Rick Grant spoke more with Kurt, and began to suspect that Pierce had been less than truthful about who was involved and what had gone on. In early April, Grant's suspicions were confirmed when he received a call from another victim, a man close in age to Kurt. Thought Grant still believed that Pierce's dalliances with boys had been confined to an isolated period in the past, he felt that ? given this latest victim, who called what had gone on sexual abuse ? he had no recourse but to fire Pierce. On April 11, after Pierce returned from a trip to Chicago with a group of church seniors, he was summoned to a 9 a.m. meeting with Grant, Dennis Byrd, and chairman of deacons Paul White.

“I explained to him that my responsibility is to the church and to protect the church, and I terminated him,” Grant told police. “He did not resign. I fired him.” Again, the three men found themselves taken aback by Pierce's reaction to the news that he had been fired. He seemed devoid of emotion.

“He specifically said something to the effect that your sins will find you out,” Byrd told investigators. “He was still very matter-of-fact in his discussion. He did not openly weep or anything like that, which I guess I wanted him to do. He did throw his head back one time. I took it as more of: ‘I guess it finally caught up with me.' ”

After Pierce had been escorted out of the building, Grant informed the administrative staff that Pierce had been terminated. He then drafted a letter to be read to the church as a whole at Sunday services the next day. A statement released by the church said: “First Baptist Church has terminated the employment of David Pierce, our longtime music minister, as a result of serious moral failures on his part. The events for which he was terminated occurred several years ago, but left the church no alternative other than to dismiss him.” Grant also encouraged parents to talk to their kids about their relationship with Pierce.

Immediately some church members began questioning the firing, asking why ? if the events with the young men happened so long ago ? Pierce had been fired.

After Pierce's firing was to the congregation, the floodgates opened. In the following weeks, young men came forward seemingly every day to admit to parents and FBC youth pastor Clay Cunningham that they had been “charted” by or had engaged in mutual masturbation with David Pierce. One young man revealed that Pierce once drove him to adult shops in Little Rock, then waited in the car while the boy bought sex toys for him. Others said that Pierce had given them pornography from a stash in his garage. Like Kurt, at least one other young man reported that when he came to tell his old friend he was getting engaged, Pierce had encouraged him to have sex with an artificial vagina for “practice.” Almost all recited the four S's, the measuring of the penis and the mutual masturbation at the church and while on trips on the river.

At the same time, other boys who had been close to Pierce ? even some who admitted that what happened was abuse ? came out in defense of their old mentor. One launched a kind of lobbying campaign on Pierce's behalf, calling other victims and asking them to reconcile with Pierce. In the stack of letters asking Ken Casady for leniency for David Pierce is a missive written by a victim, saying that he sees Pierce as a “misguided friend” who only wanted to help him with his sexual development.

“The one time, [when I was masturbating] in his office, when I did see his face, and he was looking at me, I searched closely and I did not see a face full of lust or objectifying sexual glee. I just saw the face of someone who was trying, in his own very misguided and ultimately harmful way, to be a friend to me and to help me understand something about sexuality.”

As more and more young men came forward, a pattern began to emerge: David often went after kids with problems ? kids whose parents were divorcing, kids who had lost a close relative, kids who had recently experienced a trauma in their family. “The pattern seems to be,” Grant told investigators, “that David would befriend these kids who had a personality or home life or whatever that he could manipulate.” At the same time, another pattern is still developing: many of the young men who were the disciples of David Pierce have spent their 20s and 30s struggling with their demons. Several have seen their marriages wrecked, or nearly wrecked. Some have sought treatment for substance abuse.

Though the five-year statute of limitations had run out on the older cases, a younger victim ? recently graduated from high school ? stepped forward, spurring a criminal investigation. On April 24, Pierce was arrested on 54 counts of sexual indecency with a child, a class D felony. Pierce was spared more serious charges because he refrained from sexually touching his victims for the most part, a move prosecutor Ken Casady and several of those interviewed by the police saw as calculated by Pierce to get him less jail time if he were ever found out. As Pierce himself put it in a letter to church administration on April 22 in which he inquired as to whether he would be afforded a severance package by the church: “While I fully acknowledge the sinfulness and immorality of my past behavior, I did not engage in actual sexual contact ? specifically, oral sex, intercourse, or masturbating another individual ? with any person, nor do I believe that in recent conversation with legal counsel that I have violated criminal or civil law.”

Eventually, detectives would find two more young men whose allegations were recent enough to fall within the statute of limitations. Facing a messy and embarrassing trial, Pierce entered into a plea agreement on Aug. 27 in which he pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual indecency with a child. Sentenced to 10 years (two six-year terms that will run concurrently, two four-year terms to run concurrently, and two years suspended), Pierce could be out as early as December 2012.

The path that leads away from David Pierce isn't easy for either the victims or First Baptist Church. Back on April 25, when Rick Grant spoke to police investigators, the decision to fire David Pierce was clearly still rippling through his congregation.

“I've got people who still believe that David Pierce does no wrong,” Grant said. “I've got church members who want to fire me, because they can't come to grips that this man has done this. I've got family members who want to kill me because of [pursuing] this legal issue. You know what? I don't care. … I know that he's not going to hurt any more kids. So I don't care.”

Months later, the church is still grappling with what happened. In a written statement provided in response to questions from the Arkansas Times, Grant said that Pierce had betrayed everyone in the church. “I trusted David; parents of victims trusted David; all of our ministers and church family trusted David. That trust, we know now, was betrayed. It appears that trust was turned into power over some of the young men in our church. That power apparently is what kept victims silent for so long. The good news is that we don't worship ministers; our faith doesn't depend on trust in people. We are here to serve a great and mighty God.”

If there are heroes in all , it's the young men who came forward to talk about the embarrassing and painful things that happened to them as boys. Without them, it's likely that everything stays: Pierce, the silent fraternity of victims, the line of new children waiting to be victimized.

One victim, who spoke to the Arkansas Timeson the condition of anonymity, said he's happy that the plea agreement saved the younger victims the pain of testifying about what happened to them. “Growing up in Saline County, the bigger thing to me is that he's been exposed to the community,” the young man said. “He could spend the rest of his life in jail. It's not going to make what happened to me any easier to deal with. It's not going to make my problems go away.”

Now in his late 20s, he has wrestled with his past. Since he came to the realization a few years back that what happened with Pierce was wrong, he's had marital problems, and came close to losing his faith.

“When you lose your trust in the way you lose it when you're dealing with somebody like David Pierce, you lose not only your trust in David Pierce or ministers and the church, but your trust in organized religion,” he said. “You lose your trust in God, and as a result of that you start to lose your faith in God. You kind of start all over with that.”

He hopes that his story will make someone pause before they put absolute faith in another David Pierce. “Especially in the South where we grow up in churches,” he said, “we're taught this blind faith in religion that turns into blind faith in pastors. That's how you have things like this that can go on for 30-plus years.”

Source by David Koon

Rogers Ark. Youth minister accused of sex with teenager

2011-11-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

ROGERS, Ark. (AP) - Police have arrested a church youth minister, alleging he engaged in sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl.

Rogers officers say 41-year-old Tyrone K. Atwater faces two charges of first-degree sexual assault. A police affidavit says the girl initially denied involvement, but that her mother found text messages on the girl's phone that told a different story.

Atwater was the youth minister at the Open Door Baptist Church. The affidavit said incidents occurred at his home, her home and during a church event. A telephone call left at the church was not immediately returned.

The Benton County Sheriff's Department said Thursday Atwater did not have a lawyer. He was being held in lieu of $20,000 bond.

Police investigated after receiving a tip through the State Police Crimes Against Children hot line

Side Note: As this story unfolds I will be back with more information.

Olympic Gymnastics Coach Accused of Sex Abuse Resigns

2011-11-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

HUNTINGTON BEACH (KTLA) -- Former Olympic gymnastics coach Don Peters, who has been accused of sexually abusing at least three teenage gymnasts, has resigned his membership with USA Gymnastics, his attorney confirms.

Peters has also quit his positions as coach and director at SCATS, the gymnastics club he built in Huntington Beach.

Last month, the Orange County Register published a story about Peters, in which former U.S. national team and SCATS member Doe Yamashiro accused Peters of sexual abuse.

Yamashiro told the Register that Peters began fondling her in 1986, when she was 16 years old. She said Peters had sex with her when she was 17.

A second gymnast, who remained anonymous, told the Register that Peters had sex with her when she was 18. She has reportedly been interviewed by a private investigator hired by USA Gymnastics.

And Linda McNamara, a former SCATS assistant director, said Peters confessed to her that he had sex with three teenage gymnasts, including Yamashiro and the second anonymous gymnast.

Peters has never addressed the allegations.

USA Gymnastics plans to hold a hearing on November 11 in Indianapolis to decide if Peters should be banned from the sport.

Yamashiro will participate in the hearing via teleconference.

If Peters is banned from gymnastics, he would not be allowed to coach at USA Gymnastics member clubs, and also could not coach at USA Gymnastics-sanctioned events.

The alleged abuse took place in the 1980s, so the statue of limitations has expired for prosecuting Peters under California law.

Peters led the U.S. women's team to a record eight medals in the 1984 Olympics.

Two other U.S. gymnastics coaches, Doug Boger and Michael Zapp, were accused of abuse in the O.C. Register article.

They both worked most recently at ArtSports World gym in Colorado Springs, where Zapp was the owner.

Boger has been released from ArtSports. He was already banned by USA Gymnastics after being accused of sexual and physical abuse by at least a dozen former gymnasts at a gym in Pasadena.

Michael Zapp was convicted of second-degree sexual abuse for fondling the breasts of a 12-year-old gymnast in 1987. He has denied the allegations.

He has resigned as the owner of ArtSports and agreed to sell the gym.

Information from The OC Register
KTLA News

Depression and Suicide

2011-11-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Depression

It's caused by changes in chemicals in the brain that are called neurotransmitters. Depression isn't a character flaw, and it doesn't mean you are bad or weak. It doesn't mean you are going crazy.

People who are very depressed can feel so bad that they think about suicide. They may feel hopeless, helpless, and worthless. But most people who think about suicide don't want to die. They may see suicide as a way to solve a problem or end their pain.

What to watch for
It is hard to know if someone is thinking about committing suicide. But past history or events may make suicide more likely.

Events that can make suicide more likely include:

•Having had a family member try to or commit suicide.
•Having been sexually abused.
•Drinking a lot of alcohol or using drugs.
•Having tried to commit suicide before.
•Feeling hopeless.
•Other mental problems, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

Warning signs of suicide

It is hard to know if a person is thinking about committing suicide. But you can look for warning signs and events that may make suicide more likely.

People may be more likely to commit suicide if they:

•Have tried to commit suicide before, or have had a family member who has tried to commit or who committed suicide.
•Have had or have mental health problems such as severe anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or depression.
•Have been through family violence, including physical or sexual abuse.
•Drink a lot of alcohol or use drugs.
•Are older. Older Americans have the highest suicide rate of any age group. The rate is highest among white men ages 65 and older. Within this group, divorced and widowed men have the highest rate.
•Are veterans or are members of the armed services.
Events that may put people at greater risk for suicide include:

•Changes in life such as the death of a partner or good friend, retirement, divorce, or problems with money.
•The diagnosis of a serious physical illness, such as cancer or heart disease, or a new physical disability.
•Severe and long-lasting pain.
•Loss of independence or not being able to get around without help.
•Living alone or not having friends or social contacts.
Adults who are at risk may show these warning signs of suicide. They may:

•Plan to or say they want to hurt or kill themselves or someone else.
•Talk, write, read, or draw about death, including writing suicide notes and talking about items that can cause physical harm, such as pills, guns, or knives.
•Say they have no hope, they feel trapped, or there is no point in "going on."
•Buy guns or bullets, stockpile medicines, or take other action to prepare for a suicide attempt. They may have a new interest in guns or other weapons.
•Drink more alcohol or use drugs, including prescription medicines.
•No longer want to see people and want to be alone a lot.
•No longer take care of themselves or follow medical advice.
•Give away their things and/or hurry to complete a will.
Source By ivillage.com

Md. Baby Needs Surgery After Alleged Sex Assault

2011-10-20T16:03:00.001-07:00

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — A Frederick man is being held without bail on charges he sexually assaulted a 1-year-old boy so severely the child needed surgery.

Frederick County State’s Attorney Charlie Smith said Tuesday it is one of the most horrible child-abuse cases he has seen.

Prosecutors say the boy underwent a colostomy last week at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington because his colon was torn.

Investigators allege in charging documents that 19-year-old Ryan Sheppard acknowledged to police that he sexually assaulted the child last Wednesday.

The allegations include first-degree sex offense and first-degree assault. Sheppard could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on all counts.

Sheppard appeared Monday at his bail review without an attorney.

No attorney of record was listed Tuesday afternoon.

SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN IN HIP HOP.wmv

2011-10-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer.... Real Talk

2-month-old recovering from broken ribs, brain trauma; 2 arrested

2011-10-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

IRMO (WACH) -- Two suspects officials say were involved in the abuse of a 2-month-old girl have been arrested in Lexington County.

The sheriff's department says 18-year-old Tameeka Wallace and 21-year-old Benson Essien turned themselves in Friday morning.

Investigators say the pair is charged with unlawful conduct towards a child by legal custodian.

Arrest warrants allege Wallace and Essien failed to provide medical attention for the child who is now recovering in the hospital from fractured ribs and brain trauma due to physical abuse over an extended time.

The relationship of the suspects has not been released in order to protect the child's identity. The department of Social Services will take custody of the child when released from the hospital.

Wallace and Essien are being held at the Lexington County Detention Center on a $5,000 bond.

If you have any information that may help investigators, you're urged to contact CrimeStoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC.

Source by Chris Abbotts

Father Accused Of Abusing 9 Week Old Baby

2011-10-17T17:15:00.000-07:00

HARTFORD, ILLINOIS (KTVI-FOX2now.com)—
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office has charged 24-year-old Matthew Fields, of Hartford, Illinois with Aggravated Battery of a Child.

Authorities said the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services reported that a mother of a nine week old child took the child to an Alton area hospital on October 10 around 7 p.m., due to the child not acting normal.

The child was immediately referred to a St. Louis area hospital with non-accidental injuries to its head.An investigation revealed that the mother and father (Fields) of the child live at the same address, but are not married. The mother left the home on October 10 around 5 p.m. and returned around 6 p.m. The child was left in the care of Fields.

Investigators made contact with Fields at his place of employment on October 11, 2011, at approximately 10:30 a.m.

A search warrant was executed on the family home and Fields was arrested.

Bond was set at $500,000.

Youth pastor and scout leader.Joe Cheater, Jr. now faces seven counts of Rape.

2011-10-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

TULSA, Okla. —
Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton says the district attorney's office has now filed a total of 7 counts of lewd molestation and 4 counts of first-degree rape against a man who describes himself as a youth pastor and scout leader.

