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Atlantic City Prostitutes Fear a Killer
WAYNE PARRY
22 Nov 2006 6:42 pm
Prostitutes working in the shadows of Atlantic City's glitzy casinos say they are living in fear of a possible serial killer after the bodies of four women were found in a drainage ditch behind a row of seedy motels.
Several prostitutes interviewed Wednesday said that since learning of this week's grisly discovery, they have armed themselves with pepper spray and are no longer going with "dates" to the busy road that passes near where the bodies were found.
"It scares the hell out of me," said Christine, a prostitute eyeing cars driving by a cheap motel on Pacific Avenue near several casino entrances. "We're all talking about it, and I'm still ready to jump in the first car that comes along. But I got anxiety, bad."
Like all the streetwalkers interviewed Wednesday, Christine would only speak if her full name was not made public.
Autopsies found that two of the women found Monday had been slain: one by strangulation with a rope or cord, one by smothering. The others were too badly decomposed to determine a cause of death, prosecutors said.
Authorities would not say whether they believe the killings were carried out by the same person, but noted that they were left within a few hundred feet of each other in the same ditch. The head of each victim faced east, toward the casinos.
Every Camco hospital should treat rape victims
03 Sep 2006 12:00 am
Efforts to fill gaps in services offered to rape victims shouldn't end until appropriate treatment is available at every hospital.
Acting Camden County Prosecutor Jim Lynch has finally taken some steps to ensure rape victims receive the care and attention they deserve. Yet, the efforts to improve victim services have not gone far enough.
Camden County has the most sexual assaults reported in the tri-county area. Yet, it is the only one of the three counties that doesn't involve every hospital in responding to the needs of these victims.
It is shameful that it took publicly airing the gaps in service for Camden and state officials to act on providing the basic services promised and needed for victims.
But officials shouldn't stop with filling the nurse coordinator's position.
No assault patient should feel victimized again by the medical system she or he turns to for help.
It is disturbing that only a fraction of arrests are made in rapes reported to authorities. In 2004, there were 145 rapes reported in Camden County, but only 54 arrests; Burlington County had 105 rapes reported and 22 arrests in 2004; and Gloucester County had 46 rapes reported and 23 arrests that year. In most of these cases, the offender is known to the victim.
Justice failed, Shaver family says
MADELAINE VITALE
26 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Robert Shaver's criminal record goes back to when he was a juvenile. Before his alleged August attacks on three senior women, he had been accused of burglary, robbery, forgery and other charges — serious crimes, most of which ended up remanded to municipal court.
It was only in his 2002 conviction of aggravated assault on a Hammonton senior that he was sentenced to five years in prison. He was released after a little more than two years.
Shaver's mother, Debra Schlam, and aunt Barbara Brown said that if his first offense as an adult at age 18 had resulted in prison time, maybe his more serious crimes could have been prevented.
Contractor accused of abusing children while in their homes
Chicago Tribune
19 Aug 2006 12:00 am
A self-employed contractor was indicted Friday on hundreds of child sex assault and child pornography counts after authorities said he spent years molesting children and recording them while he worked at their homes.
Clement Bilski Jr., 43, is accused of preying on at least 11 girls and boys, the oldest just 8 years old, between 1998 and 2005.
"The depravity in this case has no boundaries," Monmouth Prosecutor Luis Valentin said.
Working as a carpenter and handyman, Bilski abused the children in their own homes, often while caretakers were elsewhere in the houses, then offered them toys and candy to stay quiet, Valentin said.
He used ropes and handcuffs to detain children, videotaped himself abusing them and showed pornographic photos and videos to at least two of them, the prosecutor said. The suspect also secretly videotaped children "in various states of undress," Valentin said.
EXTORTING SEX WITH A BADGE
Nancy Phillips and Craig R. McCoy
13 Aug 2006 12:00 am
Philadelphia Police Officer James Fallon spent many midnight shifts on patrol - not for crime, but for sex.
His partner, Timothy Carre, says he tried to warn their bosses, but nobody paid attention - not until the night Fallon and Carre stopped a stripper getting off her shift, forced her into their patrol car and, she says, took turns raping her in the darkness near I-95.
The officers are now off the force, convicted of sex crimes, but the city is still confronting the consequences of that 2002 attack.
Most police departments do little to identify the offenders, and even less to stop them. Unlike other types of police misconduct, the abuse of police power to coerce sex is little addressed in training, and rarely tracked by police disciplinary systems.
This official neglect makes it easier for predators to escape punishment and find new victims.
The Inquirer found nearly 400 reports of police sexual misconduct across the country in the last five years, including dozens in the Philadelphia region.
The abusive officers who are caught and charged are likely only a fraction of the real number, policing experts say.
Many victims, ashamed and intimidated, never report the crimes, The Inquirer review shows. As in the case of Fallon and Carre, victims often don't surface until the offenders are caught and taken off the street.
"The women are terrified," said Penny Harrington, the former police chief of Portland, Ore., and founder of the National Center for Women and Policing. "Who are they going to call? It's the police who are abusing them."
Testimony induced by hypnosis rejected
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
11 Aug 2006 12:00 am
The New Jersey Supreme Court on Thursday barred witness testimony stemming from hypnosis in all criminal trials, except when the so-called refreshed testimony comes from a defendant.
With the 6-1 ruling by the state's highest court, New Jersey joins 26 other states that limit the admissibility of testimony that is extracted under hypnosis.
Both concurring in part and dissenting in part, Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto said he agreed that in the case of Clarence McKinley Moore accepted procedures regarding hypnosis were not followed but that evidence as a result should still be allowed.
