May, 2006 News (continued)
Man lends home for 'Dateline' sex sting
Grant Boxleitner
11 May 2006 12:00 am
"Getting pedophiles off the street is a good thing," Gradwell said Wednesday. "Somebody had to do it. If we were still living here, we probably wouldn't have done it."
In all, 24 men from throughout Florida were arrested on felony Internet sex charges during the sting at Gradwell's home, including eight men from Southwest Florida.
Officials with Perverted-Justice.com, a national anti-sex-offender group, worked with Fort Myers police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on the operation. They posed as underage boys and girls in chat rooms on the Internet from an upstairs room, then used decoys to bring the men inside the house.
That's when they were met by "Dateline" reporter Chris Hansen, who questioned their intentions as the cameras rolled. When he finished the interviews, police moved in for the arrests.
Man admits raping sisters
Tom Sheehan
11 May 2006 12:00 am
A Buckeye Lake man told investigators he only had sex with two young sisters to educate them.
Andrew Cramer, 46, faces up to 45 years in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to three counts each of rape and gross sexual imposition for having sex with the girls, who are now teenagers.
Cramer was scheduled to go to trial yesterday in a case in which three other men already have been convicted of abusing the 13-year-old girl last year. Those men received sentences of between two and 24 years in prison.
Unregistered sex offenders
Paul LaGrone
11 May 2006 2:34 pm
There are many sex offenders that the state is aware of. While they’re supposed to be registered on the state’s website, many of them are not.
There are more than 1,200 registered sex offenders that are unaccounted for throughout the state.
Worker at school bus firm a sex offender
SUE REINERT
10 May 2006 12:00 am
Police arrested an employee of a Braintree bus company that transports special needs children for allegedly failing to register as a sex offender.
Robert Burke, 41, who is homeless, was arrested yesterday at P&M Transportation, Weymouth Police Lt. George Greenwood said.
Sex offender registered in South Carolina allegedly molests girl in Sebastian
TONY JUDNICH
10 May 2006 12:00 am
A Vero Beach pizza delivery man who is a registered sexual offender in South Carolina was arrested Friday by Sebastian police for allegedly molesting a 10-year-old Sebastian girl.
Mark S. Moore, 33, of the 700 block of Tides Road, was arrested on a second-degree felony charge of lewd or lascivious molestation of a child under the age of 12. He has since been released from Indian River County Jail after posting a $200,000 bond.
Moore was convicted in South Carolina in 1999 on three counts of indecent exposure involving a 10-year-old girl, Grimmich said. Moore was sentenced to a three-year prison term on those charges, but it was suspended after he completed five years of probation.
The alleged molestation occurred Friday morning at the girl's residence, police said. Grimmich said Moore had been dating the girl's mother for about a year.
The mother told police she went to sleep with Moore about 12:30 a.m. Friday in her room. The mother said she awoke about 3:30 a.m. to find Moore was no longer in her bed. She looked around and found Moore kneeling at the foot of her daughter's bed, police said.
Moore was holding a flashlight in one hand and had his other hand on the girl's shorts and panties, pulling them, police said. Police said the mother then confronted Moore, who dropped the flashlight and began apologizing. The mother then told Moore to leave the house, according to police.
Scandalous Testimony in Teacher Sex Case
10 May 2006 12:00 am
Brad Smith is accused of having sexual relations with several girls, including one at the high school where he taught.
The prosecution almost wrapped up their case on Wednesday, as jurors heard from the fifth and final victim and the girl who says she watched Brad Smith have sex with her underage friend.
Another alleged victim told jurors Wednesday she met Smith over the internet and they would occasionally talk about sex.
The girl says she eventually met Smith in person when she was 17. She says Smith picked her up and took her to his house.
If convicted, Smith will only have to register as a sex offender if the prosecution can prove there were sex acts performed on him by underage girls.
Open Letter to ABC
Christopher Largen
10 May 2006 7:27 pm
Regarding the Good Morning America story "Sexy Video Sends Ex-Teacher Back to Jail"...
Who thought this video was "sexy"? Perhaps a more accurate word would have been "predatory" or "improper" or "illegal". This teacher didn't get sent back to jail because she was being sexy. She got sent back for violating the terms of her probation.
