Met Opera Star; 2 Teen Predators; Ritual Abuse on Today's USA PnP List

California teen confesses to molesting 50 children,

judge sets bail of $1mn

Joseph Hayden Boston © Riverside Police Department

Bail has been set at $1 million for an 18-year-old California man who was turned into the police by his mother after confessing to molesting at least 50 children.

Joseph Hayden Boston's mother flagged down a police sergeant outside Riverside Police Department at 3am local time on Saturday and said she wanted to turn in her son for suspected molestation. The teen had called her to say he had molested two young boys, aged four and eight, earlier in the day.

“The suspect had recently been staying at the Simply Home Inn & Suites,” Riverside police said in a statement. “It was there when he befriended [the] 8-year-old and 4-year-old male victims, who were also staying at this motel with their parents. The children were allowed to go into the suspect’s room last night when the molestation occurred.”

During an interview with officers Boston confessed to sexually assaulting the two boys in his motel room. He also admitted to molesting upwards of 50 children since he was 10-years-old in different cities in Southern California.

“This is going to affect not only the victims for a long time, but also our detectives and officers involved in this - to hear someone just be very open about what they've done, and they're only 18 themselves,” said Officer Ryan Railsback of Riverside police said to local TV station ABC 7.

Detectives from the Sexual Assault & Child Abuse Unit have launched an investigation. They believe he has victimized other children who have not yet come forward.

Boston was arrested on counts of oral copulation on a child under the age of 10. He was booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center with bail set at one million dollars. Child Protective Services took custody of the two boys Boston assaulted on Saturday.

Horrific Ritual/Sexual Abuse Just Gets Worse

By Keith Kinnaird

SANDPOINT, Idaho — A criminal case against a Bonner County man accused of perpetrating ritualized and sexual abuse expanded on Friday.

Dana Andrew Furtney initially faced five criminal charges ranging from lewd conduct to sexual battery and ritualized abuse, but the criminal complaint was supplanted Friday with a grand jury indictment alleging 10 counts of lewd conduct and lone counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 16, ritualized abuse, felony injury to a child and felony domestic battery causing traumatic injury.

Furtney, 48, pleaded not guilty to all 14 felony counts during his arraignment in 1st District Court on Friday, court records show. A four-day jury trial is set for February 2018.

Furtney is charged with four counts of lewd conduct against a 14-year-old girl, five counts of lewd conduct and one count of sexual abuse against a 12-year-old girl and one count of lewd conduct with a 6-year-old girl, according to the indictment. Furtney is further charged with ritualized abuse for forcing an 11- to 12-year-old boy ingest Furtney’s excrement as part of a ceremony or rite.

All of those offenses are alleged to have occurred in 2010.

Furtney is also accused of chaining the preteen boy by his neck to an unheated outhouse for multiple days in March 2013. The boy was given limited food and water during his captivity, the indictment alleges. Finally, Furtney is accused of locking his wife in a stockade, where she was beaten and made to sodomize herself with a foreign object over the course of a five-year period leading up to Furtney’s arrest earlier this fall.

The alleged crimes took place on property in the 900 block of Peninsula Loop Road north of Priest River.

Four of the alleged victims testified during the sealed grand jury proceeding. Bonner County Sheriff’s Det. Barry Reinink also testified, court records show.

Furntney, according to court documents, used manipulation and religious beliefs to control the alleged victims. Furtney also told them that Jesus approved of Furtney’s disciplinary actions and sexual contact as appropriate forms of punishment.

During his arraignment, Furtney thanked people for their attendance in court, including Prosecutor Louis Marshall, and said he had spoke to God earlier in the day, court documents indicate.

Furtney is being held at the Bonner County Jail in lieu of $500,000.

Legendary opera conductor molested teen

for years: police report

The Stars are Falling - Legendary Met Opera conductor

By Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein

Legendary Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine molested an Illinois teenager from the time he was 15 years old, sexual abuse that lasted for years and led the alleged victim to the brink of suicide, according to a police report obtained by The Post.

The alleged abuse began while Levine was guest conductor at the Ravinia Music Festival outside Chicago, a post the wild-haired maestro held for two decades.

The alleged victim came forward to the Lake Forest, Ill. Police Department in October 2016 to detail the molestation, including times when Levine would masturbate in front of him and kiss his privates, according to the report.

The now 74-year-old maestro, who spent 40 years as music director of the Metropolitan Opera and is currently director emeritus, conducted a performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” at Lincoln Center Saturday.