Joe Cheater, Jr., 39, remains jailed in Rogers County on bonds totalling $500,000, Walton told KRMG Monday.

He says his office has so far identified a total of five female victims who were all between the ages of 9 and 14 at the time of the offenses.

Disturbingly, he added, all of the cases date to the years between 2005 and 2008, when Cheater and his family moved away from Catoosa to Tulsa.

"I think it would be very hard to comprehend that all of a sudden in the year 2008 he just quit doing his evil deeds. I think he continued to do them, as these type of predators do. They seldom rehabilitate and often reoffend, so I certainly believe that there's additional victims out there."

The crimes occurred while Cheater and his family lived at the Lake Valley Mobile Home Park in Catoosa, which has subsequently closed due to issues with the facility's wastewater management.

Walton says that Cheater had young children approximately the same ages as the victims, and that it was "common for the neighborhood children to often be present at the suspect's home. It was also common for some of these children to have sleepovers at the suspect's residence.

"All the victims we know at this time were acquaintances of the suspect's children."

Walton said so far investigators have not shown that the suspect was ever actually employed by any churches.

However, he told KRMG, "investigators understand the suspect was active in several Catoosa-area churches. Most recently, the suspect's been living in Tulsa and is believed to have been active with churches in the Tulsa area also."

The case came to light when one victim was urged to come forward by a counselor. Walton said it's not unusual in cases of rape or molestation of young children that the victims take months, or years, before they overcome the fear and shame of an attack and tell adults.

Sometimes, he added, even when they do come forward parents will actually discourage the child from going to law enforcement with the information.

"In some ways you can understand that," he said. "But certainly, we don't want any of these cases that have occurred to go without prosecution."

Cheater also told investigators early on that he was a Cub Scout leader, but apparently didn't identify what Pack he might have been affiliated with.

Nor have investigators been able to nail down exactly with which, if any, churches he was actually associated.

"That's the $100 question," Walton said.

He strongly urges anyone with information about the case, and especially possible victims, to contact the RCSO tip line at 918-341-3620.

Illegal alien charged with child rape, police looking for more victims

2011-10-10T17:57:00.000-07:00

Nashville, TN – On Tuesday, police arrested Carlos David Dalarca-Pagoada, 46, after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 9-year-old girl and nvestigators believe he may have victimized more children.

According to police, Dalarca-Pagoada enticed the young girl to his apartment after seeing her outside playing. Her parents immediately reported the alleged abuse.

Dalarca-Pagoada has reportedly admitted to sexually assaulting the girl.

The Davidson County Sheriff's Office says that not only is Dalarca-Pagoada is in the country illegally, but that he has been previously ordered deported after an arrest in another state.

Dalarca-Pagoada has been charge with three counts of child rape and three counts of aggravated sexual battery.

Police have asked that any parents whose children live in or visit Village West Apartments to ask their children whether a man in this complex has either touched them or has had any contact with him.

Anyone with information about Dalarca-Pagoada is urged to contact the Nashville Police Department's Sex Crimes Unit at 615-862-7540.

Source by Dave Gibson, Immigration Reform Examiner

Mother brutally abused 5-month-old daughter

2011-10-03T18:18:00.000-07:00

Jamie Lane, 22, of 5 Avenue E, was charged with first-degree assault and risk of injury to a child after police said she abused her five-month old child, leaving her with a fractured skull, ribs and arm.

NORWALK -- The mother of a 5-month-old Norwalk child was arrested Thursday in what a police lieutenant called one of the most horrific cases of child abuse he has seen.

The baby was admitted to Norwalk Hospital on Sunday with seven fractured ribs, a fractured skull and a fractured arm, Youth Bureau Lt. Ashley Gonzalez said.

The baby's mother, Jamie Lane, 22, of 5 Avenue E, was charged with first-degree assault and risk of injury to a child. She was held in lieu of $75,000 bond.

Handcuffed to another prisoner, Lane was silent during her arraignment at state Superior Court in Norwalk on Friday afternoon.

The only time she spoke was when Judge Bruce Hudock asked if she understood a protective order he issued that prohibited her from contacting her child.

Paul Nikolis, who is Lane's boyfriend and father of the girl, watched the arraignment, but said he did not want to comment about the case. Nikolis, 28, said he and Lane have been a couple for about a year.

"This is a pretty sad case," Gonzalez said. "It's one of the worst I have seen in my 23 years of service ... It is incomprehensible that a child of that age could be subject to this type of treatment."

When the baby was brought to the hospital, the girl was "covered with bruises," and her injuries did not appear to be accidental, Gonzalez said.

Lane's arrest affidavit said her parents brought the baby to the hospital after consulting a relative who is a social worker in Queens, N.Y.

The child has since been released from the hospital and placed into the custody of the state Department of Children and Families.

Gonzalez seemed optimistic regarding the baby's release from the hospital, but did not know if she sustained permanent physical damage from the abuse. Gonzalez said the baby had been living with Lane, her boyfriend and her parents on Avenue E.

Lane was arrested at her home, and another arrest may be made in the case, Gonzalez said.

According to the affidavit, Lane admitted to police that she abused the child. At first she told police she saw her mother punch the baby in the chest four days before her mother brought the child to the emergency room, police said. But Detective Rafael Fonseca, the lead investigator on the case, said it became apparent Lane was lying.

She later admitted that fights with her parents and giving birth caused her to react physically against her daughter, the affidavit said.

"I was overwhelmed," she said in a statement to police, according to the affidavit. "About a week after her birth, the stress of caring for her began to get the best of me. (The baby) was crying all the time. I picked up (the baby) and squeezed her to try to get her to stop crying. I squeezed her a couple of times. I was not trying to hurt her. A couple of days later, I noticed some bruising around the center of her chest. My mom asked about the bruising. I told her what happened. She said I needed some help."

During a fight with her mother four days before the baby was admitted to the hospital, Lane said she gave the baby a squeeze two times and the baby began crying louder, her statement said.

While Lane was putting the baby into the crib, the child slipped from her hands and hit her head on the railing, the statement said.

In addition to injuries to the baby's ribs, arm and head, a doctor at the hospital told police one of the girl's lungs was collapsing when she was admitted, the affidavit said.

Source By
www.stamfordadvocate.com

Book advocating extreme discipline may be connected to deaths of adopted children

2011-10-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Court documents suggest parents follwed teachings the book "To Train Up a Child"

When 13-year-old Hana Grace Rose Williams died, she was found naked, face down in the mud in the backyard, in 42 degree weather.

Charging documents in the murder case against her adoptive parents show Hana was the victim of ongoing abuse and neglect, a corporal punishment style of parenting straight out of a book sold on Amazon.com. The book is titled "To Train Up A Child."

A family friend told detectives that Hana's mother, Carri Williams, gave her the book during a visit to the family's home. Written by Michael Pearl, an Amish fundamentalist preacher in Tennessee, Pearl encourages parents to go to extreme measures to discipline their children.

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In the book, Pearl explains how to use a plumbing tool to switch children starting at age one. He advocates giving cold water baths when potty training, putting children outside in cold weather and having them miss meals, all examples of abuse investigators said Hana endured.

"It teaches children through fear and so it perpetuates criminal punishment of children. That's not something we advocate," said Chris Jamieson with the Washington Commission on Children and Families.

"To Train Up a Child" is linked to the deaths of at least two other adoptive children, four-year-old Sean Paddock of North Carolina and seven year-old Lydia Schatz of California. In each case, police said these punishment techniques were used.

"It's the most incredibly sad thing in the world that you've lost a child. In so many cases, if they can intervene in time, a case like this wouldn't have to happen," Jamieson said.

Carri and Larry Williams are being held at the Skagit County Jail on $500,000 bail each. Their next court appearance is scheduled for October 6.

Source By
Dana Rebik

Q13 FOX News reporter

Black Forest man accused of raping infant

2011-10-03T18:00:00.000-07:00

Federal agents suspect a man with Black Forest ties raped an infant boy in a California hotel and shared footage of the rape over the Internet.

Shawn McCormack, 27, was booked into the El Paso County jail Friday, hours after a federal warrant was issued for his arrest in the March 2009 rape.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement special agents found a video of the rape in November 2010 on a computer seized in an unrelated child porn raid in Boston, according to the arrest warrant, obtained by KBAK/KBFX BakersfieldNow.com in California.

While viewing the tape, ICE special agents noticed unique furniture and tapestry in the motel room and used those clues to track the rape to a motel room in Bakersfield that had been rented by McCormack the night of the rape, the warrant said.

The child, which appeared to be around a year old, belonged to a couple in Bakersfield who occasionally let McCormack stay overnight in 2009 while he drove around the state working for a telecommunications company, the warrant said.

During a visit in November 2009, police arrested McCormack on suspicion of child endangerment after he took the couple’s 2-year-old boy for a drive at 1:30 a.m. without telling them, the warrant said.

It doesn’t appear the parents knew of the rape, however, until Sept. 14, when they viewed pictures from the tape and identified the child.

McCormack’s arrest Friday came a day after 4th Judicial District Judge David Shakes ruled McCormack would face more than 30 counts of sexual exploitation of a child in a separate case, according to court documents.

That case stemmed from June 5, 2010, when a person using the name “toddlers” shared child pornography over an Internet file-sharing service with an undercover Toronto police officer, the warrant said.

The person said he visits a friend and takes his son “out late in the night to a hotel,” the warrant said.

On June 8, 2010, Colorado Springs police helped raid a house on Vessey Circle from which the porn had been sent. The house was listed on McCormack’s Internet bill.

Investigators seized computers with 4,000 child porn pictures and 365 videos.

Source By
JAKOB RODGERS
THE GAZETTE

Call the writer at 476-1654.

Colorado Springs mom gets 24 years in "horrendous" child abuse

2011-10-03T17:35:00.000-07:00

Samantha Salaz, 19, ignored her daughter's cries. COLORADO SPRINGS — Weeping uncontrollably, a teenage mother was sentenced Friday to 24 years in prison for failing to intervene in what a judge called one of the worst cases of child abuse to come before his court.

Samantha Salaz, 19, pleaded guilty to felony child abuse after ignoring her 20-month-old daughter's cries in April as a family member allegedly bound her with electrical tape and left her incapacitated under a running shower. The toddler nearly drowned, authorities said. She was pronounced dead, revived and placed on life-support in a vegetative state.

"The horrendous abuse this child suffered was really beyond comprehension," said 4th Judicial District Judge Thomas L. Kennedy, likening the child's treatment to "torture" during an emotionally charged hearing in which even he was overcome by tears.

Salaz's aunt, Mary Horsley, 50, is due for trial in November on charges of attempted first-degree murder and felony child abuse.

Lance Benzel, The Gazette

Pentecostal Bishop Charles Brown booked with sexual battery

2011-09-30T19:32:00.001-07:00

The spiritual head of a local Pentecostal denomination has been arrested and booked with sexual battery on a teenage girl more than 23 years ago. New Orleans court records show that Bishop Charles E. Brown, 58, was released on $25,000 bond.

Brown, who since Hurricane Katrina has divided his time between New Orleans and Houston, is the jurisdictional bishop for Greater New Orleans in the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination with headquarters in Memphis. He is also pastor of a local congregation, Full Gospel Church of God in Christ.

Brown was arrested June 28, according to police records.

Several attempts to contact Brown at his home in Houston were unsuccessful. Court records did not list a lawyer. And denominational officials in Los Angeles and Lafayette who would know about the arrest either were unavailable or did not respond to an inquiry.

A police affidavit supporting the arrest warrant said an unidentified 39-year-old woman called the department's child abuse unit in March to report that Brown molested her between the ages of 14 and 16.

The woman said at the time Brown was her aunt's boyfriend, and the acts occurred at his home.

She told police Brown recently reached out and asked to "friend" her on Facebook. She told him she knew him to be an abuser and decided then to go to the police, the affidavit said.

Brown originally was arrested and booked with aggravated rape. But Magistrate Commissioner Harry Cantrell said the specific facts alleged by the woman supported only the lesser accusation of sexual battery.

It is not clear whether the district attorney's office plans to pursue charges. Chris Bowman, a spokesman for Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, said the case is being screened for possible prosecution.

A police spokeswoman said Brown turned himself in.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed Brown's church on North Claiborne Avenue and scattered much of his congregation.

The church's website says Brown, who now lives in Houston, is the pastor of two churches there and a local congregation now meeting on Spain Street on in New Orleans.

A message left at his church in Houston was not returned.

Before the storm, Brown was a familiar figure in New Orleans' religious landscape, often appearing at ecumenical events.

In 2001, a national survey of successful congregations by the University of North Carolina in Wilmington and the University of Notre Dame singled out his congregation for its vibrancy.

Source By Bruce Nolan, The Times-Picayune

MISSING BLACK KIDS (MEDIA BLACKOUT)

2011-09-27T12:08:00.000-07:00

Orginal Story By:panachereport.com

MISSING BLACK KIDS" (MEDIA BLACKOUT)

We all know who Jon-Benet Ramsey is, a pretty blond girl who was murdered in Colorado. You probably don't know the name of Cynteria Phillips, an attractive 13-year-old black girl who was abused as a child, neglected by the state and was raped and murdered in South Florida.The killing of Cynteria, though heinous and shocking, did not ignite the hyper-charged media frenzy of the cases of Jon-Benet Ramsey, Caylee Anthony, Jessica Lunsford, Samantha Runnion or Danielle Van Dam.

Update on Cynteria Phillips Case:
Wearing an orange jumpsuit, 40-year-old Gregory Martin (above) faced a judge for the second time in as many weeks.
DNA evidence in a decade-old murder linked him to the death of 13-year-old Cynteria Phillips as well as a 2009 incident in which he’s accused of savagely beating a Miami woman who is the mother of his children. It was DNA taken during that investigation that came back as a match to the Phillips’ case.
The race of a victim plays a huge role in how their case is covered by the national media. The gruesome murder of nine-year-old Mya Lyons is evidence of this. Mya went missing from her Chicago home and was found with multiple stab wounds in an alley near her backyard. Immediately her father and other relatives became suspects, but her killer has yet to be found. You would imagine a case like this make the national headlines, but Mya Lyons' murder was never covered by any national news organization.
Dan Luthian, a reporter at CNN, stated that if a black celebrity's child went missing, it would mount heavy media coverage. But Caylee Anthony was not the daughter of any celebrity, and she was not notable herself, yet she received continuous national media coverage. So why must a black child be a celebrity's child to be noticed?
An adorable 7-year-old black girl named Alexis Patterson disappeared around the same time as Elizabeth Smart, a blonde girl crowned America's missing child. Alexis was last seen on the playground at her school in Milwaukee. Somewhere between there and her classroom, she disappeared. Alexis' case has received little publicity outside of Wisconsin, except for one feature on America's Most Wanted. It was not close to the daily media updates that the Elizabeth Smart case received.
Accoring to CNN reporter Sue Candioti, the circumstances surrounding the cases determine the amount of media attention given to victims. "We cater to interesting stories, but we do not base it on skin color," she said. "A child taken from their home would get more coverage than a child taken from a park, as such cases are more shocking."
The bedroom abduction of Danielle Van Dam erupted into a barrage of national publicity. In a similar case, Danarriah Finley, was abducted from her bedroom. Not one national news station covered Danarriahs’s case.

