Police across Ontario nabbed 60 suspects, including three teens and a former youth worker, and identified 22 victims in what police say is the largest child porn bust in Ontario history.

Police executed 76 search warrants Wednesday and filed 213 charges, including sexual assault, child luring, and accessing, possessing, making and distributing child pornography.

The three teen boys charged are all 16 years old. The oldest suspect is 69, police said.

Also among the suspects is Gregory William Pickard, 41, who was a youth worker at a group home for young people and worked with children at his church. This is the second time in just over a year he faces child porn-related charges.

None of the suspects are part of a child-porn ring, police said. Investigators monitored their computer activities using specialized software.

Twenty-five police departments in Ontario took part in the raids, including Sault Ste. Marie, Ottawa, Sudbury, Cornwall, North Bay, Chatham, Brantford, Sarnia, Barrie, London, Toronto and Hamilton.

Scott Tod, acting commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, said the project is aimed at stopping the sexual abuse of children. “Child pornography is the sexual abuse of children,” he said. “Every image...represents a child victim. “Every trading or transmission of that image represents a re-victimzation of that child.”

Additional arrests and charges are pending, Goldschmidt said.

He said child pornography is pervasive in Ontario. Police with the Provincial Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation on the Internet identified more than 8,900 IP addresses on child pornography sites in the past three months, Goldschmidt said. Of those, police arrested 60 suspects, he said.

Goldschmidt said police face constant technological challenges as they try to keep up with child pornographers.

“It’s like the speeders on the highway,” Goldschmidt said. “There are so many of them out there that you only going get (some) of them.”

Rev. Charles Robert Manning, a pastor at St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church in Colorado Springs, has been placed on leave following allegations of sexual abuse involving a child.

Rev. Torres-Rico reminded attendees of the church's child safety policy during Mass. Any child under the age of 12 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian at all times.

A statement from the Colorado Springs Police Department reveals no other details.

An Edmonton-area man has pleaded guilty to more than a decade of sexual abuse of minors, including his son and daughter.

The 41-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, entered guilty pleas to 27 of the 40 charges against him, including charges of sexual touching, child pornography, unlawful confinement, incest and bestiality.

The man’s victims included his son, his daughter, the daughter of a girlfriend and two daughters of a fiancee. Four of five victims were minors at the time of the abuse. The crimes stretched from 1999 until 2010, according to an agreed statement of facts heard by the court.

The man’s daughter told police of sexual abuse that started when she was six years old, though she didn’t recognize it as abuse until she was 11. When she was 11, her father ordered her and her 10- year-old brother to have sex. Her father had intercourse with her. There were numerous instances of abuse in the following years.

The siblings were afraid to tell anyone of their fathers’ crimes and both attempted suicide as a direct result of the abuse.

He is scheduled to face trial on March 12.

A 70-year-old Easton man on Monday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to sexually exploiting two pre-teen girls to produce child pornography.

According to the plea agreement, two girls under the age of 10 stated that they had been repeatedly, sexually abused by Paul Henry Brown over the course of several months, to include being forced to perform oral sex on Brown.

Prosecutors said Talbot County sheriff's deputies contacted Brown on July 30, 2010, who denied the allegations. On Aug. 11, 2010, Talbot County deputies executed a search warrant at Brown's home and seized a digital camera and flash memory card. Two CD-Rs were also seized which prosecutors said contained more than 600 images and many videos of child pornography, including portrayals of sadistic conduct. Most of the images involved prepubescent girls, court records show.

As part of his plea agreement, Brown must register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

Brown faces a minimum mandatory sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum of 30 in prison followed by up to a lifetime of supervised release. Sentencing is scheduled for April 25, 2012.

A Tennessee man convicted last year of charges including the purchasing of a child was given a sentence Monday of 15 to 45 years in prison.

Mark Lynn Jeffrey, 55, of Mount Juliet, Tenn., was convicted in November 2011 on charges including two counts of purchasing a child, sexual abuse first degree, sexual assault first degree, and sexual abuse by a custodian.

Williams said that Jeffrey will have to spend 15 years in prison before he is eligible for parole. After release, he will be on probation for five years, and then he will have lifetime supervised probation as a sex offender.

On Dec. 12, 2006, Jeffrey went to his daughter-in-law’s home in Kegley and tried to exchange approximately $20,000 for the custody of his two grandchildren. Jeffrey said later to investigators with the West Virginia State Police that he wanted to give the children a better home environment. Jeffrey was tried in August 2011, but a mistrial was declared when the jury could not reach a verdict.

He is now in jail awaiting transfer to a state prison.

A Southern California federal judge has sentenced 34-year-old Joshua Boras to 25 years in prison for distributing a video of his sexual abuse of a boy to an international child exploitation group.

Prosecutors say Boras was affiliated with the "Lost Boy" online bulletin board for trading of child porn. The Internet site was shut down three years ago and 15 defendants have pleaded guilty or have been convicted at trial.

Investigators say the group had 35 members in the United States, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

New members were required to post child porn to join the organization.

A 10-year-old boy alleges the owner of a day-care center sexually molested him for three months.

San Antonio police arrested Bradley Bendele over the weekend on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child. He was in jail on a $100,000 bond Monday morning, but was expected to be released Monday afternoon after he is fitted with an ankle monitoring device.

According to an arrest warrant, the 38-year-old and his wife operate a child-care business out of their home. The alleged victim was one of the children they watched.

Police said the boy was sexually abused at the home from July to October 2011. The boy told police that Bendele molested him as the two played video games on one occasion.

Police said the suspect was aggressive and even cursed the child during the acts as the boy tried to escape the abuse.

The boy eventually told his mother, who called police. Investigators said Bendele allegedly had told the child he would kill his entire family if he told anyone.

The warrant indicates that Bendele initially denied knowing the child or playing video games with him, but police said he has since changed his story.

However, the arrest document does not say that he has confessed to the crime.

A registered sex offender who has already served a seven-year sentence for molesting a young girl from his church congregation was sentenced again Thursday — this time for targeting a new victim.

David Fino, 57, asked the judge for the death penalty. He got eight life sentences, two of them stacked and without the possibility of parole.

A jury found him guilty Friday of super aggravated sexual assault of a child younger than 6, continuous sexual abuse of a child and six other first-degree felony molestation charges involving the same girl.

The child, now 9, had testified via closed circuit TV that Fino targeted her for years before she came forward, and that she was molested again even after she told authorities. Molestation charges are pending against Sally Brooks Fino, the defendant's wife.

Because Fino's 1992 conviction involved allegations from two girls also younger than 6, state District Judge Angus McGinty was required to sentence him to life without parole for the new super aggravated charge. The judge could have assessed lesser sentences for some of the other charges but chose not to.

Before the sentences were announced, Fino told the judge in a rambling statement that his health is failing and that he has lost weight since returning to jail. He asked for the death penalty, but execution is an option only for capital murder cases.

Fino did not acknowledge or apologize for the molestations.

Afterward, he was confronted by a woman, now 28, who testified against him during the 1992 trial but was too young then to give a victim impact statement.

“I was sentenced and imprisoned for the rest of my life the moment you touched me,” she said. “So shall you be imprisoned, for me and the rest of the children you touched. You deserve this.”

After the hearing, Natalie — who gave the Express-News permission to use her first name but asked that her last name be withheld — expressed fear that there are other victims who never came forward.

“We're still suffering,” Natalie's mother added, pointing out that her daughter is still in therapy. “When all this happened, it didn't just destroy my daughter — it destroyed my whole family.”

A New Jersey waitress has been accused of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl she was baby-sitting, laughing and chatting with someone as she filmed the assault and streamed video of it over the Internet.

Jennifer Mahoney is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor on three occasions last fall. During one assault, in which the girl was abused in a bathtub, Mahoney told her she needed to be rinsed "like a mermaid," according to documents filed by prosecutors.

Mahoney created three pornographic videos using a video chat session with a man in Texas, prosecutors said. She is partially naked in the videos, and in one clip she touches herself while sexually abusing the sleeping child, they said. In another clip, they said, she tells the girl to bend over so she can rinse her off.

"Like a mermaid?" the girl says, according to court documents.

"Like a mermaid, sweetheart," Mahoney replies, according to an FBI agent.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said Mahoney "sexually assaulted a child, cavalierly recording and sharing the girl's humiliation over video chat."

"We cannot forget that for every image or video of what we call child pornography, a child will carry the lifelong scars of rape and abuse recorded for others' gratification," Fishman said. "Whether making, distributing or viewing child pornography, the depraved appetites of offenders create a market for the destruction of a child's innocence."

Mahoney, 32, has been in custody since Dec. 14, the day after the videos were found on the computer of a Texas man to whom she streamed them, prosecutors said.

She is due in federal court Jan. 30, when she plans to plead not guilty, defense attorney Herb Ellis said.

Mahoney, who's from Manalapan, 35 miles southwest of New York City, pleaded not guilty to similar state charges last week stemming from the same case, her lawyer said.

But court documents indicate that when Mahoney was questioned by the FBI in December, she acknowledged performing a sex act on the child while she was baby-sitting. She also told investigators she streamed live video of one of the sexual assaults to two men using an online chat service and acknowledged filming another assault with her cellphone and sending video of it to two other people, the documents say.

According to an FBI affidavit, authorities recovered three videos showing her sexually assaulting the girl in October and November. The affidavit describes the sexual assaults in graphic terms. On one, the FBI agent notes, there is no audio. But, the agent notes, "it appears that the adult female is talking and laughing during the video, and it appears that the adult female is talking to another person over the Internet via a webcam."

Two of the videos appeared to have been made in Mahoney's bedroom, the third in the bathtub of her home, the affidavit says.

The court documents make no mention of any possible charges against the people who received the videos.

Four consecutive life sentences followed by 135 years in prison was given Tuesday to a man convicted last week of sex crimes against children.

Superior Court Judge Michael Annis followed the state’s recommendation to give the maximum sentence to Robert Gruka, who was found guilty of all charges on his 14-count indictment.

Four of the charges – rape, aggravated child molestation and two counts of aggravated sexual battery – carried life sentences. The least serious charges – five misdemeanor counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor – tacked a year apiece on the sentence. The incest charge brought 50 years in prison, plus 20 years each for four charges of child molestation.

The indictment listed five preteen girls as the victims, but testimony during the three-day trial suggested that as many as eight girls were abused of Gruka during the past 15 years. “Those are only the ones we know about,” Annis said. “We wonder how many other lives have been robbed of their innocence and ... how many others are bearing the scars of childhood abuse.”

Gruka’s attorney, Peter Johnson, said he was contacted this weekend by one of those victims, who he said expressed dismay over the conviction and doubted Gruka’s guilt. He also told Annis that one of the 8-year-old victims continued to write Gruka in jail, telling him that she loved him and wanted to know when he was coming home. Johnson said he cannot reconcile those letters with the way the prosecution has portrayed Gruka as a sexual predator.

“I need to understand how there can be such a difference,” Johnson said. “The child is saying ‘he molested me’ but at the same time professes to love him.”

Gruka staggered slightly where he stood when he heard the name of the victim. After swiping his eyes with back of his hand, he declined to say anything to the judge.

Assistant District Attorney Natalie Paine made a plea for Annis to give the maximum sentence, calling Gruka a “monster” who never apologized to the victims.

“This man does not deserve to see the light of day ever again,” Paine said.

Annis said he didn’t have any doubts that the children still loved Gruka. They’re too innocent to know any better; it’s when they grow older and realize the reality of what Gruka did to them that it becomes a very different story, the judge said.

“Sadly, for those children, that’s just normalcy,” Annis said.

A former pediatric doctor at Edmonton's Stollery Children's Hospital has been convicted of sexually abusing two young boys, under the age of 10 at the time of the abuse.

On July 15, 2009, Det. Francine McVeigh interviewed both boys at the Zebra Child Protection Centre, said the convictions are important because it means Castillo Cortes can never be in a position of trust as a doctor.

Crown prosecutor Marisa Anderson requested a psychological assessment be done on the former doctor before sentencing arguments begin, a process that will take weeks.

A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.

Two Glastonbury men accused of sexually assaulting their adopted children appeared before a judge in Superior Court in Hartford Tuesday.

George Harasz and Douglas Wirth pleaded not guilty, and their cases were continued to Feb. 29.

Both were arrested on Nov. 30. Harasz, 48, was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, aggravated first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, two counts of risk of injury to a minor and cruelty to persons.

Wirth, 44, was charged with one count of third-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor.

According to the arrest warrants, Harasz sexually assaulted two boys, ages 5 and 15, through sodomy and repeated inappropriate touching in bathrooms and bedrooms. The abuse often occurred under the guise of cleaning or massaging them, police said.

Wirth is accused of sexually assaulting the 15-year-old to a lesser degree, and of doing nothing to intervene as he witnessed Harasz sexually assault the teenager, according to the warrants.

Harasz also is accused of physically abusing the 15-year-old, including hitting and slapping the boy frequently, and striking him with a belt.

Glastonbury police interviewed more than half of the married couple's nine adopted children, and several said they did not experience any inappropriate sexual contact with Harasz or Wirth. One of the adopted sons and Harasz's biological daughter said that no abuse occurred in the house.

Another adopted son, Chris Harasz, told investigators that what went on in the Harasz-Wirth home was traumatic and unhealthy.

A former Scottish Conservative Holyrood candidate who sexually abused children over 15 years has been jailed for eight years.

John Smart, 48, from Edinburgh, began abusing one boy when the child was aged three. He also attempted to rape an 11-year-old girl.

Smart, described as a preacher, was convicted of sexually abusing three children following a trial at the High Court in Perth in December. Sentencing him at the High Court in Glasgow today, Lady Dorian said the offences had involved a "significant degree of grooming".

She ordered him to serve eight years behind bars and a three-year extended sentence which will see him supervised for that period once he is released.

She said "The offences were planned, intrusive and involved a significant degree of grooming. Your victims were vulnerable and it was as they came to rely on you as a friend and for support that you committed these offences against them."

She said an extended sentence is necessary for the protection of the public as Smart poses a "sufficiently significant risk".

Smart began abusing the three-year-old in April 1987 and continued to do so over a 10-year period, at addresses in Edinburgh and at swimming pools around the country.

The former train conductor sexually abused a second boy on one occasion between August 1987 and 1989 when the child was aged between five and seven, and the girl on various occasions over five years from April 1997 when she was eight.

Lady Dorian also placed him on the sex offenders register.

Smart stood as a Scottish Conservative candidate for Holyrood in 2003.

Closing arguments were given today in the civil trial against a Miami day care center where the alleged sex abuse of a 5-year-old girl happened in 2008.

The family of the alleged victim is seeking $25 million claiming Discover Day Care Inc. was negligent in not having adults supervise children at the center at all times.

"If someone says to you, that's too much money for one person, you say that's too much pain for a 5-year old," said attorney Jeff Herman.

"She's being raped and she doesn't even know what sex is," Herman added.

During the trial, the alleged victim testified that the teacher told her class that a 13-year-old boy, her son, was in charge during nap time while she went out to lunch. During that time she said the boy sexually abused her.

The defense says the incident never happened, and the alleged abuser, now a 17-year-old, flatly denied doing anything inappropriate with the girl.

"Did anyone at the school ever see her traumatized, crying, complaining, acting out? No," said defense lawyer Don Hardeman.

The boy pleaded no-contest to the sexual abuse charges in the criminal case and was sentenced to counseling, but the jury was not told that information.

Three of the boy’s therapist did testify that he admitted to his behavior as part of his counseling. “He admits to touching her vagina,” said one of his therapists.

