Former priest, convicted sex offender,
re-arrested in upstate NY
By Zachary R. Dowdy 
CHARLTON, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A former Washington County and Long Island priest has been arrested after he’s accused of sexually abusing a child in Charlton.
Michael Hands, 51, of Herrington Hill Road in Greenwich, faces a nine count indictment with charges including criminal sex act and using a child in sexual performance.
He is accused of reaching out to the victims over the internet.
Hands is already a registered sex offender from a previous conviction out of Suffolk County.
At this point, officials do not believe there are any other victims but if there are they want them to call police immediately.
Man wanted for rape, child sexual abuse in Lane County captured in Indiana
By Chelsea DeffenbacherThe Register-Guard
Authorities in Indiana have arrested a 42-year-old man, wanted in Lane County on several charges related to the rape and sexual abuse of a girl under the age of 12.
Travis Wayne Young was booked into the Lane County Jail Sunday afternoon, after being transferred from the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office in New Albany, Ind.
Young is charged with two counts of first-degree rape, three counts of first-degree sodomy, two counts of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse.
Young pleaded not guilty Tuesday to all charges in the Lane County Jail’s courtroom.
His next court appearance — a pre-trial hearing in Circuit Court — has been set for Oct. 11.
The abuse allegedly occurred between 2011 and 2014 in Lane County, court records show.
According to Chief Deputy District Attorney Erik Hasselman, the Lane County Grand Jury indicted Young in May.
Young was arrested by New Albany police July 21 on unrelated charges, before he was released to Lane County over the weekend.
Lane Co., Indiana
Detectives Arrest San Rafael Resident in
Sexual Assault of Two Children
San Rafael CA - During the month of August, 2017 SRPD Detectives conducted an investigation into a report of sexual abuse by an adult male. Two minor females who live in San Rafael were the reported victims.
San Rafael Police Detectives interviewed people close to the suspect and victims to determine the facts and extent of the reported abuse. Detailed forensic interviews of the confidential victims were conducted with the collaboration of the Marin County District Attorney’s Office and assistance from Marin County Child and Family Services. The female victims reported that they suffered abuse on multiple occasions by an acquaintance in 2007. The abuse appears to have been directed toward these two minors only.
On August 31st 2017 at approximately 6:00AM, SRPD Detectives arrested Abraham Elisio Vargas Lopez, a 31 year old resident of San Rafael, CA. He was booked for 4 counts PC 288(C)(1) Lewd Acts with a Child Under 14 Years of Age.
Anyone with information about this crime is asked to call San Rafael Police at (415) 485-3000. Tips can also be made online at http://www.srpd.org/tips.
San Rafael, CA
Orange City man found guilty of sexual abuse
ORANGE CITY, IOWA (KSFY) - Authorities say an Orange City, Iowa, man has been sentenced for third degree sexual abuse.
Sioux County Attorney Thomas G. Kunstle said Tuesday that 22-year-old Chance Jacob Wetter was convicted on August 11.
Kunstle said police learned on October 20, 2015, that Wetter had impregnated a 15-year-old girl. The child’s birth certificate and a paternity test verified Wetter as the father.
Wetter pled not guilty, and his case went to trial without a jury.
He was sentenced on September 1 by the court to a suspended 10 year prison sentence, ordered probation for two years, and required Wetter to register as a sex offender and be supervised on parole for life.
Virginia Man Sentenced To 40 Years For
Repeated Sexual Assault Of A Child
On Aug. 31, 2017, John Tyler Ellis, a 54-year-old Alexandria resident, was sentenced in Alexandria Circuit Court to an active sentence of 40 years of incarceration for repeated offenses of sexual abuse against an 11 year-old-child. Ellis was found guilty of seven felony charges: three counts of Forcible Sodomy, three counts of Aggravated Sexual Battery, and one count of Indecent Liberties With a Child.
The defendant’s crimes were exposed in June 2016 when the child’s stepfather discovered text messages on the child’s phone. When asked about the messages, the child disclosed that they were from the defendant.
The child was interviewed at the Center for Alexandria’s Children, a child advocacy center serving the City of Alexandria. The child disclosed that on three occasions, the defendant had lured the child into the home under false pretenses and sexually abused the child.
Prior to this abuse, Ellis was a trusted family friend and neighbor who had known the child for years. Subsequent investigation revealed that Ellis had been sending text messages to the child for several months prior to the abuse, and the defendant had groomed the child to view him as a friend and confidant.
Ellis received an aggregate sentence of 160 years of incarceration, with all but 40 years of the sentence suspended. Upon his release from prison Ellis will be on supervised probation for the remainder of his life and he will be required to register under the Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry Act.
This case was investigated by Detective Kevin Thomas of the Alexandria Police Department’s Special Victims Unit. Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Amanda Tassa prosecuted the matter on behalf of the Commonwealth with the assistance of the Director of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Victim Witness Assistance Program, Judy Holl. Mental health providers from the Community Services Board and advocates from the City’s Sexual Assault Center provided support. All of the agencies involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case are members of the City’s Multi-Disciplinary Team. The MDT conducts collaborative and coordinated investigations that prioritize the child’s safety, well-being, and resilience.
Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter said: “First, my thoughts are with the victim of this horrendous series of sexual assaults and with the victim’s family. There is no doubt that the defendant’s criminal actions have had a devastating effect on the victim. However, in my experience the courage and perseverance of sexual assault survivors allows them to rise above the pain and I am certain that the victim in this case has that courage.”