What about Jaquilla Scales (above) , a 4-year-old black Kansas girl who has been missing since 2001? Or Kimberly Arrington? Or Jahi Turner? Or Shy'kemmia Pate? You wouldn't know these names unless you're a relative or cop. Jahi Turner, a 2-year-old black boy, lived in the same town as Danielle Van Dam, and that fact was the only interesting aspect of his case to the media.
Compare the media coverage of the case of Samantha Runnion to that of Sherrice Iverson. I was saddened by the death of Samantha -- it was utterly heart wrenching. She was a beautiful child who died miserably. But so was Sherrice, who did not receive the wide publicity Samantha did. You probably know that a young black girl was raped and murdered by a white man in a casino bathroom. But did you know that her name was Sherrice Iverson? Had she been a white kid, her name would be a household name.
No black child would receive the same media attention as Jon-Benet Ramsey, no matter how young or innocent. Sherrice Iverson was seven and received national attention only because she was killed in a casino. A black child must be young enough (eight or younger), innocent enough and neglected enough to receive limited, national attention. For white kids, the standard is a lot different.

HIV-positive father charged with raping 6-month old son

2011-09-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

HIV-positive father charged with raping 6-month old son knowing he had the disease
BY Meena Hartenstein
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Lenny Love was arrested on Saturday and charged with raping his son, according to police.

An HIV-positive father in Ohio was arrested on Saturday for raping his infant son, police say.

Lenny Love, 29, sexually assaulted his 6-month-old son in March knowing he was infected with the disease, according to cops in Silverton, Oh.

Love was charged with 2 counts of rape, 1 count of felonious assault and 1 count of marijuana posession, according to Fox 19.

He has reportedly admitted the assault.

Since his arrest, Love has been held at Ohio's Hamilton County Justice Center.

16-year-old Queens girl Kyanna Thomas knifed to death in Brooklyn

2011-09-27T11:46:00.000-07:00

16-year-old Queens girl Kyanna Thomas knifed to death in Brooklyn
BY Henrick Karoliszyn, Erik Badia and Barry Paddock
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

Kyanna Thomas, 16, called 911 from her cellphone. (via Facebook)

A 16-year-old dying Queens girl made a desperate 911 call after someone slit her throat on a Brooklyn streetcorner on Sunday, police sources said.

Kyanna Thomas, of Rosedale, and her mother, a correction officer at Rikers Island, were visiting Kyanna's aunt in Bedford-Stuyvesant when Kyanna sneaked out in the middle of the night, relatives said.

"They didn't even know she was outside," said the girl's devastated grandfather, Ken Thomas, 76.

"This is the worst day of my life. She was my only granddaughter," he said.

Kyanna was slashed near MacDougal St. and Saratoga Ave. about 3:10 a.m., police said.

Kyanna Thomas, 16, called 911 from her cellphone. (via Facebook)

She called 911 from her cell phone, which lay on the sidewalk near a pool of her blood in the aftermath of the killing.

Bleeding heavily, she was taken to Interfaith Medical Center but could not be saved.

"She wanted to go to college to be a vet," said Kyanna's friend LaKeisha Myers, 15. "She had goals to reach.

"I can't believe she's gone," LaKeisha added. "She was a great person, the best person you could ever know. She would do anything for you."

Friends said Kyanna, an animal lover, excelled at the Brooklyn Latin School in Williamsburg and was destined for success.

"She was always a good student," said Fatima Niasse, 16. "She loved math and science. She was ambitious.

"When I found out, I couldn't stop crying," Fatima added. "I can't believe someone would do this."

There were no arrests, and investigators are having trouble finding any witnesses in the quiet residential area, police sources said.

Cops are trying to learn Kyanna's cell phone password, according to her grandfather, so they can see whom she was in touch with before she was killed.

A boy Kyanna had spurned recently had sent her a threatening text message, friends said.

A box cutter was recovered from the scene, police sources said.

"You read these things in the news, and you never think it will happen to you," Kyanna's grandfather said.

"Nothing will bring her back."

Mother and daughter accused of molesting teen boy for three years

2011-09-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Mother and daughter accused of molesting teen boy for three years, police say
BY Sean Alfano
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A mother and daughter in Arizona are accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy for three years and police say the pair did it without knowing about each other’s relationship with him.

The mother, 48-year-old Susan Brock, allegedly met the boy for trysts when he was 13 and continued for three years until this past October, police said. Her daughter, Rachel, now 21, allegedly sent him nude photos and videos of herself between 2007 and 2008, police said.

The alleged victim, now 17, told cops Susan Brock would pick him up after school in her car and take him to secluded areas where she molested the boy, police said.

The boy claims Rachel Brock abused him at her family’s home. Police said the Brocks did not have intercourse with the boy.

Rachel Brock was arrested Wednesday on three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor. Her mother was arrested in October.

Chandler Police Sgt. Joe Favazzo said the Brocks committed the crimes without each other’s knowledge.

"You have a situation where you have a mother who's abusing a juvenile victim, seemingly unknowingly to the daughter, or vice versa, and the daughter is also abusing the same victim," Favazzo told The Associated Press. "I just can't imagine a mother and daughter having this conversation, and the investigators say they don't have anything indicating the two of them knew about it."

Susan Brock’s husband of 28 years is Maricopa County Supervisor Fulton Brock, who announced he was splitting with his wife after her arrest.

"I have filed to divorce my wife. I cannot divorce my daughter," Fulton Brock said. "She is my blood. I will always be her dad. And she needs me now more than ever."

Both women are being held at Maricopa County Jail.

Sex slave at age 11

2011-09-27T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sex slave at age 11, little girl bravely tells her horror tale to save others

BY Mike Jaccarino
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Yolanda Agostini is the grandmother of an 11-year-old child abducted and repeatedly raped.

It's been seven months since an 11-year-old vanished from her Bronx home for five days - but horrific details of how she was turned into a sex slave are just emerging.

Lured from home by a sexual predator, the fifth-grader was pimped out to a series of men in a lower East Side flat.

"One man gave me $700, another gave me $1,000 and another gave me $500," the girl told the Daily News, which is withholding her name.

"Maybe there were five or six men, in all."

The ordeal ended after the victim managed to call her grandmother.

When the phone rang, there was silence on the other end, but Yolanda Agostini knew it was the grade-schooler.

"Talk to me," Agostini pleaded. "If it's you, please tell me where you are."

Finally, after 20 minutes, a faraway voice murmured: "Mommy, it's me. They're hurting me. Please, I need you ... I'm in a house, I don't know where."

"Get out," Agostini ordered, and the girl ran from her captors, who were sleeping in the next room, onto Delancey St.

Cops found her, and doctors at Jacobi Medical Center determined she'd been raped. The girl told her family she had been forced to have sex with strangers.

The damage has been lasting. The girl is in treatment at a Westchester clinic and comes home only on weekends.

Five-foot-four with the bearing of an adult, she has brown eyes, a round face and shoulder-length black hair. She speaks matter-of-factly, but without eye contact.

"I want them to go through pain 24 hours a day," she said tearfully of her abductors while sitting in her family's living room in a northeast Bronx housing project.

"I want someone to make them do stuff the way they made me do stuff...I want them to go through what I went through. I think about nothing but anger."

Her story illustrates the grotesque underbelly of sex trafficking in the city - the cases that don't make headlines like the ordeal of a young Bronx runaway who was pimped out to ex-New York Giant Lawrence Taylor.

"This happens more times than society is willing to admit," said Gloria Allred, the famed lawyer for the 16-year-old girl in Taylor's case. Taylor got probation.

The NYPD reported 6,544 missing-kid cases - all but 100 involving runaways - last year, the state Division of Criminal Justice Services says. It solved 6,320.

Joe Mazzilli, a private investigator and former NYPD detective, says some 40% of the hundreds of missing kid and runaway cases he's worked on involve prostitution or pornography.

"There are very few cases that involve someone as young as 10 or 11 years old," he said. "But on the flip side, once they hit 13, there are thousands of cases like that. It's so sad."

"These girls are vulnerable," said Brian Conroy, chief of the NYPD's vice enforcement division. "You can't help but feel compassion. There are other girls out there in similar straits. We have to find them."

The Bronx 11-year-old was indeed vulnerable.

She and two sisters had been placed in Agostini's care after their mother was busted for marijuana possession; their father lives in Florida.

In August 2009, after Agostini, 48, was busted for drugs, the girl and her sisters went to a foster home in Hunts Point.

That's where she met Dawud McKelvin, 30.

"The [foster parent] let her sit on the front of the building by herself and that's how she met him," Agostini said. "I guess he was walking by and approached her."

After the charges against Agostini were dropped, she got the sisters back on Dec. 1, 2009.

The granddaughter - then just 10 - was secretly seeing McKelvin, who, cops say, preyed on her sexually.

"He threatened her, told her that if she ever told us about him he would kill me, her mother and her siblings," Agostini said. "He had her manipulated very well. He bent her mind."

It went on for months - until Sept. 14, when the girl failed to come home from school.

Police were called, and helicopters searched from the sky while K-9 unit dogs sniffed Dumpsters.

"The worst thoughts go through your mind," Agostini said. "I asked God to hold her, protect her. So many things I promised God for her return."

"David," as the girl calls McKelvin, lured her into a car and "took me," she said. "He called me the day before and asked me if I wanted to come live with him."

She was taken to an apartment on W. 110th St. in Manhattan, where she was raped several times by McKelvin's cousin, Lee McKelvin, 37, court papers say.

From there, the youngster said, she was taken to the lower East Side, where she was held by a man named Frankie and two women named Tiny and Jenna.

Cops zeroed in on Dawud McKelvin, who had sent explicit photos of himself to Agostini's cell phone. He was charged with aggravated harassment but denied knowing the girl's whereabouts.

After she escaped, Dawud McKelvin was indicted on charges of rape and predatory sexual assault against a child and other crimes.

His lawyer, Jodi Morales of the Bronx Defenders, did not return calls for comment.

Lee McKelvin was indicted on charges of rape, criminal sexual assault and predatory sexual assault by a Manhattan grand jury. His Legal Aid lawyer did not return calls.

The girl prays for solace, and hopes her story can save another young victim.

"If something bad is happening, open your mouth," she cautioned. "Tell your mom. Don't be scared. Don't ever be scared."

The Sexual Molestation of Black Boys; Abuse Often Leads to Hyper-masculinization or Hyper-feminization

2011-09-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Sexual Molestation of Black Boys; Abuse Often Leads to Hyper-masculinization or Hyper-feminization

By Adeeba Folami

In November, actor and film director Tyler Perry publicly announced that he was sexually abused prior to the age of 10 by a grown woman and three adult males, in separate acts of violation which caused him to act out in destructive ways and even attempt suicide. In another high profile story, popular Georgia Bishop Eddie Long, head of an Atlanta-area mega-church with an international TV broadcast ministry, was accused by four former church members of coercing them into sexual encounters after receiving cash, jewelry, trips and cars from Bishop Long when they were 17 to 18 years of age.

Not all acts or allegations of sexual abuse receive such nationwide attention, however, and in reality, the daily abuse reports in cities across the country are little heard about but involve abuse on boys, and girls, from priests, coaches, teachers, pastors, deputies, day care workers, male - and yes, female - relatives (parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers). It is more common to hear the stories involving abuse of girls and women but, according to Ali Jackson, a Denver teacher, artist, researcher and film maker, one of every four Black males is also amongst the ranks of those who have experienced some form of sexual violation. Unlike women, there is a smaller window of time in which males become victims as they are not such easy targets after age 12 when they begin to physically increase in stature and become less willing to subject themselves to certain acts.

Film Maker Ali Jackson by photo by Lens of Ansar

For nearly a decade, Mr. Jackson has immersed himself into researching a topic that few before him have found relevant or worthy of attention. It comes close to home for him because he is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and even though he has encountered opposition from some who believe this subject is taboo and should not be addressed or brought to light, his own experience only strengthens his resolve to continue shining a spotlight on what he calls a "sickness" of society. He boldly acknowledges his own sexual abuse when 11, by an 18 year old female in an encounter arranged for him as a birthday present by his adult male relatives who, afterward, gave him "high fives" and took him out to eat in celebration of his "badge of honor." The experience left him confused and also with a "residue" in him that caused him to crave sex and female touch more than the average boy.

In 2003, he released his first documentary, "Path Altered," which detailed long term effects of sexual abuse in society as a whole. He found, however, that many of his findings related to boys and this led him into an intensive study and fact finding mission to determine how often boys experience sexual abuse. He began a second documentary entitled "Black Boys Don't Cry," to delve into issues connecting abuse to long held stereotypes about Black males.

"In us, sexuality is celebrated through our masculinity and our sexual prowess," he said in a November interview in front of his 11th grade Art class at a Denver Charter School. "One of the negative stereotypes is the word "buck" and one of the qualities of a buck is that he had to be sexually dominant and almost even sexually deviant and I wanted to address that issue."

Modern day "bucks," or hyper-aggressive Black men would include many of the basketball and football players exalted and adored by sports fans or certain male hip hop artists who represent a "gangsta" image. Men, he explained, who are "put into the limelight of celebrity" today whereas decades ago they would have been villainized and viewed as threats to society or less than human beings.

Mr. Jackson has consulted with, interviewed and learned from sociologists, psychologists, therapists and law enforcement personnel who specialize in sexual abuse cases and he discovered that it is common, in abuse of Black boys, that the perpetrator turns out to be a female. Because of this, he said, society views the act as more acceptable than when a male abuses a female. "You're really awarded for having sex before you're able to mentally comprehend the actual act that was put on you," he said.

Increasing trend of Black men becoming effeminate

The same acceptance is not in place when a boy's abuser is another male. Mr. Jackson has found that, although confusion results from both types of abuse, it can be magnified with a male perpetrator or even when a female abuser resorts to anal penetration. A boy may begin to question his sexuality and whether he is "gay or straight." He went on to say that although the stereotype of Black males in this society remains one of the hyper-masculine being who is most often portrayed as a criminal, thug or threat, "we're now seeing a surgence of African American males who are very hyper-feminized." He quickly added that this is not true in all cases of abuse but the trend is growing -" in the society -" and is clearly evident in places like Atlanta, Georgia, home of Morehouse College, a historically Black male university. In October, per a CNN report, the college's administration issued a ban on the male students "wearing women's clothes, makeup, high heels and purses," to put an end to what the school now considers "inappropriate attire."

