Illinois Man Convicted of Child Sex Assault
of Under 5 y/o
Prosecutors say he took girl to his apartment and sexually assaulted her
By: Scott Picken
ROCKFORD, Ill - A Rockford man has been convicted by a jury of Aggravated Criminal Sex Abuse of a child under 5-years-old and Unlawful Restraint.
Prosecutors say 32-year-old Thawahson Wah picked up a girl at her school and took her back to his apartment where he held her against her will and then sexually assaulted her.
He was arrested and jailed after the incident in November 2015 at his apartment in the 1400 block of 7th Avenue.
Wah could face up to seven years in prison and will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Oregon Court of Appeals upholds pastor's
child sex abuse conviction
By The Oregonian/OregonLive
The Oregon Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a pastor sentenced to prison for sexually abusing a girl who grew up in his Happy Valley church.
The court affirmed the conviction of Mike Sperou without opinion on Wednesday, records show. A Multnomah County jury convicted Sperou in 2015 on three counts of first-degree sexual penetration of a person under the age of 12, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
He's being held in the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, and records list his earliest release date as December 27, 2032.
In 1997, seven girls complained that Sperou, co-founder of the North Clackamas Bible Community, had molested them. No charges were brought because the girls' stories were inconsistent or vague. The allegations came on the heels of a split in the church, leading to the exit of several families.
In 2013, the girls -- by then adult women -- again brought their complaints to police. After an investigation, authorities found that the statute of limitations had expired on all of the complaints except those raised by one woman, who then offered additional details not previously considered.
The other six women were allowed to tell the jury about their own experiences with Sperou, who's now 67, during the trial.
Defense attorney Steven L. Sherlag previously said he intended to appeal Sperou's conviction to the Oregon Court of Appeals. He said the judge's ruling constituted "reversible error" when she allowed six additional women not listed as victims in the case to offer graphic testimony of their experiences with Sperou when they were girls.
So, maybe Oregon needs to bring its Statute of Limitations into the 21st century. A pedophile should not be allowed to get away with destroying the innocence of children just because they weren't believed the first time they complained. The SoL should not even apply to these girls. They reported the crimes and the police did not have the expertise to properly investigate them at the time.
Alabama sex offender jailed again on
child sex abuse charges
By Ashley Remkus
A convicted sex offender who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing children just over a year ago is back behind bars on allegations of inappropriate touching.
Travis Bernard Franklin is jailed on two charges of sexually abusing a child younger than 12 and two counts of violating Alabama's sex offender laws, Madison County Jail records show. The 37-year-old from Madison is held with bail set at $90,000.
Franklin in August 2016 pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, court records show. The cases involved two girls -- a 6-year-old and a 12-year-old -- records show. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. But the sentence was suspended, pending completion of 5 years on probation. Franklin was required to register as a sex offender.
Madison County Assistant District Attorney Gabrielle Helix prosecuted Franklin's prior case. She said uncertainty about getting a guilty verdict at trial often leads to a plea offer.
"I have to consider what I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt with admissible evidence to a reasonable jury," Helix said. "If those three things are not in line, I do the best I can to get justice for the victims."
If convicted of the new charges, Franklin faces up to 60 years in prison. He also could be required to serve the previously-suspended 10-year sentence.
"If he's done it again, we'll pursue it," Helix said. "Unfortunately, we can't look into the future and manipulate the case to prevent something from happening in the future."
You can lock him up and throw away the key! That will prevent something from happening!
Few details about the new cases are being released. Madison Police Capt. Terrell Cook said Franklin's Thursday arrest stemmed from a recent investigation.
NC man held on $1 million bond after
child sex charges filed
By WECT staffWILMINGTON, N.C. — A New Hanover County man is in jail under a $1 million bond following his arrest on child sex crime charges.
Lt. Jerry Brewer, spokesperson for the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, said the investigation into Johnson began two months ago after the victim’s mother alerted detectives.
Brewer said the alleged abuse occurred over a two-year period and began when the victim was 14 years old.
The investigation is ongoing and additional charges are possible, Brewer said.
Lawsuit: Child protection agency placed boy
with known pedophile
By Myles Snyder, ABC27 NewsYORK, Pa. (WHTM) – A federal lawsuit says York County’s child services agency “disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm” when it placed a young boy in foster care with a convicted pedophile.
