Kentucky deputies arrest Alabama fugitive
wanted on child sex abuse charge
by WDKY News 
LONDON, Ky. — The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office says an Alabama fugitive wanted for child sexual abuse was arrested Friday.
According to a Facebook post, deputies arrested 32-year-old Joshua Broome, originally from Somerset, around 3:40 p.m. off Adams Van Road.
Broome was wanted out of Colbert County, Alabama on a felony charge of child sexual abuse. Alabama will extradite Broome.
He is currently in the Laurel County Detention Center.
Sex abuse charges filed against Idaho man already facing charges for trying to strangle child
By JOHNATHAN HOGAN
Post Register
A Rigby man who reportedly attempted to kill a young girl has also been charged with two counts of child sexual abuse.
Alexander Berberian, 19, admitted in July to trying to strangle the victim to death, telling Rigby Police Department officers he hated the victim and her family.
According to a Rigby Police Department report, the victim disclosed that Berberian had molested her in the past. Berberian admitted to having touched the victim but denied it was sexual in nature.
Following his July arrest, Berberian told law enforcement he entered the victim’s room at night while clothed so he could immediately escape after killing her. He said he brought a knife in case the victim screamed and a stun gun if someone else entered the room.
When the victim did scream, however, the knife was out of reach and Berberian fled.
Berberian was charged with battery with intent to commit first-degree murder, punishable with up to 20 years in prison. The new case filed Wednesday involves two charges of sexual abuse, punishable with up to 25 years in prison.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 20 in Jefferson County Courthouse.
‘I trusted him with my son’: 255 years in prison for California tennis coach convicted of child molestation
By NATE GARTRELL | Bay Area News Group
MARTINEZ — After an emotional and tense Friday afternoon hearing, a disgraced Bay Area tennis instructor was sentenced to 255 years in prison for 60 counts of child molestation involving two teen students.
Normandie Burgos, 55, did not speak during his four-and-a-half-hour sentencing hearing, which saw clashes between his attorney and the judge, as well as shouts from the gallery as the defense was presenting its case for leniency. But Burgos heard from the mother of one of his two victims, as well as a former Tamalpais High School student who had accused Burgos of sexual abuse years ago.
Judge Charles “Ben” Burch, who handed down the sentence, noted the boys’ young ages and said they were in a vulnerable position. It is technically a life sentence, with no chance of parole for the first 255 years.
“I trusted him with my son … like idiots, we believed him,” said the mother of John Doe 1, one of two named victims who was in his early teens at the time. “We wrote thank-you letters to him. … He would look us in the eye and say, ‘You’re so welcome. Your son is a champion.’ ”
“That was all during the time he was molesting my son,” she continued, later describing Burgos as “evil.”
The woman added she had spoken to the mother of another former student who showed her a letter from Burgos, saying he had been “falsely accused” of sex crimes and asking for support. Five people, including Burgos’ sister, showed up to support the defense.
“He was always looking out for other people,” Burgos’ sister, Mimi Lucks, said to the judge Friday, describing her brother as a “giving, compassionate” person who “always puts the needs of others first” and did not match the description presented by prosecutors during trial.
As she finished her remarks, she turned to Doe 1’s mother, and said: “I’m a mother. I’ve heard you. And I’m sorry.”
Doe 1’s mother began to angrily respond, but was shouted down by bailiffs and the judge. Later, she yelled out her son’s age as Burgos’ attorney was speaking, prompting a final warning from Burch.
Burgos’ attorney, Michael Coffino, argued that a life sentence with no parole for 255 years was cruel and unusual punishment, and “disproportionate” to the offenses. He disputed the jury’s finding that Burgos had placed his victims under duress — which made Burgos eligible for a life sentence — saying that the evidence was that Burgos threatened to “withhold tennis lessons” and that it was sex for material gain, not something akin to forcible rape.
Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Jordan Sanders, by contrast, told the judge Burgos’ molestation was the result of a plan years in the making.
“He is a child predator, however nice he may have been to friends and other athletes,” Sanders said. “Sexual grooming was a game to him. It was his sport.”
