Missouri school counselor charged in sex abuse,
child porn case involving student
BY KARRA SMALL, Fox4KC
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — A now former Van Horn High School counselor has been charged in a child sex case involving a high school student.
Meghann Wells, 30, faces charges of statutory sodomy, possession of child porn, furnishing pornographic material to a minor and unlawful use of a weapon in Jackson County.
According to court documents, on Feb. 28, police received a report that Wells and the victim had been sending inappropriate messages to each other.
The child, who is under the age of 17, was taken to the Child Protection Center for a forensic interview and told investigators about exchanging sexually explicit messages with Wells. The victim also allegedly told investigators that they had sexual contact in 2018.
Police contacted Wells at Van Horn High School and transported her to the station for an interview. During the interview, Wells allegedly admitted that she and the child had been “sexting” since the spring of 2018. She also allegedly admitted to having sexual contact with the victim, court documents say.
While Wells was in custody, police allegedly found a loaded handgun in her purse, which she was carrying at the high school, police said.
According to the Independence School District’s website, Wells is listed as a school counselor. She is no longer employed at the district, according to ISD spokeswoman Jana Corrie.
“When an allegation was reported to a staff member, the district followed protocol by reporting this to the Missouri Children’s Division and contacting police. The employee no longer works for our district,” Corrie said in a statement.
Wells remains behind bars on a $50,000 bond.
Georgia mom, man charged in sexual abuse
of 3-month-old
Baby is fighting for her life
By: WSAV Staff
EMANUEL COUNTY, Ga. (WJBF) - A mother is in jail facing child abuse charges and the man she left her 3-month old baby with is accused of sodomy.
The mother, Brandy Lee and William Woods made their appearance in an Emanuel County courtroom on Thursday.
Woods is charged with aggravated child molestation and sodomy.
The judge asked if he understood the charges brought against him and he said "no."
Lee is charged with cruelty to children since she left her infant with someone who Swainsboro Police feels was not in a position to watch her.
“We did find methamphetamine in the room so he is also charged with that,” said Police Chief Randy Ellison of Woods. “We have him charged as a result of some evidence that we saw on the body of the child and we do also have him charged with sodomy.”
Woods called for EMS and when they got there, the little girl was unresponsive.
It's something people who live in the apartments where it happened can't wrap their minds around. “How could somebody do that? I mean, it's a child for Pete's sake," said Sandy Hancock. "You're talking about an infant. What's really going through your mind?”
Drugs, obviously!
The baby was airlifted to Augusta University and, as of Wednesday night, remains in critical condition. “We don't know -- here we are 27, 28 hours later -- if the child is going to make it or not," Ellison said.
The chief said they do have photographic evidence in the case that he says "should speak for itself in a court of law."
The incident is under investigation, and more arrests are possible.
'Lock away this monster': Parents, victims share horror at Colorado child sex assault sentencing
Jacy Marmaduke, Fort Collins Coloradoan
The Coloradoan peeled back the layers of a story over a decade in the making to answer one question: How did Andrew Vanderwal do it?
A judge handed down the maximum sentence of 24 years to life in prison to Andrew Vanderwal, the Fort Collins man who fled to Mexico to evade child sex assault charges.
Vanderwal's sentence range means he won't be eligible for parole until he has served 24 years in prison. He will face at least 20 years of parole upon release and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
The sentence is the culmination of a case that has lingered in the Larimer County judicial system for nearly two and a half years, since the Air Force veteran and Northern Colorado youth volunteer first confessed to molesting his then-roommate's 6-year-old son. In the months that followed, Vanderwal fled the country while out of jail on bond and evaded rearrest in Mexico for over a year — until Lydia Lerma, the mother of one of his victims, tracked him down (2nd story on link).
More than a dozen people, including victims, their families, an FBI agent and Vanderwal's parents, spoke at the emotional sentencing hearing Friday at the Larimer County Justice Center.