The civil complaint was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court by the boy, who is now 13, and his mother. It names as defendants the county, two caseworkers, and a supervisor for the Office of Children, Youth and Families.
The boy’s attorneys say the child services agency knew or should have known that Witmer’s home was a “completely unreasonable foster placement” because he had been twice convicted of child sexual abuse. He pleaded guilty to fondling a 4-year-old boy in 1989, a case that was reported to the agency, and to exposing himself to two other boys in 1990.
The complaint says the defendants failed to investigate Witmer’s background, ignored or disregarded his known history of sexually molesting children, and failed to supervise Witmer’s relationship with the boy.
The lawsuit further states that around the time the plaintiff was placed with Witmer, the office “did not have adequate staff to properly handle the placement of children.” Staffers were “overwhelmed by the size of their caseloads” and “were not receiving sufficient training and support to provide adequate services to children.”
The boy and his mother are seeking unspecified damages for “severe and permanent injuries” the boy suffered, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs.
Mother: City ignored sex abuse of my daughter
at summer camp
By Joshua Rhett Miller The family of an 8-year-old girl in Indiana plans to sue an Indianapolis suburb after she was sexually assaulted at a summer camp by another girl despite ongoing concerns raised by her mother, an attorney claims.
“Over the course of the summer, the little girl had made comments to her mom about some things [that] were happening at camp,” Stoesz said. “There was allegations of touching, allegations of pants being pulled down, allegations of forced behavior.”
The alleged abuse began in late May at Creekside Middle School, prompting the girl’s mother to contact camp workers about what her daughter told her. But camp workers were negligent in protecting the girl and didn’t even take steps to make sure it didn’t happen again, Stoesz said.
“I think they failed to properly supervise the children and allowed incidents to continue to happen after they had been given notice that something was happening,” he said. “I don’t want to characterize it as a cover-up, but I don’t think that the proper write-ups were done.”
The girl’s mother told the Indianapolis Star she contacted camp and parks department workers several times to relay concerns that her daughter was being harassed and bullied by the little girl. The mother said her daughter told her she was later followed into a bathroom by her alleged tormentor, who locked the door behind her before pulling down her pants and shoving her daughter’s head into her crotch area to simulate oral sex.
The victim’s mother said the girl then pulled down her daughter’s pants before touching her inappropriately.
The mother said the other child also watched her daughter use the restroom several times and exposed herself to her daughter. The other girl was never removed from the $1,500 camp, she said, causing her to remove her daughter from the camp before contacting the Department of Child Services, the Indianapolis Star reports.
A police report obtained by the newspaper via an open records request shows that camp workers contacted in Carmel police on July 6. Six days later, the case was closed after investigators found no criminal violations.
The girl’s mother, who is seeking $700,000 in damages per incident of negligence, said she was also told by the state’s Department of Child Services that it found no conclusive evidence that her daughter was abused or that the city of Carmel was negligent. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment, citing confidentiality laws, while a spokeswoman for the city of Carmel declined to comment on pending litigation, the Indianapolis Star reports.
The alleged victim continues to receive therapy and takes medication for night terrors and other afflictions after the alleged abuse. Symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder are “clearly there,” according to the family’s attorney. The girl has also started becoming overly concerned with puberty and chews her fingers, her mother said.
“The trauma that my daughter experienced this summer has become a force of its own,” the girl’s mother told WXIN in a statement. “Every aspect of her life and our family life has been altered. Someone needs to answer to these atrocities and make sure that no other child and family have to go through what we are enduring.”
Ohio man gets more than 11 years for
possession of child pornography
WKYC A 54-year-old Brunswick man will serve more than 11 years behind bars for possessing tens of thousands of child pornography items.
Scott M. Wroten recently pleaded guilty to receiving 136,000 images and 1,000 videos depicting actual minors engaged in sexual acts, including sexual abuse and bestiality. The files were collected over a period of five years beginning in 2011, according to authorities.
The case was tried in a federal court, and the Brunswick and Wickliffe police departments assisted federal and state authorities in the investigation.
California man accused of sexually and
physically abusing two sisters
By BEATRIZ E. VALENZUELA |What began as an investigation into possible child abuse eventually led Fontana police to arrest a man suspected of the sexual abuse of two sisters, police said.
Jose Allende, 40, was booked into West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 10, lewd acts with a child under the age of 14 and inflicting injury on a child, San Bernardino County sheriff’s booking records show.