Atlanta has become one of the meccas for gay men and Mr. Jackson describes it as the place where "this whole mess about the down low brother came out of." It is also near the location of Bishop Long's church and even though, in recent weeks, the Christian minister has publicly declared his innocence of any wrong doing and authorities will not investigate because Georgia's age of consent is 16 and the pastor's accusers were over that age at the time of the alleged incidents, Mr. Jackson sees some reason to place validity in the young men's claims. "There's a large part of me that believes in [the allegations] based on patterns, based on grooming," he said, referring to all the time, money and gifts the men claim to have received from the church leader.

Such grooming often accompanies acts of abuse perpetrated by males. "So we're not talking about a very violent act. We're talking about [the abuser] takes his time. You're getting compliments, getting your back rubbed. This is a grooming process that is a gradual thing from trust and then to violation," Mr. Jackson explained.

Another reason Black men leave their families?

With 25% of Black men carrying the scar of childhood sexual abuse, and only 1% of them ever disclosing or acknowledging to others that they have been abused, Mr. Jackson notes that "we're talking about a high number of African American males who are walking around with an illness," some of them having become perpetrators and, as adults, now replaying the abuse they received as a child onto innocent and helpless adolescents.
In his interviewing Black men, Mr. Jackson heard several shocking stories but one which stood out to him more than others was that of a man who for years, as a child, was molested by his older sister -" who penetrated him during sexual acts -" and then would "pass him off to her homosexual friends." As a grown man, who went on to have his own children, he confided to Mr. Jackson that he eventually had to leave his family because he knew he was going to molest his children if he did not remove himself from the household.

Mr. Jackson now wonders if another after effect of child sexual abuse of boys is that they grow up to leave, or seemingly abandon, their own families out of fear that they will end up sexually violating their own children. "Is this one of the main reasons that we're absent from the home as African American males?" he asked. "Are you removing yourself from that environment because you don't have any control that you can be in the same surroundings as your child? You can't bathe your little boy or girl because it's an opportunity to inappropriately touch?"

He went on to sadly share that the same man told him he'd rather abuse someone else's children rather than his own, which leads to the phenomena of male abusers who seek out single women with children in order to get close to the woman and eventually abuse her daughters or sons. "There is a whole segment of males that hunt women to get to their kids," Mr. Jackson said, going on to say that when he started hearing such stories, he had to stop work on the documentary in order to process the information and how it indicated the great magnitude to which this "sickness" is in play in the Black community. He is now considering even a third part to his film series to focus on Black males who are sexual abusers.

Stopping the cycle

The cycle of sexual abuse is devastating for individuals, families and the society at large and even though not every child who is abused will turn into an abuser, it is commonly accepted that all abusers were victims of abuse at some time. Mr. Jackson only sees one hope for stopping the cycle of abuse, emotional scarring and damaged lives. "Disclosure," he said. "The cycle has to stop but it has to stop with that person who was sexually abused, [for them] to consciously say, I'm not gonna do this."

Roadblocks lie in the way, however, in the hesitancy of many Black men to come forward and acknowledge or disclose their abuse and, compounding the issue, Mr. Jackson explains, are the long held stereotypes that hold Black males up as perpetrators of violent acts and not as victims. "If we have been deemed, as African American males, as the predator, we are the raper, we rape women, we rape. So who do we tell when we've been violated?" he said. "When you are a six foot African American male, when you are a very masculine male, who is going to believe you as you disclose?" Given this dilemma, Mr. Jackson points out the sad fact that few, if any, resources and helpful services exist to help Black men through the process of healing from child sexual abuse.

Source By opednews.com

Behind the Pain Nobody Talks About:Sexual Abuse of Black Boys

2011-09-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

Behind the Pain Nobody Talks About: SexualAbuse of Black Boys
By Nikitta A. Foston

The full article can be found by visting this link.

http://www.ncdsv.org/images/BehindPainNobodyTalksSexualAbuseBlackB.pdf

Sexual Abuse of Boys

2011-09-23T16:13:00.001-07:00

Sexual Abuse of Boys

Reference-

Watkins, B. & Bentovim, A. (1992). The sexual abuse of male children and adolescents: a review of current research. Journal of Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry, 33(10), 197-248.

Secrecy-
The subject of sexual abuse of the boy child is a very well kept secret
All conclusions of research must be interpreted with caution
The obvious cases are easy to recognize
No one knows the extent of those cases kept secret
Reasons for the secrecy surrounding the topic of the sexual abuse of boys is:
Girls (not boys) are typically regarded as sexual beings
It may be terrible to think that girls are sexually abused, but after all, they are girls
No one would sexually abuse a boy because boys are not sexually appealing

Generalities-
The abuser is generally at least 5 years older than the victim
Not too many years ago it was thought that girls were abused in far excess of boys and a ratio of 9:1 was suggested
This ratio, whatever it is, has been narrowing either with more abuse of the boy or more accurate recognition

Boys may react differently to sexual abuse
Boys may have a greater tendency to “act out” (externalize) their emotional with disruptive behaviors
Girls may have a greater tendency to “act in” (internalize) and become anxious or depressed

Reporting of Sexual Abuse-
Under-reporting is the rule
It is consistent and universal
Clinicians, teachers, parents may be ignorant
The child is immature & doesn’t understand

Blaming the Boys-

Under-reporting may be linked to boys being seen as not needing protection:
"Boys are tough"
"Boys don’t need protection"

Girls, on the other hand, are often blamed for the abuse especially by the abuser:

"Seductive child syndrome"

Child-Child Abuse-

This could be:
Cousin-cousin incest
Adolescent-child sexual abuse
Sibling incest
Sibling incest may be the most common form of incest
DeJong (1989) described a boy, whose abuse stopped by the age of 9 months; At 25 months this same boy was demonstrating sexual aggressiveness toward other children.
Girls, in child-child incest or sexual abuse, tend to molest two boys for every girl
It appears that girl cousins are twice as likely to abuse a boy relative than are brothers
It appears that a majority of sexual offenders begin their ‘careers’ in adolescence

Nature of Abuse-
Boys are more likely to be subjected to anal abuse than girls
Girls are likely to be anally abused when young and around 10 years of age the abuse tends to be vaginal
Boys are anally abused approximately equally at all ages
Anal abuse should be easier to identify

General Initial Effects of Sexual Abuse-
Confusion or anxiety over sexual identity
Inappropriate attempts to reassert masculinity
Recapitulation of the victimizing experience

Sexual Identity Confusion-
Victims, even at a young age, tend to show considerable concern over their gender identity
Some research shows that boys who were sexually molested by older men were four times more likely to be engaged in homosexual activity than non-victims
There appears to be a greater chance that boys who were molested by males would identify themselves as homosexuals than those molested by females
Adolescents often link their sexual victimization to their homosexuality
Only a minority of adult homosexuals report a homosexual experience in childhood
Only a minority of homosexuals have a sexual interest in children

Note: Fear of being perceived as perverted may significantly contribute to non-disclosure

Reasserting Masculinity-
Inappropriate attempts to reassert masculinity is perhaps the most common behavioral reaction of boy victims of sexual abuse; picking fights; destructiveness; marked disobedience; hostile or confrontative attitude
The male victim of sexual abuse is more likely to turn his rage outward in aggressive and antisocial behavior
Sexual abuse of the boy seems to be part of a legacy of rage
There may be a tendency for male victims of sexual abuse to recapitulate their own victimization, only this time in the role of perpetrator and someone else the victim

Patterns of Abuse-
Boys are usually younger than girls at first sexual abuse
Boys are least likely to present with their complaints of sexual abuse during adolescence when compared to girls
Boys are more likely to also be victims of physical abuse along with the sexual abuse
Boys are more likely to be abused forcefully than girls

Patterns of Discovery-
Boys are usually less willing to tell someone compared to sexually abused girls
Sexually abused boys are more commonly discovered via third parties, like sisters or cousins, than girls

Nature of Abuse-
Sexually abused boys usually have more physical findings
In the initial contact of boys there appears to be less fondling of boys (may more often get down to the real abusive act)
Boys experience less masturbatory abuse
Boys may experience more orogenital abuse
Boys do experience more anal abuse
Boys may experience more repetitive abuse
The severity of abuse in boys is usually greater
Boys less recognized as victims

Abusers-
Boys and girls equally likely to be abused by an extrafamilial individual
Boys and girls equally likely to be abused by strangers
Adolescent abusers more often chose boys as victims
Fathers more than stepfathers sexually abuse boys
Females are more likely to chose a boy than a girl to sexually abuse
It appears that when the abuser is a professional person, they may chose a boy over a girl
It appears that if the father is unemployed, he may chose the boy rather than the girl

Families of the Abused Boy-
The families in which a boy is being sexually abused is probably less likely to be African-American
It is more likely that the family where the boy is being abused will not be headed by a father

Service Response to Boys-
The boy is perceived as needing protection less often than girl
Sexually abused boys are provided less treatment than girls
Boy victims are less often removed from the family than girls

Initial Effects-
Boys, like girls, usually respond to abuse with sexualization (cross-dressing, etc.)

Longer Term Effects-
Male child/adolescent perpetrators have a frequent history of previous sexual abuse
Adult sex offenders often have history of previous sexual abuse
Sexually abused boys later have greater sexual identity confusion and increased likelihood of homosexuality
Sexually abused boys tend to have self-esteem and/or greater sexual dysfunction compared to non-abused males
They have an increased tendency towards compulsive sexuality
Self-report less psychological harm than non-abused boys
Abused boys have a greater prevalence of depression compared to non-abused males
They have more suicidal feelings than non-abused boys
They have an increased prevalence of anxiety disorders
They have more relationship problems

Black Male Sexual Abuse Victims: The Untold Story

2011-09-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

The Silent Destroyer

By Todd A. Smith

We hear about sexual abuse all the time. Often it is females who find themselves the victims of sexual predators and are sometimes permanently scarred as a result.

Many support groups are set up all over the country to help abused women, but often young males, specifically African American males, sit in silence because they are embarrassed and ashamed that they could be the victims of sexual abuse as well.

“There are elements of shame and powerlessness associated with male children who are the victims of sexual abuse,” said Chicago’s Jefferson Alternative School principal Judith Adams. “Because African American boys are in an environment that applauds ‘macho-ism,’ they feel powerless when they are violated and they feel as though they have failed themselves by allowing something like this to happen. So many young men who haven’t been exposed to anything other than abuse think it’s simply apart of life.”

As a result, Black Sexual Abuse Survivors (BSAS) received a grant from the prestigious Leeway Foundation and launched www.blacksurvivors.org, the first official online support group for Black male and female sexual abuse survivors.

According to BSAS, one in six men has endured sexual abuse and one in four women has been victimized by sexual predators. “Of that statistic, 3.3 million African American women have been sexual abused and 1.9 million African American men have been sexually abused. Family members and acquaintances account for 93% of predators,” according to BSAS.

Ebony reported that sexual abuse rates are higher in Black communities victimized by systemic poverty, broken homes, high unemployment rates and sociological problems.

“Sexual assault, violence, and abuse occur so often in group home settings and foster homes, and rehabilitative centers, simply because you don’t have the quality of care or necessary supervision,” said Adams.

Adams also believes that the trend of younger mothers in the Black community is contributing to the problem because they may have numerous partners coming in and out of the house.

“In many cases, the abuse isn’t thrust upon the boy all at once. It’s often a slow process, or a courtship, where the perpetrator befriends the boy, gains his trust and creates avenues of access to him,” said Dr. Nathan Hare of San Francisco.

While the majority of Black male victims are abused by men, many believe that sexual abuse by women can also have a devastating effect on these victims.

“Although a boy’s early experimentation with a woman has often been referred to as a ‘rite of passage,’ it can complicate his psychological perception of impotence if he is unable to perform. This belief in his failure may follow him into his adult relationships,” said Dr. Hare.

Many critics believe parents are also afraid of the stigma that comes with the sexual abuse of males, but according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, 80 percent of sexually abused boys never become male perpetrators and the abuse does not affect the victim’s sexuality.

Nevertheless, “With this new online support group, Black men and women can make up their own online profiles so that they can participate in the online support group anonymously. The key feature is very important for sexual abuse survivors who are often still marred by feelings of shame and secrecy, but desire to get help with their recovery,” said a BSAS representative.

Smith is a publisher of Regal Black Men's Magazine.

China man held on suspicion of keeping sex slaves

2011-09-22T21:41:00.001-07:00

..BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese man has been detained on suspicion of keeping six women in secret underground rooms as his sex slaves for two years and killing two of them, a state-owned newspaper reported Friday.

The Southern Metropolis Daily said that over the past two years, the man, Li Hao, allegedly kidnapped women who worked as hostesses at karaoke bars and locked them in two small rooms he had dug beneath a rented basement in Luoyang city in Henan province.

The secret rooms were located in a residential complex away from his home, where his wife and son lived unaware of the alleged kidnappings, the report said citing unnamed police sources.

A publicity official for the city's police department confirmed that a man named Li Hao who works for the city's technological supervision bureau had been taken into custody. The official, who would give only his surname, Li, declined to provide further details, citing an ongoing investigation.

The newspaper reported Li was a former firefighter and claimed he regularly raped the women and would give them food only once every two days to keep them physically weak. It described the rooms the women ate, slept and defecated in as dank and smelly.

Over time, some of the captives started competing with one another for his attention, the report said, and two of them ended up fighting. Li allegedly killed one of them with the help of another woman, the paper said.

He also allegedly killed one of the other women who was said to have been "disobedient," the report said, adding he allegedly buried both bodies in the corner of one of the rooms.

Li only let some of the women out when he wanted them to perform sexual services for other men to earn money for him, it said. It was on one of these outings that one of the women escaped and went to the police, the report said.

Police caught him on Sept. 6 as he tried to escape the city, it said.

HIV positive woman allegedly molests 12 years child

2011-09-21T20:25:00.000-07:00

Debra Flowers Haggerty, 55, is behind bars, accused of sexually assaulting 12-year-old boy while having HIV. (Source: KTRK/CNN)
The boy said he was sexually assaulted on Saturday inside a home of someone he's known for years.

"I was telling her to move, move. I feel like she shouldn't do that to no child. I feel like she shouldn't do that to me or others," the victim said.

Debra Flowers Haggerty, 55, was arrested and is now charged with aggravated

HOUSTON (KTRK/CNN) ( Houston We Have A Problem) - A woman in Houston is behind bars accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy, and court documents say she's HIV positive.

The boy said he was sexually assaulted on Saturday inside a home of someone he's known for years.

"I was telling her to move, move. I feel like she shouldn't do that to no child. I feel like she shouldn't do that to me or others," the victim said.

Debra Flowers Haggerty, 55, was arrested and is now charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. Court documents and multiple sources said she is HIV positive.