Clad in a blue bandanna and Cub Scout shirt, Lerma's 8-year-old son told the court that he was glad his mother, a self-described "pedophile hunter," didn’t kill Vanderwal when she spotted him in Mexico last year.
“My son’s world is one of heroes and villains,” Lerma said in her victim impact statement, describing his love of comics and superheroes and his desire to do something special to thank the law enforcement officers who apprehended Vanderwal. “He will forever remember the heroes in this story, and I will make sure he never forgets who the villains are.”
Vanderwal in December pleaded guilty to an amended count of sexual assault on a child younger than 15 by one in a position of trust, a Class 3 felony. Other counts of child sex assault were dismissed at varying points in the case.
Vanderwal’s Fort Collins case names two victims: Lerma’s son and the young son of a man whom Vanderwal lived with in 2015 in Fort Collins.
The Coloradoan does not name victims of sexual assault. Right, just their mothers!
Their accounts are similar: Vanderwal, who gained families’ trust by volunteering with churches, hockey and swim teams and lying about an Air Force stint in Afghanistan, moved into their homes or visited repeatedly so he could prey on the young boys who lived there.
Over the course of Vanderwal's local court case, other boys have come forward saying he molested them, including two from Michigan who told their stories publicly for the first time Friday.
One man, now 28, told police last year that Vanderwal raped him four times starting when he was 12 and Vanderwal was 13. The two were neighbors growing up in Hudsonville, Michigan.
The man told Eighth Judicial District Judge Susan Blanco he awoke during a sleepover at Vanderwal’s house one night bound to the bed with the older boy on top of him.
He described the tumultuous years that followed as he sank into alcohol and prescription drug addiction, self-mutilation and a suicide attempt. He said his parents and former fiancee didn’t believe him when he told them about the abuse.
He kept knives, hammers and screwdrivers under his pillow for fear Vanderwal would come back in the night. He said he can still sometimes see Vanderwal’s face when he closes his eyes. He often wakes up screaming, leaving his wife to subdue him while also comforting his confused and terrified children.
“If I’d had the courage to come forward 15 years ago, Andrew couldn’t have destroyed anyone else’s life,” he said, gasping and crying. “Because I was a coward, others were harmed. That is something that I have to live with from now on. Is it still courage if you only come forward after someone has already been caught?”
Another Michigan man told Blanco that Vanderwal assaulted him in his home and at the park when he was 7 and Vanderwal was 14. He said he and his family later confronted Vanderwal and his mother about the abuse, and he thought he was Vanderwal’s only victim until his 2016 arrest.
Blanco called Vanderwal’s actions “calculated efforts” to exploit struggling families and victimize “the most vulnerable people in this community.”
“You were in people’s homes, and you violated the most sacred of securities — and you did it with people you knew needed your help,” Blanco told Vanderwal, who didn’t make a statement or visibly react to the sentence. “You groomed not just the children, but entire family structures in order to accomplish your own goals.”
Vanderwal's defense attorneys and family members said he isn’t the “monster” victims and their families have made him out to be.
Attorney Maria Liu said Vanderwal himself was a victim of sexual assault at the hands of a youth pastor in Michigan starting when he was 10 years old.
The defense played a video excerpt of Vanderwal’s confession in November 2016, when he told a Fort Collins police lieutenant through sobs that he “came in here with the idea that I wasn’t going to leave.”
“We have to acknowledge the rarity of someone walking into the police station to report himself of any crime, let alone this particular type of crime,” Liu said. “The fact that Andrew had the morality and the courage to do this should mean something in the eyes of the court.”
Wisconsin man charged with child sexual assault of 8 y/o
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) -- An Eau Claire man is charged with repeated sexual assault of a child.
A criminal complaint states that 38-year-old Teng Xiong committed the repeated assaults from 2012 to 2016. It says the victim was eight years old when the first assault happened and says Xiong assaulted her more than once.