“This case started as a call for service in which a school in Riverside called in a child abuse call,” said Sgt. Kevin Goltara on Tuesday.
The older girl, who lives in Fontana but goes to school in Riverside, told school officials she was the victim of physical abuse, according to Goltara.
“Fontana detectives handled the case and later learned the victim and her young sister were victims of sexual abuse by the same suspect as the physical abuse,” Goltara said.
Authorities arrested Allende on Monday evening in the area of Juniper Avenue and Valley Boulevard, records show.
The relationship between the girls and Allende was not released in order to protect the identity of the victims.
Former Oak Harbor man faces new
child molesting charges
Caution disturbing description below
JESSIE STENSLAND Washington State: A former Navy man who was the defendant in a long and complicated child sexual abuse case from a decade ago is facing a new set of charges.
Island County Superior Court Judge Vickie Churchill issued a $300,000 arrest warrant Sept. 26 for Bryon C. Koeller, a former Oak Harbor man now living in Richland, Wash.
Prosecutors recently charged Koeller, 44, with four counts of child molestation in the first degree, two counts of child molestation in the second degree, two counts of child molestation in the third degree, one count of indecent liberties and one count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes.
A female relative of Koeller’s came forward to Navy authorities last month and reported that Koeller molested her multiple times between approximately 1998 and 2007.
Koeller was charged with one count of rape of a child in the first degree in Island County Superior Court in 2007. He was accused of raping a 4-year-old boy in the care of Koeller’s wife as part of an informal daycare arrangement.
The first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury deadlocked. The prosecutor tried him again and the jury found him guilty. His daughter testified at the trial that Koeller had also sexually assaulted her.
Churchill handed him an indeterminate sentence of 123 months to life in prison.
Koeller appealed to the state Court of Appeals and won. The appellate court reversed his conviction because the judge allowed the alleged victim to testify via closed-circuit TV so that he wouldn’t be traumatized by facing Koeller. The Court of Appeals ruled that the prosecution didn’t present strong enough evidence that “the victim would suffer serious emotional distress if required to testify in Koeller’s presence.”
OMG! You need evidence to know that a 4 y/o child is going to suffer emotional distress talking in court about being sexually abused. How utterly idiotic!
Koeller was released after serving about three years in prison.
In order to save the victim from testifying in a third trial, the prosecutor and defense worked out a plea bargain under which Koeller pleaded guilty to a gross misdemeanor count of communicating with a minor for immoral purposes. Koeller had to register as a sex offender, which was a priority for the prosecution.
Koeller and his wife filed a lawsuit against his former defense attorneys, claiming they failed to fully investigate his defense. The case was dismissed in 2013 after no action was taken in a year.
The new case was investigated by a special agent from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The girl reported to the agent that Koeller molested her about once a month when she was younger than 11 years old and every few months as she got older.
She said Koeller told her not to tell anyone else about the molestation and threatened to rape her, the report states.
The girl was able to describe many specific incidents. In one alleged instance, the girl refused Koeller’s demand that she undress. He wrestled her to the ground, duct taped her wrists, knees and ankles together and raped the dog — or at least attempted to — in front of her; he then sexually assaulted her, according to the NCIS report.
The new charges against Koeller include special allegations of aggravating circumstances, which could allow a judge to sentence him above the standard sentencing range.
Koeller’s current wife formerly worked for Child Protective Services, the report states.
3 Men Indicted For Allegedly Enticing
Children Online
By Tony Schinella (Patch National Staff) NASHUA, NH — The following people were indicted recently in Hillsborough County Superior Court-South.
Dana Avery, 53, of 40A Washington St., Rochester, and Alexander Del More, 30, of 555 South Commercial St., apt. 405, Manchester, were arrested recently for separate offenses involving the online solicitation of sex from Nashua teens.
While Avery had been informed of the teen’s age multiple times, he still allegedly sent her “very graphic and sexually explicit emails detailing exactly what he would like to do with her should they ever meet,”
Detective Caleb Gilbert of the Nashua Police Department wrote in a police affidavit on file at the 9th Circuit Court, Nashua District Division. “...These statements not only reference sexual assault and lewdness, but also display a clear danger to the health and welfare of (the child).”
According to Gilbert’s affidavit, about 614 emails were exchanged between Avery and undercover detectives in just two days in July.