At one point in the trial the teacher testified that that she had written a note claiming the girl had told her she had asked boy to touch her private parts. But attorneys for victim produced attendance records showing that the girl was absent on the day that the teacher alleges that conversation took place.

“You did not speak to (the victim) on June 20 did you?” the lawyer asked.

“I don’t remember,” the teacher said.

In December 2009, Delawareans were coming to grips with the arrest of former pediatrician Earl Bradley for sexually molesting scores of young patients at his Lewes office. Delaware’s response was quick. In 2010, legislators prepared a package of bills—known collectively as the “Bradley bills”— designed to strengthen patient protection and improve oversight of the medical profession, passed those bills unanimously, and Governor Jack Markell signed them into law in June of that year. But in the year and a half since, how much of a difference have the new laws made?

Two reviews were ordered following Bradley’s arrest—one by the Attorney General’s office and another by Linda L. Ammons, dean of Widener Law School. Both revealed systemic failures that allowed Bradley to continue practicing despite numerous red flags of misconduct raised by colleagues and family members.

The “Bradley bills” were designed to tighten regulations on doctors and clarify the legal obligations of the medical and law enforcement communities to report and share information about suspected physician misconduct and child sexual abuse.

“These are sensitive cases and you need to approach them in a way that offers opportunities for victims to come forward and to feel they’re not going to run the risk of being re-victimized,” said Mike Barlow, chief legal counsel in the Office of the Governor.

The new laws contain the following major provisions:

• A requirement that there be another adult present when the physician examines a disrobed patient aged 15 years or younger;
• A requirement that doctors, police and prosecutors receive additional training in recognizing and reporting child abuse;
• A requirement that physicians undergo the same background checks as teachers and other professionals who work with youth;
• A more robust reporting process enhanced by strengthening the Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline’s ability to police unprofessional conduct and clarifying and simplifying its administrative procedures to improve efficiency and its ability to work with law enforcement.

Last year, the threat of license revocation for misconduct or failure to report child sexual abuse was extended to include mental health and chemical dependency professionals, nurses, dentists, social workers, psychologists, dentists and dental hygienists, and physician’s assistants. “One of the main impacts of this package of legislation is to make sure that the community, the state, caregivers, providers, doctors and citizens know that they have a mandatory duty to report child abuse and neglect when they see it to the state,” said Attorney General Beau Biden.

Dean Ammons, who made 68 recommendations in her Bradley case review, most of which were included in the legislation, agrees. “You can’t legislate morals,” she said. “But what the state can do is remove or attempt to remove barriers that make it complicated or difficult for people to do the right thing.”

Indeed, experts commend Delaware for its ability to act swiftly and decisively where other states have failed. “Pennsylvania is a good example,” said Stephen J. Neuberger, attorney and partner in The Neuberger Firm in Wilmington. “They had the grand jury report (on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia) which just boggles the mind and that didn’t get the legislature to do anything.”

Better educating the public about child sexual abuse will help break the silence and taboo that surrounds child sexual abuse and bolster the efforts made in the legislative arena. In September, Biden announced a coordinated initiative to educate adults about recognizing the signs of child abuse and their legal obligation to report suspected crimes. The partnership, which includes Prevent Child Abuse Delaware, the YMCA of Delaware as well as the Attorney General’s office, aims to train 35,000 Delawareans or about 5 percent of the population, in the “Steward of Children” sexual abuse program.

“[Nationally], one out of four girls is sexually assaulted before they’re 18,” said Biden. “One out of six boys is sexually assaulted before they’re 18. Only one out of ten of these victims is ever able to muster the courage to report because nine out of ten of the perpetrators know or say they love or had the child entrusted to them. So it should come as no surprise that children who don’t have voices have a tough time raising their voice to report someone who has raped or abused them. It’s not a child’s responsibility. It’s our responsibility.”

A man authorities described as one of Arizona's most egregious serial child molesters was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison Friday for sexually abusing eight boys.

Arthur Leon Vitasek, 47, was found guilty in November of 26 counts that included sexual conduct with a minor, child molestation and public sexual indecency.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Reinstein sentenced Vitasek to 11 life sentences on 11 of the charges, and since the terms will be served consecutively, Vitasek will never be eligible for parole. Vitasek was sentenced to an additional 200 years in prison on the other counts.

The charges stem from the molestation of eight boys from 7 to 15 years old in Phoenix and the suburbs of Mesa and Paradise Valley over a 15-year period beginning in 1990. Police suspect there are more victims.

Vitasek often targeted financially struggling single mothers, helping them with material items and showering their sons with gifts and attention, authorities said.

Prosecutors said Vitasek would meet new victims through current victims and would abuse them in front of each other to make them think it was OK. He lived in the home of one boy and his family for a period of years.

Vitasek testified in court that three of the victims, all brothers, targeted him because they wanted to keep items that they had stolen from him, including a Corvette and a personal watercraft.

Vitasek also said he caught several of the other victims having sex with each other and they only accused him of molesting them because he threatened to report them, said Bob Dossey, Vitasek's Chandler-based attorney.

Dossey said Reinstein did not allow Vitasek to present that version of events in court. "Arthur maintains that he is innocent," Dossey said, adding that he will appeal Vitasek's conviction.

Seven of the boys in the case gave emotional testimony during the two-month trial, describing the same type of so-called grooming behaviors by Vitasek and the same type of sex acts - testimony prosecutor Brad Astrowsky said was compelling to jurors.

"It creates an overwhelming picture of the type of person this defendant was," he said. "And that was a serial sexual predator of boys."

Astrowsky said that after receiving his sentence, Vitasek yelled at the victims in court, saying, "I'll be back!"

The other prosecutor in the case, Angela Andrews, said that in all her years of prosecuting sexual predators, Vitasek's case was "the most egregious."

Detective Steve Berry with Mesa police, the lead investigative agency in the case, called Vitasek "a true classic predator." "You do want to get a maximum sentence on someone like that," he said. "You don't want him to get another opportunity to hurt a child."

Vitasek was arrested in Texas in September 2006 after being on the lam for more than a year and a half. "America's Most Wanted" featured him on the program numerous times before his arrest.

Police in the Dallas suburb of Grand Prairie arrested Vitasek after a 16-year-old boy reported that Vitasek sexually assaulted him after they met on the Internet.

Grand Prairie police said Vitasek was using a different name, Rich Loper, and that Vitasek only admitted his real name after a detective recognized him and repeatedly questioned him about his identity.

Vitasek's case also gained attention because he was mentored by former Arizona House Speaker Jim Weiers, who had hired him for a couple of jobs and allowed him to live in his home for a time. Weiers is still a state representative.

"One of the biggest things with molestation and rape and these types of cases is oftentimes victims feel like they're the only ones and no one's going to believe them and they're reluctant to come forward," he said. "So I think it is fantastic when victims can see that people do believe them and take them seriously, and know that this guy's not going to harm anyone else."

A Cambodian court on Wednesday sentenced an American doctor to 10 years in prison for paying for sex with two boys, aged 12 and 15.

The boys' parents filed a complaint to police who monitored Phillip Bruce Shepard, 69, and arrested him in July.

Shepard worked at a private Phnom Penh clinic before he was arrested, The Australian Associated Press quoted an official from a local anti-pedophile group Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE) as saying.

APLE started watching the Michigan native in 2007 after he was seen going into a hotel room with two boys.

The court ordered Shepard expelled once he serves his prison time.

Cambodia has long been a magnet for foreign pedophiles because of poverty and poor law enforcement. In recent years police and courts have increasingly targeted sex offenders.

Child protection activists were dismayed last month when at least three convicted offenders were freed by royal pardon, including a Russian who was the focus of the country's largest pedophilia case after he paid for sex with 17 girls, the AAP reported.

A convicted sex offender who runs a software company out of his Reno home was recently ordered by a judge to pay a former employee $7.7 million for enduring a four-year period of sexual assault and batteries — that began at age 15 — where the young man was also secretly filmed using the restroom and showering.

Washoe District Judge Patrick Flanagan’s Oct. 27 order against Mark Worsnop, 55, brought an end to a civil lawsuit that had been on-going since 2007. The time allowed under the law to appeal the ruling has now passed. Flanagan’s ruling followed a four-day hearing where testimony was heard from the former employee and Worsnop. Flanagan said he ordered the multi-million dollar judgement against Worsnop to appropriately punish him, and deter him and others from engaging in similar misconduct.

What Worsnop described as a long term “consensual relationship” to the RGJ was what the employee, his attorney and Flanagan said was sexual assault.

The man said he finally quit in 2007 when he found the secret video recordings of him using the bathroom, masturbating at his desk and in the shower. He then reported the incident to the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, as did Worsnop’s counselor when he learned the boy’s age, according to court records. Complaints were also made about Worsnop to his church and the Boy Scouts, according to testimony.

According to court filings in this case and the allegations to which Worsnop admitted, in 1997 Worsnop pleaded no contest in California to a charge related to molesting a boy. In a statement to the Reno Gazette-Journal, Worsnop said his sex offense conviction was expunged from his record, although Digesti said he is mandated by the law to register as a sex offender with the local police department.

Two children were systematically raped, starved and beaten for years by wicked pedophiles. They say they were failed by the system, by those they turned to for help. Now, with their abusers finally behind bars, they feel they’re being let down all over again. (by Adam Wakelin, This is Leicestershire)

A teenage brother and sister who suffered almost four years of horrific sexual abuse want a full and open inquiry into their case. The Leicestershire children say lessons must be learned so other youngsters can be better protected from evil pedophiles.

They have accused Leicestershire County Council of using an ongoing internal review – which will not be made public – to cynically cover-up a catalogue of alleged failures that left them in the clutches of their abusive step-father Mark Thomas and his brother, Paul Thomas.

"I'll always remember thinking 'Please get us away. Please get us out'. But they never did," said the girl, now 16, who like her 15-year-old brother, cannot be named for legal reasons.

They decided to speak out after a senior council official stated the aim of its review was "not to point the finger", but to "highlight the excellent practices of our staff". That comment left the youngsters feeling they were being let down all over again.

Detective Constable Andy Spence conducted the investigation that finally put their abusers behind bars. "I worked this case for four years and I know pretty much everything that's in the files," he said. "A lot of concerns were raised by different agencies, but those kids weren't removed. "It came out in the trial that these children weren't exaggerating. Everything they spoke about was proven to be true.

Jan Slater, the council's head of service for children in care, said the review would look at what social services could do better and what had been done well. She defended the decision not to make the findings public.

The girl first told a nursery nurse that her daddy had hurt her on the bed in 1999. The nurse informed social services. Neighbors, a head teacher, a housing officer and health professionals also raised concerns about the children's safety to the authorities. Yet Leicestershire Social Services did not get the children out of their squalid Ibstock home until November 2002 – three years and 10 months after the first allegation of abuse was made.

The girl and her brother were systematically raped, starved and beaten by Mark and Paul Thomas.

Both were jailed for 18 years last month after being convicted of a string of sex crimes against the youngsters.

Their birth mother, Alyson Mepham, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years after admitting cruelty by neglect.

The youngsters were made to see Mepham and Mark Thomas at a child-parent contact centre, even after they went to live with their foster parents. Mepham and Thomas used those visits to try to force the children to keep secret what had been done to them.

The Thomas brothers roamed free for nine years after the children were taken into care. Police have not ruled out the possibility that they went on to prey on other youngsters.

That would have not been allowed to happen if the allegations against them had been properly dealt with by social services, said the children – another reason why a full inquiry is so necessary.

The hardest thing for the children to understand is not how or why it happened, but how it was allowed to go on happening. For years. Again and again. As their weight fell and their bruises spread. As they went to school covered in filth and head-lice, stinking of stale urine, stealing food from their classmates because they were starving. As the concerned calls from a head teacher, neighbours, a housing officer and others to Leicestershire social services mounted up.

Their mother, Alyson Mepham, turned a blind eye to the abuse. Her other three children, the sons she had with Mark Thomas, played downstairs, while Amanda and Ben, kept caged behind a specially made iron gate, were used and abused by the brothers for their sick sexual gratification.

The federal trial for a former Provider bus driver accused of filming his sexual contact with three children under his care was continued this month after a request by the man's attorney was granted by a judge.

Attorney Harry Starbranch filed the motion on Jan. 6, saying that needed more time with his client, John Allen Wright, 45, of Milton, to prepare for trial after the completion of a mental competency evaluation on the man last month. Wright was scheduled to go on trial on Jan. 18 to face five counts of sexual exploitation of a child, alleging he coerced three different minor children between Nov. 1, 2010 and July 31, 2011 to engage in sexually explicit acts for the purpose of filming those acts.

Wright was arrested on Sept. 1 after an investigation by the state Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force that began in February 2011 led to a search warrant being executed at his home that resulted in the discovery of an external hard drive, identified as being used by Wright, that contained approximately 10,000 images and movies depicting child sexual abuse.

Wright was working as a school bus driver of special needs children with Provider Enterprises Inc., for which he drove buses in Kittery, Maine, Rochester, and other local areas, at the time of his arrest.

Wright previously worked as a bus driver for the Milton School District and as an assistant teacher at Rochester Child Care Center and Quirion Preschool and Learning Center, also in Rochester, in the 1990s, according to investigators.

Last month, Wright was indicted by the state on 15 new charges, including numerous counts sexual assault and indecent exposure and lewdness, alleging he engaged in sexual contact with a young boy, now 5, while on his school bus, as seen in videos found on Wright's computer.

According to County Attorney Tom Velardi, more charges are likely for Wright.

Until the federal case against the former bus driver is complete, however, the state's case will be on hold in order to not interfere with the federal government, Velardi said.

Wright has been scheduled for a final pretrial conference on March 12 and jury selection for his trial is expected to begin on March 20 at 9:30 a.m.

Richard Sangalang, a 39-year-old nurse from Surprise, pleaded guilty to three counts of luring a minor for sexual exploitation.

Sangalang, who was arrested in February, was sentenced in Maricopa County Superior Court to lifetime probation and 12 months in jail, a term that started Sept. 23.

Phoenix police say that on three occasions, Sangalang chatted online with officers posing as an underage girl. They reportedly received pictures of Sangalang’s face and his vehicle and requests for various kinds of sex.

After the arrest, Sangalang admitted to authorities that he had knowingly solicited sex with a minor and sent the pictures, according to the court documents.

Sangalang worked as a licensed practical nurse with adults for five years at Banner Estrella Medical Center.

Police Det. Stephen Johnston deemed the sex-assault case involving four foster children rare and disturbing for both his unit and members of the community.

The accused 13-year-old made a brief appearance in a Calgary court Thursday. Crown prosecutors were granted an adjournment to allow time to obtain more information from police.

According to the human- services ministry, there are about 2,400 foster homes licensed in Alberta providing care to roughly 4,500 children.

Police are exploring whether other Calgary foster children may have been subjected to sexual abuse following what are described as “horrifying” allegations against a 13-year-old.

Officers were called to a southwest foster home around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday by a witness with “direct knowledge” of a disturbing act taking place inside, said Det. Stephen Johnston.

Late Wednesday, police announced a 13-year-old boy living in the home had been charged with sexually assaulting and sexual interference against three other kids in the home ages six and under.

The alleged crimes were each committed separately but all took place on Tuesday, police believe.

Johnston said his child-abuse unit is often faced with difficult calls, but “This one, I daresay, is more shocking than most.”

