Pa. Judge Sentenced To 28 Years In Massive Juvenile Justice Bribery Scandal
EYDER PERALTA NPR
A Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison in connection to a bribery scandal that roiled the state's juvenile justice system. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers. The judge then presided over cases that would send juveniles to those same centers. The case came to be known as "kids-for-cash."
The AP adds:
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.
Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he's already been punished enough.
"The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the 'Kids for Cash' judge," their sentencing memo said.
The Times Leader, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., reports that the court house in Scranton was overflowing this morning. More than a dozen people who said they had been affected by the judge's decision stood outside, awaiting the sentencing.
Jeff Pollins was in that crowd. His stepson was convicted by Ciavarella.
"These kids are still affected by it. It's like post traumatic stress disorder," Pollins told the Times Leader. "Our life is ruined. It's never going to be the same... I'd like to see that happen to him," he said.
Luzerne Co., PA
Kentucky man arrested for alleged sexual abuse of a child
By: WATE 6
WAYNE COUNTY, Kent. - The Wayne County, Kentucky sheriff's office announced Thursday that an Albany, Kentucky man had been arrested for alleged sexual abuse of a child.
Aiden H. Fields was arrested on a Cumberland County Circuit Court Indictment Warrant for 1st degree sexual abuse. Wayne County Sheriff Tim Catron says the victim was under 12-years-old.
Sheriff Catron says Fields was lodged into the Wayne County Detention Center.
Kentucky woman charged with sexual offenses
against a child
Leah Shields, WPSD
MCCRACKEN COUNTY, KY – 22-year-old Megan Harris was booked into McCracken County Regional Jail on Sunday for sexual offenses against a child.
She is charged with sexual abuse 1st degree on a victim under 12-years-old, use of a minor in a sex performance, and distribution of matter portraying a sexual performance by a minor.
The McCracken County Jail website says a court date has not been set yet. We are working to get more information about the arrest as well as a bond amount.
McCracken Co., KY
Police charge parents with child abuse after
Tennessee waitress’ Facebook post
Heroic action saves a couple of children from further abuse
Shamarria Morrison, Mason Watkins
PADUCAH — Jordan Cooper doesn’t usually work Sunday nights.
“I work weekends at Olive Garden, but I care for them [niece and nephew] through out the week when my sister works,” Cooper said.
During Cooper’s shift, she and her coworkers noticed something unusual about a family they just seated. “I first walked around to the baby. She looked at me with a face that said help,” Cooper said.
She was serving a table with two parents and two children. One of the children was only a year old.
“I can’t even describe to you how bad she looked,” Cooper said pointing to her face, “and how and why nobody noticed it.”
The expecting mother immediately went into action and took a photo with another table to capture the parents and two children behind them.
“I had slid them my number, and they sent them (the photos) to me as soon as they walked out the door.”
A nearby table took these photos to capture a photo of Mark Lee Pierce.
“I immediately got home and plugged my phone up,” Cooper said. “I could not just not know what was going to happen to her.”
She shared the photo of the little girl and the partial plate number, and she asked people on Facebook to help track the parents down. “My phone would not just stop going off,” Cooper said. Her post was shared more than 14,000 times. A childhood classmate saw that post and started digging.
Mark Lee Pierce is in jail on a bond of $200 thousand.
He went back to Facebook to get more information on the women as well.
“I even went further into it through social media to find his girlfriend, who lived in Pulaski, Illinois,” Caldwell said.
Jessica Woodworth is in jail on a bond of $200 thousand.
“There’s a lot of times we don’t find people like this,” Caldwell said.
Cooper said saying something changed a life.
“I’m so glad that I did, because she could still be getting hands put on her.”
29 of 33 charges dismissed in Wisconsin
sexual assault, child pornography cases
ALYSSA MAUK alyssa.mauk@journaltimes.com
RACINE — A Waterford man accused of sexual assault of a child — who was recently sentenced to prison for possession of child pornography charges — accepted a plea deal last week.
Gregory Frank, 68, of the 300 block of North Sixth Street in Waterford, was charged with one count of third-degree sexual assault, nine counts of first-degree child sexually assault (sexual contact with a person under the age of 13), six felony bail jumping charges and criminal trespass to dwelling stemming from three separate cases.