The charge now accuses Haggerty of using a "deadly weapon," which was her saliva against the boy during the alleged sex act.

"I feel assaulted and depressed," the victim said.

The victim said he's since been checked out by doctors and was given a clean bill of health, but is still scared he could have contracted the deadly illness.

Haggerty is in jail with bond is set at $30,000.

Couple 'allowed their 12-year-old daughter to be raped by a preacher, 68, living in their home

2011-09-21T19:05:00.000-07:00

A couple have been accused of allowing their 12-year-old daughter to be raped by a veteran preacher they invited into their home.
They are also alleged to have allowed an incestuous relationship between two of their children in what authorities have called a 'tragic abuse of children'.
Investigators believe Jerry and Christina Ham's religious beliefs may have played a part in allowing the alleged sexual abuse.

They were arrested following a six month investigation after preacher Larry Gene Martin was held on rape charges.
The 68-year-old is accused of raping the Hams' 12-year-old after moving into their home in Palestine, Texas.
After his arrest he told investigators he was in love with the girl and wanted to marry her.
Shocked police believe further allegations of abuse involving the family's two other children, boys aged eight and 12, will be uncovered.
More...Long haul trucker who lived with his mother is 'a serial killer who has murdered prostitutes across U.S.'

Investigators believe the parents may have also allowed their oldest boy, now 12, to participate in sexual acts with his sister.
'It is a very sick, twisted thing,' said Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor.
'We believe there are some religious connotations. We really don't know for sure.
'There's some strange beliefs in the family, to put it mildly.
'There was certainly a permittance of this type of activity that's not normal.' The abuse came to light following the arrest of Martin, a preacher for the last 50 years.
Preacher Larry Gene Martin, 68, was held on rape charges after a six-month investigation. He had moved into the Palestine, Texas home of the Hams before the alleged crime took place
Martin was pastor at Faith Bible Church in the Brushy Creek area where the Hams all attended at the time.
Sheriff Taylor said he believes the Hams not only had knowledge of the sexual assault of their daughter, but also consented to it at some level.
'She (the couple's daughter) was a victim of Martin,' Taylor said. 'We believe they (the Hams) had knowledge of that and other sexual assaults against this child without reporting it...We're not alleging at this time they participated in any sexual assault against this child.'

The sheriff also said investigators believe the Hams provided 'some type of consent to some of these activities.' Taylor said the couple has admitted to some of the accusations.
'They have confessed to some of the allegations, to the knowledge of and consent of some of the allegations,' Taylor said.

'They're semi-cooperative.'

Jerry Ham, 56, was charged with the felony offense of engaging in organized criminal activity and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
His 36-year-old wife faced the same charges.

Preacher Larry Gene Martin, 68, was held on rape charges after a six-month investigation. He had moved into the Palestine, Texas home of the Hams before the alleged crime took place

Source of story from
http://www.dailymail.co.uk Report- By Paul Thompson

So I Had This Radom Dream

2011-09-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

This time I had this dream about a week ago that these demons in black were talking in this big room within a circle filled with a big pentagram about killing this person . This comedian(M. S. K. W) who is best know for speaking out has been know to get things stir up. So now I am wondering what is all this behavior is all about and why I was shown such a dream !!!! Now today I watch a video that has me speechless.

Oh Well What A Dream!!!!!!

Be Sober! Be On The Alert! Your Adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your brothers in the world. 2 Peters 5: 8-9 HCSB

Soul Ties Part 2:The Consequences of A Casual Affair

2011-09-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Breaking Soul-ties

2011-09-11T15:32:00.000-07:00

How are soul-ties formed, and how do we break them? Soul-ties are formed many different ways, and these are just a few of them: by willing or forced sexual relations (See Matthew 19:5, 6, Genesis 24:67, 1Corinthians 6:16), by speaking words of commitment — vows: “I will always love you,” “I will never forget,” “I will always hate you, by receiving a ring (or item) from someone that represents a covenant agreement. And what I consider to be the most devious method of all is when you are given an item from a friend or relative that has great sentimental value but is, literally, death. (Such items that have been used in witchcraft or the occult.) These kinds of soul-ties are ties to curses.

Sex Abuse and Mind Control: Raised in a Cult. One Woman Story In Her Own Words.

2011-09-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

This story was in her(Nancy Dunn's) own words. I posted this that it might share some light on abuse and how one woman found her way out with her faith. Each person find's there own walk with the Most High I pray you found your..

Her father was a high priest for the devil. He used his daughter to breed babies for human sacrifice.

original link and source.The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN http://www.cbn.com

UPDATED: Counselor at Bartlett School Charged With Statutory Rape

2011-09-04T18:27:00.000-07:00

MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV) - A Bartlett school counselor was charged with statutory rape after police records say she was sexually involved with a student for an entire weekend and gave him alcohol.

Cinnamon Davis, 23, shut her Facebook page down Sunday after suggestive photos were revealed. Davis's MySpace page stayed up with numerous photos.

The police investigation into the statutory rape of a student began in May. Davis is a counselor at Varangon Academy in Bartlett, a 7th through 12th grade campus described as a "residential treatment facility for adolescent boys with emotional and behavioral problems."

According to police, on Saturday, May 28, the victim's mother told police she had not seen her son since he got out of school the day before. Her 17-year-old son returned home just before midnight that Sunday.

Her son told her he spent, "the weekend with his counselor from school." The mother went to the school and talked to the counselor identified as Cinnamon Davis.

The mother told police that Davis then walked away and refused to talk to her.

About a week later, police interviewed the student. Records said, "he stated he had been engaged in sexual intercourse with his school counselor, Mrs. Cinnamon Davis ... Mrs. Davis had picked him up from a local store and then drove him to her apartment ... where she gave him alcohol to drink and had sexual intercourse with him repeatedly."

Davis' neighbors said she hopes she finds a new line of work.

"You're in a position where people look up to you," said neighbor Eleanor Pitts. "That's inappropriate. If you have those kinds of behaviors, you don't need to be in the school system."

Davis, who is out of jail on bond, faced a Memphis judge Monday morning. She will return to court in two weeks.

orginal story by www.wlox.com

Hard Pill To Swallow..

2011-09-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was well aware that the games of rape, and abuse, were both extremely filthy game, and observed how they pulled the depressed and weakened back to a slow death in the streets. Wasn’t the church supposed to be a refuge? Yet and still many times the perpetrator; whom you have a great deal of care and respect for, tries to keep you under a spirit of mind and spiritual control, within the church. Yes, it was church as usual.

Words of Encouragement

Dear Father, help me not to feel like a dirty, filthy rag. I am in need of
your love. Help me to deal with something I had no control over and teach me to understand what it is I must learn from this. I know that you will live on the inside of me if I will call upon your name and receive you into my heart and accept you into my life. I believe you have set time out just to see about me. You also said that you would love me with unconditional love, you will hold me in your arms and rock me until the tears stop falling down my face. In your love, I find strength to carry me all the way until there is no more me; only you. Your grace and mercy covers me all the day long. I shall rest in your arms because strength is where I will find you. I will not allow shame to conquer me and hold me down another day. I will walk in your presence daily to find some rest and peace for my mind. When I’m feeling down and out and the tears wont stop,give me the peace and the strength that I need to keep moving forward.

SPECIAL THANKS TO MY MANY VIEWERS NEAR AND FAR.

2011-09-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

I JUST WANT TO TAKE THIS TIME TO SAY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE MANY VIEWS FAR AND NEAR. I AM VERY HUMBLE. MAJOR LOVE!!!

United States
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So I Had This Radom Dream!!!!

2011-09-01T17:38:00.000-07:00

So I had this odd (SMH) dream that two best selling R&B recording artists was found dead one is best known for selling more than 20 million albums and 60 million singles which makes her one of the best selling artists of all time. The other artists is best known for throughout her career, has won numerous awards and has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and 25 million singles.

So much for a dream, I am loss for words....lol

Children sexually abused on Pakistan's streets

2011-08-27T20:42:00.000-07:00

By Hasan Mansoor | AFP – Fri, Aug 26,
Nadeem knows first hand the misery of life on the streets. Sexually assaulted as a child, he became a pimp of young boys -- the only way he knew how to survive as a member of Pakistan's underclass.

He says he was 12 years old when he was attacked. Since then, he has been dragged into a vicious cycle of horrifying abuse allegedly aided and abetted by police and which few are willing to confront in the Muslim country.

"It was just the third night I slept on a street when a policeman picked me up and did bad things to me. I cried a lot but no one came to help me," Nadeem, now 17, told AFP.

He was sexually assaulted for a second time by the leader of a street gang, who then forced Nadeem to join the 17 other children in his gang.

By 14 he was a full-time sex worker. His pimp gave him a mobile phone to keep in contact with clients.

According to charities which work to protect street children in Pakistan, up to 90 percent are sexually abused on the first night that they sleep rough and 60 percent accuse police of sexually abusing them.

"Children on the street are beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, and sometimes killed," said Rana Asif Habib, head of the Initiator Human Development Foundation (IHDF).

"Police (should) protect people. When policemen are themselves involved in molesting children, who will protect them?" he asks.

"What we have gathered in our research is that policemen make up more than 60 percent of those who physically torment, sexually harass street children," said Anwer Kazmi of the Edhi Foundation, the country's largest charity.

Karachi is home to Pakistan?s biggest community of street children -- tens of thousands of victims of domestic violence and broken homes, drugs and crime, in the steamy port city.

More than 170,000 street children live on the streets across the country.

Illiterate, uneducated and most without family, the children can grow into seasoned criminals, drug addicts or fall prey to Islamist militancy.

When Nadeem turned 16, he tried to escape. He received counselling from a charity and was taught photography. He tried to make it his profession.

"I was happy with my work, but a year ago, a policeman put me in the lockup on a false charge, confiscated my camera and abused me sexually," he said.

The experience turned him against the world.

"I decided to become stronger. Now I have my own gang and many influential people are my clients. No one can touch me now."

Nadeem says he acts as a pimp to 10 teenage sex workers aged 14-18, taking a sizeable cut of whatever the boys bring in earnings.

"Half an hour after finishing with one client I get another call and I forget all about wanting a respectable life."

Nadeem lives on a street in the downtown Saddar neighbourhood, but rents a room in a cheap hotel when he has surplus cash. He confesses that he too sexually assaulted a child.

"He insulted me and my family so I told him he had it coming. So I grabbed him and gave it to him. I still remember that night. I haven't done that to anyone else since then and I don't want to."

Rizwan is a fisherman's son. He insists he is 12, but he looks much younger. He left home three years ago because his family beat him and says he was abused by police. IHDF fears he too will be dragged into the sex industry.

"The police tried to make me do bad things six or seven times but I managed to get away," he said.

"But one day, one policeman took me by force, put a cloth over my mouth and took me to a place where he did bad things."

Shaukat Hussain, head of police in Karachi's southern district where many street children live, said any officers found guilty would be punished, but denied the force was anything like as culpable as reported.

"There are black sheep in our department who are involved in such acts. But we punish anyone whose crime comes to surface and is proved," he told AFP.

"The number of policemen who are involved in such acts is far less than what is being claimed by the media and NGOs," he added.

Pakistan offers little protection to vulnerable children.

"A draft bill for child protection has been pending with the interior ministry for two years," a senior official of the human rights ministry told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to the media.

The bill is designed to tighten the laws protecting children, bringing them in line with international conventions, doing more to help children in difficulty and bringing police and other offenders to book for abusing minors.

"There is a visible lack of interest on the part of the government on this issue... despite our constant pursuits," said the ministry official.

One former police official told AFP that he organised seminars to sensitise police on how to treat street children four years ago, but that the programme was abruptly abandoned when he retired.

..

Eddie Long Wants to Move Past Sex Charges

2011-08-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Bishop Eddie Long said he wanted to run his Atlanta megachurch “without distractions” after two of the four youngsters who accused him of luring them into homosexual sex acts declared they were writing a book about their experiences although they had withdrawn all lawsuits.
Bishop Eddie Long is seen delivering his first Sunday Service message since the settlement in the sexual allegations case was reached. Four young men who were former members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church had accused Long of sexual misconduct.

Long’s statement came a day after two of the accusers, who withdrew their lawsuits in May as part of a settlement deal, told Atlanta’s SWB-TV that they were writing a book to express what they had been through and to warn others.

“I don’t know if I’m angry anymore at the abuse, I think I’m more so angry at what I lost from it,” Jamal Parris was quoted as saying. “I don’t need the clothes. I don’t need the jewelry. I’ll stand up in front of you like a man more than you ever were. Now tell me I’m lying, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you didn’t do this. Look at all of us now face up.”

“We weren’t anything more than kids who went to the church to learn about God,” Spencer LeGrande said. “What trapped us is we were just addicted to the lifestyle. We were addicted to the love that we got… I’m gonna tell the world, money does not buy happiness.”

Eddie Long has denied the allegation that he coerced the four into sexual acts by offering cash, cars, lodging and lavish trips, but he went for out-of-court settlement on May 27 to get the lawsuits filed in September 2010 dismissed.

Source http://www.christianpost

-Introduction To Send Me An Angel To Set Me Free

2011-08-22T17:30:00.001-07:00

I have decided to share this part of my life in hopes of helping my spirit, as well as the spirits of others, on their journey towards healing and restoration. For those of you who have been raped and abused by someone, you are not alone in your feelings of distrust, shame, imprisonment,vulnerability and isolation. The bad news is pointless to reflect on because you and I have lived it day after day, night after night, and no one can take that from us, despite their degree’s, sincere desire to console us and their heart felt whispers of how sorry they are for what happened to us. The good news is that today, this information found you, and it will speak to a place within you that not many have been able to reach.

I stand on the platform as a call from the most high, my called to empower those who have been sexual abuse and broken with the pain of rejection from abuse. As a woman who has struggled with child abuse, depression, my self-esteem, self-respect, and self-worth. My dignity was shattered by trusting in other people became demised. My adult life came at me too fast, my childhood have been stripped away from me too soon. The little girl in me never had the opportunity to be a child; I was robbed of something precious. I didn’t get the chance or the opportunity to experience love in the way that I should have without it been tainted until I was married at the age of 18. Whether you have had your girlhood or a boy hood take away from you and you had to go through your whole adulthood life with the little child on the inside of you screaming out for help and no one came to see rescue you until it was to late.

You must not refuse to blame your past for your presence or let it ruin your future.Now for the record, I'm not a therapist and have never claimed to be. I haven’t taken any classes, received specialized training, or been qualified by any governing body to speak on this issue. My knowledge is simply based on my own experiences. I believe that my being a survivor of sexual abuse over a prolonged period of time, at the hands of multiple abusers, qualifies me to speak on my experience, which may differ from yours. With that said, I believe all rape and sexual abuse survivors are emotionally bound together. We all went through a traumatic violation of the mind, body and spirit. As important as this is to understand, it’s not more important than the fact that we survived.