Xiong denied having any sexual contact with the victim. If convicted, Xiong may face up to 40 years in prison.
Oregon woman sentenced to 3 years in prison
for sex abuse of boy
Fox 12 Staff
WOODBURN, OR (KPTV) - A Woodburn woman was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison for sexually abusing a boy.
Isabel Cortes-Flores was arrested in April 2018. She was 19 years old at the time.
Police said they received a report of a possible rape involving a 13-year-old boy in March 2018.
Officers made contact with the boy, who said he had a sexual relationship with Cortes-Flores for two years.
Cortes-Flores had a baby around six months prior to her arrest. Both the victim and the suspect told police he was the father of the child.
The baby was placed in the care of immediate family following Cortes-Flores’ arrest.
Cortes-Flores pleaded guilty Friday to charges of second-degree sex abuse. She initially faced charges of first-degree sex abuse and second-degree rape.
After her plea, she was sentenced to prison and five years probation. She will also have to register as a sex offender and take part in a sex offender treatment program.
Supreme Court rejects appeal of Nebraska man
convicted of child sexual assault
RILEY JOHNSON Lincoln Journal Star
The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the state's harsher penalties for sexual assaults of young children in its rejection of a Valparaiso man's appeal seeking to throw out his conviction.
David J. Hibler Jr., 38, is serving a 20- to 25-year sentence for first-degree sexual assault of a child, third-degree sexual assault and another sex offense.
In the appeal, attorney Michael Wilson challenged as unconstitutional the age-based state law enhancing punishment for adults, such as Hibler, found guilty of first-degree sexual assault of a child.
Wilson alleged the age ranges set for the child victim and adult offender were arbitrarily set, but the court ruled legislators enacted constitutional laws and set stricter punishments to keep those convicted from re-offending.
"The Legislature is empowered to define crimes, and in fixing their punishments, it need not select the least severe penalties," the court wrote in its opinion.
Hibler's victim, who was younger than 12 during the abuse, told friends at her school in March 2016. It was then reported to a teacher and police.
At his trial in October 2017, the girl testified Hibler touched her beneath her underwear four or five times between January 2014 and March 2016 at a Lincoln home.
Also in his appeal, Hibler argued the evidence was insufficient, the district judge erred in allowing in certain evidence and his attorney was ineffective, but the high court found those complaints lacking merit.
Hibler remains at the Nebraska State Penitentiary, according to prison records.
Connecticut Boys’ Club leadership negligently ignored
rampant sexual abuse
Several Survivors' Stories
By Hannah Dellinger
Greenwich 15 Mar 2002 - Boys and Girls Club on Horseneck Lane Photo/Mel Greer COLOR
GREENWICH, CT — The leadership at the Greenwich Boys Club in the late 1970s and early ’80s knew a counselor was sexually abusing boys as young as 6 and did nothing to stop it, court documents say.
The counselor, accused of molesting and raping multiple boys hundreds of times, was allowed to continue to work alone with children in the club’s locker room after a child told an administrator there about the abuse, according documents filed in state Superior Court in Stamford.
Five men now in their late 40s and early 50s have come forward in a lawsuit to say that Andrew Atkinson, who was affiliated with the Boys Club from 1975 through 1984, permanently damaged their lives through repeated sexual abuse when they were children. The men say Atkinson began abusing them as a Boys Club member, and once he gained a leadership role as a counselor, used his status to isolate them and assault them frequently at the Boys Club facility on Horseneck Lane and at off-site club gatherings at Camp Simmons, Island Beach and the Greenwich Polo Field.
Jeffrey Starcher, then-assistant director of the Boys Club under his father, club Director Jim Starcher, had “direct knowledge of Atkinson’s conduct” in 1981, according to the lawsuit, and didn’t take any serious measures to end it.