As part of a plea deal, Frank pleaded guilty to one count of third-degree sexual assault and one count of felony bail jumping. The other 15 charges were dismissed, but will be considered during his sentencing hearing on May 3.
Just last month — on Feb. 7 — Frank was sentenced to spend three years in prison and three years on extended supervision after he pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography.
In that case, another plea deal was accepted, with 14 possession of child pornography charges dismissed, but considered in determining his sentencing purposes.
Initial charges
On Feb. 21, 2018, a Racine County’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigator executed a search warrant at Frank’s residence while he was out of town.
On two laptop computers and a tablet, adult pornography and hundreds of images of child pornography — with images of children as young as 3 — were reportedly found. The investigator estimated there were more than 500 images located on the three devices.
Less than a month later, on March 16, 2018, Frank was also charged with sexual assault of a child when a few recovered photos contained images of an teenage acquaintance of Frank,which the investigator found inappropriate.
The investigator spoke with the child’s mother, who said the girl had accused Frank of touching her inappropriately in the past. The girl told investigators that Frank inappropriately touched her 10 times when she was in fourth- and fifth-grade and again when she was in eighth grade.
Bond violated
On April 4, Frank was released on a $25,000 cash bond for the possession of child pornography and sexual assault charges. The bond stipulated that Frank could not use any cell phones with internet access or social media and that he be placed on house arrest with GPS monitoring.
The next day, an officer was dispatched to Frank’s residence after a family contacted Waterford Police concerned that Frank had purchased $1,000 worth of electronics after his release from custody.
Frank had purchased four cellphones and a Dell tablet computer from Sam’s Club in Franklin, but said he had bought them for another man living in the residence. All the phones contained either photo or video files.
When an officer asked the other man if Frank had bought him anything that day, the man said Frank had bought him only a pizza. The GPS monitoring system was placed on Frank after he bought the electronics.
For the bond infraction, on April 5, Frank netted two additional counts of felony bail jumping for failing to comply with the terms of his bond.
He also accumulated additional charges in May when he was charged with criminal trespass to a dwelling and four more counts of felony bail jumping, although the charges were later dismissed.
IHS doctor sexually abused boy after checking him out
of a South Dakota juvie
Arielle Zionts Rapid City Journal
A former doctor at the Indian Health Service hospital in Pine Ridge and convicted child sex abuser once checked a boy out of the juvenile jail in Rapid City and paid him for sex, according to recently unsealed court records.
Based on interviews with a Montana victim and three accusers from Pine Ridge, the affidavit also reiterates past reporting about how Patrick Stanley Weber targeted vulnerable Native boys struggling with poverty and difficult home lives and gave them drugs and money before and after sexually abusing them.
Weber also admitted to traveling to Thailand, where he had sex with young men who he said he thinks were adults, the records say. Investigators later found that Weber traveled to the country about 10 times between 2010-2015.
These new details in the case against Weber are outlined in 2017 affidavits for search warrants of two email accounts and his Spearfish home. Weber still owns the 5th Avenue home, according to the Lawrence County Treasurer's Office.
Weber was recently sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty in Montana of abusing Native American boys on the Blackfeet Nation reservation. He now awaits a September trial at the Rapid City federal courthouse to face accusations that he committed similar sex crimes against Native boys on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
The three search warrants were submitted in February 2017 by Curt Muller, an inspector with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and approved by a judge. They remained sealed until late February 2019. The warrants allowed investigators to search through two email accounts owned by Weber and through his home in Spearfish and any outbuildings, vehicles, people and computers on the property in order to find evidence of sex abuse and international sex travel.
Weber received his medical license in 1984 and worked as a pediatrician at IHS hospitals in Oklahoma, in Browning, Montana from 1992-1995, and in Pine Ridge from 1995 until he resigned in 2016 while under investigation, the affidavit says.
Accusations about Weber sexually abusing boys circulated in Montana and in Pine Ridge, but some complaints were ignored and not investigated, while others resulted in investigations that cleared him of any wrongdoing, according to an investigation by Frontline and the Wall Street Journal.
In 2015, a prosecutor and the attorney general of the Oglala Sioux Tribe began investigating Weber and referred possible victims to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Frontline/WSJ investigation found. Then in February 2017, he was charged in South Dakota federal court with 10 sex crimes against minors. In February 2018, he was indicted on five crimes in Montana. Later that year, two more charges were added to his South Dakota case.