I have no problem with people making sexually-oriented videos to be used only in situations of legal consent, but when an American child is being raped every four minutes, ABC's use of the word "sexy" in this case is both "indecent" and "improper"
St. Louis schoolboys to be charged in sex assault
Reuters
10 May 2006 1:12 pm
A dozen schoolboys aged 6 to 8 years old will be charged for allegedly sexually assaulting a female classmate during recess and a teacher who was supposed to be supervising them has been fired, authorities said.
The boys surrounded the 8-year-old girl on the school playground and poked at her with their fingers while she fought to keep on her underwear, local media reports said. Another student alerted teachers.
Female Sex Offender Speaks Out
Lesli Foster
09 May 2006 11:30 pm
They commit crimes that go largely unnoticed. While recent news reports have shed some light on women who become sex offenders, their actions seem to generate less outrage than their male counterparts.
Now, one woman breaks her silence about the choices she made that cost her everything.
Sexy Video Sends Ex-Teacher Back to Jail
ABC News
09 May 2006
Pamela Rogers Admitted to Having an Affair With a 13-Year-Old Student
In February 2005, Rogers was arrested and charged with 15 counts of sexual battery by an authority figure and 13 counts of statutory rape for her relationship with a student at Centertown Elementary in Mcminnville, Tenn., where she taught physical education. A judge sentenced Rogers to serve nine months of an eight-year prison sentence and ordered her never to contact the boy again.
Only two months after being released from prison after 198 days for good behavior, Rogers was re-arrested for allegedly posting messages to the boy on a Web site. After pleading not guilty, she allegedly continued to contact the boy, even sending him graphic cell phone video of her dancing suggestively.
Pamela Rogers may now have to serve the remainder of her eight-year sentence.
Assembly GOP seeks sex offender crackdown
ABIGAIL BLECK
09 May 2006 12:00 am
Keeping convicted sex offenders in civil confinement after their sentence expires is just one part of a package of bills addressing sexual violence introduced by Republican members of the state Assembly.
The minority conference intends to spend the remaining month and a half of the 2006 session urging their counterparts to cross the aisle to get tough on sex crimes.
Sex offender bill passes; private prisons shot down
Carl Manning
09 May 2006 12:00am
Passage of the bill, dubbed "Jessica's Law," was part of a deal worked out by House and Senate negotiators last week, after the House rejected a compromise bill bundling the popular sex offender measure with legislation the Senate wanted to allow private prisons in Kansas.
Kansas law prohibits housing state prisoners in private facilities in the state, but they can be housed in private facilities in other states.
Senators had argued for bundling the bills, because increased penalties for sex offenders would generate the need for an additional 1,000 prison beds by 2016.
"We'll be back next year figuring out where to put all these criminals," said Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence.
Delay of a hearing about sex counts approved
THELMA GUERRERO
09 May 2006 12:00 am
Marion County Circuit Court Judge Jamese Rhoades gave Sterling Alexander's attorneys until May 22 to submit additional information involving their client's case.
Alexander, who was a member of the Salem Police Department from March 31, 2003, to July 6, 2004, was charged in December with rape, kidnapping, sex abuse and attempted strangulation of a female acquaintance.
In February, a Marion County deputy district attorney presented new charges of sex abuse and misconduct in the case. Those charges stemmed from statements given by an alleged victim who came forward after Alexander's December arrest.
Alexander pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is free on $115,000 bail.
A trial date in the case has not been scheduled.
Sex Offender Passes Victim's Address Around Prison
Associated Press
08 May 2006 9:54 pm
A woman is angry that the man who is convicted of sexually assaulting her daughter has distributed her photo and address around the Dodge Correctional Institution.
One of the inmates who saw the photo -- Jeremy Mullock, 24, -- wrote her teenage daughter a letter last week.
Mullock, a Greendale native, was convicted of using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime.
"This is wrong. They're in prison. How can they do this?" the mother told The Chippewa Herald in Sunday's edition.
Mullock knows 29-year-old Donald Rusaw, who is serving at least 18 years in the Waupun prison on charges that include the 2002 sexual assault of the Chippewa Falls girl.
"I just met your guy Don in here and he showed me a picture of you. I thought you were looking good, so I asked him if you were cool and he said yeah," Mullock writes in the letter obtained by paper.
Drugs-for-sex offer lands ex-probation officer in prison
07 May 2006
A former senior probation officer was sentenced Friday to four years in state prison on charges that he offered to trade drugs for sex with a woman he was supervising, among other acts of official misconduct.