The alleged victim’s 2016 claims came nine years after the statute of limitations on a possible child sex crime in Illinois had expired. The age of consent in that state is 17. The Lake Forest Police Department investigated the allegations anyway, and turned its findings over to the Lake County State’s Attorney. A State’s Attorney spokeswoman told The Post Friday the case is still under review and no charges have been brought.

“I began seeing a 41-year-old man when I was 15, without really understanding I was really ‘seeing’ him,” the alleged victim, now 48, said in a written statement to the police department. “It nearly destroyed my family and almost led me to suicide. I felt alone and afraid. He was trying to seduce me. I couldn’t see this. Now I can.”

The alleged victim, whose name is being withheld by The Post, said Levine showered him with $50,000 in cash over the years.

Rumors about improper sexual contact have long swirled around Levine, who closely guards his private life. The pianist and musical prodigy made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1971 at the age of 28 and within months became its main conductor.

Levine rose to music director at the Met in 1976 and held the title until April 2016. The Met paid him $1.8 million in 2015, according to its latest available tax filings.

Earlier this year, Ravinia bestowed a new title on Levine — conductor laureate — and he is expected to lead concerts and hold master classes during two-week summer residencies through 2022. It was at one such Ravinia concert in 1973 when the alleged victim, then a 4-year-old boy living in a nearby suburb, was taken backstage by his parents to meet the great maestro.

The boy would see the conductor during subsequent summer visits to the festival and, according to the police account he later gave as an adult, the older man “took an interest” in him, even sending conductors’ batons and other gifts to his home.

The alleged victim said he did not see Levine for several years starting at age 10 and met him again at 14 when he started going backstage at Ravinia on his own, according to the report. In 1985, when the alleged victim was 15, he told police that Levine drove him home and stopped the car in the back section of his family’s driveway.

“He started holding my hand in a prolonged and incredibly sensual way,” writes the alleged victim. “I was not aroused as I never was during my relationship with him as I am a heterosexual individual. But there were some feelings of affection and mostly confusion. … I was very uncomfortable with the hand holding.”

During that encounter, Levine allegedly told the young man “I want to see if you can be raised special like me.” He also asked him to “Come to New York so I can audition you as a conductor.”

He said he later asked fellow students at a summer program, “Am I gay because he held my hand?” according to the report.

The alleged victim said that Levine first fondled him when he was around 16 years old. He said the alleged encounter happened at the Deer Path Inn in Lake Forest, Ill., 10 miles from the Ravinia Festival.

The luxury hotel, styled as an English inn, was the scene of “hundreds of incidents” over the years, according to the report. The alleged victim said Levine would invite him to dinner, keep him waiting as to the appointed time, and then ask to meet him immediately at the Deer Path Inn, the report says.

The teen thought he was talking to his mentor about how to achieve his ambitions in classical music, according to the report. “I would get there and the lights were off and he would say to me, after I came in, and after a hug, ‘Take off your clothes. I am working very hard and need to rest,’” the report says.

Levine would masturbate in the bed or in the bathroom, the alleged victim told police.

The maestro told the young man “Only with him … could I safely explore my feelings,” the report says. In 1987, he said the alleged abuse escalated to digital penetration according to the report.

That same year, Levine wrote the alleged victim a college recommendation letter on Met stationery, which is included in the police report, praising the young man and saying “over the years I have always found him to be exceptionally responsive and concentrated, curious and eager to learn.”

The alleged victim said his encounters with Levine continued until 1993, sometimes in New York City where they dined at Cafe des Artistes and Shun Lee on the Upper West Side near the Metropolitan Opera’s home at Lincoln Center.

In one instance in New York City, Levine “kissed my privates,” the alleged victim said. He also told police “he would fondle me many times,” the report says.

“Levine was not a person you ever said no to,” he told police. The alleged victim said the abuse continued even after he was 18 because he had so much trust in Levine.

“He inflicted shame and guilt on me. Making [it] hard for me to see the wrong. Emotionally I have been hurt by this and confused and paralyzed,” he says in his statement to the police. The alleged victim said he finally told his mother about the abuse in 1993.

In 2016, after contemplating going public, the alleged victim said he called a former board member at the Met who advised him to contact the police. The board member, Beth Glynn, later told Lake Forest Police Detective Wendy Dumont that she spoke to the general manager of the Met about the victim’s phone call.