Please remember that rape is NEVER your fault. Being forced to have sex, even if you know the person, is rape and it is a crime punishable by the laws of both God and Man. Rape and sexual abuse survivors don't have to suffer alone or hide their feelings. Your cries and voices need to be heard. By breaking the silence, you can bring an end to the abuse. Once a person decides to be victorious, they stop being a victim. This book is about victory even though we shall visit the past, and the pain, of one of the violated. In this script, I shall play the role of the victim, being that I am writing my own true story. I have seen what the pain of rape, incest and molestation does to someone first hand. You can't allow yourself to become trapped within the complexities of someone-else's problems, and how those problems replicated themselves, in various forms of sickness, within your life. You have to free yourself, and know that the power to heal lives within you. All the names and titles that your captors have given you don't reflect your present and or your future position as a member of the human family. Everything that happened in my life, I now understand, and know that I should not be ashamed of myself, or the fact that someone violated my mind, my body and my spirit, because it was beyond my control. Healing was, and remains to be my right, as it is also your right, to claim without contention.

You don't have to live through the eyes of the monstrous, and the unaware. They have no say so regarding your peace of mind, preservation of body, and the protection of your soul. The Father wants you to walk in your God given freedom boldly, and to reclaim your purpose, and your destiny, which is and has always been your right as a living being. As I sit here thinking about the motivation for this book, I recall the many cycles that kept occurring daily in my personal and spiritual life. The constant presence of these very powerful energies compelled me to pray for a clear revelation from the Father, not for just my mental and spiritual well-being, but also for that of my husband and children. I feared that the emotional scaring that seemed to so greatly impact my life would some how be successful in disrupting my walk with God. My self-esteem, and emotional self, was both in limbo as I struggled to become complete again. Over time this reality became unbearable for me and I had to make the decision to break free from the bondage that had become a normal part of my existence. I had to change my way of thinking, I had to change how I felt about myself, and I had to learn to challenge and or disengage from how others perceived me to be.

Book Synopsis

2011-08-22T17:23:00.000-07:00

I could remember it like it was yesterday. Some of it I changed around a little, hoping to make it easier to process, but for the most part, everything looks the same. Time and space stood still as I looked to my right and watched my innocence, while she smiled at me, and sang one of my favorite songs. I slowly blinked and held back the sudden urge to vomit, as the breath of this beast covered my face like plastic, and slowly suffocated me, almost to the point of unconsciousness. His hands were like claws, and sent terror racing though my entire body.

I was once the innocent child that sang to console herself, but no more. As this man tore into my temple, I felt like a whore and couldn't handle that reality. I released my spirit into the room and continued to watch my innocence sing while the beast had its way with my flesh. I was pulled back into my defiled temple by a savage and demonic whisper that commanded me to get up and clean myself. That was such a long time ago, but even now, it seems like it just took place.

A lot of people struggle day after day with the process of replace and remember, replace and remember, but never to a point of completion. It hinders them and makes it almost impossible to maintain healthy and virtuous relationships. Many sincere and well-meaning people secretly wrestle with being sexual abused. This personal issue has trapped many of us, but God longs to heal what we've been afraid to reveal.

Within the pages of this carefully constructed account of survival, Lukysha A. Sims- Neal unleashes an emotional explosion that will destroy the bondage that many victims of sexual abuse deal with daily, and empower them with a message of breakthrough and inner-awareness. Her inspirational story will encourage a feeling of wholeness in the reader, and will help them to safely reflect on their own experience, by examining hers. At the end of this journey, you should be compelled to process your replace and remember cycle to a point of completion, by allowing some key steps to finally take place, once and for all.

New Saudi Fatwa Defends Pedophilia as ‘Marriage’

2011-08-17T15:44:00.000-07:00

New Saudi Fatwa Defends Pedophilia as ‘Marriage’

Posted By Raymond Ibrahim

Source: frontpagemag.com

Muslim “child-marriage”—euphemism for pedophilia—is making headlines again, at least in Arabic media: Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, a prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, just issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage, and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.”

Appearing in Saudi papers on July 13, the fatwa complains that “Uninformed interference with Sharia rulings by the press and journalists is on the increase, posing dire consequences to society, including their interference with the question of marriage to small girls who have not reached maturity, and their demand that a minimum age be set for girls to marry.”

Fawzan insists that nowhere does Sharia set an age limit for marrying girls: like countless Muslim scholars before him, he relies on Koran 65:4, which discusses marriage to females who have not yet begun menstruating (i.e., are prepubescent) and the fact that Muhammad, Islam’s role model, married Aishawhen she was 6-years-old, “consummating” the marriage—or, in modern parlance, raping her—when she was 9.

The point of the Saudi fatwa, however, is not that girls as young as 9 can have sex, based on Muhammad’s example, but rather that there is no age limit whatsoever; the only question open to consideration is whether the girl is physically capable of handling her husband/rapist. Fawzan documents this point by quoting Ibn Batal’s authoritative exegesis of Sahih Bukhari:

The ulema [Islam’s interpreters] have agreed that it is permissible for fathers to marry off their small daughters, even if they are in the cradle. But it is not permissible for their husbands to have sex with them unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men. And their capability in this regard varies based on their nature and capacity. Aisha was 6 when she married the prophet, but he had sex with her when she was 9 [i.e., when she was deemed capable].

Fawzan concludes his fatwa with a warning: “It behooves those who call for setting a minimum age for marriage to fear Allah and not contradict his Sharia, or try to legislate things Allah did not permit. For laws are Allah’s province; and legislation is his excusive right, to be shared by none other. And among these are the rules governing marriage.”

Fawzan, of course, is not the first to insist on the legitimacy of pedophilia in Islam. Even the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia supported “child-marriage,” since “the Koran and Sunna document it.”

Nor is this just some theoretic, theological point; the lives of many young girls are being destroyed because of this ruling. Recall, for instance, the 13-year-old girl who died while her much older husband was copulating with her (it was later revealed that, due to her reluctance, he was tying her up and “raping” her—as if there is another way to describe sex with children); or the 12-year-old who died giving birth to a stillborn; or the 10-year-old who made headlines by hiding out from her 80-year-old “husband.”

Then there are the countless anonymous girls who do nothing to warrant any media attention—such as die—and have learned to live with their elderly husbands pawing at them, like, no doubt, the girl who married Islam’s most popular cleric, Yusuf Qaradawi, when she was 14.

What do we make of the fact that it is always Islam’s religious, authoritative voices—not aberrant voices, not “terrorists,” “extremists,” or any other euphemism coined for the occasion—that are constantly demonstrating Sharia’s savageries? Weeks before this fatwa, a female politician and activist in Kuwait called for institutionalizing sex-slavery (recommending that Muslims buy and sell female Russian captives from the Chechnya war); a popular Egyptian preacher not only said the same thing, but added that the solution to Islam’s poverty is to go on jihad and plunder the lives and possessions of infidels.

Sounds odd? Perhaps; but it is perfectly consistent. After all, distilled and in the eyes of the non-believer, Sharia law is nothing less than a legal system built atop the words and deeds of a 7th century Arab, whose behavior—from pedophilia and sex-slavery to war mongering and plundering—was very much that of a 7thcentury Arab. Having enticed or enslaved his contemporaries into following him, his teachings continue to entice and enslave their descendants; and, now as then, it is always the innocent who suffer.

Posted: August 16, 2011 by exministries in Uncategorized

Child sex trafficking exposed in S.A.

2011-08-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

SAN ANTONIO -- A University investigation uncovers a dark reality in San Antonio: domestic child sex trafficking. Experts say it's happening all around us, behind closed doors.

A group of UTSA students in the Department of Social Work just finished a 10 week investigation. They found there's a huge at-risk population for minor sex trafficking in San Antonio, and the number of victims is largely underreported.

"I went through sexual abuse at the age of 10," said Stephanie Cordova, a survivor of childhood abuse. Cordova was molested by a family friend, and then raped in her teenage years. She says the abuse lead her into a life of gangs and addiction to heroin. "The hurt, and the shame and the anger that I felt... I dealt with it through drugs, and through sex," explained Cordova. "I was a gang member at the age of 14."

The toll of abuse for others, leads to prostitution and sex trafficking.

"That's their way of surviving," explained Alfonso Garcia, of some of the victims he's met. Garcia is known as a "gatekeeper," someone teens on the streets can turn to for help. He says young teens who are kicked out of their homes become easy prey for a dangerous lifestyle that's hard to get out of.

"Most of them need a place to stay," explained Garcia. "They have to put a roof over their heads, they have to put food in their stomachs. And they don't know where to go."

"One of the problems in this area, is that people just don't know enough about it," said Dr. Bob Ambrosino, who teaches UTSA's Advanced Policy Class in the Department of Social Work. The class is creating a buzz with the documentary, "Behind Closed Doors: Voices from the Inside." The documentary aims to raise awareness and expose problems within the system.

Ambrosino says minors who are arrested for prostitution or selling drugs for their trafficker, or for their own survival, are often put into juvenile detention and essentially re-victimized.

"They're probably going to be adjudicated as a criminal, even though they're in some ways a victim," said Ambrosino. "And so often what happens is, they fall through the cracks."

Reported by: Melissa Garcia

Police: Man Tries To Entice Teen, Gets Punched By Mom

2011-08-17T15:17:00.000-07:00

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Police said a 48-year-old man has been charged with trying to lure a 13-year-old girl into a Des Moines alley.

Polk County jail records indicate that Robert Harding, of Des Moines, is being held on two charges: enticing a minor under 16 and a parole violation.

Police said the girl was playing outside near her home on Wednesday when Harding waved from the alley near the 900 block of Buchanan Street and motioned for her to join him. She went to tell her mother, Holly Pullen, instead.

"It's horrible, it's a nightmare, it's not one that I think any parent wants to go through," said Pullen. "All she could say is he's staring at us and he won't go away. I know at one point he was motioning at her to try and get her to go up the alley."

Police said that when Pullen confronted Harding, he asked how old the girl was and whether he could marry her or would be interested in signing the girl away.

"I got down to the alley and I confronted him. I said, 'Why are you staring at the kids?' and he looks at me and says, 'I want to marry the red head,' I came unglued at that point. I was like 'Dude, she's only 13 that's my daughter,'" said Pullen.

Pullen said the man had broken English, but insisted that he wanted to marry the girl.

"When I told him 'no,' asked me if I would be willing to sign paper work so he could get married to her and I told him no and then I hit him," said Pullen.

Police said Pullen punched Harding in the face. Then the girl's father and one of his friends chased Harding and fought with him.

When police arrived at Fremont Street, the fight was over. Police questioned Harding who they said told them that he was trying to get the girl into the alley "So I can marry her and sex her." Police said he told them he said he knew she was a minor and that he liked "young girls."

Harding was transported to Broadlawns to be treated for a cut to his right eye before being taken to the Polk County Jail.

He's charged with enticing a minor under the age of 16, which is punishable up 4 years in prison. He's being held on $15,000 bond.

A no contact order had been placed on Harding. He must stay away from all juveniles under the age of 18 and any location where juveniles are regularly located or may be found unattended.

Harding is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Aug. 19 at 8 a.m.

Harding's criminal history includes convictions for weapons possession, drugs and domestic abuse causing bodily injury. He is also due in court on a public intoxication charge next Tuesday.

"I don't know what was going through his head. I really don't because when I confronted him you couldn't smell anything. The man was sober," said Pullen.

Pullen said her daughter has been scared since the incident and afraid to go outside.

Charinez Jefferson, Pregnant Chicago Teen, Fatally Shot, But Baby Saved

2011-08-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

A baby boy is "fighting for his life" early Wednesday after his 17-year-old mother was fatally shot on Chicago's South Side.

Charinez Jefferson was walking with friends in the 3000 block of West 64th Street about 10:35 p.m. when a man ran toward the group and began shooting, Chicago Police Officer Ronald Gaines told the AP. Jefferson, who was about six months pregnant, suffered multiple wounds to the body and one shot to her head.

Fire Department spokesman Will Knight said she was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in critical condition. According to the Chicago Tribune, paramedics placed the teen on advanced life support while they worked to save her baby.

"I really don't know what happened," the teen's mother told the Tribune. "She was going to the corner store. She stopped to talk to a guy she knew and someone drove up and opened fire. That's what I've been told. I got down there but they already roped it off. I couldn't get to her."

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Jefferson was walking with a friend of her boyfriend when the gunman approached. She reportedly said "Please don’t kill me," to the gunman before she was shot.

The teen's mother does not believe her daughter was the gunman's intended target. Jefferson also has a 1-year-old child and was entering her junior year at Banner Therapeutic Day School, according to NBC Chicago.

The baby, which weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces when he was delivered late Tuesday, was in critical but stable condition early Wednesday.

Black and Bipolar

2011-08-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Lisa Visor had been up and been down, with mood swings and relapses. She was misunderstood; even misdiagnosed for years before being properly diagnosed but now she knows...she is a face of bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorder or Manic-Depressive Illness is a chronic or lifelong mental illness that, although it can never be cured, it can be well controlled. It is here that you can receive information on living well with bipolar disorder. You may contact her at lisa.visor@yahoo.com

Far too often, those who suffer Bipolar Disorder suffer in silence. And most Black Americans choose to bear the weight of their illness alone rather than risk being ostracized for something that’s clearly out of their control. Blacks are less likely to receive a diagnosis and, therefore, treatment for this illness. Recent research shows that many blacks see mental illness as shameful and delay treatment until symptoms reach crisis proportions. They don’t feel comfortable telling anyone anything about their condition and that just leads to social isolation and making them feel even worse.

Bipolar disorder, also commonly known as manic depression, is a brain disorder that causes shifts in a person’s mood, energy, and ability to function. The symptoms of bipolar disorder can result in damaged relationships, difficulty in working or going to school, and even suicide. The condition causes severe mood swings which can last several weeks or even months. It can become your identity if you allow it. The lows can make sufferers feel intense depression and despair, while the highs lead to 'manic' feelings of joy, over-activity and loss of inhibitions.

There are many factors that have contributed to Blacks not receiving help for bipolar disorder:

•There’s a mistrust of health care professionals, based on historically higher-than-average institutionalization of Blacks with mental illness.
•Black Americans have socioeconomic factors which limit access to medical and mental health care.
•They rely on family and/or the black religious community rather than trained mental health care professionals.
•Blacks have been known to believe that having a mental illness is due to some kind of personal weakness.
•Fear of the stigma of people making negative remarks about persons with a mental illness.
•The assumption that a person with bipolar disorder could be violent or dangerous.
It’s that type of stigma that leads to feelings of frustration, shame, low self-esteem, and ultimately anger. The person with bipolar disorder is left with feelings of embarrassment and humiliation because of something beyond their control. Some pretend nothing is wrong and refuse treatment. Others rely on prayer because according to black culture that’s all one needs to do; but in the end things just get worse.
Bipolar disorder is a serious mental illness but if well managed with help from family, friends and health professionals, a person with bipolar can lead a productive and satisfying life. You can learn further information on bipolar disorder at http://www.dbsalliance.org.