“Even if (Boys Club administration) including Starcher, did not have direct knowledge of the abuse, they still failed to discover the sexual abuse or seek to prevent it, despite having reasonable opportunity to do so during the protracted period of time in which Boys Club members were being abused by Atkinson while in the care and custody of (the Boys Club),” the lawsuit says.
Each of the now-grown victims says in affidavits that Atkinson’s abuse permanently impacted his life, and each still struggles with processing his trauma. They all say they suffer from depression, embarrassment, humiliation, fear and shame as well as permanent physical injury from the abuse.
Several of the victims have struggled with drug and alcohol dependency, according to the lawsuit, and led troubled lives. One man said he is claustrophobic because of the way Atkinson tried to smother him when he assaulted him, others say they have panic attacks and fear of authority figures. Most of the men said they still haven’t told their families about the abuse.
Attorney Phillip Russell, who brought the lawsuit, said there are at least two more victims in addition to the five listed in the court documents, but their claims are barred by the state statute of limitations.
Jeffrey Starcher did not respond to several attempts to reach him, nor did representatives of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Attempts to reach Atkinson for comment were not successful; Jim Starcher is no longer living.
The lawsuit names the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich as defendant. Current administrators at the club have not publicly denied the allegations. They say they are not able to comment yet on the case. Attempts to reach the attorneys representing the nonprofit were not successful.
But those attorneys have argued in a memorandum filed with the court that the plaintiffs’ claims that negligent supervision resulted in their alleged abuse are unfounded according to Connecticut case law.
“Connecticut requires more than that to prove negligent supervision,” the memorandum reads. “Connecticut law requires that the Plaintiff plead and prove that the Club knew or should have known of Atkinson’s propensity to abuse before the Club could be held liable for negligent supervision.”
‘Time out’
One of the plaintiffs, using the pseudonym John Clark, said in an affidavit that he told Jeff Starcher that Atkinson was abusing him at the time, but the only punishment the counselor received from the administrator was a “time out.”
Clark, now 48, said Atkinson’s abuse began with smacks on the head, escalated to punches in the upper chest and shoulders “for no apparent reason,” and eventually became sexual assault.
“I remember feeling pain from the strikes, and remember not knowing why I was being hit, but thought it was because I was Asian and was more similar to the bullying I was experiencing from my fellow Boys Club members,” said Clark. “I believe that I never reported this to anyone because I thought I was just being picked on for being different.”
Atkinson began molesting him when he was about 10, Clark said. More than a dozen times, Clark said Atkinson isolated him in the locker room, where he would corner him, smother him and forcefully grab his penis and testicles, causing severe and lasting pain. The abuse began when the two were alone, Clark said, but began happening in front of other boys, which made him feel like he was never safe.
“Something changed in me,” he said. “I remember feeling shocked that I was not safe from Atkinson no matter where I was or who I was with.”
One day when Atkinson hit him on the chest in front of others, Clark said he “snapped.”
“I chased after Atkinson and began kicking him and screaming at him in front of staff and other Boys Club members,” said Clark, adding the fight lasted a few moments before the two were separated by staff.
“I am almost certain that the staff member who pulled me away was Jeff Starcher, though there is a possibility it could have been Jim Starcher,” said Clark. “When Jeff asked me to explain what happened I remember crying and telling him that Atkinson was hurting me. I remember now that I could not find the words to explain what was happening, but just kept repeating that Atkinson was hurting me, and that he was hurting me in the locker room.”
Clark told Starcher that Atkinson was touching his private parts, according to the complaint.
“Starcher put Atkinson on a ‘time out’ where he was forced to sit on a stool specifically used for this purpose,” in response to Clark’s allegation of abuse, the complaint says.
Jeffrey Starcher moved up the ranks within the local club until 2002, when he became executive director of Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Connecticut, according to his LinkedIn account. In 2014, Starcher was named director of organizational development for Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
Starcher’s social media suggests he still holds the position, but attempts to confirm whether he still works for the nonprofit weren’t immediately successful.