But the court, reversing a position it took 25 years ago, said it now agrees that hypnotically refreshed testimony is not generally accepted science."
Ex-Pyne Poynt principal admits asking boys to strip
19 Jul 2006 12:00 am
A former principal of Camden's Pyne Poynt Middle School pleaded guilty yesterday to offering money to two students to strip in front of him.
Daniel L. Edwards, 56, of Pennsauken, faces 364 days in county custody and five years of probation as part of the plea agreement when he is sentenced Oct. 6, acting Camden County Prosecutor James P. Lynch said.
Edwards, who retired from the school system in February 2005, also must pay $8,300 in fines and penalties, is barred from public employment for life, and must register as a sex offender under Megan's Law.
In pleading guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, Edwards admitted that in February 2002 and January 2005, he offered two boys - ages 13 and 14 - money to take off their pants and underwear. Neither complied.
Science teacher sentenced for molesting in lab
07 Jun 2006 12:00 am
A teacher from Oxford Township man who admitted molesting four students at a Morris County high school received a suspended five-year sentence Tuesday.
Robert Fuller, 36, had sexual contact with four of his students during the biology lab class he taught at West Morris Central High School.
Police: Sex assault suspect shoots family, self
Associated Press
25 May 2006 12:18 pm
A man standing trial on sexual assault charges apparently killed his wife, their two children and himself hours before he was to testify Thursday, authorities said.
The bodies of Scott McCarter, 40, his wife, Wendy, 35, their 12-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter were discovered by a friend who went to check on McCarter when he didn’t appear in court Thursday morning.
McCarter was accused of molesting two teenage girls between 2001 and 2004. He had denied the charges, telling investigators in a tape-recorded interview played in court Wednesday that he offered the girls advice on hygiene and sexual matters and that any physical contact he had with them was accidental.
“This is a tragedy to the entire family,” said Jeffrey Hark, McCarter’s lawyer in the case. “It’s a tragedy all the way around. It’s a very hard day. My family extends our heartfelt condolences to everybody involved.”
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.
N.J. priest gets probation in abuse case
WAYNE PARRY
28 Apr 2006 3:55 pm
A Catholic priest accused of molesting a 9-year-old boy a decade ago after taking him to basketball games was sentenced to five years of probation Friday, angering some victims of sexual abuse including the cleric who replaced the defendant.
The Rev. Joseph McHugh, who was removed from active ministry about 10 years ago, had pleaded guilty in October to a single count of endangering the welfare of a child.
The victim, who is now 21, declined to speak in court, but said through his lawyer, Gregory Gianforcaro, that he was glad McHugh had to face justice. Gianforcaro and prosecutors said a more serious charge of sexual assault was dropped in a deal that spared the victim from having to testify.
Sex offenders would face restrictions in Paramus
MERRY FIRSCHEIN
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The borough is in the process of making life a little tougher for sex offenders by instituting new rules on where they can live.
The residency restrictions, introduced by the Borough Council this week, prohibit sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of any school, public or private park or playground, or library. The facilities don't necessarily have to be in Paramus, but if part of the 1,000-foot radius falls in the borough, sex offenders must stay away, the ordinance states.
More than a dozen New Jersey municipalities have such an ordinance, according to newspaper reports.
Report: Police officer bites, batters woman
Ronald Dupont Jr.
23 Apr 2006 12:00 am
An Alachua police officer bit his girlfriend's mouth, threw a vacuum cleaner at her, punched her and then pushed her 8-year-old daughter into a wall before being arrested by Gainesville police early Sunday, according to jail reports.
Apparently, the argument started over what was going into Easter baskets, police said.
Reginald Smith, a 30-year-old Alachua police sergeant, has been charged with aggravated battery, simple battery, tampering with a victim/witness, and resisting/obstructing/opposing an officer without violence.
Smith also is charged with battery on a law enforcement officer after being handcuffed and allegedly spinning around and striking with his elbow a Gainesville police officer in the chest.
This is Smith's third domestic disturbance on record, including an early 2000 case in which High Springs police told Alachua police they would have arrested Smith if he wasn't an Alachua police officer, according to documents in Smith's city personnel file.
Smith is now on suspension with pay as the city seeks an outside law enforcement agency to conduct an internal investigation while the criminal investigation is conducted by the Gainesville Police Department, said Alachua City Manager Clovis Watson Jr.
Cop freed on bail in online sex sting
The city policeman arrested last week for allegedly sending explicit online messages to someone he believed was a 12-year-old girl is free from jail, police said Monday.
Patrolman Mark Fernandes, 29, was released Thursday night from the Passaic County Jail after posting $50,000 bail, according to Bill Maer, spokesman for the Passaic County Sheriff's Department.
Sex offenders: The threat next door
A Gannett Newspapers investigation has found that New Jersey's
law now stands as one of the weakest in the nation in immediately
warning residents when a sex offender moves into their neighborhood.
Critics say broad limits miss the point
Parents should worry less about "individuals who
pull up to the curb and grab a kid," than adults they know, he said.
Teacher Accused Of Having Affair With Student Enters Plea
28 Feb 2006 7:02 am
A Boynton Beach music teacher accused of having sex with one of her students has agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors that will keep her from spending the rest of her life behind bars.
Carol Flannigan pleaded guilty to lewd and lascivious molestation on a child under 12.
Flannigan was originally charged with capital sexual battery after a student said they'd been having sex for a year and a half. It allegedly started when he was just 11 years old.
Flannigan had until Tuesday to make a plea. In exchange, she'll get a five-year prison sentence and 10 years of probation.