Glynn told Dumont there were “always rumors” about Levine “because he was socially awkward but he never had any issues at the Metropolitan Opera House for 40 years.” When contacted by The Post, Glynn confirmed she urged the man “to call the police.”

Dumont also reached out to classical music blogger Greg Sandow, who told her he had been contacted by three men in past years purporting to have been abused by Levine, one of them being the alleged victim.

“The rumors of [Levine’s] alleged abuse have been widespread for decades and in my experience they seemed to be widely believed inside the classical music field though I’ve never heard anyone cite anything specific,” Sandow told the police.

Levine himself acknowledged existence of these rumors in a 1987 New York Times article about management changes at the Met, but seemed to dismiss them.

He said 10 years earlier the Met’s general manager “called me about reports of a morals charge in Pittsburgh or Hawaii or Dallas. Both my friends and my enemies checked it out and to this day, I don’t have the faintest idea where those rumors came from or what purpose they served. Ron Wilford says it’s because people can’t believe the real story, that I’m too good to be true.’’ Wilford was Levine’s manager.

Levine went on to say that he was “not a doctor married with three children living in suburbia. I live my life openly; I don’t make pretenses of this or that. What there is is completely apparent, so if people want to damage me, they have to invent things that are lurid and vicious.’’

Levine has been hobbled in recent years by back problems and Parkinson’s disease. He lives at the famed San Remo apartment building on Central Park West where former oboist and Levine pal Sue Thompson was long his roommate.

Neither Levine nor his New York agent returned multiple requests for comment. A spokesman for the Met did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Its general manager, Peter Gelb, did not return a message.

Couple Arrested in Delaware Child Rape Investigation

MILFORD, Del. -- The Milford Police Department arrested a suspected child rapist and the victim's mother in an investigation spanning three years. 

According to Milford Police,  Carlos Gonzalez-Valesquez, 30 of Richmond, VA, was arrested November 20 by U.S. Marshals following a 2014 child sex abuse investigation in which the suspect sexually abused a female juvenile. Police said after the victim's initial report, Gonzalez-Valesquez ran from Delaware and disappeared; however, a tip in November of 2017 helped police find Gonzalez-Valesquez with the victim's mother in Richmond, VA.  According to police, an additional investigation revealed that the victim’s mother was planning on going back to Delaware and taking custody of the victim before moving the victim to Richmond.

With the help of the U.S. Marshals Service, both Gonzalez-Valesquez and the victim's mother, Emma Dorly-Ventura, 38 of Richmond, were arrested on Nov. 20th. 

Milford Police said Dorly-Ventura was charged with attempting to hinder prosecution and endangering the welfare of a child and committed to the Department of Corrections on a $4,000 cash bail, She will appear in Sussex County Court of Common Pleas for a preliminary hearing.

Gonzalez-Valesquez was extradited from Virginia on November 30, and formally charged for rape in the first degree, among other charges, and committed to the Department of Corrections on $50,000  secured bail. He appeared in the Sussex County Superior Court for an arraignment on Friday.

Police said further indictments are coming for Gonzalez-Valesquez.

Teenage victims: 45 days in Brighton rape case

a betrayal; where is justice?

Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press 

A high school boy charged with raping 3 middle school girls got 45 days in a youth home. The victims are outraged as he may return to their school.

One by one, he charmed them.

Three middle school girls, two of them only 12 years old, totally smitten with the high school lacrosse player who was paying attention to them and wanted to be their friend.

During his freshman and sophomore years, the Brighton High School student Snapchatted the girls, used terms like "baby girl" and "princess," listened to their problems and played the trusting, big brother. As one of the girls’ parents noted, “He seemed like a polite young man.”

He manipulated them all.

In Livingston County Juvenile Court last spring, the bushy-haired, 6-foot-tall athlete was charged with 20 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct on charges of raping the three girls on multiple occasions when he was 14 and 15 years old. Prosecutors said he used his size to overcome them and manipulated events and the girls to get what he wanted.

A 12-year-old girl was raped in a ditch behind a Brighton movie theater, they said. Another 12-year-old ran barefoot in the snow to a neighbor's house to escape him when he tried to rape her a third time.

And he used the same scheme with each girl: He sexually assaulted them, returned to their houses days later to apologize, then raped them again, prosecutors said.  One victim said he threatened to kill himself if she told anyone what happened. Another said he threatened suicide if she refused to see him.

Rumors quickly spread at school. The girls were called sluts and liars. One attempted suicide. Another dropped out of school for a while.