Investigators have also learned other foster children previously lived in the home with the accused, who is being held in the Calgary Young Offenders Centre but cannot be named under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

“We are looking into the possibility now that this was not the first incident that occurred,” Johnston said.

The Alberta government’s human services ministry oversees the operations of foster homes in the province.

Spokesperson Roxanne Dube-Coelho said a review into an alleged incident of this nature would be typical but could not speak further to whether concerns had been raised about the residence previously.

“I can tell you the younger children have been removed from the home,” she said. “They are in a safe placement.”

A Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) deputy is the target of a criminal investigation into allegations that he had inappropriate sexual contact with another deputy’s 8-year-old autistic daughter.

The investigation involves Carlos Periu, 40, who has been with BSO for 10 years. The child has used graphic details to describe the acts which she says he committed. The child is the daughter of another BSO deputy and the two families have been close friends for years, South Florida Times has learned.

The case is being investigated by detectives from the sex crimes division of the Coral Springs Police Department.

“The investigation has not been completed and I am not able to discuss any details at this time,” David Kirkland, public information officer for the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Unit of the Coral Springs Police Department, said in an email to South Florida Times.

Periu’s family had invited the girl’s family over for a visit during the Thanksgiving holiday and that was when the incident allegedly occurred.

The child later told her mother in explicit terms about a “secret” involving “Uncle Carlos.” Her parents contacted police and took the child to Broward County’s Sexual Assault Treatment Center for a forensic examination that included questioning by investigators.

The results of the examination are not known but Coral Springs police informed BSO of their investigation. Even though BSO is not involved and the case is not related to Periu’s work, the agency placed him on administrative leave on Dec. 19.

Periu’s patrol car was seized and its doors and trunk were sealed with bright red “evidence” tape before being taken to a garage for examination.

In addition to his work as a sheriff’s deputy, Periu owns CCC Entertainment, a company that provides music, photography, video, bounce houses and other entertainment services at parties, weddings, and other functions. His company has worked at BSO events.

Jim Lejedal, BSO’s director of media relations, said he was not familiar with Periu’s company and was not sure what, if any, impact his suspension would have on any future relationship with the sheriff’s office.

BSO hired Periu in 2001 and he works in the Pompano Beach district, earning $69,908 annually.

As a general rule, BSO employees are prohibited from discussing pending investigations and co-workers were reluctant to speak about the allegations. But some described Periu as friendly and incapable of doing what he is accused of.

It is unclear when the investigation will be completed or if the case has been presented to prosecutors. Officials at the Broward State Attorney’s Office declined comment when contacted. Coral Springs police say they are unable to provide any timetable.

“I am curious, however, as to how you learned about the case,” Kirkland, the Coral Spring police spokesman, said. “As soon as I am able to release any information, I will let you know.”

The former Colorado Springs Police Officer and School Resource Officer who is accused of sexual assault and possessing child pornography appeared in Court Wednesday.

A trial date previously scheduled for January 9 was cancelled. Instead, prosecutors are planning to bring all the charges into one trial on March 12.

Before agreeing to that action, the judge asked the defense if they felt this was a violation of Joshua Carrier’s right to a speedy trial. This is important because some of the charges must be dismissed and then refiled. Both Carrier and his attorney said they felt it was not a violation.

Carrier is facing almost 200 charges related to sexual assault and child pornography. Police say he sexually abused children and many of them he oversaw in his role at Horace Mann Middle School.

Additional sexual exploitation counts are also expected to be added to the list of charges when Carrier next appears in court. Carrier is scheduled for a motions hearing on February 3.

22 boys have come forward accusing Carrier of sexual assault.

Before the trial takes place, the defense will receive a copy of the hard drives that the prosecution plans to use as evidence. The judge said Wednesday that they contained “potentially harmful contraband.”

Carrier’s defense also asked the judge for a protective order against the media, which was denied. They tried to argue that the cameras were blocking access to the hallways and elevator in the courthouse.

The judge pointed out that cameras are already barred from the courtroom and that elsewhere they are protected by the first amendment. The defense was also reminded that they could call the police if they ever feel threatened.

Michael Lyn Plumadore was held without bond after his arrest Monday night in the death of Aliahna Lemmon, 9.

The Associated Press, quoting one of the 15 sex offenders living at Northway Woods, reports that Aliahna Lemmon's mother had recently moved to the trailer park to take care of her father, James E. Lemmon, a convicted sex offender who had emphysema.

James Lemmon died Dec. 3 at age 66, Oberlin-Turnbull Funeral Home of Hamilton said. State prison records show that he was convicted March 6, 2006, of child molestation.

The Indiana trailer park that was home to 9-year-old Aliahna Lemmon — whose dismembered body was found this week — is also home to an extraordinary number of registered sex offenders, police and court records show.

An affidavit filed Tuesday by Allen County sheriff's investigators said Michael Len Plumadore, 39, of the Northway Woods trailer park in Fort Wayne, confessed to having killed and dismembered Aliahna on Friday. Her head, hands and feet were found in a freezer in Plumadore's home; the rest of her body was scattered elsewhere in the area. Plumadore was held without bail Tuesday pending formal charges.

Plumadore lives in the same trailer park as Aliahna — who a relative said was partly blind and deaf — and her two younger sisters, and he often baby-sat for them. The girls had been staying with Plumadore for about a week because their mother was ill.

The nature of Aliahna's death would meet the definition of a sex offense under Indiana Code 35, which includes the state's version of Megan's Law, a national template for registering and monitoring known sex offenders. Plumadore isn't on Allen County's registry — court records show only convictions for trespassing, assault and auto theft in Florida and North Carolina.

But Northway Woods is one of an increasing number of isolated locations around the country that have become havens for registered sex offenders, who in most states must not live within a certain distance of places where children congregate, such as schools and churches.

The Allen County sheriff's registry shows that 15 sex offenders live at Northway Woods, a small mobile home park with 54 lots, only about 25 of which are occupied. Among them are men with multiple felony convictions for sexual abuse of a minor and child molestation.

In other words, three-fifths of the occupied units there house a registered sex offender. That's an extraordinary concentration in Indiana, which has only 137 registered sex offenders per 100,000 population — the third-lowest figure of all 50 states, according to data compiled by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Seven other registered offenders live within 2 miles of the trailer park, the registry shows — meaning nearly 5 percent of all of the county's 537 registered sex offenders live within a short walk of one another.

"You see it on TV all the time in other states, in other places, but this is in our own backyard," said Kathleen McKee, who lives in the Northway Woods park. "It's in our own home, and it's scary."

"I feel for the family, because I have three children myself — two daughters and a son," McKee told NBC station WISE of Fort Wayne. "I can't imagine what that family is feeling, especially around Christmas time."

Before he was arrested, Plumadore gave a brief interview Monday morning to WISE. The station hasn't aired the interview, which could be used as evidence in the case, but it reported that Plumadore said he was going in to take a polygraph test and that he, too, was eager to find Aliahna.

The former Provider bus driver already indicted on federal counts involving the sexual exploitation of children was indicted this month on 14 charges alleging he sexually abused a local child between February 2009 and February 2011.

John Allen Wright, 45, of 52 Charles Street in Milton, was arrested on Sept. 1 after an investigation by the state Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force that began in February 2011 led to a search warrant being executed at his home, according to an affidavit filed by Milton Police Chief Mark McGowan.

According to the affidavit, the search of Wright's home resulted in the discovery of an external hard drive, identified as being used by Wright, that contained approximately 10,000 images and movies depicting child sexual abuse.

Wright was working as a school bus driver of special needs children with Provider Enterprises Inc., for which he drove buses in Kittery, Maine, Rochester, and other local areas, at the time of his arrest.

Wright previously worked as a bus driver for the Milton School District and as an assistant teacher at Rochester Child Care Center and Quirion Preschool and Learning Center, also in Rochester, in the 1990s, according to investigators.

On Dec. 15, Wright was indicted on one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault, five counts of felonious sexual assault, four counts of lewdness and indecent exposure, and four counts of simple assault, alleging that between February 2009 and February 2011, Wright filmed himself engaging in sexual contact with a male minor child.

The videos, County Attorney Tom Velardi said, were among those found in Wright's home during the September search by the ICAC task force and were filmed on Wright's school bus.

The charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault is punishable by up 10 to 20 years in the state prison, while each charge of felonious sexual assault is punishable by 10 to 30 years in state prison.

The charges of indecent exposure are punishable by 3 1/2 to 7 years in prison, while each simple assault charge is punishable by two to five years in prison. These indictments are the most recent for Wright.

In October he was federally indicted on six counts involving the sexual exploitation of children, alleging he filmed sexual contact between himself and three separate minor children.

Buffalo attorney Kendra Winkelstein resigned as legal counsel to the ruling clique of the Tuscarora Nation last week following allegations of the systematic sexual abuse of young girls on the reservation by individuals with strong ties to the Tuscarora leadership. Winkelstein, who has represented tribal clerk Leo Henry, Neil Patterson Sr. and Neil Patterson Jr. for the past 18 years, told the Niagara Falls Reporter that the reasons behind her resignation were "personal." She declined comment when asked whether she is now talking with agents of the federal government or any other law enforcement agencies. A spokeswoman for the Buffalo FBI office would neither confirm nor deny that Henry and the Pattersons are under investigation. For Henry and the Pattersons, Winkelstein's resignation is potentially devastating, as Winkelstein has been the public face of the former "Gang of Four" to local, state and federal bureaucracies like the Niagara County Sheriff's Department, the New York Power Authority, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Environmental Protection Agency. She has been a key negotiator for the Tuscarora leadership, and has served as their representative in eviction proceedings and other highly criticized procedures undertaken by Henry and the Pattersons. Speculation about Winkelstein's resignation was rampant on the reservation last week.

A chair's got four legs, but you kick one out from under it and the whole thing falls down," one Tuscarora told the Reporter. Without the thin veneer of legality Winkelstein provided, it seems unlikely that government agencies will continue to do business with a regime responsible for basic human rights violations, including the denial of electrical service and medical treatment, the hijacking of $12.5 million received by the Tuscaroras over the past six years under the Power Authority's relicensing agreement, and an alleged pattern of ongoing sexual abuse under which the parents of victimized children were threatened with the loss of their homes and land should they choose to go to authorities. Because of confidentiality and ethical standards, Dougherty said he could not give the names of the women, but said they all told fundamentally the same story.

A powerful Tuscarora man, related by blood to at least one of those currently sitting on the ruling clique, raped and abused the women when they were young girls between the ages of 11 and 16, he said. "We're talking about an evil man," Dougherty said. "It's kind of surprising no one's shot him yet." In fact, Dougherty said, the father of one of the girls in question had to be physically restrained after he took off after the alleged perpetrator with a shotgun. "He was lucky that day, and he's stayed lucky."

The women waited years before coming forward with their allegations, because of the perpetrator's close ties to those in the Tuscarora government, Dougherty added. "They didn't say anything out of fear," he said. "Fear that they would be removed from the rolls, that their parents would be removed from the rolls, losing their property, or not having the ability to buy property."

More recently, allegations of repeated incidents of child molestation have surfaced at the Tuscarora Health Clinic, and the situation is considered so grave that a meeting was held for clinic workers in September where they were instructed about what to say should anyone ask them about the situation. Numerous sources on the reservation said last week that the case involves multiple victims and a former worker at the clinic -- related by blood to the suspect in the earlier case and to the member of the ruling clique as well -- who was quietly removed from his position last month. According to the sources, the tribal leadership is deliberately conducting a coverup of what went on at the clinic, to the point of enlisting one powerful Clan Mother to warn the victims and their families of the dire consequences they might face should they speak out about what happened.

A Davenport mother is behind bars, after police say she admitted knowing her three young daughters were being molested, and ignored the children's pleas for help.

''The oldest one is saying, this is what's going on, help me, Mom'', said Detective Mark Dinneweth, who interviewed the 29-year old woman.

The mother's boyfriend, Jayme Souder, 25, of Davenport, was charged back in August with three counts of felony sexual abuse. Souder is accused of molesting the girls who are now 10, 7 and 8, the past two years, while he babysat and the mother was gone.

Police say their mom admitted she was told by the eldest daughter about the abuse several times, but did nothing. She was arrested and charged on Tuesday.

''When an incident occurred, they told their mother. They suffered for two years'', said Dinneweth.

Dinneweth says the 8-year old recently decided enough is enough, and told school authorities after refusing to get back on the school bus and go home.

''She wouldn't get on the bus. She pulled her two sisters off, and said 'We are not going' '', Dinneweth said. ''She stood up for herself, said something to authorities, she had to do it for herself and her two younger siblings''.

The girls are in the care of a relative. The man accused of molesting them is in jail, and so is the mom who police say didn't save them. She is charged with one count of child endangerment, which is an aggravated misdemeanor.

''I can't tell you what was in her head. I just don't know. It's not going to make sense to a lot of people''.

A Chatham man already facing child pornography charges has now also been charged in relation to an alleged case of historical sexual abuse.

Chatham-Kent police reported Monday that Ronnie George Inghelbrecht, 48, had been charged with two counts of possession of child pornography and one count of accessing child pornography.

The public announcement led to a former Chatham resident coming forward to police to report being a victim of abuse. As a result of that investigation, Inghelbrecht has been additionally charged with eleven counts of sexual related offences and is scheduled to appear for a bail hearing today.

The accused was in a mentor position with children spanning a period of 10 years between 1984 and 1994. In an effort to ensure there are no additional victims, Chatham-Kent police are requesting that anyone with information about this accused contact the Chatham-Kent police major crime unit at 519-436-6616. Anonymous callers may contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 and may be eligible for a cash reward.

The original child porn charges stem from a search warrant executed Nov. 30 by members of the Chatham-Kent police child exploitation unit and the Ontario Provincial Police child sexual exploitation unit following a seven-month child pornography investigation. Three computers and external media were seized which contained images of child sexual abuse.

Former Kern County firefighter and Tehachapi City Council member Daniel Shane Reed has been arrested again on sexual abuse charges.

The Kern County Sheriff's Office says Reed, 41, met a 13-year-old boy and had sexual relations with him while he was free on bail from another case of sexual abuse.

Deputies started their investigation Nov. 8. They alleged Reed and the Tehachapi boy started communicating this summer with wireless devices and had sexual encounters in Bakersfield and Tehachapi.

Jail records show Reed was booked Wednesday morning on felony counts of oral copulation with a person under 14 and lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14.

In the first case, Reed is awaiting sentencing after pleading no contest in October to one misdemeanor count of annoying or molesting a child and one felony count of contact with a minor with intent to commit a sexual offense.

The primary victim in the first case – two teen boys were referenced in court documents – told the detective that he engaged in both anal and oral sex with Reed. The boy said he met Reed through a friend in February, when the three of them went to Pismo Beach. The boy was 16 at that time. The sexual relationship started that weekend, the boy told police.

Follow-up sexual encounters came after Reed took the boy shopping and out to eat, and the two exchanged text messages and had rendezvous at motels, court documents show.

Reed was sworn into City Council office in December 2008, and his term was set to end in November 2012. He resigned from the City Council in July and from his job as a firefighter in October.

He's jailed on $260,000 bail for the new case and is set for sentencing Jan. 4 in the former case.

Maricopa County Supervisor Fulton Brock's daughter was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years probation with one year deferred jail time for sexually abusing the same teenager her mother molested.

Rachel Brock, 22, was 17 when she performed sex acts over a two-year period with a 14-year-old family friend whom her mother, Susan, molested over a three-year period, according to records.

