Wife: Child wasn’t alone with criminal
sexual conduct suspect
By MARTHA ROSE BROWN T&D Staff Writer
The wife of a Holly Hill man says he wasn’t alone with the child he’s accused of harming sexually.
Detra Small testified on Wednesday that the 5-year-old girl frequently stayed at the couple’s Lowell Street residence and was there the entire summer of 2015, but Small said her husband and the child were not alone together.
Oscar James Small Jr., 58, is facing the charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and exposing a person to HIV.
He is accused of having sex with the child sometime between Aug. 1 and Aug. 22, 2015.
The girl claims Detra Small was at church when the sex assault took place.
Detra Small and her sister, Deborah Robinson, testified that they would take the girl to church in Holly Hill where she attended nearly every Sunday and even during special events such as Bible school and other services. Detra Small denied leaving the child alone with her husband.
Dr. Susan Lamb, the pediatrician who conducted a forensic examination on the girl, testified that she did not see any physical evidence on the girl’s body. Lamb explained she didn’t expect to see any evidence. Lamb stated that 95 percent of examined child sexual abuse victims don’t have physical evidence on their bodies.
She also stated that it isn’t unusual for a person who’s HIV positive to not transfer the disease to another person during unprotected intercourse. Lamb testified that she tested the girl’s blood and urine for any sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, with negative findings.
The jury will hear closing arguments in the case on Thursday, with Circuit Judge R. Ferrell Cothran Jr. presiding. If a jury convicts Small of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, he faces a mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison.
Ex-Hillsborough principal raped 4th-grade girl ‘hundreds’ of times, lawsuit says
By Sergio Bichao
HILLSBOROUGH — For the second time in his life, a now-retired public school educator has been accused of raping a student. But he’s never been arrested or charged with a crime.
Matthew Hoffman last worked as a principal in this Somerset Count township before his retirement in 2009. That was just months after he was accused of raping a young man for nearly four years in the 1980s, when Hoffman was a teacher in the Hopewell Valley Regional School District.
Although he was never charged with a crime on the accusations levied by that former student, a jury in a lawsuit against Hoffman and Hopewell Valley found that he committed sexual abuse and awarded his accuser $300,000 in damages in 2015. The jury was not persuaded that the school district itself held any blame.
Now, more allegations have come to light, this time involving a special-needs fourth-grade student who attended Woodfern Elementary School in 2006.
New Jersey 101.5 has obtained a copy of a new lawsuit that alleges Hoffman “sexually assaulted” the girl “on hundreds of occasions” in his office during the 2006-07 school year as his secretary sat on the other side of a closed door.
Just as in Hopewell Valley, the Hillsborough student’s accusations have not resulted in any criminal charges against Hoffman.
Township police, however, did investigate after the girl’s father notified the district about the allegations for the first time, years after the alleged abuse and after Hoffman had retired, according to an attorney for the district.
Details of that investigation, including a police report that might be able to shed light on why Hoffman was not prosecuted, are being kept secret by the township, which denied a New Jersey 101.5 records request by saying that its police department “will neither confirm nor deny whether an individual who has neither been charged nor arrested is, or has been, the subject of an investigation.”
The former Hillsborough student is now 20 years old and is identified in the lawsuit, which was filed in June in Superior Court in Somerville, as “Jane Doe.” Jane Doe is represented by the same attorney who handled the previous lawsuit against Hoffman and Hopewell Valley.
‘Grooming process’
Although the alleged victims are of opposite sexes, their accusations are similar — not only in the abuse they say Hoffman carried out, but in how he allegedly “groomed” their parents.
Jane Doe says she was first abused by Hoffman in a place students and parents might think would be among the safest — the principal’s office. The abuse continued on an almost daily basis until she began the fifth grade at another school, her lawsuit says.
When she started the fourth grade in September 2006, Jane Doe had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, which affects a child’s socialization and communication skills.
Jane Doe says she was terrified to be dropped off at school, so Hoffman “cultivated a friendship and trust” with her mother, whom he began to meet every morning at the school in order to pick up the girl and escort her to class.
What he really was doing, according to the lawsuit, was taking her to his dark, locked office. There, she says, he would sit on the floor with the girl on his lap, her back to his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around her so that she couldn’t move.
While she was in this “bear hug,” she says, she remembers Hoffman telling her things like, “You are a pretty little girl,” and “Are you going to take a shower today? Are you going to be a clean, pretty girl?”
At first, he groped her private parts, the lawsuit says. Later sessions escalated to him penetrating her, it says.
After the abuse, he would walk her to class, taking her past his secretary, Susan Maglia, the lawsuit says. The complaint also faults Maglia for not intervening.
In addition to Hoffman, Maglia and the district, the lawsuit also names former schools superintendent Edward J. Forsthoffer II as a defendant. Forsthoffer, now superintendent of the Bordentown Regional School District, referred all questions to his attorney.
“The Hillsborough police conducted, from what I’ve seen, a thorough investigation,” Gold said, adding that he had read the January 2013 police report, which states that police questioned Hoffman and he denied the allegations.
Gold, of the Morristown firm Gold, Albanese, Barletti & Locascio, says Hillsborough district officials had no way of knowing about the previous allegations against Hoffman when they hired him because he had never been charged with any crime that would show up in a background check.
