Lesbian joins wife in prison, both child sex abusers - New York
Carnival worker gets 10 years for sex with <14 y/o - Indiana
'Very disturbed' school bus driver gets 19 years - Virginia
Woman awarded $20m for father's frequent rapes - Connecticut
Man arrested for sex abuse of 3 y/o - Alabama
Sherriff's deputy accused of raping 11 y/o - will go to trial - Oklahoma
Life U wrestling coach arrested for 260+ charges of CSA - Georgia
61 y/o predator charged with sex with <13 y/o - New York
Lesbian dance teacher gets 15 years in prison for
child sex abuse
UPDATE: Apr 2, 2020 - Werkeiser's conviction was overturned on a technicality
Press Connects
Anthony Borrelli
Two years into her prison sentence for sexually abusing a child, a Binghamton woman's conviction was tossed out Thursday by a New York State appeals court.
Samantha Werkheiser (she's also known as Samantha Stone) had been sentenced to 15 years behind bars in March 2017, after the 39-year-old former dance instructor's second trial ended with a Broome County Court judge's guilty verdict in the sexual abuse of a girl when she was 6 years old.
On Thursday, a mid-level appeals court dismissed the indictment against Werkheiser based on a technical error in how the charge she faced in the retrial — a felony count of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child — was pursued in court.
When Werkheiser's first conviction was overturned, it was determined she couldn't be prosecuted for the original higher-level felony of predatory sexual assault against a child, because that charge was put on New York State's law books after her alleged criminal conduct.
Instead, she stood trial for a lesser included charge, course of sexual conduct against a child. On Thursday, the appeals court said the prosecution should have filed a reduced indictment against her after the charge was reduced, but never did.
"A valid and sufficient accusatory instrument is a non-waivable jurisdictional prerequisite to a criminal prosecution," Thusday's decision stated.
"Thus, notwithstanding the absence of any objection by defendant to the problem and a conviction on the reduced count that was supported by sufficient proof at trial, we are constrained to reverse the judgment of conviction and dismiss the original indictment as jurisdictionally defective."
Thursday's decision could be revisited in New York State's highest court, the Court of Appeals.
Original Story:
The victim of sexual abuse by Samantha Werkheiser was "the most vulnerable amongst us," a judge said Friday in sentencing the former Binghamton dance teacher to 15 years in state prison.
Although Werkheiser, twice convicted of abusing a child who was 6 years old, adamantly maintained that she was innocent and the subject of a "witch hunt," Broome County Court Judge Joseph Cawley said he was "absolutely confident" she was guilty of the crime: a felony charge of first-degree course of sexual conduct against a child.
"The harm that you have done ... is a torment no one, least of all a child, should have to go through," Cawley told Werkheiser, 37, who will additionally spend 20 years on supervised release following the prison term. She will also have to register as a sex offender.
Werkheiser sexually abused a child — she's now 18 — between 2003 and November 2007 in a City of Binghamton residence, special prosecutor Tom Jackson said. In court Friday, he pushed for the maximum penalty of 25 years.
The survivor is a close relative of the defendant.
Werkheiser's conviction enables her to appeal to a higher court. She was previously found guilty, but the state appeals court later determined legal errors warranted a new trial.
Emotions at Friday's sentencing ran the gamut of heartbroken sadness to seething hatred — the victim stormed out of the courtroom as Werkheiser professed that she still cares about her accuser and maintains the accusations were concocted by her ex-husband.
Facing Werkheiser at sentencing, the victim sobbed as she questioned whether she would ever be able to heal from this.
For years, she said, she has been unable to find meaningful relationships and the pain she has lived with has left her feeling hollow inside because of the abuses Werkheiser committed.
"She took away my childhood," the victim said in court. "I'm bitter because I can't get that 18 years of my life back."
Reading from a prepared statement, Werkheiser sobbed herself, saying she believes her accuser's testimony was coerced and that hopefully, one day the truth would be revealed.
"As God as my witness, I have never sexually abused ... any child," Werkheiser proclaimed, facing the courtroom ceiling. "God is with me and he knows the truth. He is my judge."
From the courtroom gallery, one man muttered "Liar," upon hearing Werkheiser's declaration of innocence.
Jackson says a key element of the prosecution's case was testimony from Werkheiser's accuser, who recounted abuses in graphic detail: sexual contact in a bathtub, as well as performing "inspections" on her body, among other acts.
This story, Jackson said, was told by the victim in crystal-clear detail multiple times over the years in different courtrooms — Family Court, the grand jury, and trials held in Broome and Tioga counties.