‘Hundreds of times’
A 49-year-old man identified in the lawsuit as John Doe said Atkinson sexually assaulted and raped him “hundreds of times” at the Boys’ Club starting when he was 6 up until he turned 14. The first time, Atkinson anally raped Doe and forced him to receive oral sex, according to Doe’s affidavit.
“During the eight years in which Atkinson abused me, I came to believe these incidents of abuse were normal, came to expect them, accepted them, and did not protest them,” Doe’s affidavit says.
Another victim, now 49 and identified as John Roe, said his sexual abuse began in the Boys’ Club’s pool when he was 6.
“At that time, it was custom that younger Boys’ Club members swam naked while in the pool, on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summertime after outings to Island Beach or Tod’s Point Beach,” the lawsuit alleges.
It was also common for older boys to swim clothed with the younger boys, according to the lawsuits, and they regularly “horse-played” during these swims. (According to multiple sources, it used to be in the Boys’ Club national rulebook that kids swim naked.)
“During these summertime naked swimming experiences … Roe regularly came into contact with Atkinson, who as an older boy, was wearing a bathing suit,” the complaint reads. “Roe, while naked and in the pool, was molested, fondled and groped by Atkinson. These incidents of sexual assault were masked by the horseplay.”
When Roe turned 11, he said in an affidavit, Atkinson performed nonconsensual oral sex on him. Roe said he “was in shock and could not move or cry for help” during the assault.
Atkinson abused Roe “dozens if not hundreds of times” during a two-year period at the Boys’ Club, Roe said.
A 50-year-old man identified in the lawsuit as John Smith said in an affidavit that Atkinson sexually abused him at least eight times when he was 9, including forced oral sex.
A 49-year-old man identified as John White said Atkinson began abusing him in the locker room when he was 10 by ripping off his towel and whipping him with it in front of other boys. Atkinson would then grab the child’s genitals, the lawsuit alleges.
“It was humiliating,” White said in an affidavit. “I remember that I was scared and ashamed, but I also remember feeling like I was not his main target. I did not tell anyone at the time because I thought it was harassment or hazing, and did not realize this was sexual abuse.”
About the time White was 10 or 11, he said he overheard Atkinson sexually abusing another boy in the locker room. Though White didn’t see the abuse, he said he remembers seeing the other boy come out of the locker room.
“The boy had tears in his eyes, and looked broken and his head was hanging down,” said White. “At the time, I remember the feeling that I knew Atkinson was doing bad stuff to boys that were not normal and shouldn’t be happening.”
When Atkinson turned 18, he was no longer eligible to be a member of any program offered by the Boys Club, according to the complaint, yet he was allowed to remain actively involved in a new capacity as an employee or volunteer.
Another incident
The events described in the lawsuits are not the only claims of sexual abuse alleged to have occurred at what is now the Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich.
In 2014, Andrew Knapp, a former Greenwich High School teaching aide, was convicted of trying to molest a 10-year-old boy in the club’s locker room showers in 2010. Knapp was convicted of risk of injury to a child and fourth-degree sexual assault after a three-day jury trial.
The victim testified that Knapp appeared in his shower stall naked while the two were alone and touched him inappropriately. Prosecutors said Knapp had been previously accused of grooming a child he oversaw for an inappropriate relationship at another school before the incident at the Boys & Girls Club.
Greenwich Boys & Girls Club Chairman George Fox this week would not confirm or deny whether the allegations against the club are true. He also said he couldn’t comment on what the nonprofit has done to investigate the claims.
“We’re leaving it up to legal counsel to handle this as it proceeds through discovery,” he said.
“We are not taking this lightly. We’re taking it very seriously,” Fox said. “Until it works its way through the system, I can’t comment on the substance of the case.”
Fox said he had “no knowledge” about whether or not the Boys & Girls Clubs of America has investigated the allegations against Jeff Starcher, and that he had no comment on whether or not the organization has a responsibility to do so.
