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Molester blames wife's bingo habit
Associated Press
04 Dec 2006 8:39 am
A man who pleaded guilty to molesting two girls told a judge he did it because of his wife's excessive bingo playing.
"My wife was never home," Floyd Kinney Jr. said during his plea hearing Friday.
Kinney's explanation did not sit well with Northampton County Judge F.P. Kimberly McFadden,
"Some people, when their wives are not home, decide to do other things, like clean their living rooms," McFadden said. "Your behavior is beyond the pale."
Records say Kinney molested one of the girls, now 26, from 1992-97. He sexually assaulted the second girl, now 17, for a year beginning in January 2005, records show.
Kinney pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated indecent assault. The felony charges carry a combined maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.
Police: Philadelphia man met women online, lied, raped them
MARYCLAIRE DALE
03 Nov 2006 5:43 pm
He was an online dater's dream: Tall, clean-cut, with a fashionable address and a taste for upscale bars and restaurants.
He said he was a doctor, an astronaut, a spy - though he was really an on-and-off nursing student. And, with woman after woman, he would slip something in their drinks and then rape them, police say.
Jeffrey J. Marsalis, 33, of Philadelphia, is facing trial on nine rape counts involving eight women, while a 10th charge is pending in Sun Valley, Idaho. He met most of the victims here through a popular online dating site, authorities said.
In court this week during Marsalis' preliminary hearing, the women told strikingly similar stories of meeting the smooth-talking Marsalis and then feeling unusually intoxicated after returning from the bathroom or letting him buy a round from the bar.
They said they woke up hours later, back at his apartment - groggy, sometimes undressed - after an apparent sexual encounter or even in the middle of intercourse.
"It was like waking up from surgery," one woman said. "My body was there, and I could see what was going on around me, but I couldn't move."
Marsalis' lawyer says the women are suffering from regret after being duped about his accomplishments and dumped after consensual sex.
"Some of this may be buyer's remorse," defense lawyer Kathleen E. Martin said Thursday.
None of the Philadelphia victims - most of them well-educated professionals - went to police or a hospital afterward, Martin pointed out. Instead, police sought the women out after they seized Marsalis' computer as part of an earlier case.
Marsalis was acquitted of three similar assaults at a trial in Philadelphia in January. Before he could leave the courtroom, however, he was handcuffed by police and accused of the new charges. A judge later denied bail.
Prosecutors say it's difficult to prove the use of date-rape drugs, because they metabolize before victims are alert enough to get a drug screen.
"If you're not at the hospital within 12 hours after ingestion, the chances are so slim that they'll find anything," said Jennifer Sommers, a county prosecutor in Rochester, N.Y., with a master's degree in toxicology. "Most people don't realize they've been drugged until it's too late."
But a jury could still find him guilty of rape if it decides the women were too impaired to consent to sex.
Letters - Mocking violence
Lawrence Kalikow
27 Oct 2006 12:00 am
Just as not all the news is fit to print, not all reports about the news are fit to print. Such is clearly the case with Dana DiFilippo's article "A Genital Reminder" (May 18).
Ms. DiFilippo has treated a hideous act of sexual violence, allegedly committed by a Philadelphia woman against her sleeping husband, as an occasion for unrestrained pun-making and joviality.
It beggars belief that the Daily News, or any mainstream newspaper, would print an article that so trivializes domestic violence, much less a felonious assault involving sexual mutilation.
In its levity and gratuitously graphic description of the victim's injuries and in its derisive and vulgar references to male sex organs, the article emphatically suggests that the paper has very little respect for men, their dignity or their humanity.
Certainly, if a male news reporter at the Daily News treated the sexual mutilation of a woman by a man with similar levity, he would be given his walking papers. And, well he should.
There is simply no legitimate excuse for reporting about criminal acts of sexual violence with such flippancy. Nor, is there any legitimate excuse for employing a sexist double standard, based on the sex of either the victim or the reporter, for condemning such news coverage.
In attempting to make humor of the alleged crime, the Daily News and its reporter have helped promote the perverse notion that physical and sexual violence against men is socially acceptable.
It is a vicious cycle. Given the glibly written article (as well as the endless television and movie portrayals, intended as comic, of men being slapped, punched and kicked by women), it is little wonder that some women, like the 21-year-old woman quoted by Ms. DiFilippo, believe that physically assaulting their husband or boyfriend is an appropriate way to vent their anger.
Dana DiFilippo's article should be emphatically condemned as both morally repugnant and egregiously sexist.
What the Amish are Teaching America
Sally Kohn
06 Oct 2006 12:00 am
On October 2, Charles Carl Roberts entered a one-room schoolhouse in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He lined up eleven young girls from the class and shot them each at point blank range. The gruesome depths of this crime are hard for any community to grasp, but certainly for the Amish — who live such a secluded and peaceful life, removed even from the everyday depictions of violence on TV. When the Amish were suddenly pierced by violence, how did they respond?