Jackson said this abuse rendered the victim feeling helpless, unable to escape it for years, and still questioning her own self-worth. Werkheiser committed "countless acts of sex abuse," Jackson said before asking, "Is there conduct that could be possibly worse?"
Her wife, Julie Werkheiser, was convicted of similar sexual abuses against two children between the ages of 6 and 8, who were also her dance students at Studio J Dance on Broad Street in the Village of Waverly, between July 2006 and November 2007.
Julie Werkheiser, 40, is serving a prison sentence of 11 years to life after being convicted in a Tioga County Court trial.
Former carnival worker gets 10 years for
child sex abuse
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS,
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) _ A former carnival worker has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for using interstate communications to solicit sex with an underage girl.
Twenty-nine-year-old Brendan Theodore Coetzee was sentenced Thursday after pleading guilty to one federal count.
The (Northwest Indiana) Times reports federal prosecutors say the South African national met a girl who was under the age of 14 at a Wisconsin carnival in May 2015.
Coetzee maintained contact with the girl online and arranged to meet with her at a motel in Lansing, Illinois, in June 2015 for sex.
He was arrested the next day by police in Munster, Indiana. Records state that Coetzee told Lansing police he had sexual intercourse with the girl twice and knew she was underage.
Ex-Chesapeake school bus driver gets 19 years in prison for sexually abusing child on his bus
By Margaret Matray
The Virginian-Pilot
A former Chesapeake school bus driver already serving a federal prison term was sentenced Friday to more than 19 years for sexually abusing a child on his bus.
Larry Homan, 72, pleaded guilty last year in a state case to three counts each of aggravated sexual battery and indecent liberties. A Circuit Court judge on Friday imposed the sentence of 19 years and 2 months laid out in Homan’s plea agreement.
The term will run at the same time as his 25-year federal sentence for making child pornography.
The victims in the federal and state cases were different.
So which ones didn't deserve to see the pervert suffer jail time? If the cases were different - why the concurrent sentences? Arrrgh!
In court Friday, Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney David Whitted said a psychosexual evaluation completed on Homan was “one of the most disturbing we’ve ever seen.” The document was not publicly available Friday.
Police began investigating in 2015 when a parent told the school system that Homan inappropriately touched her daughter, according to court documents.
Surveillance video on the school bus caught Homan fondling the child, court records say.
Homan used to drive students at Carver Intermediate and Thurgood Marshall Elementary schools.
Homan molested at least seven children – including three on his bus and four at his apartment, according to federal court documents.
Police searched Homan’s Norfolk apartment and found electronic media containing explicit photos of prepubescent girls, several of which were shot inside his apartment, according to court documents.
$20 million awarded in Stamford
child sex abuse case
By John Nickerson
STAMFORD, Connecticut — A jury on Friday returned what could be the state’s largest civil award in a child sexual abuse case.
Elizabeth Spalter was awarded $20 million in a civil suit in which she claimed her father sexually abused her for years at the family’s summer home in Shippan when she was a child.
The jury awarded Spalter $5 million in emotional distress and mental anguish, $5 million for psychological injuries, $3 million for permanency of injuries and $2 million for loss of life’s activities. She was also awarded $5 million in punitive damages, according to her attorney Eric Reinken, who tried the case with New York City attorney Michael Dowd.
Reinken said he was told the award could be the largest in state history to a survivor of child sexual abuse.
“I felt the jury was very brave to provide justice not just for me, but in doing so, acknowledged all the victims of child sexual abuse and holds perpetrators accountable,” Spalter said.
Spalter, a social worker now living in Vienna, Austria, testified over three days how she was abused hundreds of times by her father, Harold Spalter, a former captain in the U.S. Air Force and distinguished eye doctor at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical in New York City.
Spalter said her father, who died in 2014 at the age of 84, assaulted her many times in the family’s summer home on Van Rensselear Avenue in Shippan between 1975 and 1986 when she was 6 to 17 years old.
Spalter, who specialized in surgical retinal disease and was a member of Columbia’s faculty from 1962 to 2009, owned the Van Rensselaer Avenue home for 20 years before selling it in 1997. The family's main residence was in New York.
The assaults led to symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, Spalter testified.
“I wouldn’t have had the strength and the courage to speak out without all the support of the other survivors, who also had the bravery to overcome the shame and secrecy that surrounds child sexual abuse,” Spalter said.
Spalter, who never reported the assaults to the police, filed the lawsuit against her father’s estate, which was worth millions when he died. Spalter’s stepmother, Diane Rogers Spalter, is the executrix of the estate.