Burch and Coffino clashed throughout the hearing, the judge at one point accusing Coffino of “circular logic” when he accused prosecutors of changing their legal theory during the process. Later in the hearing, Coffino unsuccessfully objected to Doe 1’s aunt and Burgos’ former student giving victim impact statements, arguing only charged victims and immediate family should speak.
Later, when Coffino introduced Burgos’ sister, Burch said it was “ironic” Coffino wanted to introduce someone who wasn’t directly connected to the case, because of his earlier objection. This led to a brief but tense back and forth between them.
Burgos was a tennis coach at Marin’s Tamalpais High School in 2011 when he was accused of groping and other inappropriate touching of students. He was fired from his coaching job and put on trial in Marin County, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
After that, Burgos moved to Richmond and set up a private tennis instructing business. Despite his recent, well publicized trial, he was able to attract top tennis students from all over the Bay Area.
“He reeled us in. … I feel so stupid that I believed him,” Doe 1’s mother said. “He basically convinced us that there was this big homophobic conspiracy against him.”
The 60 counts related to Burgos performing oral sex on the boys, engaging in sodomy and other sexual interactions that took place during tennis lessons at Burgos’ home.
Evidence during the trial included surreptitiously recorded video where Burgos admitted to having sex with one of the boys. He took the stand during the trial, denied the charges, and said the boy “intimidated” him into detailing the sexual abuse.
Statements from suicide victim to be admitted
in stepfather's child sex abuse trial
By TOMMY WITHERSPOON twitherspoon@wacotrib.com
Statements from a Robinson teenager who killed herself last year on the eve of her testimony against her former stepfather will be admissible at his upcoming trial on charges he sexually abused her for five years, a judge ruled Friday.
Judge Ralph Strother of Waco’s 19th State District Court granted a state motion that forfeits Jose Manuel Gonzalez’s right to object to the admissibility of the evidence based on the unavailability of the witness because he “engaged in a course of action directed toward Clarisa Santos designed and intended to control, threaten and manipulate” her from reporting his actions.
Santos, a 14-year-old Harmony Science Academy student, took her own life May 6, 2018, the day after she received a subpoena from the state to testify at Gonzalez’s trial on continuous sexual abuse of a young child and indecency with a child charges, her mother, Clara Santos told the Tribune-Herald last year.
Gonzalez’s trial was postponed and is now set for Aug. 20 in Strother’s court. Gonzalez’s attorney, Chris Bullajian, declined comment Friday after Strother’s ruling.
Santos died in Robinson at the same location in which the FBI shot and killed her mother’s boyfriend, Joshua Steven Mitchell, who also went by the name Gio Michell.
Mitchell, 44, was killed after FBI officials said he threatened them as they arrived early in the morning of July 25 to serve an unspecified warrant, which remains sealed by federal authorities.
The Tribune-Herald does not routinely identify the alleged victims of sexual abuse without their permission or report on most suicides. However, Santos’ mother, Clara Santos, and Mitchell said last year that they wanted her story told and planned to create a foundation called One More Day with the goal of suicide prevention.
Strother also revoked Gonzalez’s $250,000 bond, ruling it was insufficient after deeming him a flight risk and declaring he engaged in a course of action that caused Santos to be unavailable to testify against him.
In a motion filed by prosecutor Sydney Tuggle, the state alleges Gonzalez’s behavior worked to prevent Clarisa from reporting the sexual abuse and “culminated just prior to the previous trial setting in this cause when Clarisa Santos took her own life.”
Clara Santos told the Tribune-Herald last year that she bought a gun to protect her and her daughter after Clarisa thought she saw Gonzalez lurking near their home on Stegall Drive in Robinson.
Texas man sentenced to 2 life terms+
in Alabama child sex abuse case
By Greg Bailey / Times Managing Editor
Gadsden Times
A Texas man Friday was sentenced in Etowah County to serve two life sentences plus forty years in prison, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.