Gold says the district does not check job applicants’ backgrounds for lawsuits — and in any case, the Hopewell Valley alleged sexual assault during the 1980s only became public with the alleged victim’s 2009 lawsuit, just before Hoffman’s retirement.
Hillsborough, NJ
Berkeley Co. man charged with sex abuse
of young boy
By MATTHEW UMSTEAD
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — A Berkeley County, W.Va., man is accused of touching a 3-year-old boy in a sexual manner, according to county magistrate court records.
Dwight Erving Neel, 60, of Stewart Lane was charged Wednesday with one count of first-degree sexual abuse, court records said.
Berkeley County Sheriff's Departmen Deputy Sgt. M.W. Rephann said he began investigating the allegations on June 1, records said.
The victim's mother provided a statement to police, and the child was interviewed at the Child Advocacy Center in Martinsburg.
Rephann said the child's interview was consistent with what the boy initially told his mother about the alleged incident, records said.
Rephann said he also was provided with screen images of text messages by the defendant.
Those messages include one that said: "I am so sorry for all of this. I am changing my life around. I am sorry for the hurt I have done. There was no excuse in what happing (sic) ..."
Mount Joy man sentenced for child sex abuse
By Myles Snyder, ABC27 News
LANCASTER, Pa. (WHTM) – A Mount Joy man will serve up to four years in prison for molesting a boy last year.
Bill C. Anderson, 66, was sentenced in Lancaster County Court to two to four years in prison, followed by 10 years of probation, according to District Attorney Craig Stedman’s office.
Anderson must also register his whereabouts with police for the rest of his life.
He pleaded guilty in March to aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault, corruption of minors, and unlawful contact with a minor.
Prosecutors said Anderson, an acquaintance of the victim’s family, he had sexual contact with the preteenage boy in February and March 2016.
Another great plea-deal for a dirty old man. Good for the dirty old man; he will be back out molesting little children in no time.
Legal battle between family and Warner Christian Academy over sex abuse scandal
by: Daralene Jones
VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. - A Volusia County family is in a legal battle with Edgewater Alliance Church and Warner Christian Academy over a sex abuse scandal that rocked the campus three years ago.
The family is not identified in an effort to protect their young son, told Channel 9 investigative reporter Daralene Jones that their son was one of the victims abused by Matthew Graziotti.
Graziotti is a former teacher who was convicted on federal child pornography charges. Federal agents found that Graziotti created and shared child pornography through a file sharing service and some of the victims were children Graziotti knew at Warner Christian Academy, according to the federal complaint. Graziotti is now serving a prison sentence of more than 200 years.
Eyewitness News has never talked to any of the families, but the man only known as "James Doe" in the civil lawsuit filed on behalf of his son, told us he is speaking out to try and shine a light on the disturbing act of sex abuse against children.
"The one head shot picture that they showed of my child was on Matt's leather couch," James Doe said.
The family is suing Edgewater Alliance Church and White Chapel Church of God doing business as Warner Christian Academy; several other families have also sued the private school.
More than a year since the family filed their civil lawsuit, it still hasn't been settled.
"I'm kind of, trying to use the right word, ticked off that nobody in the school or the church did certain things to assure the safety of my child," James Doe said.
An attorney for the South Daytona Beach private school filed a response to the lawsuit, denying a majority of the claims. A response from the church, in part, places blame on the child and his parents, saying, "Defendant states that the plaintiff was comparatively negligent by virtue of his actions prior to and at the time of the incident, assumed the risk of a known or what should have been known if proven to be dangerous condition and otherwise his injuries and damages were solely and/or approximately in whole or in part caused by actions representing comparative negligence under Florida Law."
Attempts to clarify the defense with the church attorney were unsuccessful. But the family's lawyer argues the school failed to check Graziotti's background.
"They didn't call prior employers. They didn't check his prior history. If they had, red flags would've popped up from Michigan to their own backyard. It conflicts with any Christian value that any of us have. You've never once picked up the phone, and called our client before we ever were involved as lawyers and said we're sorry, is there anything we can do to help your child," Attorney Frank Kruppenbacher told Jones.
Warner Christian explains in the legal response it conducted an adequate pre-employment investigation, but it's unclear if that included calling previous employees, one of which asked him to leave his position as Youth Minister because his conduct with children went beyond normal parameters.
Edgewater police began an investigation of possible inappropriate conduct with children, but Graziotti was never arrested.
"Someone has to be held accountable and they can't point the finger at the parent," James Doe told Jones.
The church marketing and development hasn't yet responded to 9 Investigates questions about the case. Court records showed that at least two other civil cases against the church and school have been settled. There are others still making it through the court system.
Alabaster man arrested on child sex abuse charges
by ABC 33/40
ALABASTER, Ala. —
Alabaster Police arrested Jeremy Douglas Loper, 35, of Park Forest Lane, on child sex abuse charges.
Loper is charged with electronic solicitation of a child and second degree sexual abuse. Loper is detained at the Shelby County Jail on a $35,000 bond.
Chief Curtis Rigney said the police started an investigation following contact with a parent who said her daughter had been assaulted by Loper.
Rigney said, "As the investigation progressed, disturbing evidence was uncovered that led to these charges today."
Police advise parents who believe their children may have had contact with Loper to contact the Alabaster Police Department or 9-1-1.
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