Victim interviews
A South Dakota man was interviewed by BIA Special Agent Fred Bennett in the summer of 2015 while he was detained in prison, the affidavit says. The man said Weber began sexually abusing him when he was 11 and that it continued into his 20s.
When he was 12-15-years old, Weber abused him between two to four times per week, usually at his IHS-provided home in Pine Ridge, he said. The man said he engaged in the sex acts because Weber would give him money, which he used for food. He said Weber also gave him alcohol, a gaming system and other gifts.
The man also said that in 2004 Weber "signed him out for a pass" from the juvenile jail in Rapid City. They then engaged in sex acts and Weber gave him money and other items before the man, then a juvenile, ran away. The jail confirmed to investigators that Weber checked the juvenile out that day and that the minor then ran away.
The jail, called the Western South Dakota Juvenile Services Center, received a subpoena for this case in February 2017, Helene Duhamel, spokeswoman for the Pennington County Sheriff's Office, said in an email.
"The affidavit speaks for itself," she said when asked to confirm the information.
Defendants awaiting trial in jail or an inmate serving a prison sentence can be issued a furlough by a judge, which allows them to attend a special event such as a funeral or a doctor's appointment. If a judge approves a furlough, the judge outlines who picks the person up, where they can go and when they must return.
The South Dakota man said he decided to come forward about Weber because he was concerned about other kids being abused, the affidavit says. "A predator is a predator," he said.
Weber told Bennett that while he paid this man to do housework when he was younger, he never sexually abused him or any other boys. He admitted to posting other boys' bail.
Investigators identified additional potential victims from interviews and medical records, the affidavit said. A second South Dakota man said Weber first inappropriately touched him during a physical when he was 13. He said Weber continued treating him after he turned 18, even though he was a pediatrician.
The man said Weber sexually assaulted him four times at Weber's home, the last time occurring in 2011. The attacks usually began with Weber giving him drugs, including alcohol, Oxycontin and morphine. Weber raped him three times despite him telling Weber to stop because he was in pain. After the rapes, Weber would give him painkillers and money, one time giving him $600.
A third South Dakota man said he was first assaulted by Weber when he was 11. He said Weber abused him three times at the IHS hospital and once at Weber's home. He said Weber once took a photograph of his genitalia after touching him during an appointment. Muller, the HHS inspector, said abusers take photographs of their victims as "trophies."
The assault at Weber's home occurred after Weber offered to pay him for doing chores, the man said. He said Weber gave him beer and said, "if you want to get paid you have to work for it" before making him perform a sex act on him. Weber then gave him $100 and said he could come back any time he needed money.
Bennett also interviewed a Montana victim, who is now an adult in prison. After he was removed from his parents' custody, the man said, Weber promised to help him return to his family in exchange for sexual favors. He said Weber sexually abused him on "quite a few occasions," and when he hesitated to participate, Weber would remind him of his desire to be with his parents. He moved away from Pine Ridge after his father killed himself.
Sex tourism, child porn
Weber resigned soon after he was put on paid leave in May 2016 while the BIA investigated him, the affidavit says. When Bennett and Muller interviewed Weber at his home in Pine Ridge, he denied sexually abusing boys but admitted to having sex with young men in Thailand who he thinks were adults. Muller wrote that it was clear that Weber didn't try to verify their ages.
When asked if he paid for the sex, Weber said: "Well, not exactly, but you know if you're having sex with somebody you do favors for them like taking them out to eat or buy them some clothes. But I don't know if you could really classify it as a fee."
Investigators later discovered that Weber traveled to Thailand about 10 times between 2010-2015, however, he was never charged with any crimes related to sex tourism.
When agents asked Weber if he watches child pornography, he said, "I can't ... no. Not normally, no." "Not that I know of," he later said.
"In my experience, a person who was certain he had not accessed child pornography would have had a more emphatic answer," Muller wrote.
Weber has not been charged with any child pornography crimes.
Muller also wrote in the affidavit that it appeared that Weber deleted information on his work and personal computer after he learned he was under investigation.