Though originally charged with seven counts of sexual conduct with a minor and one count of furnishing obscene materials to a minor, Rachel Brock in June pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse with sexual motivation. Six other felony counts were dismissed. She will not have to serve any of the jail time if she abides by the terms of her probation.

In pleading guilty, Rachel, the middle daughter of Fulton and Susan Brock, softly answered "yes" after Pinal County Superior Court Judge Pro Tem Hank Gooday asked whether she was admitting to performing oral and masturbatory sex on the victim.

Her father was not at the sentencing hearing.

Her mother, Susan Brock, 49, is serving a 13-year sentence for molesting the boy, now 17, over a three-year period starting when he was 14.

The families, who both belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, socialized and vacationed together, records say. Rachel's abuse of the teen began on a trip to California, prosecutors said. The boy, a family friend, had been spending time at the Brocks' Chandler residence since he was about 11, according to Deputy Pinal County Attorney Jason Holmberg.

Susan Brock spent thousands of dollars on gifts for the teen and paid him $100 for letting her touch him, Holmberg said.

Rachel Brock had been held without bail since she was rearrested in the case in March. She was arrested in December, but Pinal County requested more evidence before formally charging her. The case was transferred to Pinal County prosecutors because of Fulton Brock's position as a Maricopa County official.

A Chandler detective who investigated the case reported that Fulton Brock had lied to police about evidence and also recommended that Mormon bishops be prosecuted for failure to report the boy's complaints to authorities.

A Navy commander who molested an underage girl over a seven-year period in Chula Vista and Monterey is scheduled to be sentenced Monday in a South Bay courtroom.

Brett Allen Wagner, 40, pleaded guilty in September to a felony charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14. He will be sentenced to 12 years in state prison.

According to the criminal complaint, Wagner molested the girl from 1997 to 2001 in Chula Vista and 2001 to 2004 in Monterey, when he was assigned there.

The defendant was arrested in June and extradited from Pascagoula, Miss., to San Diego County to face charges.

Winston-Salem police charged a woman with sexually abusing a foster child under her care, police said in a news release today.

Jasmine Boyd, 38, of 3900 Thornaby Circle, is charged with six counts of sexual activity by a substitute parent.

Winston-Salem police detectives got a report Nov. 11 that Boyd, a foster parent, had been having a sexual relationship with a child under her care for the past two months.

Detectives interviewed Boyd today at the police department. After the interview, she was taken into custody, according to the news release. She is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 6, 2012.

Anyone with information about this investigation should call the Winston-Salem Police Department at (336) 773-7700 or Crime Stoppers at (336) 727-2800.

A former volunteer at San Isabel Boy Scout Ranch has been bound over for trial for sexual assault on a child in Longmont, and law-enforcement officials are worried there could be more victims from the camp, including at least two from Pueblo County.

James Rienholdt "Butch" Cahill, 56, of Leadville is free on $100,000 bail after a preliminary hearing in Longmont on Thursday. He is charged with one count of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, said Longmont police Detective Stacey Graham.

"We have one charge, but multiple people have stepped forward against Cahill," she said Thursday by phone. Graham said that three alleged victims, in addition to the boy he has been charged with assaulting, are from the Longmont area. "One victim is 39 and, like (two others), the statute of limitations has run out on (potential offenses)."

Cahill was a volunteer at the ranch for about 10 years, as recently as last summer, according to a letter sent to more than 240 families of Scouts who attended the camp over the past decade, notifying them of the former archery/shooting instructor’s charges and asking whether any scouts had been victimized. The letter stated that the Boy Scouts are fully cooperating with the investigation.

"We are concerned because of the longtime abuse of his victim here," Satur said. "The boy he is charged with abusing was 8 when it began and it continued until the boy was 13. Because of the nature of these crimes, and Cahill's history, we're worried about his time at the Scout camp. "Unfortunately, we would not be surprised if there were more victims."

Cahill’s 20-page arrest affidavit paints a pattern of years of sexual abuse on a boy, now 15, and similar abuse on a now 39-year-old man. Longmont police said the statute of limitations has passed when it comes to prosecuting Cahill in the older case.

Graham said Cahill is divorced, with one biological daughter and stepsons.

Jeff Berger, executive director of the Boy Scouts’ Rocky Mountain Council since last year, said he didn’t know Cahill personally and that Cahill quit working at the ranch mid-season. “We were shocked to hear of the allegations against James. Abuse always had been and is unacceptable in the Boy Scouts. The alleged allegations are not representative of the principles and ideals of the Boy Scouts of America”, Berger said.

Texas State mental health officials recently took action to protect patients in their care from abuse. The action comes after the American Statesman (A.S.) reported on reports of child sexual abuse lodged against Dr. Charles Fischer. Fischer, 59, a former child psychiatrist at Austin State Hospital, was allowed to continue working at the facility while the reports of abuse were investigated. He has since been fired from his state job on November 14 and his medical license has been temporarily suspended. After it was reported that Fischer was working with patients while under investigation for abuse, Mike Maples, assistance commissioner for mental health and substance abuse services, issued rules that included mandatory transfers or emergency leave for staff members under investigation for abusing patients. Also included in the rules is one against locking doors to treatment rooms during staff-patient sessions. Legislators should take a look at what needs to be done to protect patients who need the services because they are often unable to protect themselves.

Documents reviewed by the board show that Fischer was accused of abuse by at least nine youths. The board took the action because Fischer presented “a continuing threat to the public welfare”. The A.S. reported that seven Austin State Hospital patients between the ages of 13 and 17 made reports against Fischer between 2001 and 2006. Two other cases involving teenage boys reportedly under Fischer’s care in San Antonio and Waco are also being investigated.

A Travis County grand jury heard accusations of sexual abuse of a child against Fischer in 2002 but did not bring charges against him. Four law enforcement agencies have joined in an investigation. No charges have been filed yet.

An upstate New York dance teacher has been sentenced to five years in prison for sexually abusing a young boy who was one of his students.

The Glens Falls Post-Star reports that 49-year-old Timothy McGuire said nothing when he was sentenced Wednesday in Warren County Court. A jury convicted him in October of sexual conduct against a child, a felony, and misdemeanor sexual abuse.

He was found guilty of repeatedly abusing the boy from the time he was 6 until he was 14.

During his trial, McGuire denied having sexual contact with the boy.

McGuire ran the Tim McGuire Dance Centre in Glens Falls for 30 years. His lawyer has appealed the conviction.

The Texas Medical Board today suspended the license of child psychiatrist Dr. Charles Fischer, who was fired last week from Austin State Hospital after a state investigation found credible evidence that he sexually abused at least one child patient in his care.

Authorities are looking into additional allegations that he abused at least eight other children over more than a decade.

The panel found that Dr. Fischer, a child psychiatrist at the Austin State Hospital in Austin, has demonstrated a pattern of sexually abusing teenage boys in his care for inpatient psychiatric treatment over a period of nearly 20 years. The Board has received information that there are as many as nine patients who have alleged sexual abuse by Dr. Fischer since the first patient report in 1992.

Dr. Fischer, 59, was employed at Austin State Hospital from December 1990 until his termination on November 14, 2011. He has also been employed as a psychiatrist at the Waco Center for Youth, the Southwest Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Antonio, Lutheran Social Services Residential Treatment Center for Girls and Central Counties Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

The suspension remains in effect until the board takes further action.

At approximately 7:15am Wednesday morning, the George Washington Carver Middle School in South Los Angeles was placed under lockdown, Patrick Sinclair (Senior Director of Communications and External Affairs, The Partnership For Los Angeles Schools) told the Huffington Post.

A 7th grade student reported seeing a man in the neighborhood that resembled the alleged attacker from Friday's attempted sexual assault on a Carver student. As the suspect is still at large, the school and LAPD combed the campus to confirm that the man had not entered the campus grounds. The lockdown lasted less than one hour, reports Patrick Sinclair.

On Friday, November 4th, an unknown assailant aggressively grabbed a 12-year-old female student outside of a bathroom at George Washington Carver Middle School, while she was waiting for a classmate -- in broad daylight.

The man "forcefully pull[ed] her while making a sexual remark," states the LAPD. The young girl fell to the ground and began screaming as the attacker dragged her approximately 15 feet from where he had initially approached her.

The classmate she was waiting for, along with two additional 7th grade male students, ran towards the attacker and joined the struggle. According to the LAPD, the girl's peers demanded that the man release her.

The man escaped and climbed over a fence onto Wadsworth Avenue just south of Vernon Avenue. He is described as being Hispanic with brown eyes and black hair between the ages of 30 and 40. He is believed to weigh between 180 and 190 pounds and is between 5'9" and 6'1" tall. The suspect also has two cut lines or scars on his left eyebrow.

Patrick Sinclair told the Huffington Post that a letter is being sent home to Carver parents and asserts that no students have been harmed in any way. The two 7th grade boys who assisted in saving the victim will be honored by Carver's Principal, reports KTLA.

Anyone with additional information about the incident or the suspect is urged to contact LAPD Newton Division Officer Cervantes at (323) 846-6576.

Two San Diego County men have been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to the sex trafficking of children who were forced into prostitution rings by street gangs.

Prosecutors tell the Los Angeles Times that 20-year-old Malcolm Jamal Allen and 23-year-old Devon Leontae Sutton, both from Oceanside, entered the pleas Monday, admitting to child sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion.

Authorities say the gangs used websites like Facebook, Twitter and Craigslist to find customers. Many of the groups' young prostitutes were runaways.

Six other defendants tied to the prostitution ring have also pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

A Swedish court on Tuesday convicted 23 women and one man of child pornography offenses in what investigators called a unique case because of the number of female perpetrators.

The Falu District Court gave the women, aged between 38 and 70, conditional sentences and fines ranging from $380 to $2,700. It also sentenced a 43-year-old man to one year in prison for aggravated child pornography.

The court said the women received scores of sexually explicit video clips and photographs of children from the man and discussed them online with him. Some said they liked the images or shared sexual fantasies about the children, and one woman sent pornographic images of children to the man, the court said. The material showed girls and boys of various ages, . The man made contact with the women on the Internet and had sexual relations with about half of them, but they had no connection to each other, the court said.

Some 1,181 pictures and 40 films with child pornography were found in the man's computer, including brutal images of shackled children being raped by adults.

Swedish police said reactions they have received from Interpol indicate this is the first child pornography case worldwide to involve so many women.

Four Oregon men plan to sue the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday over childhood sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of a pedophile knowingly appointed as their scoutmaster in the 1970s, their lawyer said. The lawsuits, to be filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland, accuse the national Boy Scouts of negligence and fraud in connection with the repeated molestation of the men, then aged 12 to 15, their lawyer, Kelly Clark, told Reuters. The suits are the latest in a barrage of such claims facing the Boy Scouts, headquartered in Texas, since the organization was found liable and ordered to pay nearly $20 million in damages last year for a pedophile case from the 1980s.

Clark and his co-counsel, Paul Mones, brought a separate case against the Boy Scouts last week on behalf of five women who claim they were sexually abused as girls by the leader of a coed Scouting program in Montana during the 1970s. The Montana suit and the impending cases in Oregon bring to at least 35 the number of individuals who have lodged child sexual abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America in 11 states since 2007, Clark said.

The group cites new safeguards instituted during the past decade, including tighter screening of its volunteers, though it acknowledges that criminal background checks for existing volunteers only became mandatory in 2008. Clark said publicity from last year's trial in Portland prompted hundreds of former Scouts to contact his law firm. He likened the "domino effect" of that case to the tide of allegations against Roman Catholic priests in the United States triggered more than a decade ago by reports of clergy abuse that surfaced in the Boston Archdiocese. "What these institutions have in common is the sense that their mission is important and that they can't afford to have their good works sullied by what they consider isolated incidents," Clark said.

Last year's trial shed light on records the BSA kept on suspected or confirmed sexual abuse by leaders and volunteers. The jury was permitted to review 20,000 pages from what were termed the "perversion files" or "ineligible volunteer files," dating from 1965 to 1985 before rendering a verdict. The lawsuit claims the BSA was aware since the 1960's that “scouting posed a danger to adolescent boys because historically noticeable numbers of adult volunteers...were discovered to be child molesters.” Those files show that during the 20-year period, an average of nearly 60 leaders or volunteers a year were discovered molesting children, Clark said. The Boy Scouts dispute that figure, and the organization is fighting to keep those documents from being made public in a case awaiting a ruling by the Oregon Supreme Court.

All four bringing suit in the new case claim they were abused in the 1970s by then-scoutmaster Steven Terry Hill, who was put in charge of their troop even though the Boy Scouts learned he had been accused of molesting three other boys while serving as a Scout leader in California, Clark said. The plaintiffs also allege that the Boy Scouts organization became aware that Hill was molesting boys in Portland's Troop 76 but did nothing to stop it, according to Clark. Hill was acquitted in the late 1970s of sex abuse charges related to the Boy Scouts in Portland. But he was convicted in 1991 on four counts of sodomy and furnishing drugs and alcohol to a minor stemming from an unrelated sex-abuse case involving a 17-year-old boy. He was released from prison in 2011 after serving 20 years, Clark said. A deposition Hill gave while incarcerated, and other corroborating evidence, suggests that the California Scouts council arranged for him to be transferred to Portland where, in 1976, he founded Troop 76, an elite group of 76 scouts whose mission was “high adventure” activities like river rafting and mountain climbing, Clark said.

James Hopper, a clinical psychology instructor at Harvard Medical School, said it is not unusual for adults to wait many years to reveal sexual abuse from their childhood, especially for males, who may feel greater shame from their ordeals. "You have stories of abuse emerging from the Catholic Church and other institutions; now it's the Boy Scouts' turn," he said. Clark said “You don’t have to be trained or anything. You just show up and raise your hand and swear and you’re a volunteer.” “So while the percent of volunteers in the Boy Scouts who were abusers is, we believe, much smaller, the numbers are relatively large, and the number of victims could be the same or worse (than in the Catholic church)”.

Former Lewes-area pediatrician Earl B. Bradley, convicted of raping or abusing 85 girls and one boy over an 11-year period in brutal attacks he recorded and catalogued, received 14 life sentences today. Bradley, 58, plans to appeal his June conviction on the grounds that videos of the assaults were illegally seized from his office complex on Coastal Highway. If the appeal fails, today’s sentence will the seal the doom of the once-respected physician whose crimes rank him among the worst pedophiles in history.

Under Delaware law, Superior Court Judge William C. Carpenter Jr. had to sentence Bradley to life imprisonment without the possible of probation or early release because he was convicted of at least three counts of first-degree rape. After a one-day trial in June, Carpenter also found Bradley guilty of multiple counts of second-degree assault and sexual exploitation of a child. Almost all of Bradley’s victims were patients, prosecutors said.

In seeking the maximum possible sentence for Bradley, chief prosecutor Paula Ryan said today, "Earl Bradley committed unspeakable acts upon those who could not speak for themselves. He deliberately manipulated the parents of these children. He manipulated those who worked with him, and he repeatedly and intentionally --without remorse or hesitation – attacked and sexually assaulted toddlers and nonverbal children. To make indescribable and horrific matters even worse, he videotaped these incidents for his own perverse pleasure, endlessly editing and copying, permanently memorializing his attacks on these children for his own twisted collection."

During the so-called “stipulated trial," Bradley’s lawyers did not contest the authenticity of the videotaped rapes of his young patients, essentially admitting the crimes without actually doing so. A state police detective’s testimony brought victim’s relatives and other court observers to tears. The trooper said the videos show Bradley using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a few girls who were “ashen gray” from near-choking and suffocation after Bradley forced oral sex on them. They also show children in diapers screaming as they attempt in vain to escape from their doctor before he rapes them in an outbuilding at his office where he took children for candy and toys, he said. In one case, at his home, the video shows Bradley using nitrous oxide to keep a sleeping 7-year-old girl sedate during his attack, the trooper said.

