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Former Teacher Sentenced For Sex Crimes
20 Nov 2006 12:00 am
A former Richland High School Biology teacher was sentenced to serve a total of 40 years in prison on Monday, for having sex with two of his students.
David Lee Ozborn admitted to the crime and thew himself on the mercy of the court.
Rankin County Circuit Judge William Chapman sentenced him to 30 years on each count, but suspended 10 years, and gave him an additional five years probation.
The former teacher would be 78 years old when he gets out of prison, if he lives that long.
The girls were 14 and 15 when they had their first encounters with the former teacher. Testimony showed he had sex with one of them in the school's biology lab.
The two victims testified. The mother of the now 17 year old also testified, "He gave her a ring and told her, when she was 15, in his mind he was married to her."
She also testified, "he tore my windows up coming through the window to have sex with my child." Judy Bland urged the judge to give him the maximum sentence, saying "he should have been stopped a long time before he got to my child."
Judge Chapman told the defendant, "you are a predator." Osborn apologized for his actions and his attorney Anse McLaurin said he "was not the monster he was made out to be."
Missing evidence not found
Jimmie E. Gates
05 Sep 2006 12:00 am
Evidence that could help a convicted rapist trying to get his 24-year-old Hinds County conviction overturned has yet to be found a year after a judge ordered authorities to search for it.
The Innocence Project often uses DNA to exonerate individuals wrongly convicted. At the group's request, Hinds County Circuit Judge Swan Yerger last year ordered city, county and state officials to search for evidence in Richard Chapman's case, but no evidence has surfaced.
Chapman was 16 in 1981 when he was charged with raping and robbing a woman. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1982 on the rape charge. In a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on the robbery charge, with six years suspended.
Local attorney Chris Klotz, who is working with the Innocence Project on Chapman's case, said it's still too early to say no evidence exists.
Biological samples and other evidence were destroyed by an April 19, 1985, court order.
Also, two witnesses that could aid Chapman's quest to clear his name are dead, his attorney was disbarred and there apparently is no trial transcript.
The New Orleans chapter of a national, nonprofit legal aid organization had not made a decision on whether to take on Chapman's case, but was just reviewing the case to see if there was any evidence that could prove Chapman was innocence or guilty of the crime.
The Innocence Project has exonerated five wrongly convicted Louisiana inmates and one in Mississippi. The project also removed another Mississippi inmate from death row.
Justice Dept. expects Miss. training schools improvements
Associated Press
30 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Officials with the U.S. Department of Justice say they want Mississippi's two training schools to be safe places for the juveniles they house.
"You don't owe many people in society more than we owe kids, especially once you take them into custody," said Assistant U.S. Attorney General Wan J. Kim, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division.
In May 2005, Mississippi entered a four-year consent decree to end a Justice Department lawsuit over abuse allegations at the training schools.
The monitor's latest report concluded most conditions hadn't been met although it noted some progress had been made.
The report found unsanitary bathrooms, insufficient numbers of trained staff - and disagreement about what constituted abuse by the staff.
Juvenile schools don't reduce crime, said Sheila Bedi, co-director of the Mississippi Youth Justice Project.
In July, a $10 million lawsuit was filed, alleging a male employee of Columbia sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl multiple times in August 2005.
Police investigate rape, robbery
MARILYN FONTENOT
16 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Two women, one from New Orleans and one from Seattle, Wash., had spent the day at the Sunflower River Blues Festival. They went back to their room at about 8:30 p.m. at the motor inn to change clothes and return to the festival.
"I was going back to the festival," the rape victim said. " I had plans to go see the Mississippi Allstars. That all changed."
Acting Clarksdale Police Chief Greg Hoskins said this situation was an isolated one. Apparently the hotel was being watched, he said, and the perpetrator saw an easy target. They were females and most of the time men can take on women, he said.
"But I say to our citizens as well as our visitors, always, and a lot of times you don't have your mind on people jumping you or someone making you become a victim. We try to tell everyone to pay attention to your surroundings. If you see a person sitting in a car, watch. Not necessarily saying to focus on them, but use your peripheral vision to keep an eye out on these people, because we have people out here for no good."
Girl, 13, reports sexual assault
MARGARET BAKER
12 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Police spent Friday searching for a suspect in the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl at the Cambridge Park Apartments on Shortcut Road, according to Pascagoula Police Lt. Paul Leonard.
The girl reported the incident, telling police that she was sexually assaulted some time Thursday. She told police that her attacker was a black man, about 6 feet fall and 200 pounds. He was wearing black clothing.
Leonard said the teen was taken to Singing River Hospital, where she underwent a rape examination.
Jailer arrested for sex with inmate
MICHAEL NEWSOM
06 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A municipal jailer has been arrested for having sex with an inmate and now faces felony charges.
A female inmate who had been in the city jail for about a week claims the two had consensual sex Monday night while Martin was on duty. Sex between jailers and their captives is a felony offense in Mississippi.
Law-enforcement officers face a different judicial process than the average citizen, Pascagoula Police Department Lt. Davey Davis said. He said the process is designed to minimize frivolous charges levied against law enforcement.
Miss. high court refuses to hear Chickasaw County man's rape sentence appeal
Associated Press
20 Jul 2006 12:00 am
The Mississippi Supreme Court refused Thursday to hear the appeal of a Chickasaw County man sentenced to 75 years in prison for raping a Lee County woman.
Barry Stephan Townsend was convicted of rape and two counts of sexual battery by a Lee County jury in 2004.
The state Court of Appeals upheld his conviction last year.
Townsend was sentenced to 35 years on the rape conviction and 30 years on each of the sexual battery convictions. The sentences were to run consecutively, with 20 years suspended.
Townsend, of Houlka, did not testify at his trial.
However, at a sentencing hearing, Townsend repeatedly claimed the victim agreed to have sex with him in exchange for drugs, according to the court record.
Prosecutors said the adult victim was held against her will for more than 12 hours during August 2002.
Sex crime billboards should be signed off
Starkville has two new billboards in town. Both signs have pictures of sex offenders who currently reside in jail. The Mississippi Department of Human Services thinks 100 signs like these across the state will make people more aware of sex crimes against children.
In actuality, these signs only make us aware of three things: a) the state wants to brag about the prisoners it jails, b) the state likes to waste money and c) the state doesn't care if it appears like a hypocrite.
Billboards Highlight Sex Offenders
Billboards depicting the mug shots of convicted sex offenders are going up in heavily populated areas across the state. Each billboard has pictures of two sex offenders, their age when they committed the crime, and the victim's age. They're designed to remind people that plenty of sexual predators are out there, and they're also designed to possibly deter the crime.