Fox also declined to comment on the abuse committed by Knapp in the same facility in 2010.
“All I can say about that is we have a very thorough process and protocol at the club and I’m very comfortable knowing our children are very safe,” Fox said.
When asked for specifics about safety protocols and procedures that have changed since the alleged abuse occurred, Fox said the club has installed more security cameras, implemented more staff training and hired a dedicated director of safety who “walks the halls making sure everything is in good order.”
A trial conference for the lawsuit is scheduled for March 15 in Stamford Superior Court. A jury trial is tentatively scheduled for June 2020.
WYOMING MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO SEXUAL ABUSE OF A MINOR
TOM MORTON
A Casper man will service three to five years in prison as part of a plea deal in a nearly two-decade old child sex abuse case, a prosecutor said Friday.
Bruce Sloyer pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent liberties with a minor, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Taheri said after the change of plea hearing in Natrona County District Court.
Sloyer, who was 61 when arrested last year, will serve the three- to five-year prison term for one count. The second count will be a three- to five-year term consecutive to the first, but it will be suspended if he successfully completes five years of supervised probation, Taheri said. While they are the same crime, they happened on two different dates. The penalty is under a previous version of the law, he added.
Judge Daniel Forgey ordered a pre-sentence investigation, which probably will be finished in about two months, he added. The judge is not bound by the plea agreement reached by the prosecution and defense.
In September, Sloyer was charged with two counts of sexual assault in the second degree, two counts of taking indecent liberties with a minor and two counts of incest. If the case had gone to trial and he was convicted on all counts, he could have been sentenced to between four and 70 years in prison.
The case started on Sept. 13, when one of Sloyer's neighbors made a report to the Casper Police Department, according to court records.
The neighbor said they had been speaking with Sloyer when his wife made a comment that the neighbor should be careful about having him around the neighbor's daughter, as he was a sex offender.
Later that day, Sloyer went to the police station and explained that his wife had accused him of being a sex offender because he did "some things" about two decades ago, and he should have faced criminal charges. Sloyer said he had sexually abused a young girl several times but did not tell anyone.
An investigator with the Natrona County Sheriff's Office found a report from the Wyoming Department of Family Services that on Feb. 23, 2000, the alleged victim -- then 13 -- had disclosed sexual abuse by Sloyer.
In an interview on Sept. 14, the investigator interviewed the victim who said she was 11 years old when Sloyer first touched her inappropriately on her back and upper thigh.
The victim further discussed other incidents near Christmas in 1999 and Valentine's Day in 2000.
Sloyer, she added, often complimented her or gave her special items like cookies when she was in trouble with her mother as a way to build his relationship with her and allow him to sexually abuse her.
Sloyer was arrested on Sept. 14. He admitted lying to law enforcement during the 2000 investigation because he was scared, and admitted he sexually abused the victim.
Texas woman kept in closet as child indicted for
child sexual assault
By Associated Press
DENTON, Texas (AP) A North Texas woman who was rescued from a trash- and feces-strewn closet as a child and later spoke publicly about her abuse has been indicted on child sex abuse charges.
A Denton County grand jury indicted Lauren Ashley Kavanaugh, 25, on Thursday.
She's been in Denton County Jail since her December arrest in lieu of $10,000 bond.
Jail records don't show that she has an attorney.
Lewisville police say Kavanaugh admitted having a "sexual relationship" with a 14-year-old girl she met through a Facebook page Kavanaugh uses to support and befriend other abuse victims.
Kavanaugh was age 8 and weighed 25 pounds in 2001 when investigators found her in a Dallas County mobile home closet.
Authorities say she'd also been sexually abused.
Of course she had. And she needed a mountain of counselling, which, it would appear, she didn't get. Now another victim gets to pay the price for that oversight and Lauren gets locked in another closet, probably for years.
The justice system need to take much better care of victims of crime.
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