In the latest chapter of the largest child sex abuse case in recorded legal history, the hospital has reached a settlement, without going to trial, with a plaintiff who goes by the pseudonym of Christopher Doe.

St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford has settled a third lawsuit in the case of a doctor suspected of sexually abusing hundreds of children over three decades.

At issue is former hospital head of endocrinology, George Reardon, who used a bogus decades-long growth study to lure countless children and adolescents into his office where he sexually abused and exploited them.

The Hartford Courant reports that a settlement was reached late last week in the lawsuit filed by a victim known only as Christopher Roe 1. Terms weren't disclosed.

Roe is one of more than 90 alleged victims who sued the hospital claiming it failed to prevent the abuse by Dr. Reardon, who died in 1998 without ever being charged.

The first lawsuit against the hospital was settled in May as part of a larger settlement totaling more than $17 million for 32 victims. The second lawsuit resulted in a jury verdict of $2.75 million against the hospital last month.

Daniel Taylor, 31, from Leeds, was handed an indeterminate sentence after admitting 27 offenses, including sex assault on a baby. He was described by police as the UK’s most prolific hoarder of pictures of child abuse. Taylor possessed more than 300,000 indecent images, including a large number considered the most extreme, Bradford crown court heard. Taylor used 47 devices including hard drives, phones, memory sticks and a laptop to store the pictures. The court was told Taylor, a father of two, filmed himself sexually assaulting a victim twice. None of the charges relate to Taylor's children. He pleaded guilty to 27 charges, including making and possessing indecent images and sexually assaulting a baby.

Officers also found an instruction video for pedophiles showing them how to abuse children from birth until the age of eight. Taylor, who worked in a family business supplying and fitting gutters, encrypted his web of computers and storage devices, but police used state-of-the art technology to break his codes and access the material.

Judge Rodney Grant said that Taylor posed a danger, and an indeterminate sentence was his only option. He also ordered him to sign the sex offenders register for life and comply with a sexual offenses prevention order.

A Long Island pediatrician has pleaded not guilty to charges that he drugged young girls and sexually abused them, videotaping and photographing the acts. Rahesh Punn, of Bethpage, N.Y., was arraigned today on 60 counts, including multiple counts of assault, sexual abuse and other charges. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison on each of the 28 assault charges. The prosecutor said he kept a file on his computer titled “Sex” that described how he preferred 11- to 14-year-olds, and chose kids with “poorly educated parents.” Prosecutors said that as early as 2007, Punn was asking girls to take their clothes off, then asking them to lie on the examining table as he covered their eyes with gauze and a blindfold. He would then videotape or photograph his sexual contact with them, according to the indictment. Investigators say that he touched and manipulated the girl’s genitals. He committed these acts while telling the girls that these were medically necessary examinations, according to the indictment.

Last Wed., 43-year old Ernesto Agramont of Tucson, was shot and killed by officers who were attempting to arrest him on child sexual assault and abuse charges. Five officers surrounded Agramont’s home; he left his house carrying a knife, which he refused to drop, and advanced towards the officers. He was shot and died a short time later. The matter is being investigated and Tucson police are asking anyone with information to call 911 or 88-crime.

On June 15, at approximately 6:53 p.m., a witness walked into the men’s restroom at the Von’s store at 8011 University in La Mesa. He observed an adult male sitting on the toilet with his pants down. The adult male had a 2-year-old child on his lap and the witness observed the child touching the man’s penis. The witness reported the incident to the La Mesa Police Dept. The adult male was identified by the police as Russell Cilibraise III. The investigation is ongoing and detectives are still working on developing leads on any other potential victims or witnesses to the case or any other potential cases involving Cilibraise.

If you have any information on this case, please call Detective Sean Snow at (619) 667-7537. You may also call Crime Stoppers’ anonymous toll-free tip line (888) 580-TIPS or www.sdcrimestoppers.com.

Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr., announced Tues. that his office had filed charges against 26 individuals related to the possession of images or videos showing the sexual abuse of children. “These images...are babies, toddlers, and children being brutally raped, sexually assaulted and exploited by adults on camera.”

The New York Times reports that “the charges were a result of a five-month investigation conducted by the district attorney’s office and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. According to the New York Daily News, the defendants, ages ranging from 18 to 63, included Steven Roman, who worked in a children’s shoe store, Miguel Caraballo, who was once a dishwasher at Manhattan’s Alice’s Tea Cup (a Lewis Carroll-themed teahouse catering to kids), substitute teacher Joshua Ruiz, and Moshe Gerstein, a corporate attorney.

“The 26 defendants in these cases traded videos and still images of child sexual assault the way others traded baseball cards,” Vance stated, “using peer to peer technology, they acted as curators of their collection.”

According to the Times, officials from the DA’s office said they would hand over the images collected as part of the investigation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an organization in Virginia that keeps a database of seized material as part of its Child Victim Identification Program.

Police are questioning 10 men suspected of child trafficking following a series of raids in Manchester and the north-west connected to a major inquiry into the sexual exploitation of young girls. The arrests followed allegations that the men befriended vulnerable girls in Manchester city centre and plied them with food, alcohol and drugs before carrying out abuse at sex parties.

Around 100 detectives have been involved for three months in Operation Windermere, one of the largest child sexual exploitation investigations ever carried out by the serious crime division of Greater Manchester police (GMP). Police said up to 39 young girls, some as young as 14, were helping with the inquiry, which was focusing on a "core group" of four to six alleged victims.

It is believed the arrested men met girls outside shops and at bus and train stations in Manchester city centre, and offered them food and takeaways. The grooming would then progress to giving them drink and drugs before they were allegedly taken to parties in Manchester and Salford and encouraged to engage in sexual activity with older men, ages between 21 and 28. Around half the girls were in local authority care and all were classed as vulnerable, with many from broken homes and many living on the periphery of society.

GMP Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney said the operation was part of a series of investigations into child sexual exploitation currently under way. Arrests were made in Bury and Rochdale in recent weeks. He also appealed for the public's help in combating sex gangs that prey on vulnerable youngsters. He said the girls had been the victims of "classic grooming".

A Massachusetts man whose case led to the discovery of a massive child sex abuse case in the Netherlands has been charged with distributing child pornography, according to court documents.

Robert Diduca, 47, was a member of an online forum for those with a sexual interest in children. He came to the attention of law enforcement last year when he sent a pornographic image of a child via e-mail to investigators of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), who alerted Massachusetts State Police.

Diduca was arrested at his home in Milford, a town in Worcester County of Massachusetts, in early November 2010. During a search of his computer storage devices, investigators discovered some 10,000 images and videos of young children engaged in sexual acts. One of the images recovered from his computer showed an adult man sexually abusing a two-year-old boy. Investigators determined that the photos and videos did not appear to have been made in the United States and shared an edited image on Interpol's secure system for international law enforcement officials in order to help identify the victim.

As a result, Dutch police soon recognized the material was of Dutch origin and requested additional photos to help in the investigation. An edited photo of the victim was eventually shown on Dutch television on December 7 after which someone recognized the child and called police.

Hours later, police in the Netherlands arrested 27-year-old Robert Mikelsons who confessed to sexually abusing dozens of young children while being employed at two Amsterdam nurseries between February 2007 and January 2010. He also offered his services through several websites. Mikelsons is believed to have abused at least 85 young children.

Diduca, who remains in custody, previously pled not guilty to similar charges. If found guilty, he faces at least 5 years and up to 20 years in prison, followed by up to lifetime supervised release and a $250,000 fine.

Douglas Hugh Stewart, 51, from Moncton, pleaded guilty to possessing millions of images seized in March. Const. Jean-Marc Pare, of the RCMP Internet Child Exploitation Unit in Fredericton, said police in Canada have never seen anything quite like it. Other arrests are expected. The ongoing investigation into peer-to-peer computer file sharing of child sexual abuse images in the province– known as Operation J Treasures– began in November 2010.

“There have been a few out west that numbered over 3 million. We don’t know the exact number of ours yet, but we know we’ll be well over five million.” Pare said they’re dealing with a subculture of people who collect these images like other collect hockey cards. He said the images have been sent to the national RCMP unit in Ottawa, which could lead to the identification of more victims and possibly more offenders. “But those offenders are becoming more sophisticated, he said, both in methods of storing the images and luring victims”.

Dozens of charges of sodomy and sex abuse are being filed against a 71-year-old Athens man. Johnnie Donald Pack faces 24 counts of first degree sodomy, 24 counts of first degree sexual abuse, and three counts of second degree sexual abuse. Police said that Pack knew his two victims, who were between nine and 12-years-old when the abuse took place; Police believe the abuse took place at his residence and spanned several years. Pack’s neighbors were shocked to hear of the 71-year-old’s charges.

Investigators are still looking to see if other victims will come forward. If you have any information, you’re asked to call Athens police at (256) 233-8700.

A husband and wife who abused a 2 ½-year-old-boy and girl at the daycare center they ran out of their Mission Valley apartment were each sentenced to prison terms today. Mark Kaczmarczyk, 59, was sentenced to 8 years and his 45-year-old wife, Anita, got six years behind bars. “He is a parent’s nightmare”, the prosecutor said. “He knew exactly what he was doing.” Judge Einhorn said Mark Kaczmarczyk assaulted helpless children who, because of their age and vulnerability, had the “inability to stop anybody.”

The girls’ mother, who is in the military and deployed, said the ordeal has been emotional for her and her family. “We won’t know how it will affect my daughter when she gets older”, she said. “No child deserves to have their innocence taken away.” The mother said she is leaving the military after 11 years so she can spend more time with her daughter. She asked the judge for the harshest sentence possible “to stop the Kaczmarczyks from hurting other families.

Dr. Earl Bradley, pediatrician, is charged with raping or abusing more than 103 young victims, including babies. Police have discovered videos of dozens of brutal attacks by the doctor. State legislators, long reluctant to tamper with oversight of doctors, swiftly revamped Delaware’s child protection and medical disciplinary laws after investigators revealed law enforcement and medical authorities had failed to take any action against Bradley, despite repeated complaints about him over a 15-year span. Parents had filed more than three dozen lawsuits for not stopping a man now accused of being one of the worst pedophiles in American history. Bradley’s accusers will have a chance to face him in criminal court, beginning Wednesday, 18 months after his arrest.

The trial, however, is expected to be a brief proceeding before a judge, not a months-long, emotional spectacle before jurors who would have had to endure the videos that police contend show Bradley, his face contorted in anger, forcing intercourse and oral sex on petrified victims as young as 3 months old. Bradley faces 529 counts of rape and related charged dating to 1998. With such a quick trial, which could be anywhere from hours to several days, prosecutors would get their guilty verdict and life sentence. Then the defense could move to an appeal, which would allow the videos as evidence. Should Bradley win an appeal with the Delaware Supreme Court or federal court system, he could get a new trial, which would leave the attorney general with a harder case that would rely not on graphic videos, but on the testimony of child victims, some of whom were allegedly abused several years ago.

Hector Herrera, 52, was arrested Thurs. at his wife’s home day care center, and booked into county jail on suspicion of committing lewd acts with minors, according to San Diego police. A 4-year-old girl told her mother about allegedly being molested several days earlier by Herrera at Shining Stars Daycare. The youngster’s two brothers, ages 6 and 8, subsequently alleged that they also had been inappropriately touched by Herrera. His wife, Lupe, apparently was unaware the purported crimes had occurred and is not being looked at as a suspect. Lupe is defending her husband, saying that no such actions ever happened.

Neighbors living next door to the day care say that the Herrera’s have taken care of their children. “I can say I know it is a lie, because they are not like that, I have known them forever. Lupe Herrera said, “You have all the rights in the world to ask and investigate, but the only thing I ask please is to start checking the family making the accusations.” Detectives are looking into the possibility of other victims.

23 women and a 43-year-old man were charged with child pornography offenses in what investigators say is a unique case because of the number of female suspects. Charges filed with the Falun district court in central Sweden say the women, aged between 38 and 70, received scores of sexually explicit video clips and photographs of children from the man, who is the main suspect in the case, and discussed them with him online in graphic detail. The material included girls and boys of all ages, from toddlers to teenagers, the prosecutor told the Associated Press.

Detective Bjorn Sellstrom said he believed it was the first child pornography case worldwide to involve so many women.

Four children told police they were sexually abused by their own parents, as well as their grandfather and uncle. It allegedly happened at a home on Stetson Avenue near Hemet. The mother, Monica Silva, the uncle, Ronald Hurley Jr., and the grandfather, Ronald Hurley Sr., were arrested and charged with sexual assault, child endangerment and penetration by force. The father of the children, who is currently serving time in state prison, will also be booked.

The uncle is an amateur boxer and is known in the area as the "San Jacinto Kid." Law enforcement said the grandfather's background includes an arrest for statutory rape 12 years ago. "We're still completely shocked," said Riverside County Sheriff's Cpl. Courtney Donowho. "This is just a terrible, dreadful incident, and this shouldn't happen to any child growing up, much less four children in one home."

Detectives said the sheriff's department opened the investigation after one of the kids reported the assault. It culminated with three arrests at the place where the family had recently moved to on State Street in San Jacinto. The children have been taken in Child Protective Services. Meanwhile, the suspects remain in police custody. Hurley family.

A motel owner is among 38 people charged with helping to run a child and adult prostitution ring for a gang based in suburban San Diego. A federal grand jury indictment alleges that the Oceanside Crips had girls and women prostitute themselves at low-cost motels in north San Diego County. About 30 girls were rescued “from this nightmare that they’ve been living”, said Michael Carney, acting special agent in charge of investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.

The prostitutes ranged in age from 13 years old to young adults, said an ICE spokesperson. If convicted of racketeering conspiracy, each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison. The indictment says that a Travelodge, run by Vinod Patel, 60, and his son, Hitesh Patel, 27, was the most “egregious example” of motels where prostitution occurred, and the only one charged. “The Patels were targeted in this case because they not only knowingly assisted the Crips use of the hotel to conduct prostitution and other gang activities, but they personally profited from it”, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said.

Dr. Earl Bradley, pediatrician, who has been dubbed the “monster pedophile”, is in the news again. His trial has been assigned to New Castle County Superior Court Judge William Carpenter, Jr. Bradley’s well-known building with its over-abundance of decorations was not only burglarized recently, but was also recently in the news regarding a planned public auction of some of the “toys” and games”. On April 6, a New Castle County judge approved a class action status. This move will allow victims to combine dozens of civil lawsuits. Judge Carpenter stated that prosecutors may use video files allegedly showing Bradley raping several young girls. Although this evidence may be necessary in court, it may re-open wounds for families who have been trying to heal. Even more alarming may be how close the video evidence was to being thrown out.

Carpenter’s ruling paves the way for prosecutors to present the damning video evidence in court against Bradley, whose trial is scheduled to begin on June 1, 2011. Bradley has been charged with raping or sexually abusing more than 103 girls he treated over a 10-year period. Held without bail since his Dec. 2009 arrest, the doctor, who treated thousands of children in Sussex County, faces life in prison if convicted.

Citing those videos, detectives have written that Bradley, 57, forced girls as young as 3 months old to engage in intercourse and oral sex. Police have alleged that some of the children appeared to lose consciousness or stop breathing during Bradley’s attacks.