The evening of the shooting, Amish neighbors from the Nickel Mines community gathered to process their grief with each other and mental health counselors. As of that evening, three little girls were dead. Eight were hospitalized in critical condition. (One more girl has died since.) According to reports by counselors who attended the grief session, the Amish family members grappled with a number of questions: Do we send our kids to school tomorrow? What if they want to sleep in our beds tonight, is that okay? But one question they asked might surprise us outsiders. What, they wondered, can we do to help the family of the shooter? Plans were already underway for a horse-and-buggy caravan to visit Charles Carl Roberts’ family with offers of food and condolences. The Amish, it seems, don’t automatically translate their grieving into revenge. Rather, they believe in redemption.
Meanwhile, the United States culture from which the Amish are isolated is moving in the other direction — increasingly exacting revenge for crimes and punishing violence with more violence. In 26 states and at the federal level, there are “three strikes” laws in place. Conviction for three felonies in a row now warrants a life sentence, even for the most minor crimes. For instance, Leandro Andrade is serving a life sentence, his final crime involving the theft of nine children’s videos — including “Cinderella” and “Free Willy” — from a Kmart. Similarly, in many states and at the federal level, possession of even small amounts of drugs trigger mandatory minimum sentences of extreme duration. In New York, Elaine Bartlett was just released from prison, serving a 20-year sentence for possessing only four ounces of cocaine. This is in addition to the 60 people who were executed in the United States in 2005, among the more than a thousand killed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. And the President of the United States is still actively seeking authority to torture and abuse alleged terrorists, whom he consistently dehumanizes as rats to be “smoked from their holes”, even without evidence of their guilt.
Our patterns of punishment and revenge are fundamentally at odds with the deeper values of common humanity that the tragic experience of the Amish are helping to reveal. Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done in life. Someone who cheats is not only a cheater. Someone who steals something is not only a thief. And someone who commits a murder is not only a murderer. The same is true of Charles Carl Roberts. We don’t yet know the details of the episode in his past for which, in his suicide note, he said he was seeking revenge. It may be a sad and sympathetic tale. It may not. Either way, there’s no excusing his actions. Whatever happened to Roberts in the past, taking the lives of others is never justified. But nothing Roberts has done changes the fact that he was a human being, like all of us. We all make mistakes. Roberts’ were considerably and egregiously larger than most. But the Amish in Nickel Mines seem to have been able to see past Roberts’ actions and recognize his humanity, sympathize with his family for their loss, and move forward with compassion not vengeful hate.
We’ve come to think that “an eye for an eye” is a natural, human reaction to violence. The Amish, who live a truly natural life apart from the influences of our violence-infused culture, are proving otherwise. If, as Gandhi said, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” then the Amish are providing the rest of us with an eye-opening lesson.
Murders of little Amish girls leave hollow feelings of anguish
05 Oct 2006 12:00 am
Some people are calling it ''Pennsylvania's Columbine.'' The slaying of five students on Monday in a one-room Amish school in Lancaster County does carry with it every measure of anguish and nightmare as did the murders in Colorado more than seven years ago. Because Columbine High School and the West Nickel Mines school are so different, it is difficult to grasp any comparison, but with almost half of the Amish school's students dead or fighting for their lives in hospitals, ''cataclysm'' is no overstatement.
More than numbers go into this sad process of taking stock, but one set of figures is worth noting. With more than 1,600 students, a school the size of Columbine would have many hundreds dead to be suffering in proportion to the grief at the little West Nickel Mines school.
The most troubling part of this story is that these killings occurred in a place created by a religious community for the specific purpose of drawing apart from the modern world. We ''English'' (or Spanish or African Americans) admire them for their strength and separateness and it frightens all of us that not even that was enough to protect their little girls from wild insanity.
In fact, the simplicity and openness of the West Nickel Mines school apparently was part of what drew Charles Carl Roberts IV there. Of course, a building's security features and the presence of guards and security programs alone are guarantees of nothing; all three were present on the day of the Columbine High School killings. However, it is natural to think about what might be done going forward, and Amish leaders may put someone at the schools to watch for potential trouble.
The shooter's notes and telephone conversations that day reveal a man with deep psychological problems. That included a claim of having molested little girls 20 years ago, though that has not been corroborated. There is no logical link between what he says happened to him (including the death of a newborn daughter nine years ago) and what he did Monday. But that is the nature of mental illness. It also is characteristic that those living with such torment keep it to themselves. Among the things that might have prevented these murders — a secure building, different laws — the only one that might have helped is the one that no one was able to ask for or get. Treatment, medication, even hospital confinement, are approaches that can work.