But after months of enduring name-calling and judgmental stares — including taunting by the boy's mother — the young victims are speaking up, especially given the latest turn of events in the criminal case. 

Last month, the now-16-year-old boy was sentenced by a juvenile court referee to 45 days in a youth facility after pleading guilty to one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct as part of a plea agreement. Had he been charged as an adult, he would have faced up to life in prison.

His punishment has the victims reeling. They had hoped he would be placed in a lockdown, residential treatment center for sex offenders for a year — with a follow-up evaluation — as was stipulated in his plea agreement.

Perhaps more alarming, the victims and their parents say, is that the now-16-year-old boy could return to school as early as this week. He has an evaluation hearing on Monday in juvenile court, though the girls pleaded with the Brighton School Board last month to expel him.

Adding to their frustration is the fact that his name will not be added to the public sex offender registry list because he was charged as a juvenile, which means no one but police will know about his rape conviction.

None of this makes sense to the victims and their families, who believe the criminal justice system has let them down over and and over again.

“I feel betrayed,” one of the victims told the Free Press last week, stressing she feels as if her attacker “has more rights than we do.” 

“I’m hurt,” she said. “He made me question myself. He made me hate myself. But now I know that I’m strong. … I know I’m not to blame for this.”

And she refuses to hide in the dark. So do the others.

Bolstered by the recent explosion of sexual harassment complaints against celebrities and politicians, the three girls and their mothers are taking a stand and publicly speaking out about their painful experiences. They want their faces seen. They want their stories told.

"It's gone faceless for so long and it's easy to forget about," one victim's mother, Ashley, said of sexual assault.  "When you put a face to it — it's real." 

Jury acquits Iowa man of 2016 sex abuse

By Grayson Schmidt, Staff Writer gschmidt@amestrib.com
  

After a three-day trial, a jury acquitted an Ames man of charges he allegedly sexually abused a young girl on multiple occasions in early 2016.

William Donald Glazebrook, 30, was arrested in early May and originally charged with assault with intent to commit sexual abuse and indecent contact with a child.

Court documents alleged the victim reported that on one occasion, Glazebrook touched her inappropriately and kissed her on the lips. On another occasion, documents allege the victim was sleeping and Glazebrook picked her up off the floor, put her in his bed and began hugging her and touching her inappropriately.

The victim awoke while Glazebrook was touching her and was able to get out of the bed to stop the assault, documents state.

According to Glazebrook’s attorney Michelle Wolf, these cases are extremely difficult to decide on, and she is pleased the jury found Glazebrook innocent.

“We appreciate the hard work of the jury,” Wolf said. “These are hard cases. We’re just glad the jury reached a just result.”

Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds thanked the jurors and Ames Police Department, and also talked about how cases like this are never easy.

“I accept the jury’s verdict. I thank the jurors for their service,” Reynolds said. “These are difficult cases. My thanks to Ames Police for their hard work.”

It would have been nice if we had some insight to what the jury was thinking. Did they believe the child was lying or misinterpreting events? I sure hope they are right because if they are not, some child, perhaps even the same one, will be victimized but this man.

Dark Times; Evil People on Today's USA PnP List

The Weinstein effect: TIME honors sexual misconduct whistleblowers

© TIME / AFP

The TIME ‘Person of the Year’ award went to those women who have accused their male colleagues of sexual misconduct, a movement that unleashed ‘one of the highest-velocity shifts’ in US culture since the 1960s, the magazine says.

It’s the story that just won’t stop giving, and the US media can’t stop dishing it up. Now the movement, immortalized on social media as the #MeToo campaign, has garnered worldwide attention.

Passing over a number of other famous contenders, including Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, TIME endorsed the #MeToo campaign, which some say has forever altered relations between the sexes – for better or for worse.

The magazine’s cover features actress Ashley Judd, singer Taylor Swift, and former Uber engineer Susan Fowler, (and what happened to Rose McGowan?) who have all gone public over their sexual misconduct experiences. Sharing the spotlight with the high and mighty are Isabel Pascual, a Mexican woman who works picking strawberries, and Adama Iwu, a corporate lobbyist in Sacramento.

Revealing the ‘Silence Breakers’ on the Today show, TIME editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal explained the idea behind the selection.

“The idea that influential, inspirational individuals shape the world could not be more apt this year,” Felsenthal said. “For giving voice to open secrets, for moving whisper networks onto social networks, for pushing us all to stop accepting the unacceptable, The Silence Breakers are the 2017 Person of the Year.”