Police have charged four people from Indianapolis in a scheme to sell a baby girl to a convicted child molester and his sister. The Indianapolis Star reports that police say 36-year old Rose Faucett and 58-year-old Phillip A. Hester agreed to sell their daughter to Michael S. Overby and Debbie Overby for $300. The four were arrested Friday on preliminary charges of child selling. A court hearing has been set for Wed. Police say 57-year-old Michael Overby is a convicted child molester and 50-year-old Debbie Overby has been convicted of child neglect. Michael Overby also is suspected of signing documents saying he was the baby’s biological father and has been charged with forgery. Debbie Overby has been released on bond and declined to comment. The other remain jailed.

Accused kidnapper and rapist Phillip Garrido is expected to plead guilty to snatching an 11-year-old schoolgirl from her South Lake Tahoe area street, holding her captive for nearly two decades and fathering her two daughters, according to an attorney in this case. Garrido was a convicted rapist even prior to this. Garrido and his wife, Nancy, face 29 charges of kidnapping and sexual assault in the 1991 abduction of Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 30. Nancy Garrido has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and her husband is to be arraigned April 7th in Placerville, CA. Phillip has confessed to it, so he’s expected to plead guilty. Nancy, however, plans to go to trial. Phillip will testify on his wife’s behalf. The D.A. is arguing that she is as guilty as he is because she was there as an aider and abettor. He said “Not only was Nancy Garrido directly involved in the kidnapping of Jaycee back in 1991, but she actively participated in videotaphing young children before and after the 1991 abduction”.

If he pleads guilty, the 60-year old convicted rapist faces “530 years to life, the last I counted”, according to Stephen Tapson, Nancy Garrido’s attorney.

Dugard’s case revealed problems with California’s system for monitoring convicted sex offenders after it was determined that parole agents had missed numerous clues and chances to find her. Dugard, now 30, received a $20 million settlement under which the state acknowledged repeated mistakes were made by parole agents responsible for monitoring Phillip Garrido. The state has since increased monitoring of sex offenders.

Keith S. Brown, 55, the father of the renowned piano group The 5 Browns, was sentenced to at least 10 years in prison on charges that he sexually abused his three daughters when they were children. The judge said “I do believe that you are a pedophile, and... that you are a danger to society”. Brown once served as manager of his children’s group, but they severed professional ties with him in 2008. The Brown sisters remain estranged from their father. They reported the abuse to the police last year after learning that their father planned to begin working with other young musicians.

Police are looking for an Guatemalan man, and illegal immigrant, they say is trying to flee to his home country after he admitted to raping a 7-year-old girl in the Santa Fe home where he had rented a room. An arrest warrant has been issued charging Mario Humberto Cortez-DelCid, 28 with 11 counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, between mid-February and mid-March. While her father would be in the shower getting ready for work, DelCid would commit the acts, sometimes going and getting the girl and taking her to his room. He threatened even worse would happen if she told anyone. The girl eventually told her grandmother. The arrest warrant carries with it a $1 million cash-only bond, and he may face a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold if arrested.

Foreign child sex abusers in Pattaya, some of whom were repeatedly released by the police or courts, were targeted in “Operation Rescue” which centered on a website called “Boy Lover”. The website has 70,000 members, dozens of whom were in Thailand or frequent visitors to the country. More arrests are expected in the operation in which 670 pedophile suspects have been targeted worldwide. Those arrested include scout leaders, football coaches, and in Britain, even a police officer, was among the 100 arrested. In The Hague, Holland, where the “Boy Lover” website is based, police say they had arrested 184 people and taken 230 children out of danger. Of the total, 240 suspects aged between 17 and 82 were in Britain where 121 arrests were made and 60 children rescued from abusers.

The Operation Rescue was led by investigators at the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). Boy Lover operated in several languages across 11 sub-domains worldwide.

An internet pedophile ring with up to 70,000 members- thought to be the largest yet discovered, has been uncovered by police. Rob Wainright, Director of Europol, The European police agency, said it's "probably the largest pedophile network in the world". Europol said in a statement that "Operation Rescue" had identified 670 suspects and that 230 abused children in 30 countries had been taken to safety. More children are expected to be found. Europol said that so far 184 people had been arrested, which include teachers, police officers, scout leaders, and a youth camp worker suspected of abusing some 100 children over five years.

The website was shut down after a 3-year investigation. It had operated from a server based in the Netherlands, and had had up to 70,000 members worldwide. Law enforcement authorities from 13 countries, including the U.S., were involved in the case. Europol analysts had cracked the security features of a key computer server at the center of the network which uncovered the identities of suspected child sex offenders. There will be more arrests as investigations continue.

A former Florida police officer told a judge that he molested hundreds of girls as he was being sentenced in Putnam County, Fla. earlier this week. The state's attorney's office said Paul Joseph Blair, 60, pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual battery to a minor and received a 25-year sentence. He committed the crimes against two girls between the ages of 12 and 18. In court, Blair said he molested between 200 and 300 other girls and that he's been a pedophile his entire life.

Despite his confession, a state's attorney spokeswoman said Blair cannot be charged based on his words alone. "That confession alone isn't proof. Victims have to get matched up to that confession," said the spokeswoman, Shannon Peters. Peters said that investigations into other possible crimes are ongoing.

Blair is in the Putnam County jail awaiting transfer to state prison, and the jail does not permit media interviews with inmates.

Peters said Blair did not portray himself as a cop during the incidents with either of the two girls, and it was unclear if he did so during encounters with other children. Mental health experts said finding out the person who molested them was a law enforcement officer could add to the trauma the victims already are experiencing.

"They are hurt, disappointed and angry that someone who has the training and experience of being police would act toward them in that way," said Dr. Reid Finlayson, assistant professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. "It damages the person even more by undermining their trust in legitimate authority, help and support."

Christopher Earl Dustrude, 25, a convicted sex offender on the loose in San Diego for a week, was arrested Saturday. U.S. marshals were tipped by a woman who spoke to him at a mental hospital, then saw his picture in the San Diego Union-Tribune, authorities said. The marshal said Dustrude was jailed on suspicion of failing to register his change of address with authorities. He had checked himself into the hospital under his own name.

In 2004, Dustrude pleaded guilty in Montana to having sex with a 9-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy, both who are family members. He was placed on probation and ordered to register as a sex offender. His aunt, who is the mother of the two children he molested, said that he has mental problems, and she believes he should be put in an institution. he was ordered held without bail and has a preliminary hearing set for Feb. 17.

A former California state mental hospital director, 63-year-old Claude Foulk, was found guilty of sexually abusing his adopted son in what prosecutors contend was a pattern of preying on young boys that spanned four decades. Prosecutors say another 11 men came forward to claim that Foulk molested them as children, dating back to 1965, but only the son’s case could be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations. Foulk worked as a nurse, obtained a master’s in business administration, and held previous state jobs before working at Napa State Hospital. He was a foster parent to two boys and adopted two sons. The prosecutor argued that Foulk used the foster care system to acquire boys to meet his insatiable sexual appetite, knowing they had no parents to turn to.

He could face a maximum sentence of up to 248 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 23.

A Canadian man was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in U.S. prison for running a brothel in Thailand that provided boys, some as young as 4 years old, to pedophiles, federal prosecutors said. John Wrenshall, 64, admitted to using his Bangkok home to host foreign visitors who would pay him to have sex with Thai boys, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to engage in sex tourism, conspiracy to produce child pornography, and distribution of child pornography.

He let his clients film and photograph their abuse of the Thai boys. He also is accused of personally abusing the boys to prepare them for customers. He was extradited to New Jersey after being arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport in Dec. 2008. Wrenshall was indicated in New Jersey after it was discovered that Wayne Nelson Corliss, a New Jersey resident, had traveled to Thailand where he was photographed sexually abusing several Thai boys. Two of Wrenshall’s other U.S. clients, both from Alabama, have been convicted and sentenced to prison on sex tourism charges.

A 43-year-old defense attorney is accused of secretly photographing and filming several women and a teenage girl while they were undressing at a tanning salon in Northern San Diego County. David Taylor Kaye of San Marcos was arrested Friday after a 10-month-long investigation by Escondido police. Investigators have identified a total of seven women, including a 15-year-old girl. Investigator also found child pornography on his computers.

An Oviedo man with past ties to church missions in Africa was arrested by the FBI on child pornography charges. The arrest of Samuel Shamba Warlick, 39, comes three months after the Presbyterian Church (USA) published a report unrelated to the FBI case accusing Warlick of sexually abusing children at a housing facility for missionary families in the Congo in the late 1980's. The church’s report details inquiries into sexual abuse claims that occurred on 10 Presbyterian mission fields, spanning a 40-year period. He faces charges of possessing and distributing child pornography, and could be sentenced to 30 years in prison if convicted.

When agents searched his home, Warlick told them he has possessed child pornography for the past 10 years, and that he prefers boys who are between 13 and 16 years old. He also admitted to posing online as a 16-yr-old boy, with the goal of persuading boys to send him nude photos of themselves. The nearly 600-page report by the church said that Warlick had participated in activities or was employed by various Presbyterian churches in various states. The report also said that he had ties to a Boy Scout troop in Orlando. The church’s report details inquiries into sexual abuse claims that occurred on 10 Presbyterian mission fields, spanning a 40-year period. The report said Warlick abused children who were sleeping, and his victims were younger, smaller and less able to resist.

An Indonesian toy salesman, named Sartono, age 34, admitted to raping at least 96 boys between the ages of 13 and 17, over the last two years, many of them street children picked up at train stations. Sartono was arrested last week in the capital Jakarta after a complaint was filed by the parents of one of the alleged victims. The teenage boy claims he was abducted by the salesman and held for 45 days, during which time he was repeatedly raped and forced to perform sexual acts on other men. The investigator said "He kept a list and details about each of his victims, including the names of 16 of them". He could face 15 years behind bars if found guilty.

A Chico man, Amado Nicholas Hernandez, 31, was arrested as he arrived on board a cruise ship at the Port of San Diego. He was arrested on suspicion of having about 450 photographs of child pornography on a computer and about 250 videos of the same nature. Agents began investigating him last summer after a concerned citizen came to them with a computer he received for free from an estate sale in Chico. The computer was thought to be broken, but the citizen, a technician, was able to restore the computer and found the child pornography and called law enforcement. Investigators then allegedly linked the residence of the estate sale and the computer to Hernandez. Of the pornography found on the computer, 44 children were depicted. Hernandez is charged with receiving and possessing child pornography and may appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge as early as today.

A Colorado man, Douglas Perlitz, was sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison for sexually abusing children for more than a decade at a school he founded in Haiti. The judge said she believed there were at least 16 victims, based on the testimony that authorities recorded on video by others who attended the school. The judge called him a serial rapist and molester as she imposed the sentence on him. She said she believed he would commit the same crimes again if her were in a similar position.

Now a resident of Eagle, Colorado, Perlitz founded the school in 1997 when he lived in Fairfield County, Conn. Authorities said he began abusing the children, some as young as 11, in 1998 before the school was built. The abuse scandal led to the collapse of the school and its fundraising arm, the Haiti Fund, forcing the children back into homelessness on the streets, prosecutors said. Perlitz claims that a factor in the crimes was his "dark and abusive relationship" with a priest. His lawyers wrote in court documents that he had "confusion and shame about his sexuality, and struggles with his identity; an ongoing, complicated and exploitive relationship with an influential priest..."

The federal jury in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case returned guilty verdicts on both counts against street preacher Brian David Mitchell: kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor across state lines for purposes of illegal sex. The jury rejected the defense’s insanity claims. Mitchell kidnapped Smart from her home and raped her almost daily until she was found nine months later, walking a suburban street with Mitchell and his now-estranged wife. Mitchell faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

Dubbed Project Sanctuary, the investigation began in Nov. 2009, bringing together the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), 13 Canadian police services, and international police services and officers from the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Police Services Sex Crimes Unit.

For a year undercover officers went deep into the worldwide network of men who were allegedly trading child sexual abuse images and videos and, in some cases, creating these images by abusing children. That undercover operation has netted the arrest of 57 men world-wide with 25 of them from Canada. Twelve of the 25 children rescued as a result of Project Sanctuary are from Canada.

“This operation is an excellent example of what can be accomplished through cooperative police work between the U.S. and Canada. Nothing is more important than our combined efforts to prevent the exploitation of our children,” said Tom Blanchard, ICE HSI Attache in Canada.

A Perris man was arrested for indecent exposure Monday after a deputy caught him engaging in “a lewd act” while parked in front of a Murrieta-area children’s dance studio. Ozzie Dean, 57, had “an unobstructed view” of the children inside the studio, Sheriff’s Sgt. M. Hatfield said. The children ranged in age from 8 to 12 years old, he said. After Dean’s arrest, detectives found evidence in the car that indicated Dean may have committed crimes at other dance studios in the Riverside County area. He was book for indecent exposure and was released on bail.

Registered sex offender, Gary Lee Hardeman, 55, was arrested in Waikiki after being indicted in San Francisco on suspicion of illicit activity in a foreign place with a minor, apparently in Mexico, where court records say he stays with a daughter for several months a year. His only felony conviction was 30 years ago, but since then, authorities say, he has shown hostility toward being registered as a sex offender and has openly advocated adult sex with children. In court documents, probation officials say they suspected he was making pornographic films with minor girls and not following his registration requirements.

Nearly 350 registered sex offenders were arrested this week as part of a statewide sting to ensure they are complying with the law. Dubbed "Operation Safe Playground", the effort began in July and will continue through January.

Hundreds of convicted sex offenders have been arrested after a four day sweep across California including dozens in San Diego County, according to state parole agents.

Operation Safe Playgrounds began on Monday. State parole agents, along with local law enforcement, conducted compliance checks on registered sex offenders. "The short message is, if you're a sex offender and you are not in compliance in any way, we are going to track you down and get you back in compliance", said parole agent Sean Torphy of the California Parolee Apprehension Team.

On Friday, state parole officials will hold a press conference to release the finale number of arrests for California.

More than five dozen child prostitutes have been found in the last three days as part of a nationwide crackdown on the sexual exploitation of children. An FBI spokesman said 69 children were removed from prostitution and 99 suspected pimps were arrested in 40 cities across 30 states and the District of Columbia. All the children found in the last three days have been placed into protective custody or returned to their families.

The children were found during Operation Cross Country V, a three-day roundup targeting child traffickers and pimps. The largest group of child prostitutes, 24, was found in and around Seattle, according to the FBI. An FBI director said the children found ranged in age from 12 to 17. Authorities are working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to confirm their identities. Since 2003, when the FBI and the Justice Dept. launched the Innocence Lost National Initiative, about 1,250 child prostitutes have been located and removed from prostitution.

A brave 7-year old girl is being credited with exposing her own grandfather as a serial child molester in her family’s home. Sergio Conde was found guilty of eight counts of child molestation. He was charged with molesting two girls decades ago. Since then five other girls, including Conde’s step-granddaughters, also came forward claiming they are victims as well. Conde faces 15 years to life in prison when he’s sentenced in January 2011.

Anita Kaczmarczyk, 45, a woman who had fled to Mexico shortly before a trial was to begin on a daycare child molest case, was ordered to remain in custody on $2 million bail. She had been free on $150,000 bond. She and her husband, Mark Kaczmarczyk, both face child abuse and molestation charges, who if convicted, will each face 60 years to life in prison. An investigation began in Sept. 2007 due to four alleged victims, ranging from a few months in age to just over 2 years old, who suffered genital injuries.