There are no guarantees. Laws can't force sick people to get treatment. Education, and making people aware that help is nearby, are the small hopes we can cling to.
Beware of the WOLVES IN DISGUISE!
Debby Bodkin
04 Oct 2006 4:24 pm
As I have expressed in previous writings, my life path changed drastically once I opened my heart to the public outcry of clergy sex abuse survivors, their families and those who support truth, justice and the protections of children.
As a society, we can choose to understand the serious failures to protect children revealed since the clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in 2002 or we can ignore them. Unfortunately, if we remain silent and do nothing, we place others at risk in the future.
In my opinion, freedom of religion never included sex abuse and failures to report crimes. Sex abuse is not about sex -- it is about power and abuse. "Wolves in Disguise" are responsible for the failures to protect the civil rights of children. After all, children do not vote and they do not contribute to political campaigns.
"Wolves in Disguise" are the attorneys, political, government and religious leaders who use their influences to abuse the judicial process, to escape accountability for crimes committed against others. Will political, government and religious influences be held responsible in their roles as "Wolves in Disguise?"
Victims of crime, civil or criminal, are guaranteed due process of the law and a day in court. What happens when the judicial process and laws protecting children from sex crimes are not strictly enforced because of political, government or religious influences?
Due process of the law and a day in court is guaranteed to all persons equally. However, why have "Wolves in Disguise" failed to protect the safety of children with legislation and media support? Is POLITICS the highest priority in the U.S.?
Former Rep. Foley's emails have received national attention in just a few days BUT clergy sex abuse victims and their families have been SCREAMING for years against crimes that have destroyed lives. Why now?
Now that Former Rep. Foley's victimization as a clergy sex abuse victim has brought national media attention to government and politics in the U.S., maybe the media and the "Wolves in Disguise" will place the protections and civil rights of ALL children and vulnerable adults at the highest priority.
Without justice there will never be peace. Without peace, faith and our country's laws are empty.
Four Killed in Amish Schoolhouse Shooting
BILL BLAKEMORE and RICHARD ESPOSITO
02 Oct 2006 12:00 am
A milk truck driver lined Amish schoolchildren up against the blackboard of their one-room schoolhouse in rural Lancaster County, Penn., and shot and killed three young girls, ages 6 to 13, then shot himself, state police said at a press conference.
Several other children were also shot in the head at close range, said police officers. The Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center reports that it has three children ages 6, 8 and 13 from the shooting now in its care, all listed in critical condition. The medical center released a statement saying it is "doing everything possible for these patients. However, gunshot wounds are extremely serious."
The shooting occurred around 10:45 a.m. in Nickel Mines, in the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. Amish women in plain blue smocks and simple white caps hugged one another in grief and shock outside the sunlit one-room school.
Police said Roberts took his own kids to their school bus before he entered the Amish school, displayed a handgun and told some of the children to line up against the blackboard. Police said the suspect let all the boys in the school go, as well as a pregnant woman and a few other women who had children with them.
He then had some of the girls stand in front of the blackboard. He bound their hands before shooting them "execution style in the head," according to Cmdr. Jeffrey Miller of the Pennsylvania State Police.
It was the third school attack in a week, after a student in Wisconsin shot and killed his principal and a drifter in Colorado took six female high school students hostage, molested them and then, after shooting and killing one of them, shot himself.
Even as the events at the Amish school were coming to light, KLAS-TV in Nevada reported lockdowns at Mojave High and Elizondo Elementary School, in the Las Vegas area. Police with trained dogs were searching the area for an armed youth.
Sexual assault testimony is a look at drug world
Brian David
28 Sep 2006 12:00 am
Sordid testimony during last week's sexual assault trial of Dayvon Cox, 21, of Aliquippa, offered a sad commentary on the state of society, especially in drug-riddled areas like Aliquippa.
"Sex is a commodity, and a commodity that is not highly valued," said Gerald Benyo, co-counsel for Mr. Cox. It creates an atmosphere in which five young men can easily believe that a young woman they don't even know is fully prepared to have sex with all of them. They believe in "freaks," he said, because freaks are really out there.
"There are waves of young women, every night of the week, that descend on Aliquippa, Beaver Falls and other areas to trade sex for drugs," he said.
But prosecutor Jeff Paladina said Tuesday's sexual assault conviction of Mr. Cox shows that the jury believed this particular young woman was not in that category.
The jury deadlocked, rendering no verdict on two rape charges and two charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. The jurors also found Mr. Cox not guilty of sex charges relating to the boyfriend and a female friend.
But they took a harsher view on other matters, finding Mr. Cox guilty of one count of sexual assault, four counts of robbery, three counts of kidnapping and counts of aggravated assault, simple assault and terroristic threats.