The Weinstein effect

The avalanche of sexual harassment claims began with the epic downfall of Harvey Weinstein, 65. The Hollywood mogul co-founded Miramax, the entertainment powerhouse that catapulted a number of young stars to fame and fortune, including Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Weinstein’s empire came crashing down practically overnight when The New York Times released a report alleging numerous allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein from dozens of women.

Following a social media campaign, numerous other women took the cue, coming out of the shadows to demand justice. Every day, it seems, a new name is added to a growing list of American men – many of them household names in their own right – who are being accused of sexual misconduct from their female colleagues. The actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Louis C.K., journalist Charlie Rose, and NBC host Matt Lauer are just a few of the prominent males from the world of entertainment that have seen their careers ended overnight.

In one case that deserves special mention, it has been reported that over 300 women accused filmmaker James Toback of sexual harassment. 

James Toback is an American screenwriter and film director. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1991 for Bugsy. He has directed films including The Pick-up Artist, Two Girls and a Guy and Black and White. Wikipedia

The world of politics, however, was also not spared. Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) and Senator Al Franken (D- Minnesota) are all struggling to save their political careers, if not their reputations, following accusations of sexual misconduct brought against them.

The question now, after the dust is finally starting to settle on the salacious scandals, is: what does this mean for the future of sexual relations in the US?

Good choice by Time. The #MeToo campaign is bringing about at least a partial change in attitudes of powerful men toward women that is long overdue. Treating women with respect, we hope, is here to stay. You can't tell by this article, but it is happening all over the western world. 

I have two concerns about the longevity of the campaign as there is pushback already. For instance, President Trump endorses Roy Moore for the US Senate in spite of a habit of dating teenage girls when he was in his 30s. You could argue that he has repented and God has forgiven him, but that's not his argument. Although I haven't actually heard him deny it, he blames it all on his political enemies citing the timing. Well, the timing has to do with the #MeToo campaign, and the realization that children were (are) groomed by adults and taken advantage of. So it's a question of political expediency for Trump and he's willing to overlook serious character flaws for that. At least you can't call him a hypocrite. 

The other concern is the proliferation of pornography and its easy availability to adolescent boys. This is not the way to develop respect for girls in the coming generation and the exploding culture of rape in our education institutions bears that out. Pornography must be driven deep underground from whence it came. Pedophiles use it to teach children how to be sexually abused. It is the very opposite of generating respect for women in society.

Gymnast McKayla Maroney plunged into

‘emotional abyss’ by abuse

by TRACY CONNOR

Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney's mother says the gold medalist's sexual abuse at the hands of a team doctor plunged her into an "emotional abyss" so deep the family feared she would kill herself.

Erin Maroney and her daughter bared their anguish in letters to the federal judge who will sentence Larry Nassar on Thursday for possession of child pornography. The Maroneys are asking the court to give him the maximum punishment.

Artistic Gymnastics World Championships Belgium 2013 - Day Three;

McKayla Maroney prepares to compete at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Belgium in 2013.

Dean Mouhtaropoulos / Getty Images

"This experience has been shattering to McKayla," Erin Maroney wrote to the judge. "She has transformed from a bubbly, positive, loving, world class athlete into a young adult who was deeply depressed, at times suicidal and essentially descended into an emotional abyss.

"At times I was unsure whether I would open her bedroom door and find her dead. Her father and I have been living this nightmare for years and until recently we felt hopeless."

"The revelation of McKayla’s abuse has devastated our family. It has devastated McKayla’s siblings and worst of all it has destroyed her emotionally and nearly snuffed out the inner light of this beautiful loving human being."

McKayla said in her letter that she may never fully recover from the trauma.

"Dr. Nassar was not a doctor," she wrote. "He in fact is, was, and forever shall be, a child molester, and a monster of a human being. End of story! He abused my trust, he abused my body and he left scars on my psyche that may never go away."

McKayla, a member of the 2012 "Fierce Five" Olympic squad that competed in London, said on Twitter in October that she was repeatedly molested by Nassar starting when she was 13. She is one of three members of that team and about 140 women total to lodge accusations that Nassar abused them under the guise of medical treatments.

Nassar, 54, has pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges in connection with 10 former patients, none of them Olympians, in state court in Michigan and agreed to a sentence range of 20 to 40 years.

Under his plea agreement with the feds, Nassar said he would accept a sentence of between 22 and 27 years in the child pornography case, but prosecutors are urging the judge to consider a sentence up to 60 years, which is the maximum.

