Texas Man Receives More Than 1,000 Years
on Child Sex Assault, Incest Charges
By: Kate Winkle and Lauren Lanmon (KXAN)
HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) - A San Marcos man sentenced on child sexual abuse charges Monday received double life sentences, in addition to more than 1,000 years in prison.
Robert Benjamin Franks, 39, was convicted on multiple counts after harming two children, one of whom was a family member. According to court documents, Franks abused one of his victims starting when she was just five years old. The documents add that the abuse happened three or four times a week lasting at least five years.
“To have all of that innocence and protection taken away by the very person who is supposed to be preserving that for children is what I think makes this so much worse than some of those other cases that may be more violent,” said Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau. “It was a betrayal of somebody who should be looking out for those children.”
According to trial testimony, a 9-year-old girl told her father that Franks was doing “disgusting things” to her — including having her and another young girl perform oral sex, according to a Hays County DA’s office release. During a short punishment hearing, Frank’s adult cousin also spoke up and accused him of taking advantage of her.
The trial began a week before Thanksgiving, however jurors took a break the entire holiday week before returning the following Monday.
“The holidays are times of forgiveness and looking for the best in people. Jurors I know come in a lot of times with that holiday attitude. This time, I think it worked to the defense’s disadvantage,” said Mau. “The jurors probably were at home and dismayed that things like this could even happen. I assume they spent time with their family, and were horrified this could happen in someone else’s family.”
The jury deliberated for about an hour Monday before returning a guilty verdict on all 17 counts. The punishment deliberations lasted a little more than two hours.
“When these kinds of cases occur, there is no room for leniency. These kinds of predators have to be treated with the harshest of consequences,” said Mau. “I think it sends a message to anyone else out in the community who might be thinking about doing a crime like this that jurors, at least in Hays County, have no tolerance for this kind of behavior.”
The two continuous sexual abuse charges each had a life sentence. Each of the nine counts of aggravated sexual assault had 99-year sentences, and each of the six counts of indecency with a child had 20 year sentences. Franks is also supposed to pay a $93,000 fine.
Mau says he doesn’t get lengthy sentences like this often. He hopes this case not only sends a message to potential criminals but also to victims.
“This was a case where it came down to whether or not the jurors believed these two young girls. There was no physical evidence, these were delayed outcries,” said Mau. “I hope this sends a message that jurors will believe them and they should not be afraid to come forward thinking it’s going to be my word against adults and that the other adults will believe the grownups. I think the jurors see that and jurors see that children don’t make up things like this.”
Babysitter convicted on 98 counts for raping children at church and home in NY
A babysitter was convicted of repeatedly raping two children, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said on Tuesday. The convicted sex offender recorded some of the sexual assaults and made montages of the scenes set to music.
Milton Narvaez, also known as Milton Gomez, 35, was convicted by a jury of his peers in the New York State Supreme Court of:
• Predatory Sexual Assault Against a Child Under the Age of 13, a class A felony, 13 counts
• Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, a class D felony, 2 counts
• Aggravated Sexual Abuse in the Third Degree, a class D felony, 1 count
• Promoting a Sexual Performance By a Child, a class D felony, 14 counts
• Promoting a Sexual Performance By a Child as a Sexually Motivated Felony, a class D felony, 7 counts
• Possessing a Sexual Performance By a Child Under the Age of 16, a class E felony, 61 counts
Narvaez is due back in court on Dec. 1.
“There are few acts more horrific than the long-term sexual abuse of a child,” Vance said. “As a babysitter and custodian with access to children, Milton Narvaez abused his position to rape two children, before further exploiting them by recording video of the acts.”
According to the district attorney, Narvaez worked as a babysitter and on the custodial staff at the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church located in Midtown Manhattan.
Narvaez began sexually abusing a child he was paid to babysit in February 2008. The child was 6-years-old at the time. Narvaez remained the child’s babysitter for six years.
Narvaez also sexually abused an unidentified child in the storage room of the Armenian church on Oct. 15, 2011.
The sexual assaults were discovered during the course of a routine investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office’s Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau into the sharing and possession of images of child sexual assault through peer-to-peer technology, akin to that used to swap online music and audio files.
In addition to the videos of Narvaez sexually assaulting children, he shared and possessed dozens of known images of child pornography.
Former Waco police employee on trial in
another family child sex abuse case
By TOMMY WITHERSPOON twitherspoon@wacotrib.com 1 hr ago (0)
A former Waco Police Department records department supervisor sexually abused a family member over a three-year period beginning when the girl was 10, the girl reluctantly testified Tuesday.
Saying she did not want to testify, the girl, now 17, forced prosecutor Gabrielle Massey to coax incriminating testimony from her that she answered mostly in almost inaudible one-word responses after long pauses. Through a steady stream of tears, the girl told jurors Jose Isreal Ramos regularly sexually assaulted her from 2010 to 2013.
Ramos, 50, a former records supervisor at the Waco Police Department, works now for a diaper-manufacturing plant. He is charged in Waco's 54th State District Court with continuous sexual abuse of a child and six counts of indecency with a child by contact.