“In any child sexual assault case the women and men who investigate the case and bring the perpetrator to justice suffer the vicarious trauma of living and then reliving the assault of an innocent victim. I wish to commend by name Detective Kevin Thomas of the Alexandria Police Department who lived this case every day for over a year.”
“In Alexandria, we have an outstanding and experienced Multi-Disciplinary Team that brings professionals from many different fields to collectively work on this type of case. Our MDT is an example for other localities to emulate. The City is lucky to have such dedicated people working together for a common cause.”
Ellis is currently in custody in the William G. Truesdale Alexandria Adult Detention Center pending his transfer to the Department of Corrections.
Penn State signals possible suit against Sandusky charity
by Jeremy Roebuck, Staff Writer
Pennsylvania State University has signaled its intention to sue Jerry Sandusky’s former children’s charity, years after the school paid more than $93 million to settle claims from 32 of the former assistant football coach’s accusers.
But with the Second Mile shuttered in the wake of the child sex assault scandal that followed Sandusky’s arrest, it remains unclear just how much money a lawsuit might help the school recover.
At last count, about $750,000 in assets remained in the charity’s coffers — handed over to the Attorney General’s Office as part of a dissolution process that began in October 2012.
Penn State raised the possibility of litigation in a filing Friday in Centre County Court. The document preserved the university’s right to sue but offered no hint of the grounds for any potential lawsuit.
Still, Penn State’s lawyers have suggested that they could seek to recoup some of the steep costs the school incurred in responding to the scandal. That bill has included tens of millions of dollars in NCAA sanctions and legal fees on top of the settlements with victims.
The Second Mile should have shouldered more of that burden, wrote Penn State lawyer Joseph O’Dea in court papers last year in legal wrangling surrounding the charity’s closure.
“The Second Mile … knew or should have known of facts that reasonably suggested that Sandusky was sexually abusing and/or endangering children,” he wrote. “As a result of the Second Mile’s … inequitable and unjustified refusal to accept responsibility for Sandusky’s conduct and the harm to the children, the university paid more than its share of the amounts necessary to settle the claims of the victims and alleged victims of Sandusky who participated in the Second Mile’s programs.”
A vocal group of university trustees and supporters has questioned why former executives of the Second Mile, where Sandusky groomed many of his victims, did not face criminal repercussions while three former Penn State administrators — including ex-president Graham B. Spanier — were sentenced to jail for failing to act on signs of the former coach’s abuse.
An internal probe the charity launched to examine conduct fizzled out when the Second Mile shut its doors in 2012.
But testifying at Spanier’s trial in March, Second Mile former president and CEO Jack Raykovitz spoke publicly for the first time about the Sandusky scandal. He maintained that he had no reason to suspect anything untoward about the former coach’s relationships with the charity’s young clients.
When he learned in 2001 that Mike McQueary, then a graduate assistant with the Penn State football program, had reported witnessing a sexual act between Sandusky and a child in a campus locker room shower, Raykovitz said that he took action by checking with the university administrator who was handling McQueary’s report.
“He told me it had been investigated and nothing inappropriate was found,” Raykovitz said. He also testified that he also advised Sandusky to no longer shower in the nude with boys, given concerns about child sexual abuse nationally.
“I told him to wear trunks,” Raykovitz said.
Sandusky founded the Second Mile in 1977 and remained active in the organization even after he retired from its day-to-day operations in 2010. He is serving a prison term of up to 60 years while continuing to appeal his conviction on 45 counts of child sex abuse.
Colorado Man Arrested on Child Sex Crimes
Pleads Guilty
By: Katerina Chryssafis 
Cribari was advised of his rights and possible penalties prior to accepting a his plea deal.
He will next appear in court on November 30th at the Mesa County Justice Center, when he is expected to be sentenced. Until then, he is being held at the Mesa County Detention Facility.
Former Heavenly ski instructor pleads guilty
to charges of child porn
Marcella CoronaA former children’s ski instructor at a Tahoe resort pleaded guilty to three felony child pornography charges.
Acting U.S. Attorney Steven Myhre for the District of Nevada made the announcement of DeGraffenreid’s guilty plea in a news release on Tuesday.
DeGraffenreid, who was fired from his job as an assistant at the Heavenly Ski Resort’s school, was accused of photographing children as young as 3 in a bathroom at a daycare center in Gardnerville.
Authorities initially discovered child pornography on an Apple iPod Touch that was found at the ski school. Detectives later learned that the iPod belonged to DeGraffenreid. The device was filled with nude photos of prepubescent girls that he apparently downloaded from the internet.
Officers with the Northern Nevada Online Child Exploitation Task Force conducted a search of DeGraffenreid’s home, where they found a thumb drive with photos of children in a bathroom. DeGraffenreid’s defense lawyer, David Houston, previously said his client took the photos from a distance outside an open bathroom door and never touched the children.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon Bryant told the Associated Press that DeGraffenreid admitted that he could not control his addiction to child pornography or his attraction to children.
The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office also helped with the investigation. The Child Exploitation Task Force consists of members from the FBI, the Reno Police Department, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office and the Nevada Attorney General’s Office.
The case was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to fight the growing number of child sexual exploitation and abuse cases.
Anyone with information on child sexual abuse or exploitation can contact the FBI’s Las Vegas Office at 702-385-1281 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST).
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