Mark Kaczmarczyk, 59, went to Taiwan in 2008 and tried to set up a charity to work with children, but was arrested and returned to San Diego a few months later. A status conference is scheduled for Jan. 10, 2011. Trial is set for Feb. 7.

Joseph Cantorna, 55, is accused of exposing himself to two boys and fondling one of them. He is mentally challenged and has a previous conviction of lewd acts against a child. Because of the newly signed Chelsea's Law, he will probably be facing a greater penalty. According to the DA, prior to Chelsea's Law he would be facing 15 years to life, but because of the new law, he is facing 25 years to life. This is one of the first sex offender cases in the county since Chelsea's Law was signed.

Six people were convicted of child sexual abuse in a Lisbon court on Friday, in a trial that lasted nearly six years and shocked people in Portugal and beyond. The charges involved the rape and sexual abuse of 32 children who were residents of the home in Lisbon, part of a network of institutions for needy children called Casa Pia. Accusations included running a ring for pedophiles and sex parties attended by prominent personalities. The defendants included Carlos Cruz, a former star television anchor, who was sentenced to 7 years in prison, and Jorge Ritto, a retired ambassador, who received 6 years and 8 months. A newspaper editor said "...the public will now feel that sometimes at least even the powerful can get convicted for their crime." More than 800 witnesses and experts testified in court over a lengthy trial. A court ordered the Portuguese government in 2006 to pay more than $2.5 million in compensation to former residents of Casa Pia for failing to protect them.

The Boy Scouts of America have reached a financial settlement with six men who say they were sexually abused when they were members of the same troop in Oregon in the 1980's. the settlement comes after a trial in which a jury awarded Kerry Lewis, 38, a former scout, $19.9 million in damages in April. At the trial, a former assistant troop leader, Timur Dykes, admitted to molesting Mr. Lewis when he was about 12. For the settlement, the Boy Scouts were ordered to pay the State of Oregon $2.25 million in punitive damages.

An international child pornography ring that operated on Facebook has been brought down with the social networking site’s support, Australian police said. Eleven people have been charged in Australia, Britain and Canada in connection with the syndicate, which involved people using Facebook to distribute and view graphic sexual images, police said. The difficulty for Facebook in stopping the syndicates is that users set up false new accounts after their accounts are deactivated, so they need help of law enforcement.

Terry Dusseault, 38, a convicted sex offender whose disappearance triggered an Amber Alert, appeared in court on Thursday. Police were looking for him to arrest him on child sexual assault and endangerment charges but he took off with his 8-year-old son. His son is home safe, and now he has to answer to charges of sexually assaulting three young girls who sources say were around 9 years old. The crimes allegedly took place between April 2009 and the end of 2009. He was employed as a pizza delivery driver, and is a registered sex offender as a result of a child porn conviction in North Carolina.

Steven Tecce, a 19-year-old New Jersey man who works at a New Hampshire summer camp, is facing charges he tried to tie up and sexually assault an 8-year-old camper. The girl was able to escape and told her parents. Officials at Camp Spofford in Spofford say Tecce is a maintenance worker. His defense attorney said Tecce has Asperger’s syndrome, a type of autism characterized by difficulties in social interaction.

Jeffrey Alan Lee, 44, who worked as a jail counselor for the Sheriff’s Dept. and was previously a foster parent, has been arrested and charged with distribution of child pornography, the FBI said. His home was searched by FBI agents, who seized 11 computers, about 1,500 video files and “tens of thousands” of still images.

Justin Bowman, 31, a former Mesa police officer was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms in prison for child molestation and child porn-related offenses in Pinal County Superior Court. Bowman, who was arrested in 2008, committed the crimes against a 9-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy

Federal investigators have identified about 20 Pentagon employees and contractors who allegedly bought and downloaded online child pornography and, in some cases, used their government-issued computers to view the illegal material. The case is part of a wider probe, Operation Flicker, which has identified more than 5,000 people who subscribed to online child pornography websites.

Rabbi Stanley Z. Levitt, 64, allegedly abused boys at the
Maimonides school in Brookline and at a Chabad synagogue
in Philadelphia run by Rabbi Avraham Shemtov.

Levitt was arraigned last year on four counts of indecent
assault and battery on a child. Prosecutors say he assaulted
two boys about 11 years old who attended the school where
he taught between 1974 and 1977. Prosecutors say a third
child, who had been a sixth grader at the school, approached
them after reading media accounts.

An Albany woman is blasting city school officials for waiting nearly three weeks to inform her that her 6-year-old daughter had allegedly been sexually abused by a 7-year old fellow student last month. According to the mother, her daughter had been acting out, so the mother approached her teacher, who didn’t indicate there was any problem at school. The mother asked her daughter if anyone had touched her, and she eventually told her about the incident. A spokesman for the district is apologizing for their failure and says they are taking steps to make sure it does not happen again.

A special investigator released a report saying that 205 former students claimed they had been sexually abused in Jesuit schools, including prestigious Canisius-Kolleg in Berlin. The investigator said the actual number could be higher. The Jesuit order in Germany had asked the investigator to look into allegations of sexual abuse after 25 students came forward alleging abuse at Canisius. In her report she said 46 Jesuits and nonclerical staff members at the schools had been accused of abuse or of knowing of such crimes without acting.

A judge sentenced a paramedic and another man who pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography to long prison terms, while a hotel manager accused of having images of children being tortured and raped was granted bond. Stephen S. Henry, 28, a former Schertz EMT received the 20-year maximum sentence and Brett Tomas Gonzalez, who worked in information technology for RL Foods, received 17/12 years in prison. Both were caught during investigations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. The sentences highlighted what Phillip Wade Henderson, 51, a general manager of a Holiday Inn could face if convicted of distributing images that depicted children bound, gagged and tortured while being sexually assaulted.

John Gardner III’s surprise admission on April 16 that he took the lives of North County teenagers, Chelsea King and Amber Dubois, saved his own life. Gardner avoided the death penalty but agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison in striking a deal with prosecutors that allowed them to link him to Amber’s death for the first time. Gardner told prosecutors that he would take them to Amber’s remains if they didn’t use it against him. They found her remains north of Pala Reservation on March 6 but lacked DNA and other evidence to charge him with her death. He still could have faced the death penalty for Chelsea’s murder, but prosecutors and the girls’ families agreed to the plea deal to bring closure to Amber’s case (she had been missing since Feb. 2009).

The proposed Chelsea’s Law got a big endorsement in Sacramento on Tuesday. The new law is designed to increase penalties for first-time offenders convicted of committing sexually violent crimes against children. Those penalties include mandatory life sentences for certain violent attacks and lifelong GPS tracking for those who are released from prison.

Chelsea King was found dead in Feb. in Rancho Bernardo Community Park. Convicted sex offender John Gardner is being held in jail in connection to the case. The Poway teen was 17 years old at the time of her death.

An Oregon jury awarded $1.4 million to Kerry Lewis, who was abused by a former scout leader. The jury also decided the Boy Scout organization is liable for punitive damages to be decided in a separate trial. The Boy Scouts had fought to keep the "perversion files" (names of alleged child molesters who were scout leaders) confidential, but in February the Oregon Supreme Court approved the release of more than 1,000 files kept on alleged pedophiles from 1965 to mid-1984 to be used in the Portland trial.

Vaughn Robert Biby, a 46-year-old registered sex offender, was arrested in his home when officers making a check of sex offenders found "tens of thousands" of pieces of child pornography. Biby, who pleaded guilty in 1995 to seven counts of child molestation and the use of a minor for child pornography, has his arraignment scheduled for April 23.

Claude Foulk, 62, the former head of one of the nation's biggest state mental hospitals, pleaded not guilty to molesting an adopted foster son, and there are allegations of abuse involving five other boys, including another foster son. The DA said that since the news of Foulk’s arrest broke last week, four new alleged victims have come forward, bringing the total to 13 in cases that span from 1965 to 2006. Authorities say they can press charges in only one case because of the statute of limitations. Foulk was fired as executive director of Napa State Hospital after his arrest last Wednesday. Long Beach police said the charges stemmed from a victim who was 10 when he was taken in by Foulk in 1992. The alleged molestation continued until 2004. The investigation was sparked when one of the victims, now in his 40's, reported sexual abuse to police in September after learning that Foulk was head of the Napa hospital.

Jarred Harrell, the man arrested in Mississippi on child pornography charges last month, is now charged with murder, sexual battery and other counts in connection with the death of 7-year-old Somer Thompson.

24-year-old Jarred Mitchell Harrell has been charged with the murder of 7-year-old Somer Thompson. She disappeared on Oct. 19, 2009 as she was walking home from school. Her body was found two days later in a Georgia landfill. Harrell has been in custody since Feb. 11, 2010 when authorities arrested him in Mississippi on child pornography charges in Florida. Harrell was then extradited to Florida.

The Boy Scouts of America has long kept an extensive archive of secret documents that chronicle the sexual abuse of young boys by scout leaders over the years. The "perversion files", a nickname the Boy Scouts are said to have used for the documents, have rarely been seen by the public, but that could change in the coming weeks in an Oregon courtroom. The lawyer for a man who was molested in the 1980's by a scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scout sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began Wednesday. The lawyer said the files showed how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades. The attorney for the Boy Scouts said the that the files helped scouting leaders weed out sex offenders, especially repeat offenders who may have changed names or moved in order to join another local scouting organization.

A San Diego middle School student said a man grabbed her yesterday as she was on her way to school, and in La Mesa, police arrested a 54-yr.-old transient accused of accosting a young student who had been walking to school a day earlier. He was booked into the County Jail. Meanwhile, police are investigating an assault on an 11-yr.-old girl who was walking to school yesterday in City Heights. In Escondido, police continued to look yesterday for a man who was seen lurking a week ago around an elementary school and a middle school that border Kit Carson Park.

A New Jersey man, age 51, is accused of raping and beating his five daughters, and impregnating three, and even moving at one point to avoid child welfare investigators. His former wife testified that he believed he was a prophet whose apocalyptic visions drove him to try to create "pure" family bloodlines by impregnating three of his teenage daughters. The allegations include that the man ordered all children to be born at home, without medical care; punishment included beatings and depriving them of food; they were kept out of school and isolated from the outside world. The names of the husband and wife are not being released at this time, to protect the identities of their children, who are now over 18.

A registered sex offender, William Harris, 59, of Carlsbad, has been booked on suspicion of performing a lewd act in front of a 5-year-old girl, at Dog Beach. After allegedly performing the act, Harris ran away, and the father used his cell phone to videotape him getting into his van. The father filed a complaint with the Sheriff's Dept., and gave them a copy of the video. Deputies identified Harris from the video, searched his home, and he was arrested on a felony charge. Harris has previous convictions for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years old, indecent exposure, and annoying or molesting children.

Investigators are working to identify more than 100 children allegedly abused by a Delaware pediatrician, Dr. Earl Bradley, 56. Authorities want parents of Dr. Bradley's patients to provide photos to compare with videos they claim Bradley used to document his sexual abuse. Some families are struggling with whether to find out if their children are among the victims. Bradley is being held in lieu of $2.9 million bail and is charged with 471 separate crimes. If convicted, he could become one of the most notorious pedophiles in the nation’s history.

Director Roman Polanski lost his bid yesterday to be sentenced without returning to the U.S. when a judge ruled that the director must be present in court if he wants to resolve his 32-year old sexual-abuse case. The judge reiterated that Polanski is a fugitive from justice. A lawyer for Polanski said the ruling will be appealed. Polanski was indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molesting and sodomy. He later pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sexual intercourse.

Of the 36 boys surveyed at East Mesa, a boys-only facility in east Otay Mesa, 14% said they had been the victim of sexual misconduct by a staff member in the past year. When asked about the sexual encounters, 3% said the staff member used force. A national survey released this month questioned nearly 92,000 children in 195 juvenile facilities as part of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, which requires federal authorities to analyze the prevalence of sexual victimization behind bars each year. Nationwide, 10% of the youth reported an incident involving staff, and 95 percent said the incident was with a female staffer.

Authorities say that Dr. Earl Bradley, 56, a well-known Delaware pediatrician, may have molested more than 100 children. Colleagues joked about his carnival-like office filled with toys and a merry-go-round. There had been complaints and investigations dating back almost a decade. Despite the warnings, Delaware's medical board only recently suspended Bradley's license - after he was arrested. Governor Jack Markell said "the system failed", and plans to order an independent review of the state's handling of the case. Bradley is being held in lieu of $2.9 million bond after being charged with more than 30 felonies, including rape. Authorities have said that he videotaped some of the attacks, some of which occurred in exam rooms with Disney themes. Bradley closed an office in Milford in 2005 after police investigated him. The case is even more chilling because some alleged victims are not more than 6 months old.

A 13-year-old Liberian boy, charged in the reported gang rape of an 8-year-old girl in Phoenix, was released from custody yesterday and turned over to his parents as he continues lessons to make him competent to stand trial. Four boys, ages 9 to 14, lured the girl to an empty storage shed July 16, restrained her, and took turns raping her, police said. All the children involved are refugees from the West African nation of Liberia. The juvenile judge granted the youth’s release to his parents on several conditions. Prosecutors are seeking to have the boy tried as an adult.

A 15-year-old Richmond girl was forced into a car with four males while walking down a street Friday around 5 p.m. They drove around for several hours before stopping at an unknown spot, where two of the suspects raped her. Police have few leads on the suspects, who were in the their late teens to early 20's. Another gang rape of a teenager had occurred in Richmond, also.

Dr. Earl Bradley, 56, a pediatrician charged with sexually abusing his patients, likely attacked more than 100 children at an office he had decked out with a merry-go-round and a ferris wheel. Bradley is being held in prison on $2.9 million bond. He has been charged with 33 felony counts relating to 7 victims.

Steven Robert Deck, 55, a retired California Highway Patrol Lieutenant from Carlsbad, was convicted yesterday in Orange County of attempting to commit unlawful sexual acts with a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl. Deck was arrested in 2006 with 12 other men during a sting operation by Laguna Beach police that targeted older men trying to meet young girls over the Internet. He had been free on bail. He had previously worked in San Diego also.

Swiss officials said a decision would be made "early next year" about whether Roman Polanski, the 76-year old filmmaker, would be extradited to the United States. Polanski has been under house arrest in his chalet in Switzerland. He has been a fugitive from the United States, from which he fled in 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Joseph H. Gardner, 26, was arraigned yesterday on charges that he sexually assaulted a 3-year-old girl in Kingston. He had been charged this summer with raping another child, but was free on bail. In the earlier alleged rape, the self-described construction worker was freed on $10,000 cash bail, far less than Plymouth prosecutors sought, on Sept. 15. They were disappointed that Judge Thomas Brownell set bail at $10,000 instead of the $200,00 they originally sought. He had been charged with breaking into the Kingston house of a distant relative and raping a 6-yr. old girl.

Steven M. Bimson, 65, a Rotary Club member who molested three boys from abusive families, including two who lived with him in San Diego, was sentenced Monday to more than 179 years to life in prison. The prosecutor said that Bimson found 12- to 15-year-old boys from "unfortunate circumstances", brought them to live with him, then molested them on a nightly basis. The crimes occurred in the 1990's. One victim finally called police in 2006 after hearing that Bimson had received a license for foster care.