Massey and prosecutor Christi Hunting Horse rested their case against Ramos Tuesday evening. Defense attorneys Melanie Walker and Jessi Freud will present defense witnesses when the trial resumes Wednesday morning.
The hesitant girl's testimony was so laborious that Massey eventually asked her if what she told her grandmother and Dr. Ann Sims of the Advocacy Center for Crime Victims and Children was true. The girl said it was true.
However, the girl also acknowledged that she lied to a Child Protective Services worker about whether her mother assaulted her and that she and friends from school were caught in a scheme to spread a damaging story that also was not true about a teacher they disliked.
Walker also suggested through her cross-examination of witnesses that the girl had gotten into trouble at school and fabricated the abuse as a way to deflect the problems she was having at school.
The girl's grandmother testified that the girl revealed to her in 2013 when the girl was 13 that Ramos had been sexually abusing her for the past three years.
She said the girl's mother sensed that something was wrong with her daughter and asked the grandmother to speak to her. She said the girl told her that Ramos was "hurting me." When she asked her to explain, the girl said "he is having sex with me."
"She told me that he said if she wanted him to stop, he would, but he didn't," the grandmother said.
The girl told her grandmother that Ramos forced her to perform oral sex on him one night after he pulled into the parking lot at the Baylor University track and field facility. Ramos also told the girl that they would have to be careful so she wouldn't get pregnant now that she was getting older, the grandmother told jurors.
Ramos also watched adult movies with the girl and made her perform the sex acts they saw on film, she said.
Sims, who examined the girl after the allegations surfaced, told jurors the girl said she was afraid of Ramos and that he sexually assaulted her more than 30 times. Sims said the girl started cutting herself as a way to deal with the abuse but was not suicidal.
She said the girl told her that Ramos promised to buy her a phone and gave her money to entice her to not report the abuse and to allow it to continue.
"She said he told her, 'I'm trusting you not to tell nobody. This will help me from getting cancer down there,' " Sims said, quoting what Ramos reportedly told the girl while forcing her to perform sex acts.
Texas man wanted on child sex abuse charge
By Jeff Awtrey, Assignments Editor
POLK COUNTY, TX (KTRE) -
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is seeking the public’s help in locating a Livingston man accused of sexually assaulting a child.
Matthew Edward Ward, 23, is wanted on a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child.
According to a press release, the sheriff’s office received a call on Nov. 17 concerning allegations of sexual abuse.
Detectives with the office began interviewing a child victim, who made outcries of sexual abuse and detectives determined the suspect is Ward.
Anyone with information on Ward’s whereabouts are urged to call the sheriff’s office at 936-327-6810.
Former Virginia softball coach handed down
several more child sex crimes charges
several more child sex crimes charges
by Elizabeth Tyree
CULPEPER, Va. (WSET) -- A woman, currently facing 34 sexual assault charges, is now facing 12 more charges.
Virginia State Police served Cathy Rothgeb, 57, of Stanley, with four counts of object sexual penetration, four counts of forcible sodomy, and four counts of indecent liberties with a juvenile by a custodian on Tuesday, November 28.
The additional indictments were handed up by a Spotsylvania, Virginia grand jury.
Police said Rothgeb turned herself in to state police in October after she was indicted by an Orange grand jury on 34 sexual assault counts.
Those included seven counts of object sexual penetration, seven counts of forcible sodomy, eight counts of indecent liberties with children, eight counts of cruelty to children, and four counts of aggravated sexual battery.
Police said the charges stem from an investigation that began in 2016.
They said a female victim told an investigator about alleged sexual abuse while Rothgeb was a volunteer softball coach.
The new charges stem from two different women who came forward to state police investigating concerning alleged sexual abuse during Rothgeb’s tenure as a volunteer softball coach in Orange and Spotsylvania counties.
Rothgeb is also a former youth softball coach for Orange County High School, she's coached youth recreational leagues and travel teams in Orange County, Spotsylvania County, and throughout Virginia for decades.
Anyone with information about Rothgeb or her charges are encouraged to contact the State Police at 1-888-300-0156 or 540-829-7400 or by email to questions@vsp.virginia.gov.
Rothgeb continues to be held without bond at the Central Virginia Regional Jail.
Utah man sentenced for sexual abuse
of 13-year-old girl
BY TAYLOR HARTMAN
CARBON COUNTY, Utah – A carbon county man was sentenced to prison, for alleged sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl.
30-year-old Kenneth Ray Fox pleaded guilty Monday to two second degree felonies; one for forcible sexual abuse, and another for enticing a minor.
Fox was sentenced to two concurrent sentences of no less than one year and no more than 15 years in Utah State Prison.
According to court documents filed in Price, Fox originally faced five counts, three for sexual exploitation on a minor, one for enticing a minor and one for rape of a child. Fox allegedly knowingly used the internet or text messaging to, “solicit, seduce, lure, or entice a minor.”
According to an affidavit, “Numerous sexually explicit images and videos were transmitted between both users through various apps.”
Fox allegedly also created a fake Facebook account, to communicate with the minor.
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