Unsurprisingly there isn’t a great deal of information on minorities with mental illness. Author Bebe Moore Campbell wrote “72 hour hold;” a novel that focuses on the black experience of an adult daughter and her family's experience with the onset of bipolar disorder. She also wrote a children’s book “Sometimes my mother gets angry” about a young black girl learning to cope with her bipolar mother.

You may contact the National Medical Association for a list of African American doctors at www.nmanet.org or call Black Psychiatrists of America at (510) 834-7103.

Source By Lisa Visor Chicago Bipolar Examiner ...

Police: Man Raped Woman on Sidewalk in Broad Daylight

2011-08-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

KANSAS CITY, Mo.—
A Kansas City, Missouri, man faces felony sexual assault charges after he allegedly raped a woman on a city sidewalk in broad daylight.

According to police, Melvin L. Jackson, 49, allegedly had sex with the unconscious woman on a sidewalk outside of a vacant business at 3400 Troost around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning.

Two witnesses who flagged down a patrol car say that they saw the woman curled up in a fetal position, with Jackson on top of her with his pants and underwear around his ankles, having sex with her.

When Kansas City Missouri Police arrived on the scene, authorities say that Jackson told them, "I thought that lady was dead."

Police say that the victim told them that she was walking with a friend when she felt light-headed and passed-out in a shaded area. She says that she has no memory of the alleged attack, but that she was told by witnesses that Jackson was having sex with her, and that when she awoke she was no longer wearing her underwear. She was taken to an area hospital for an examination.

"I've been prosecutor for a long time, so you kinda get to the point where not a lot surprises you," said Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker. "This is a new one. This is not one that I've seen come through before."

Denver couple plead guilty to sexually assaulting kids left in their care

2011-08-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

Linda Torrez A Denver couple pleaded guilty Thursday to sexually assaulting a boy and girl left in their care over a period of years in the 1990s.

They could face life in prison when they are sentenced May 13.

The children were left by their mother with Eric and Linda Torrez. Now in their 20s, the children reported the abuse in 2008.

Eric Torrez, 47, pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault on a child, eight counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, two counts of sexual assault on a child with a pattern of abuse, one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault by a person in a position of trust with a pattern of abuse.

His wife, Linda Torrez, 46, pleaded guilty to sexual. Eric Torrez assault on a child by a person in a position of trust.

The mother of the children, Karen Stillman, 58, knew of the abuse and pleaded guilty in November to attempted child abuse resulting in serious bodily injury and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Patrick Torrez, 23, the son of Eric and Linda Torrez, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He will be sentenced March 25.

Linda Torrez

Eric Torrez

Source By
Read more: Denver couple plead guilty to sexually assaulting kids left in their care - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14474249?source=email#ixzz1UZn6XW8o

Breaking News...Police seek clues in death of runaway found in suitcase

2011-08-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

The Police needs your help in this case!!!!!!!People also can call the Denver Police Department's homicide unit at 720-913-6776

Joshua Churchwell

Police seek help in identifying Ruby Hill corpseBody in suitcase ID'd as maleApr 2:
Denver body in suitcase is teen or young manFour months later, investigators are still looking for clues to find out how 17-year-old runaway Joshua Churchwell wound up dead in a partially buried suitcase near Ruby Hill Park.

Since the initial investigation after two boys made the discovery on April 1, there's been little new information, police said today.

Investigators "have gotten to the point where they need to ask the public these questions," said Lt. Matt Murray, spokesman for the Denver police spokesman.

Churchwell's decomposed body yielded few clues. There were no signs of trauma that could have caused his death, and an initial autopsy was inconclusive.

The case is still being investigated as a suspicious death, not a homicide.

"Obviously there are suspicious circumstances," Murray said. "But talking generally, a lot of things could have happened other than someone causing his death. He could have died and someone panicked and was trying to dispose of the body."

The boys were looking for scrap metal when they found the suitcase hidden under a deflated plastic swimming pool near the park a Friday afternoon this spring. Their attention was commanded by a leg sticking out from the bag, they told authorities.

Three months earlier, Churchwell had slipped away from the Colfax Smackdown, a wrestling tournament at East High School, about 8 miles north of where he was found.

He was a member of the wrestling team at Ridge View Academy in Watkins, a campus for young people who have had problems in more traditional schools.

Because the school is part of a teen correctional program, the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office had a arrest warrant charging Churchwell with escape.

Crime Stoppers is offering a $2,000 reward, including for anonymous tips that lead to an arrest and conviction. Anyone with information can call 720-913-7867.

.

Source By By Joey Bunch
The Denver Post

Denver deputy gets 24 years for child abuse, attempted sex assault

2011-08-09T15:39:00.000-07:00

A veteran Denver County sheriff's deputy today was sentenced to 24 years in prison, according to the Denver District Attorney's office.

Mark Davis, 49, pleaded guilty earlier this year to child abuse and attempted sexual assault on a child involving two victims: a 12-year-old boy he abused between August 2002 and June 2006 and an 8-year-old boy abused between June 2010 and September 2010.

He received the maximum sentence possible under his plea agreement.

In addition to his prison sentence, he has a 12-year suspended sentence on the condition he successfully complete eight years of Sex Offender Intensive Supervision Probation after he is released, prosecutors said.

When he was arrested last October, Davis had worked for the Denver Sheriff's Department for 14 years.

At the time of his arrest, investigators said the allegations did not involve his duties as a deputy.

Source by
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews
Side Note... we will be keeping you update on this story when we found out more information.

Girl of 17 plied white teenagers with vodka then forced them into sex with gangs of Asian men

2011-08-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

Stephanie Knight lured the youngsters out to go clubbing, before the teenagers were subjected to a horrific rape

A young woman lured two white teenage girls to be raped by three Asian men with the promise of a night out.

Stephanie Knight, then 17, told the pair they were going clubbing but instead plied them with vodka and drugs before forcing them to have sex with ‘her boys’.

After persuading them into her car she was heard to say ‘got them’ over her mobile phone as they travelled to a derelict house.

The two 16-year-old victims were then subjected to an appalling ordeal in which both were threatened and subjected to vile sex attacks.

The case is the latest featuring Asian sex attackers who preyed on vulnerable young white girls. A damning report published recently revealed one in four men accused of street grooming young girls for sex is Asian.

Politicians and police have repeatedly clashed over how best to tackle what some suspect is a potentially incendiary hidden crime wave.

Jack Straw, former home secretary, has accused some Pakistani men in Britain of seeing white girls as ‘easy meat’ for sexual abuse.

Knight, now aged 19, sobbed as she was convicted of conspiracy to rape at Burnley Crown Court yesterday.

At the time she was in council care and had taken the victims to a supermarket car park where they drank vodka and coke and smoked drugs in December 2009.

One girl later said she was ‘feeling smashed’ and the other said that on a scale of one to ten of drunkenness she rated a ten.

They were then taken to a dark and empty terraced house in Accrington, Lancashire, with no electricity where one of the attackers once lived.

Knight threatened one girl and ordered her to perform a sex act on one man before holding her back as the other girl screamed for help as she was raped nearby.

As the screaming continued, she told the girl her friend would suffer even more if she did not comply and said ‘she is chilling with my boys’.

The second girl was pulled into a number of rooms by the men who took turns to rape her throughout the night. One man used a wardrobe to barricade her inside.

Both girls were then raped again as one of the men, whose partner was due to give birth at the time, drove them home to Blackburn. He threatened them with a knife.

Three men, brothers Amjad Hussain, 34, and Shahid Hussain, 37, and their cousin father-of-four Tanveer Butt, 39, were all convicted of rape.

The victims had only known Knight for a week and had not met any of their attackers before, the court heard.

Knight, who has been in care since the age of 11, first met Amjad Hussain when he pulled up in his car beside her six months earlier and asked for her number.

They went on to have a sexual relationship and Knight, who said she fell in love with him, also performed sex acts on his brother and cousin.

Following the arrest of the defendants, one of the victims was asked by police what she knew of Knight. She replied: ‘She hangs around with a load of Asian lads.’

Knight had been left traumatised after witnessing a man being kicked to death three months earlier.

Friends said Asian men would lavish her with attention, pay for her meals and take her for rides in their cars.

One source said she was ‘plasticine in their hands’ and had been living on the streets and sofas for six months before the rapes.

The Hussain brothers, who argued the sex was consensual, shouted that they were innocent as they were led from the dock on their conviction.

Judge Beverley Lunt warned the men they will receive ‘long prison sentences’.

The report into street grooming was ordered after the ring-leaders of a Derby gang, which subjected a string of vulnerable girls to sex attacks, were jailed earlier this year.

Several police forces have investigations currently going on into gangs suspected of abusing young girls.

It found 2,379 offenders are suspected of attempting to lure vulnerable victims, often using drugs and alcohol, over the past three years.

A disproportionate 28 per cent of them were found to be Asian, in those cases where ethnicity was recorded. The ethnic group makes up just 6 per cent of the UK population.

In the Derby case, a gang of nine men cruised the streets of the town, picking victims who they plied with vodka and cocaine before attacking them.

Children’s Minister Tim Loughton has suggested that closed Asian communities have turned a blind eye to child sex grooming by gangs of men.

He said criminals had escaped detection because of attitudes within their communities as well as political correctness and racial sensitivities of the authorities.

In January, Mr Straw urged the Pakistani community to think about the problem of young men targeting vulnerable young white girls.

He said: ‘These young men are fizzing and popping with testosterone, they want some outlet for that, but Pakistani-heritage girls are off limits and they are expected to marry a Pakistani girl from Pakistan, typically.

‘So they seek other avenues and see these young women, white girls who are vulnerable, some of them in care, who they think are easy meat.’

The Government will publish an action plan in the autumn, detailing how it will respond to concerns about child sexual exploitation.

Amjad Hussain, of Accrington, Shahid Hussain, of Rochdale, and Butt, of Rochdale, were all convicted of rape and other sexual offences. They and Knight will all be sentenced at Preston Crown Court on September 2.

Trapped: The girls were dragged into the rooms and raped

Original article
Source By Chris Greenwood and Jaya Narain, Daily Mail (London), August 3, 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021635/Teenager-Stephanie-Knight-lured-girls-16-Asian-rape-gang-house.html

Dad confesses to hurting infant son

2011-08-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

Alleged child abuse in Lawrence leaves baby blind, likely wheelchair-bound: MyFoxBOSTON.com

A Lawrence father was arrested Tuesday after he confessed to injuring his infant son.

The Eagle Tribune reports 32-year-old Emanuel M. Quadros was handcuffed and charged with assault and battery on a child under 14 causing substantial injury and disguising with intent to hinder an officer. He is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in Lawrence District Court.

Quadros confessed to hurting baby Jackson Quadros in a May 18 incident that left the 3-week-old child with several broken ribs, fractures in his right leg and a severe brain injury.

According to the Eagle Tribune, Quadros had repeatedly denied knowing anything about his son's injuries. Police said he even blamed the child's mother, saying she admitted to doing it.

But Quadros accepted responsibility for his son's injuries Tuesday by calling the state Department of Children and Families office in Lawrence and telling a social worker assigned to the case that he had dropped his son and caused the injuries and then confessing to police.

The baby remains at a nursing home, where he was transferred after being removed from a ventilator.

Mom charged with punching infant son in mouth on T bus

2011-08-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

Mom charged with punching infant son in mouth on T bus: MyFoxBOSTON.com

A Boston mother was arrested for punching her infant son in the mouth on an MBTA bus.

MBTA Transit Police say 25-tear-old Erica Ryan hit her son hard enough to make his mouth bleed on a Route 23 bus Tuesday afternoon.

According to police, when some passengers on the bus expressed concern for the baby, Ryan told them to mind their own business.

Police say Ryan told responding officers that "I was trying to feed my baby on the crowded bus, then my hand slipped and I hit him in the mouth."

But according to passengers, Ryan began calling her son a "m**********r" and a "f*****g n*****r" when he wouldn't eat. Then she said "little bastard, you got one more chance," according to the police report. When he wouldn't eat, she made a closed fist and punched him in the mouth.

When police arrived at the scene, the report says they found Ryan holding her son, screaming at passengers surrounding her, saying "no one is going to take away my baby!"

When Ryan spotted officers, she ran up the street, still holding her son, screaming that no one would take her child.

The little boy was taken to Boston Medical Center for treatment and observation.

Ryan pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Roxbury District Court on charges of domestic assault and battery. Her bail was set at $500 and she was ordered to stay away from her child.

Ryan's next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 25.

Man Accused of Sexually Assaulting Girl in Mall Restroom

2011-08-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

Solis is accused of sexually assaulting the girl after following her into a women's restroom at the mall on Sunday, according to sheriff's officials.

MORENO VALLEY, Calif. (KTLA) -- Authorities have arrested a man accused of sexually assaulting a young girl inside a restroom at the Moreno Valley Mall.

Moses Solis, 20, of Rialto, was arrested Monday night along the 200 block of Base Line Road.

Surveillance video captured a man entering the bathroom.

Solis is facing charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, sexual penetration of a child, lewd acts on a child under 14 years old, and secretly videotaping the undergarments of another person with the intent to invade their privacy.

Anyone with information in the case is asked to contact investigators at (951) 247-8700 or (951) 486-6811.

Child Torture: Adoptive parents ordered to prison for child abuse

2011-08-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Pamela Hardy, 47, a stay-at-home Altamonte Springs mom accused of starving her two adoptive children and spanking them until they bled faces a minimum of 11 years in prison. (RED HUBER/ORLANDO SENTINEL / August 1, 2011)

SANFORD - A judge Monday sentenced an Altamonte Springs mother to 11 1/2 years in prison for spanking a 9-year-old boy and his 6-year-old sister - children she had just adopted - so often and so hard that she left them bruised and bloody.

Pamela Hardy, 47, was the primary abuser in her household, but her husband, Dwayne Hardy, 50, was charged, too.

He was sentenced to two years in prison Monday.

Pamela Hardy had earlier pleaded no contest to aggravated child abuse and child neglect. He was convicted of a less serious charge - child neglect - by a Seminole County jury in June.

Video: Judge Perry calls Casey Anthony's probation issue 'a mess'

Circuit Judge Jessica Recksiedler pronounced sentence after listening to nearly five hours of testimony, much of it from friends and family members, who described the Hardys as godly parents who were strict disciplinarians but not abusers.

The children, now 11 and 7, were not in court, but their foster mother, Elaine Murray, read letters from each. The boy wrote that Pamela Hardy spanked them until they were bloody and punished them by putting them in a pen with the family dog.

"I've had nightmares every night now, and I hate it," wrote the boy.