Defense attorney Courtney George questioned Elizabeth Spalter’s credibility during her closing statements on Thursday even though the woman’s brothers testified they grew up in a “house of horror.”
Tuscaloosa man arrested on sex abuse charges related to 3-year-old child
By Brandon Varner
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WIAT) — A Tuscaloosa man is currently being held in jail on charges of child sexual abuse of a three-year-old, according to a release from the department.
Creed Ricardo Jackson, 27, was arrested after police reportedly received a complaint of sexual abuse. He was arrested on a charge of Sexual Abuse of a Child Under 12, and is currently being held in Tuscaloosa County Jail on a $30,000 bond.
Former Tulsa County sheriff's deputy to stand trial on child sexual abuse charge
Former Tulsa County sheriff's deputy accused of raping Tulsa girl pleads not guilty in Wagoner County case
Tulsa police seize ex-Tulsa County deputy's electronics for investigation of possible child sex crimes
From Staff Reports
A former Tulsa County sheriff's deputy is set to stand trial on allegations he sexually abused an 11-year-old girl last June.
A Wagoner County judge, after a preliminary hearing earlier this week, ruled there is sufficient evidence for Josh Wood, 34, to stand trial on a charge of child sexual abuse.
Wood allegedly abused the girl in the Wagoner County side of Broken Arrow.
The incident occurred when he was taking her home from his residence, where she had been playing with other children, authorities say.
The girl told authorities she was going home to pick up clothes to take to Wood’s house for the night. She alleged that Wood asked her if she knew about sex, and that after she said “No” he sexually assaulted her to “teach her” despite her telling him multiple times to stop, investigators say.
Wood resigned from the Sheriff's Office about six months before his arrest.
He initially was charged with first-degree rape. The charge was amended in September to child sexual abuse, according to court records.
Why?
Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney said in a statement Thursday that the Sheriff’s Office anticipates additional charges to be filed against Wood.
His next court appearance is set for April 17.
Wanted coach arrested, charged with
260+ counts of child sex abuse
Adrianne Haney, WXIA 1
COBB COUNTY, Ga. -- A former Life University wrestling coach wanted out of Pennsylvania for alleged inappropriate sexual behavior between a minor has been picked up in Cobb County Georgia, authorities confirm.
A March 3 criminal complaint from Pennsylvania cites 51-year-old Ron Gorman for a number of felony charges, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, unlawful contact with minor, statutory sexual assault, indecent assault and corruption of minors.
According to the criminal complaint, Gorman had sexual contact with his victim on a weekly basis over the course of several years, beginning when the victim was just 10 or 11 years old. The alleged abuse happened at Gorman’s house, another Pennsylvania residence and at other out-of-state locations – including in Tennessee and here in Georgia. The contact, according to the victim, would happen when Gorman’s wife was not around or when the coach’s family was asleep.
According to the complaint, the victim stated that he had a poor home life and was taken in by Gorman. The complaint stated the victim “felt pressured to into committing and receiving the sexual acts” and wanted to be part of Gorman's family, so “he let it happen.”
Through the years, Gorman allegedly used Facebook to communicate with the victim on occasion and would asked the victim to delete sexually explicit text messages. Gorman would also allegedly buy his victim things, give him money to pay bills and rent and ask for the victim not to tell anyone. The alleged abuse finally ended when the victim, then 15-years-old, told Gorman he didn't want it to continue.
Authorities were finally able to get enough information to arrest Gorman for the alleged crimes after they set up a plan to record a call between him and the victim, now 20-years-old. Based on that call, they were able to issue a warrant for Gorman.
He was charged with more than 260 counts related to the alleged repeated sexual assault incidents. Those charges break down to 36 counts of Rape of a Child, 38 counts of Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse with a Person under the age of 16, 36 counts of Involuntary Deviate Sexual Intercourse with a Child, 38 counts of Contact/Communication with a Minor for Sexual Offenses, 38 counts of Statutory Sexual Assault, 38 counts of Indecent Assault on a person less than 13 years of age, 1 count of Corruption of Minors, 38 counts of Indecent Assault on a Person less than 16 years of age.
Cobb Co., GA
Newburgh man charged with child sex abuse
NEWBURGH - A Newburgh man has been charged with engaging in sexual activity with a child.
Police say Jose Majano, 61, had sexual intercourse with a child under the age of thirteen.
Majano is charged with predatory sexual assault of a child.
He was arraigned in Newburgh and is at the Orange County Jail with no bail.
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