Weber is currently appealing his Montana guilty verdict to a federal appeals court. Unless he reaches a plea deal by Sept. 6, his Rapid City trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 23.
Legendary Queens high school coach accused of
child sex abuse
By Dana Schuster and Susan Edelman, NYPost
A legendary Queens high-school coach has been revealed as an alleged child molester by a former student who told a therapist he was abused 40 years ago, The Post has learned.
Patrick Torney — a public-school gym teacher who was honored for his four-decade coaching career at Madison Square Garden — was accused by two men he had coached as teens in a private basketball program in the 1970s, according to a Jan. 7 report by Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools, Anastasia Coleman.
The first accuser was a player on Torney’s team who said he visited the coach’s apartment three times.
During the first visit, Torney, now 62, allegedly plied the underage player with beer. The second time, he showed him “hardcore pornography” and provided beer again, the report says. On the third visit, the two drank and viewed porn before Torney touched the boy’s penis over his shorts, investigators wrote.
The boy “added that he believed Torney was ‘playing with himself’ at the same time, but he was too afraid to look,” according to the report.
The boy allegedly managed to escape by pretending to use the bathroom and running to his grandmother’s house.
The first accuser led investigators to a second, another former Torney player who is now 55.
The second accuser, who said it was “known by everyone” that Torney was homosexual, recalled a team trip to Chicago during which he and Torney allegedly shared a room with two double beds. After a night of team “partying,” according to the report, Torney told the teen, “You’re gonna sleep in my bed” tonight. Despite wrapping his body in covers to avoid contact with Torney, the boy woke in the middle of the night to Torney “rubbing and pulling my penis,” he told investigators.
He slept on the floor the remainder of the night, he told probers. The next morning, in front of the other players, Torney declared: “I can’t remember a damn thing from last night.”
The probe into the educator began in January 2018 after the first accuser told a hospital therapist that Torney sexually abused him in the 1970s, according to the report. The therapist then notified a school official.
Torney became a city Department of Education physical education teacher in 1986. But he made his name in coaching.
For 42 years he coached three different sports at Queens high schools, often steering his squads to city championships. He led Richmond Hill HS to a cross-country title in the early 1990s, Newtown to the PSAL basketball championship game in 1997, and Bayside HS’s baseball team to a city title in 2016.
In 2017, he was honored during the Big East tournament at the Garden — alongside former Mayor David Dinkins and retired New York Mets pitcher John Franco — for his service to the city.
While the alleged molestations occurred more than 40 years ago, SCI called the allegations “consistent and credible” and Torney’s conduct “extremely serious.”
Torney remained employed at Newtown for part of the investigation before retiring in July 2018. He made $157,112 in the last fiscal year.
“These are incredibly disturbing actions,” said DOE spokesman Doug Cohen. “He is no longer eligible to work in DOE schools.”
Torney denied the sexual abuse allegations to investigators and originally denied having students to his apartment and serving them alcohol. Later, he admitted to once having players over during which beer was drunk, according to the report.
Torney did not return messages from The Post seeking comment.
His daughter, Alyssa, called the charges “absurd. It’s a little infuriating that my father’s name is being tarnished over something that supposedly happened in the 1970s, which I still don’t believe. … My father is a wonderful man and he’s done nothing but help people and teach them and guide them.”
Queens, NY
New York State man charged with child sex abuse
A 60-year-old Rome man is accused of sexually abusing a young child in the city.
John Secor Sr., of Rome, had inappropriate contact with a young girl in the City of Rome on or about Thanksgiving 2017, according to Sgt. Melissa Bolton with the county Child Advocacy Center (CAC).
Following an investigation, Secor was taken into custody on Friday.
Secor is charged with one count of endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor, authorities said. He was released on an appearance ticket and is scheduled to appear in City Court.
The victim was offered counseling through the CAC.
Another NY State man charged with child sexual abuse
Jeff Murray, Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
A Binghamton man is in jail after police say he had sexual contact with a minor.
The Endicott Police Department on Thursday charged James R. Finsel, 38, of Pennsylvania Avenue in Binghamton, with one count of first-degree sexual abuse, a felony.
Finsel had sexual contact with a victim under the age of 11, police said.
Finsel was arraigned at the Broome County Sheriff's Office and committed to the Broome County Jail without bail to await further court action.
The investigation is continuing.
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