Eric Wayne Smith, 33, was sentenced by Judge Cody Robinson for first-degree sodomy and sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12, according to the release.
A jury had convicted him in June on two counts each of the crimes.
Smith previously had served a prison sentence in Texas for assault causing bodily injury to a child, elderly or disabled person, according to the release. He moved to Alabama three years ago to live with his ex-wife and her children.
The victim in the case was nine years old when the abuse began. She testified at trial that Smith told her that he was teaching her about sex because she eventually would learn about it in school, and it would be better for her to learn from someone who loved her.
Smith showed her pornographic videos, then made her perform those acts with him. The girl testified that she was afraid of Smith, but decided that she had to disclose the abuse after she learned that his new girlfriend had a young daughter and feared that might abuse her in the same way.
Robinson imposed the maximum sentences in the case, saying, “The nature and severity of the offenses of which (Smith has) been found guilty compel the court to impose a sentence commiserate with the heinousness of the crimes and in compliance with the law. ... Our children are our most precious and vulnerable assets and the court hopes this sentence demonstrates that these type of crimes will not be tolerated in Etowah County, and if found guilty, the perpetrators will be punished to the maximum extent allowed by law.”
Smith’s sentences will run consecutively with each other.
Deputy District Attorney Carol Griffith, who prosecuted the case with District Attorney Jody Willoughby, said the victim in the case will be impacted by Smith’s actions for the rest of her life, adding after the sentence was handed down, “This defendant never showed any remorse, or even concern, for the victim or her family. After what this child has suffered at his hands, this man deserves to spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
Deputy Chief Philip Roberson of the Southside Police Department investigated the case, in conjunction with the James M. Barrie Center for Children, the Department of Human Resources and the district attorney’s office as part of the county’s multidisciplinary team assigned to investigate all cases of child physical or sexual abuse.
Under Alabama law, a person convicted of any sexual offense against a child less than 12 years of age is not eligible for probation, parole, or incentive good time within the prison system. In effect, the life sentences handed down Friday mean life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Awesome!
Judge awards $28 million to San Jose man sexually abused by adoptive parents
By NICO SAVIDGE | Bay Area News Group
When he was 9 and first came to the United States after being adopted by a wealthy Los Gatos couple, Denis Flynn was eager to leave the pain and grief of his childhood in Russia behind.
Later, as he endured a decade of sexual abuse at the hands of those adoptive parents, Flynn said it was the memories of his childhood and his deceased mother that helped him persevere.
“They were my anchor to surviving the hell I was living in,” Flynn said Friday, a few days after he learned that a Santa Clara County judge had awarded him $28 million in damages from the parents who abused him. “I would escape into memories of my Russian life.”
Now a 27-year-old massage therapist living in San Jose, Flynn said Judge Brian Walsh’s ruling in the civil lawsuit against his adoptive parents is more confirmation that he did the right thing when he came forward to report the abuse as a 19-year-old.
“It’s not impossible to reclaim your life and your power that was wrongly robbed from you,” said Flynn. “It’s better than anything money can buy, to reclaim that power.”
Ralph Flynn, who began sexually abusing Denis within months of adopting him, was sentenced to 24 years in prison as part of a 2017 plea agreement. He had been charged with dozens of child molestation counts.
Carolyn Flynn, Ralph’s 46-year-old wife, who Walsh said turned a blind eye to the abuse for years before she, too, began sexually assaulting Denis when he was a teenager, was charged with rape. She received a 12-year sentence.
After a two day civil trial in May, Walsh wrote in his decision that the couple “colluded to manipulate and abuse Denis as a young child and a young man.” Walsh found that they both had committed six charges related to human trafficking, child sexual abuse and inflicting emotional distress. He ordered Ralph Flynn to pay Denis $17 million and Carolyn Flynn to pay him $11 million.
“Denis didn’t really get his day in court until now,” said his attorney, Nina Shapirshteyn. “One of the things this decision does is finally announce that the only monsters here are Ralph and Carolyn Flynn.”