At Dwayne Hardy's trial six weeks ago, the children testified that "Miss Pam" sometimes spanked them daily, often on their bare bottoms with a wooden paddle. She also smacked the palms of their hands with a kitchen spoon, leaving them bruised and gashed.

When Assistant State Attorney Stacey Salmons showed the judge photos of the children's injuries Monday, some courtroom onlookers gasped. The bottoms of both children have deep and permanent scars.

The children moved in with the Hardys in November 2009. They were removed by child protection workers nine months later.

The couple withheld food from the children when they misbehaved, for example, if the boy forgot to feed the family dog, the boy testified six weeks ago. Both children grew so hungry, they rummaged through the family's garbage for food.

Pamela Hardy did not testify. Instead she wrote a letter to the judge, saying she was sorry.

Her husband did testify,saying they decided to adopt the children because they wanted to make the youngsters' "lives richer, better, fuller. … It was never our intention to harm them."

Both children suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. When they moved in, they had medicine, but the Hardys halted that, as well as psychological counseling, according to Tori Telfer, a therapist who counseled the brother and sister then and now.

Instead, the couple tried to control the children's behavior with a sugar-free, gluten-free diet and discipline, they told authorities.

After nine months in the Hardys' home, each child now suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, something for which they will require years of therapy, Telfer said.
Source By
rstutzman@tribune.com

Breaking Soul Tie From Sexual Abuse Part 1

2011-08-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Cathleen (Cathy) Ann O'Brien In Her Own Words Talks About Her Multigenerational Incest-Abused

2011-08-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

Cathleen (Cathy) Ann O'Brien, born 12/4/57 in Muskegon, Michigan.

The story of Cathy O’Brien as told in the book "TRANCE Formation of America: The True Life Story of a ClA Slave." O’Brien is the only vocal and recovered survivor of this alleged mind control experiment. Like many others, Cathy was introduced to the program by her perverted father. Cathy covers an almost unbelievable array of conspiratorial crime: forced prostitution (white slavery) with those in the upper echelons of world politics, covert assignments as a “drug mule” and courier.

My pedophile father, Earl O’Brien, brags that he began substituting his pen*s for my mother’s nipple soon after I was born. My multigenerational incest-abused mother, Carol Tanis, did not protest his perverse actions due to (reportedly) having similar abuse as a child which caused her to acquire Multiple Personality Disorder. My earliest recovered memory was that I could not breathe with my father’s pen** jammed into my little throat.
I recall as a toddler being unable to run (I could barely walk) to my mother for help as my instincts demanded. My mother finally arrived at my side. Rather than comfort me, she accused me of throwing a temper tantrum and "holding my breath". She responded only by throwing a glass of cold water in my face. I was shocked! As the water splashed my face, I knew she would not help and it was up to me to save myself. I automatically Multiple Personality Disordered. I was, of course, too young to logically understand that what my father was doing to me was wrong.

I accepted his strangling sexual abuse as a normal and natural part of my home life, and split off a personality to deal with the pain and suffocation to satisfy his perversions. Therefore as a child, I was dissociative of my father’s abuse. I was totally unable to recall his sexual abuse, even in his presence, until I saw and felt his penis. Then the terror, which was my conditioned response, triggered access to that part of my brain that previously endured the trauma. I was remembering the abuse and how to deal with it. This part of my brain developed into a personality of its own--which belonged to my father--which he rented out and later sold to the U.S. Government as will be explained and detailed in the following pages.
Other parts of my conditioned mind dealt with other abusers, abuses and circumstances. My father was (as revealed by my own investigations) apparently a multigenerational incest child from a large, poor, and horribly dysfunctional family. His mother earned a living as a prostitute for local lumbermen after his father died when he was two years old. My father’s brothers and sister were all sexually and (occult) ritually abused just as he was. They grew up to be drug addicts, prostitutes, street derelicts, and pedophiles who also sexually abused me and my brothers and sisters. I developed more personality splits to deal with the traumas of these torturous relationships.
My mother’s dysfunctional family also appears to be multigenerational, but of a slightly higher socio-economic class. Her father owned the building occupied by a Masonic Blue Lodge he led, and managed a local beer distribution business with her mother after completing his military career. Together they sexually abused my mother and her three brothers, who in turn sexually abused me.
My family often went camping on the vast wilderness acreage surrounding my grandfather’s Masonic Lodge in Newaygo, Michigan. Large bluffs referred to as "The High Banks" overlooked the White River flowing through his property, which is where we pitched our tents. My mother’s brothers, Uncle Ted and Uncle Arthur "Bomber" Tanis, often accompanied us and sexually abused my brother and me.

It was deer hunting season in or around November, 1961, when my father took the family camping on The High Banks to hunt with my uncles. That night, as my brother and I were being sexually passed around the campfire to satisfy pedophile perversions, a lost hunter stumbled into our camp. My father shot him when he attempted to run; the rifle’s blasts piercing my brain and further fragmenting my mind. I sat dazed in a dissociative trance while my mother methodically picked up the campsite and my father and uncles disposed of the body.
As my father drove us away from the crime scene, we were stopped by several hunters who had the road blocked in a desperate attempt to locate their missing companion. They described the man I saw my father kill, and said they heard gunshots. Reality intruded on my dissociative trance, and I screamed and cried hysterically until I no longer knew why I was crying.

Source Links By
http://panachereport.com

http://trance-formation.com/index.htm

MULTIDIMENSIONAL CHILD SEX RINGS

2011-08-03T16:06:00.000-07:00

What are "these kinds of cases?" They were and continue to be difficult to define. They all involve allegations of what sounds like child sexual abuse, but with a combination of some atypical dynamics. These cases seem to have the following four dynamics in common: (1) multiple young victims, (2) multiple offenders, (3) fear as the controlling tactic, and (4) bizarre or ritualistic activity.

---- (1) MULTIPLE YOUNG VICTIMS

In almost all the cases the sexual abuse was alleged to have taken place or at least begun when the victims were between the ages of birth and six. This very young age may be an important key to understanding these cases. In addition the victims all described multiple children being abused. The numbers ranged from three or four to as many as several hundred victims.

---- (2) MULTIPLE OFFENDERS

In almost all the cases the victims reported numerous offenders. The numbers ranged from two or three all the way up to dozens of offenders. In one recent case the victims alleged 400-500 offenders were involved. Interestingly many of the offenders (perhaps as many as 40-50 percent) were reported to be females. The multiple offenders were often family members and were described as being part of a cult, occult, or satanic group.

---- (3) FEAR AS CONTROLLING TACTIC

Child molesters in general are able to maintain control and ensure the secrecy of their victims in a variety of ways. These include attention and affection, coercion, blackmail, embarrassment, threats, and violence. In almost all of these cases I have studied, the victims described being frightened and reported threats against themselves, their families, their friends, and even their pets. They reported witnessing acts of violence perpetrated to reinforce this fear. It is my belief that this fear and the traumatic memory of the events may be another key to understanding many of these cases.

---- (4) BIZARRE OR RITUALISTIC ACTIVITY

This is the most difficult dynamic of these cases to describe. "Bizarre" is a relative term. Is the use of urine or feces in sexual activity bizarre, or is it a well-documented aspect of sexual deviancy, or is it part of established satanic rituals? As previously discussed, the ritualistic aspect is even more difficult to define. How do you distinguish acts performed in a precise manner to enhance or allow sexual arousal from those acts that fulfill spiritual needs or comply with "religious" ceremonies? Victims in these cases report ceremonies, chanting, robes and costumes, drugs, use of urine and feces, animal sacrifice, torture, abduction, mutilation, murder, and even cannibalism and vampirism. All things considered, the word "bizarre" is probably preferable to the word "ritual" to describe this activity.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL CHILD SEX RINGS

As previously stated, a major problem in communicating, training, and researching in this area is the term used to define "these kinds of cases." Many refer to them as "ritual, ritualistic, or ritualized abuse of children cases" or "satanic ritual abuse (SRA) cases." Such words carry specialized meanings for many people and might imply that all these cases are connected to occult or satanic activity. If ritual abuse is not necessarily occult or satanic, but is "merely" severe, repeated, prolonged abuse, why use a term that, in the minds of so many, implies such specific motivation?

Others refer to these cases as "multioffender/multivictim cases." The problem with this term is that most multiple offender and victim cases do not involve the four dynamics discussed above.

For want of a better term, I have decided to refer to "these kinds of cases" as "multidimensional child sex rings." Right now I seem to be the only one using this term. I am, however, not sure if this is truly a distinct kind of child sex ring case or just a case not properly handled.

Following are the general characteristics of these multidimensional child sex ring cases as contrasted with more common historical child sex ring cases [see my monograph _Child Sex Rings: A Behavioral Analysis] (1989) for a discussion of the characteristics of historical child sex ring cases]. [NOTE: Monograph is available in PDF format through the link given -- flr]

---- (1) FEMALE OFFENDERS

As many as 40-50 percent of the offenders in these cases are reported to be women. This is in marked contrast to historical child sex rings in which almost all the offenders are men.

---- (2) SITUATIONAL MOLESTERS

The offenders appear to be sexually interacting with the child victims for reasons other than a true sexual preference for children. The children are substitute victims, and the abusive activity may have little to do with pedophilia [see my monograph _Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis_ (1987) for a further explanation about types of molesters]. [NOTE: The monograph is available in PDF format through the link offered -- flr]

---- (3) MALE AND FEMALE VICTIMS

Both boys and girls appear to be targeted, but with an apparent preference for girls. Almost all the adult survivors are female, but day care cases frequently involve male as well as female victims. The most striking characteristic of the victims, however, is their young age (generally birth to six years old when the abuse began.)

---- (4) MULTIDIMENSIONAL MOTIVATION

Sexual gratification appears to be only part of the motivation for the "sexual" activity. Many people today argue that the motivation is "spiritual" - possibly part of an occult ceremony. It is my opinion that the motivation may have more to do with anger, hostility, rage and resentment carried out against weak and vulnerable victims. Much of the ritualistic abuse of children may not be sexual in nature. Some of the activity may, in fact, be physical abuse directed at sexually-significant body parts (penis, anus, nipples.) This may also partially explain the large percentage of female offenders. Physical abuse of children by females is well- documented.

---- (5) PORNOGRAPHY AND PARAPHERNALIA

Although many of the victims of multidimensional child sex rings claim that pictures and videotapes of the activity were made, no such visual record has been found by law enforcement. In recent years, American law enforcement has seized large amounts of child pornography portraying children in a wide variety of sexual activity and perversions. None of it, however, portrays the kind of bizarre and/or ritualistic activity described by these victims. Perhaps these offenders use and store their pornography and paraphernalia in ways different from preferential child molesters (pedophiles.) This is an area needing additional research and investigation.

---- (6) CONTROL THROUGH FEAR

Control through fear may be the overriding characteristic of these cases. Control is maintained by frightening the children. A very young child might not be able to understand the significance of much of the sexual activity but certainly understands fear. The stories that the victims tell may be their perceived versions of severe traumatic memories. They may be the victims of a severely traumatized childhood in which being sexually abused was just one of the many negative events affecting their lives.

Source by http://www.cultwatch.com/satanicabuse.html

Multiple Personality Disorder Part 2

2011-08-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

During adolescence, a teenager will often turn to other things to deal with the stress of abnormal and excessive forgetfulness or blackouts. An adolescent with MPD can oftentimes exhibit signs of bi-polar disorder, insomnia, suicide threats and attempts, drug use, violent mood swings and panic attacks. When a teenager exhibits these characteristics, MPD is not the first diagnosis to be explored, rather, it is blamed on hormones or drug use. These things can only fuel MPD rather than calm it. Adulthood, or in the age range of 20 years to 30 years old is when a person with MPD is usually diagnosed. This is a time in a person's life when the symptoms of MPD directly interfere with their lives. Not knowing where you are or how you got there is a big issue if you are trying to raise children or maintain a marriage. Also, as an adult, there is the freedom to seek help. Diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder is a complicated process. It involves many psychological tests on the patient as well as preliminary therapy to accurately determine if the patient has MPD. The International Society for the Study of Dissociation revised guidelines in 1996 concerning treatment options for persons with MPD. According to their website, www.issd.org, "A mental status examination augmented with questions concerning disassociative symptoms is an essential part of the diagnostic process." This means there are specific questions and evaluations that have to be presented before a diagnosis is made. The patient is asked questions about hearing voices, forgetfulness beyond normal, amnesia, problems with identity, regressed memories and hypnotic episodes. Also according to the website, "Structured interviews for the detection of dissociative disorders are now available and can be used to confirm a clinician's diagnosis". Such interviews are the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, which helps the therapist "evaluate and document the severity of specific…symptoms", and the Dissociative Disorder Interview Schedule that is a detailed interview to diagnose MPD. The problem with the diagnosis of Multiple Personality Disorder is that it takes such a long time to actually diagnose, the average is six years to eight years but it can take up to twenty. The reason for this is the disease is often hidden behind other disorders that have stemmed from MPD such as depression and/or anxiety. Those persons who use MPD for attention or to justify abnormal behaviors are looked at closely. In truth, genuine MPD persons "conceal their awareness of the problem"(www.menninger.edu).

The "personalities" in Multiple Personality Disorder are different within the person. Each personality can have separate memories, behaviors, physical attributes, and even a different gender than the patient. For example, when remembering child abuse, a patient may have a personality to just remember those memories of abuse and will act violent or withdrawn even if the patient is someone who it outgoing. The personalities serve different purposes. The self-help personality acts as the self-confidence of the patient and gives the person self-esteem in high stress situations involving confrontation. The persecutory personality acts on the hate within the person with MPD. For example, if someone tends to self-mutilate it is the persecutory personality acting on the person's behalf. The hate within the person can be so great they relieve the stress with the persecutory personality. Switching is the term used when a person goes between one personality and the other. Co-consciousness refers to the ability of the personalities to know each other and their actions. There is a wide range of treatment options for Multiple Personality Disorder; yet there are no controlled clinical studies involving the outcome of MPD treatments. Further research is needed to find the ideal treatment. When treating MPD it is important to have "stabilization, control of dysfunctional behavior, restoration of functioning and improvement of relationships" (wwww.issd.org/isdguide.htm). Treatments include hypnotherapy, memory therapy, psychotherapy, and inpatient treatment. In hypnotherapy (hypnosis) sometimes MPD is discovered when the person is there for a different treatment. Hypnotherapy can also be used for memory retrieval. Under hypnosis, the alters may come out and reveal abusive childhood memories. Although the most common use for hypnotherapy is for calming and soothing the person during their treatment. Memory therapy involves recovering the memories the patient may have had that has triggered their multiple personalities. When this is done the therapist will "re-integrate the alters into the dominant personality" (www.religioustolerance.org). Meaning, once the memories are recovered, they are transferred to the main personality or namely, the patient.