Little Egg Harbor Township resident Joshua D. Fell, 31, pleaded guilty to the charges in March. His sentence also forbids him from ever getting another public job in New Jersey, according to Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blitz.
Superior Court Judge Bernard DeLury, in pronouncing the sentence, said Fell's “conduct jeopardized the justice system and the operation of the probation system.”
When Fell offered his guilty plea, he admitted that he tried to get a West New York, N.J., woman — who was on probation and under his supervision — to have sex with him by offering her marijuana or assuring her he could take care of any drug-testing problems she might have if she did smoke pot, according to Assistant Prosecutor Daniel Murray.
The woman told her lawyer about the offer and the lawyer went to the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office. Blitz said members of the official-corruption unit in his office investigated the charges.
When a county grand jury indicted Fell last October, Blitz said the investigation also found the former probation officer had made similar offers to other women, including a Tuckerton resident whose probation he also supervised.
Investigator says sex offender sold snow cones at day-care
Holly Hollman
05 May 2006 12:00 am
A citizen warned authorities that a registered sex offender was allegedly selling snow cones in a daycare parking lot Thursday.
Limestone County Sheriff's Department Chief Investigator Stanley McNatt identified the sex offender as Jamey Edward Hicks, 27, of 28530 Leaning Pine Road, Ardmore.
McNatt said when the citizen called authorities, a deputy went to the day-care in the eastern part of Limestone County and allegedly found Hicks working in the parking lot.
McNatt said Hicks was working out of a van for his cousin.
Authorities charged him with violating the community notification act for working in the vicinity of children.
Hicks has a conviction for second-degree rape in Madison County.
His victim was a 15-year-old female.
Judge takes stand against sex offender registry
Dan Wilson
04 May 2006 12:00 am
A Waupaca County judge has ordered convicted sex offender Sam Roloff's name to be added to the state's sex offender registry — but not until nearly 100 years have passed.
Circuit Judge Philip Kirk said the list, which now numbers more than 18,000 people, is rendered useless when it includes people like Roloff who engaged in consensual sex with underage parties.
"It's diluted," he said this week. "It has lost the purpose for which it was designed. It should apply to people like the David Spanbauers (who molested and killed children) or priests who abuse children, but it gets applied to consensual sex because it was outside the age requirement."
The law includes a "Romeo and Juliet" clause that allows a judge to exempt a defendant from registration if the defendant is 19 years old or younger and the victim is within four years of age. It does not recognize legal consent for underage people, even when they willingly engage in sex, because experts point out that juveniles don't have the maturity or judgment to consent.
That's the heart of the debate that has pitted Kirk against the state attorney general's office and a state appeals court, both of which are trying to force Kirk to put Roloff on the sex offender registry. Roloff was 20 when he had sex with four girls, all between the ages of 15 and 17.
Rape/Kidnapping Suspect Arrested in Shreveport
04 May 2006
In December of 2005, Galberth kidnapped a 15-year-old black female from the 2700 block of Grassmere. He took her to another location and sexually assaulted her. He then drove her to a third location and
released her.
In March of this year, he kidnapped an 18-year-old black female from Hillcrest and W. Canal streets. She was taken to another location and sexually assaulted. He then drove her to a location near where he picked her up and released her.
Teen Continues to Fight Sex Case
Michael King
03 May 2006 7:00 am
Genarlow Wilson’s case inspired a key exception to a tough Georgia sex crimes law, but he continues to lose his own legal battle.
Wilson was 17 when he had oral sex with a 15-year-old girl. His attorney says the girl agreed to it, but Wilson was sentenced to ten years in jail for aggravated child molestation.
Now, the state appeals court has thrown out Wilson’s challenge to that sentence.
Wilson’s mother, Juannessa Bennett says that while her son should be punished for the oral sex on New Year’s Eve 2003, he shouldn’t be forced to serve the ten year term of a sexual attacker.
Bennett points to trial testimony that the 15-year-old girl was sober and willing
“She had nothing to drink, she had nothing to smoke. She even admitted that she had lied about her age -- she came forward and she said that,” Bennett said.
Wilson’s case was one reason state lawmakers put an exception in the new sexual predator bill just signed by Gov. Perdue. The “Romeo and Juliet” clause allows lesser punishment when consenting teens are close in age.