Burrell E. Mohler, Sr., 77, and his four sons were arrested and are facing various charges of sexually abusing children from 1988 through 1995. His sons are: Burrell E. Mohler, Jr., 53; Jared L. Mohler, 48; Roland N. Mohler, 47; and David A. Mohler, 52. The charges include sodomy and forcible rape. A daughter of one of the accused came forward in mid-August with the allegations and told investigators that she and the other alleged victims buried glass jars around the property filled with messages "about what was happening to them". Authorities are searching a rural property outside Bates City, east of Kansas City, MO, where members of the Mohler family once lived. Authorities believe they may find bodies and the aforementioned buried glass jars.

A missing 5-year-old, Shaniya Davis, whose mother was accused of offering her for sex, was found dead off a heavily wooded road in a rural area Monday, ending a weeklong search. Two people have been charged in her disappearance, one of them her mother, Antoinette Davis, 25. Police charged Davis with human trafficking and felony child abuse, saying Shaniya was offered for prostitution. Authorities also charged Mario McNeill, 29, with kidnapping after they said he was seen in surveillance footage carrying Shaniya at a Sanford hotel. Shaniya’s father, Bradley Lockhart, said he raised his daughter for several years but last month decided to let her stay with her mother. He said "I should've never let her go over there".

Aaron Zendejas, 24, pleaded guilty to charges related to letting a man molest and photograph children in his care. His hearing is scheduled for Dec. 1,when he could be sentenced to 15 years to life. He is accused of being paid to bring a 3-year old boy to Jared Yaffe, 30, of Santee, CA, who faces 20 counts related to child molestation, kidnapping for sexual acts, and production of child pornography. If convicted, he faces 129 years to life. Yaffe is accused of victimizing several children and teenagers between March and September 2008.

Daniel Herrera, 53, worked for San Diego Unified School District since 1985, volunteered at Whitman Elementary School in the arts program, worked as a special education bus monitor, volunteered at Catholic churches and managed dance groups. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for child molestation. He pleaded guilty to three counts of committing lewd acts on two children. He had been molesting these children from 1988 to 2005. Other potential victims have since come forward, but the statute of limitations have run out for them.

Eight years after horrifying post-9/11 duties in New York, former Chula Vista Fire Captain, Robert Eugene Bryant, Jr., 37, pleaded guilty, on Oct. 1st, to charges of child pornography. He was the youngest fire captain in Chula Vista's history, and decorated with a medal of valor. Bryant is due for sentencing in December. Prosecutors say he faces up to five years in federal prison, he will have to register as a sex offender, precluding any further public safety work.

Donald Edward Nelson, 59, a convicted American pedophile who had fled the U.S., was arrested in Jerusalem. He was convicted last year in a California court on 52 counts of sexual abuse of minors and sentenced to 110 years in prison. He will be deported in the coming days.

Anita Kaczmarczyk, 44, and her husband Mark, 58, are charged with molesting and sexually assaulting four children at the daycare facility they ran out of their Mission Valley apartment. Both husband and wife face up to 60 years to life in prison if convicted. According to evidence presented at a preliminary hearing in April, an investigation started in September 2007, when one of the alleged victims, who ranged from a few months to just over 2 years old, suffered genital injuries. Eventually, all victims were shown to have genital injuries. The couple’s trial is set for February 24.

Phillip Garrido, 58, and his wife Nancy, 54, have pleaded not guilty to 29 charges of kidnapping, rape, and false imprisonment charges. Bail for Phillip Garrido has been set at $30 million and Nancy is being been held without bail, in El Dorado County jail. The couple are accused of kidnapping 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard from her home near South Lake Tahoe in 1991, then holding her captive in a backyard jumble of tents and sheds for nearly two decades, at the couple’s home near Antioch, in the east San Francisco area. Authorities said Garrido fathered two daughters with Dugard. The couple were arrested Aug. 27, 2009. Phillip Garrido had previously been in prison for rape, for which he spent 10 years. Garrido constantly invoked God and considered himself to be some sort of prophet. "Molesters commonly turn to religion to rationalize their behavior", said Ken Lanning, a former FBI profiler who specializes in kidnapping and child-abuse cases.

Peter Bitner, 64, was arrested in Honolulu, Hawaii on an arrest warrant issued in San Diego in 1993. He was living and working under his true name at a medical insurance office. He is accused of sexually abusing two small children, 16 years ago. He is being returned to San Diego to face charges, and if convicted, could face up to 20 years in prison. Officials said that from Aug. 1992 to March 1993, in San Diego, Bitner was a baby sitter and molested a 4-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy who are step siblings.

John Jackey Worman, 42, was sentenced to 120 years in prison Aug. 12, 2009, for making a huge cache of child pornography that shows him sexually assaulting a dozen children, including infants, at a girlfriend’s in-home day care. The FBI found him with more than 1 million images of child pornography when they arrested him in 2007. An ex-girlfriend, Concetta Jackson, 46, of Collindale, who procured some of the victims for him, is in prison awaiting sentencing on one child pornography count. Another ex-girlfriend, Dorothy Prawdzik, 45, of Drexel Hill, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for participating in making the videos. The sentencing judge described him as a psychopath, and Worman says he has no remorse and says "I am totally at peace with everything I've done".

Authorities have arrested Arthur Le land Sayler in connection with one of the biggest child porn rings of today. Stretching from Mexico to Canada and all over the United States. When arrested Sayler was in possession of 4 million photos and videos of child pornography. In addition to the photos and videos, 15 hard drives full of child porn where found as well. Sayler has worked for numerous computer companies taking him to Kearny Mesa, Costa Mesa, Orange County, Santa Clara and all over San Diego. Sayler is in La Mesa State Penitentiary in Tijuana awaiting trial. Authorities say it may take a year to convict him.

Stephen L. McPherson, 39, and his wife were indicted on charges related to illegal sexual acts with three girls while they served as house parents of Hope Haven Children's Home, a Christian based facility operated by Union Mission Ministries, in Virginia Beach. McPherson pleaded guilty in January to charges of forcible sodomy and object sexual penetration. McPherson and his wife had undergone the same screening process as everyone else, such as criminal background checks, character references, interviews and spending time with the staff.

Willie Kendall Williams, 27, is being held without bail for charges of kidnapping with the intent to commit a sex crime, forcible oral copulation, rape with a foreign object, and car theft. Williams abducted a pregnant 16-year-old girl who was walking down east main street and forced her to perform sex acts on himself. If convicted of all charges Williams faces 30 years to life in prison.

Jordan Arnold, 21, recruited children to work as prostitutes and would list them on craigslist. Christopher Black, 21, and Jessica King, 20, were friends of Arnolds and helped him take the pictures and solicit male customers. Arnold pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to engage on sex trafficking of children and one count of coercion and enticement of a juvenile into prostitution. Arnold was sentenced to 6 years in prison, while the other two received five years and eight months.

Charlie Williams, 37, is being charged with one count of rape by force, three counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under14 and another under 16. Williams is related to the young girl he raped who was 12 at the time. The other two girls were between 12 an 15. Williams started molesting the girls in 2004.

Monsey Rabbi Israel Weingarten was found guilty of abusing his daughter through much of her childhood. The trial was traumatic for his daughter, now 27. Weingarten acted as his own attorney and put his daughter through a grueling cross examination. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Pauletta Santaua, 20, has appeared in videos and photos with a girl under 15-years-old. The photos where taken by a Gary Lee Whiteside of Spring Valley. Santaua had pleaded guilty in Jan. on one count of committing a lewd act on a child under the age of 14. Whiteside, 65, faces 50 felony charges of molesting and photographing nine girls who were between the age of 11 and 15, and possessing child pornography. Whiteside could face multiple life terms if convicted.

Garth Jason Gumienny, 34, has been arrested on suspicion of molesting another child. Gumienny is a registered child molester. Gumienny is suspected of molesting his roommate's son. Gumienny's arrest came after the police interviewed the roommate’s boy. He was booked on suspicion of 10 counts of child molestation.

Dennis Tasker, 61, a former upstate police officer, is charged with multiple counts of sex abuse involving at least one child. State police say Tasker performed sexual acts on a child during a 12- to 18-month period.

Timothy Whiteside, 44, was arrested on numerous counts of aggravated sexual assault on a child, as well as additional sexual related charges. This arrest was the result of an extensive investigation, by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept., of multiple juvenile victims at numerous locations throughout the Hemet & San Jacinto Valley. Whiteside would target girls between the ages of 10 and 14. Investigators are seeking other victims. Anyone who may have information about the case or has had negative contact with Whiteside is urged to call the Judge at the Hemet Sheriff's Station at 951-791-3421.

James Anthony Reid, 31, has pleaded not guilty to all 15 charges against him. According to court records, the offenses include five counts of first-degree sex abuse, four counts of first- degree rape, and six counts of sodomy. Reid's victims were both boys and girls ranging in age from 5 to 12. The attacks on the children occurred in the northern part of Mobile County in the Citronelle and Chunchula areas.

Vincent Gerber, 38, faces four felonies in two separate cases; two counts of child molestation and sexual misconduct with a minor. Gerber and his wife, Marsha, hosted a party on Dec. 28 at his home where they bought and allowed underage girls, to be drinking at their home. Two teen girls 13 and 15, have told police that Gerber had touched them. The 13-year-old said she fought Gerber as he tried to put his hand down her shorts. Gerber also tried to put his hands up her shirt. The 15-year-old told police she got drunk at the party, threw up, then went to bed. Gerber followed the girl into the bedroom and had sex with her.

Gary Lee Whiteside, 66, pleaded guilty to molesting young girls, and is expected to be sentenced to 60 years to life in prison. Authorities said he would ask girls from distressed families to model for him at his El Cajon photography studio, and over a period of time, groom them to take off their clothes and engage in sexual activities. Investigators said they found hundreds and possibly thousands of pictures and videos of girls alone, with each other and with him performing sex acts. He had volunteered for his church and worked with police departments in El Cajon and La Mesa.

Jatten Heinen, 20, of Wahpeton is accused of touching four girls at a YMCA. The girls range in ages between 6 and 8. Heinen faces four counts of gross sexual imposition and one count of attempted gross sexual imposition. Heinen had only worked at the YMCA for about one year.

Dean Arthur Schwartzmiller, 63, was arrested in Everett Washington after he allegedly molested two 12-year-old boys in San Jose. Schwartzmiller shared a home with a Fred Everts, who is a convicted sex offender. The home they shared is walking distance to at least two elementary schools. San Jose police raided the home to find computers everywhere, three ring binders, with thousands of pages describing in handwriting how they had sexually assaulted their victims. The total number of sex acts recorded total more than 36,000; which are grouped into categories such as, cute boys, blonde boys, boys who say no and so on. They also had boys in age categories. Police believe there are hundreds of victims in a number of states. Schwartzmiller faces charges in San Jose, Oregon, Idaho, Arkansas, Washington, New York, Brazil, Nevada and Texas. Schwartzmiller was convicted of molesting a 14-year-old boy back in 1978 for which he spent time in an Idaho prison. Schwartzmiller preys on the innocent, weak, oppressed and those who are in need.

Mark Kaczmarczyk, 57, and wife Anita Kaczmarczyk, 43, have been arrested in Taipei. The two are being charged with molesting six children who attended their day care, held in a San Diego apartment in 2007. The Kaczmarczyks fled to Taiwan, avoiding an arrest warrant. Mark is being held on a 2 million dollar bail, and Anita 600,000 dollar bail.

Richard P. DeArment, 44, of Spring Valley is charged with two counts of committing lewd acts on a child younger than 14. If convicted, he could spend up to 25 years to life in prison. DeArment had molested a girl, then 4, and another, then 2-years-old.

William F. Anderson, 70, was convicted of child molestation. Anderson is guilty of molesting an employee's daughter who took martial arts classes at his home. Anderson was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Archie Lee Thomas has been convicted on numerous charges including rape and assault with intent to commit rape. Thomas was a door-to-door salesman in El Cajon. Thomas forced his way into his victim’s home, who was 14 at the time, and dragged her around the house before brutally raping her. Thomas has been sentenced to 80 years to life in prison.

Robert "Eric" Buss, 38, faces up to 18 years in prison for performing lewd acts on a child under 14 and one count of performing lewd acts on a child between the ages of 14 and 15. Buss sponsored boys in BMX bicycle racing. Buss would pay their entry fees and travel with them to races throughout Southern California.

Wayne Albert Bleyle, 54, was a  Respiratory Therapist at Childrens Hospital, he is being accused of sexually abusing five seriously ill or brain-damaged children. Additional charges of modeling children to create child pornography, and additional counts of distributing or offering to distribute child pornography have been added against Bleyle. Christopher Alan Irvin of City Heights, a 32-year-old nurse who had worked under Bleyle, is being charged with molesting patients under his care. Irvin is being charged with distributing child porn as well. Bleyle did, however, admit in a telephone interview to molesting a comatose and brain-damaged child as early as 1996.

Chester William Owen Jr., 54, has been found guilty of three counts of molesting a relative who lived with him when she was a teenager. Owen, an unemployed engineer who volunteered for children's Boy Scout and school activities, was also found guilty of battering his relative after she became an adult. Owen had domestic violence charges against him in 2003 as well.

Daniel Meraz 24, a day care worker is being accused for molesting a young girl and her friends at a YMCA after-school program. Meraz would take one at a time into his office, shut the door and blinds while fondling the young girls. If convicted, Meraz faces a potential life prison term.

Investigators said thousands of Internet users paid millions of dollars by credit card to access about 50 pornographic web sites that depicted abuse of children in the Eastern European nation of Belarus. The investigation into the Belarus child pornography enterprise is part of Operation Predator, the federal government's offensive against sex crimes. At its center was a company in Minsk, Belarus, three of whose executives have been indicted. The company’s files led to thousands of leads.

Robert "Bo" Jack, 28, pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation. Jack a resident of Escondido had drugged a 13-year-old girl while she slept at a friends house in Poway. Once she was drugged enough he fondled and touched her repeatedly. Jack received the maximum penalty.

Dr. John Scott McClintock, 41, a pediatric plastic surgeon, was accused of molesting six boys, ages 9 to 15. McClintock was later convicted on 30 counts of child molestation and possessing child pornography. McClintock a physician in Chula Vista faces at least 60 years in state prison.

Eugenio Chipkevitch, 47, was detained after 35 videotapes, with more than 50 hours worth of footage of him abusing boys between 10 and 16 years of age, were found by police. Doctor Chipkevitch is also a therapist who worked with young children.

Judge Ronald C. Kline, 61, was charged with four counts of lewd conduct with a child under the age of 14. Kline was in possession of child pornography, and was molesting a neighbor boy.

Eric Franklin Rosser, accused pedophile, child molester and one of the FBI’s top ten was taken into custody on the morning of August 21, 2001, at a business located in Bankok, Thailand. He had been a fugitive since failing to appear for a court hearing in Thailand on April 2000. He was wanted for the international production, collection and distribution of child pornography between Bloomington, Indiana and Bangkok, Thailand. Police say Rosser also victimized an unknown number of young girls in Bankok and Bloomington, most of them between the ages of seven and eleven. He was recognized by a teacher at a school in Bangkok, where he had submitted an application to teach children. The teacher had seen him on AMERICA’S MOST WANTED and reported him.

Rosser had been a keyboardist with John Cougar Mellencamp’s band in the late 70's and early 80's and later performed in lounges in Thailand, and had run a music school for children.

Geoffrey Cornish, 52, a Solana Beach therapist who specialized in treating adolescents has pleaded guilty to 20 felony charges of molestation. Cornish was molesting a 13-year-old boy in his office while the mother waited in the adjacent room. Cornish who is HIV positive was having sex with the boy. Cornish, pleaded guilty and is in prison for 23 years.