“Dana claimed that he had traveled to Nashua with the hope that (she) was actually 18 and not the 14 that she told him she was,” investigators say in court records.
Avery was charged with three counts of certain uses of computer services prohibited, a felony. He is being held on $15,000 cash bail and will be back in court on Sept. 25 for a probable cause hearing.
Del More was arrested on Aug. 4 after he allegedly traveled to Nashua to meet a teen female for sex, according to police.
Del More is accused of using an anonymous craigslist server to reach the fictitious 15-year-old girl. After sharing emails, 780 text messages were exchanged over a 23-day period in July and August, investigators allege in court records.
“Alex informed (her) that he would like to have sexual contact with her in very explicit and no uncertain terms despite knowing her age,” Gilbert writes in court documents. Del More allegedly supplied links to pornography, according to the complaint.
In addition to three counts of certain uses of computer services prohibited, Del More is charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child by soliciting sex. He has been ordered to have no contact with anyone under the age of 18 and to refrain from all use of computers and the internet.
Del More’s bail was set at $5,000 cash; he is scheduled to be back in court on Aug. 17 for a hearing. If convicted, both men face up to seven years in prison for each felony offense, said police.
New Hampshire Resident Arraigned on 14 Counts of
Possession of Child Pornography
by NH1 News GOFFSTOWN — A Weare resident was arraigned Monday in Goffstown district court on 14 counts involving possession of child pornography.
Descriptions of the 14 counts include the ages of the minors in the photographs, varying from 4 to 12 years old. Court documents say “lewd exhibition of genitalia,” “masturbation,” “sexual intercourse,” and “fellatio” are portrayed in the child sex abuse images. In August, the state changed the name of the charge to possession of child sex abuse images.
Until the next hearing scheduled on Oct. 12, Cisto is being held at Hillsborough County Jail on $25,000 cash bail. If Cisto is released on bail, he is to not have unsupervised contact with minors.
The Weare Police Department was assisted in the investigation by Homeland Security Investigations and the New Hampshire Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) team.
Derleth gets 45 years in sex abuse case;
kidnapping case still pending
BY KARA BERG
A Granite City, Ill man accused of kidnapping his 13-year-old stepdaughter and her infant son has been sentenced to 45 years in prison in Bond County in a sex-abuse case.
As of Tuesday, Derleth’s kidnapping case in Madison County still was pending. He is charged there with aggravated kidnapping of a child with an intellectual disability. He’s accused of taking his stepdaughter and the infant from a foster home and fleeing to West Virginia.
Bond County State’s Attorney Chris Bauer said he was pleased that the negotiation of a plea deal in the sex abuse case meant the child victim did not have to take the stand to testify about what happened to her.
“As a prosecutor, we have certain goals — the protection of the public, punishment for the offender, incapacitation of the offender and protection of the victim,” Bauer said. “We accomplished those goals here...He could be released no sooner than between 76 and 77 years of age. I think that incapacitates him and removes him from the streets so he’s no longer a threat to the public.”
A plea deal I can live with. Well done!
Bauer credited Madison County and Bond County deputies who worked to put together the case against Derleth.
The perjury conviction stems from a false statement Derleth made in February 2015 in an affidavit to the court in the adoption case of his two stepdaughters, Katherine and Amber. He claimed he had never been arrested and charged with criminal offenses, even though he had two criminal charges in 1994 and 1999 in Madison County. In 1994, Derleth, who was 17 at the time, was charged with videotaping himself having sex with a girl younger than 18, and was sentenced to court supervision. In 1999, he punched a Granite City police officer and stole his squad car and was sentenced to 18 months of probation.
Police start national manhunt after 13-year-old, infant son kidnapped
He had been under a restraining order to keep away from Katherine and her baby while the baby’s paternity test was being conducted. Katherine gave birth as Bond County officials were investigating Derleth.
Bauer would not say if Derleth is the father of Katherine’s baby.
As of Tuesday, Derleth was still being held in the Madison County Jail, where he has been since he was extradited from West Virginia in September 2016.
The afore mentioned Oak harbor man who was released by an appellate court 8 years ago was found guilty of 7 counts of child molestation spanning over a decade. He was sentenced to 24 years indeterminate by Island County Superior Court Judge Hancock on May 3, 2019. The prosecutor called it sexual torture and asked for twice the standard range of sentencing as Koellers offender score was calculated at 18 which is twice the possible points as the scale maximum is 9.
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