The couple lived in a 3,400 square-foot home overlooking the Lexington Reservoir and owned a Rolls Royce. For Denis Flynn, who grew up in a small city in northern Russia and suffered abuse at the orphanage where he was sent after his mother died from cancer, Walsh wrote that the Flynns’ home must have seemed like a paradise.
Instead he suffered regular sexual abuse that he felt powerless to stop.
“He encountered another form of the same hell from which he thought he had been rescued,” Walsh wrote. “Imprisoned by fear, deceit and coercion, Denis believed he had no options and was forced to endure the repeated abuse for a period of ten years.”
Attorneys for Carolyn Flynn, in asking that Walsh not impose the damages, said she had been left “financially destitute” after paying for her criminal defense, an argument Walsh rejected. Ralph Flynn did not mount a defense in the civil case.
Flynn said he hopes to use the money he was awarded to visit his mother’s grave in Russia and see his sister. He has reconnected with her and some cousins through social media, and is learning once again how to speak Russian.
As he encourages other survivors of sexual abuse to come forward, Flynn says doing so has allowed him to live the best life he can.
“Fight through the doubt and push through that fear,” he said. “Even with the trauma, even with the memories, even with the pain — I’m able to overcome this.”
Good for you! God bless you.
Indio, CA, man arrested for alleged
child sexual abuse from early 2000s
Shane Newell, Palm Springs Desert Sun
A 50-year-old Indio man was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a child in the early 2000s, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.
Marco Antonio Cardenas was booked Wednesday evening at the Riverside County Jail in Indio, records show. Investigators said they conducted an investigation and determined the victim was sexually assaulted between 2002 and 2003.
The arrest comes after the sheriff's department received a report of lewd acts on a child that allegedly had taken place in La Quinta.
The victim's age or connection to the suspect were not disclosed.
The investigation is ongoing, the sheriff's department said. Anyone with information about the case can contact Investigator Berryman at (760) 863-8950.
Houston pastor accused in child sex assault;
Harris Co. investigators seeking other victims
Author: KHOU.com Staff
HOUSTON — Harris County Sheriff's investigators say a Houston pastor has been charged in the sexual assault of a child and they're seeking other victims the man may have assaulted.
Conrad Estrada Valdez, 59, assaulted the girl when she was 15, according to a statement issued by the Harris County Sheriff's Office, while he and the girl's family attended the Restoration Outreach Christian Church.
The victim, who is now 30, told investigators she visited Valdez for counseling after being previously sexually assaulted. She said Valdez threatened her if she "exposed their sexual relationship," Harris County Sheriff's investigators said in the statement.
She said she finally came forward after watching a documentary on survivors of sexual abuse.
Anyone with information is urged to call the HCSO Child Abuse Unit at 713-830-3250.
Crime Stoppers may pay up to $5,000 for information leading to the charging and/or arrest of the suspect(s) in these cases. Information may be reported by calling (713) 222-TIPS (8477), submitted online at www.crime-stoppers.org or through the Crime Stoppers mobile app. All tipsters remain anonymous.
Towanda, PA, man convicted on multiple
child sex abuse felonies
Jeff Murray, Elmira Star-Gazette
A Bradford County man accused last summer of having sexual contact with several underage girls has been convicted of numerous felonies and misdemeanors.
Jonathan Rivera, 29, of Towanda, was found guilty following a three-day trial in Bradford County Court on two counts of indecent assault of a child (younger than age 13,) one count of endangering the welfare of a child, and four counts of corruption of minors, all felonies.
He was also convicted on one count of indecent assault of a child as a misdemeanor, two counts of indecent exposure and one count of attempted attempted indecent assault of a child, also misdemeanors.
Rivera was arrested in late June 2018 following a three-month investigation by Pennsylvania State Police at Towanda into incidents with four minor girls that reportedly took place on Barner Road in Sheshequin Township, Bradford County (just north of Towanda).
The victims were all females ages 7, 8, 10 and 15, according to state police.
Rivera, who has been in custody at the Bradford County Correctional Facility since his arrest, will be sentenced at a later date.
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