Erin Maroney said she wonders if Nassar had pornographic images of McKayla that he managed to erase before investigators seized his computer equipment.

"These are questions that keep my husband and I up at night. I know this also haunts my daughter. Will she wake up one day to find an image of her 13-year-old self being assaulted on the internet?" she wrote. "This is what our family must live with and it will never go away."

She said that two years after McKayla first told her story to an investigator for USA Gymnastics, she is still learning gut-wrenching details of the encounters with Nassar.

"I also learned a few weeks ago from my daughter that at the world championships in Tokyo the Defendant drugged her, made her lay nude on a treatment table, straddled her and digitally penetrated her while rubbing his erect penis against her," she wrote. "She was only 15 years old.

"She said to me, 'Mom I thought I was going to die.'" I cannot tell you the anguish her Dad and I feel over this, and the responsibility we feel for not being aware of this, or being able to stop it."

Even worse, the Maroneys said, is their feeling that the U.S. Olympic Committee, USA Gymnastics, which appointed Nassar as team doctor, and Michigan State University, where he had his sports-medicine practice, could have stopped the abuse years earlier.

"A question that has been asked over and over is: How could have Larry Nassar been allowed to assault so many women and girls for more than two decades?" McKayla wrote. "The answer to that question lies in the failure of not one, but three major institutions to stop him."

All three institutions say they have beefed up their efforts to protect young athletes.

Nassar, who long claimed that his "treatments" were medically sound and not sexually motivated, said last month that he was pleading guilty because he believed it was time for the community "to heal."

"While Mr. Nassar wishes he could rewind the hands of time and make different choices, he realizes that this is not possible," his lawyers wrote in a presentencing memo. "Nevertheless, Mr. Nassar has already done much soul searching about his life, and he is using this time to engage in continued growth."

Who cares? The creep is going to rot, as he deserves, whether it is in prison or Hell. I have no doubt that he is sorry, sorry that he was caught.

Alabama man charged with sex abuse

of young family friend

By Carol Robinson crobinson@al.com

A 33-year-old Birmingham man has been arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a child.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office announced charges Monday against Armando Torres Escobar. Chief Deputy Randy Christian said deputies were called on Aug. 4 to a Pinson Valley home to investigate the reported sex abuse.

The girl had gone to her mother and told her that a family friend had been engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with her, Christian said. Sheriff's detectives immediately launched their investigation.

On Nov. 29, Escobar contacted investigators through his attorney and agreed to turn himself in. He did so the following day, and was booked into the Jefferson County Jail to await formal charges.

On Friday, the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office issued warrants formally charging Escobar with two counts of sexual abuse of a child under 12, and one count of sexual abuse by force.

He remains in the jail with bonds totaling $150,000.

Iowa man arrested for sexual abuse of toddler

A rural Mahaska County man was recently arrested on sexual abuse warrant.

On November 8th, 2017, the Mahaska County Sheriff’s Office received the complaint of a possible sexual abuse and a three and a half-year-old female at a rural address in Mahaska County.

Following an investigation in the complaint, the Sheriff’s Offices filed the charge of Second Degree Sexual Abuse, a class B felony, against 30-year-old Justin Douglas Schaefer.

A warrant was issued for Schaefer’s arrest.

Schaefer was taken into custody, pursuant to this warrant, on Friday, December 1. He was arrested on Taintor and transported to the Mahaska County Jail where he remains on a $50,000 bond.

The Sheriff’s Office was assisted in this investigation by the Department of Human Services and the St. Luke’s Child Protection center located in Hiawatha, Iowa.

Mahashka Co., IA

Met Opera Suspends Conductor James Levine After More Sexual Abuse Allegations

Stars are Falling - Metropolitan Opera Conductor

Two additional men have accused the famous conductor of
molesting them as teenagers

Nina Golgowski Trends reporter, HuffPost

The Metropolitan Opera in New York suspended its famed conductor James Levine on Sunday after two additional men came forward to accuse him of sexually molesting them as teenagers years ago.

The Met said in a statement that day that it had hired Robert J. Cleary, a former U.S. attorney who leads the investigations practice at the law firm Proskauer Rose, to investigate the allegations by three men.

“While we await the results of the investigation, based on these new news reports, the Met has made the decision to act now,” Met general manager Peter Gelb tweeted on Sunday night. “This is a tragedy for anyone whose life has been affected.”

News of Levine’s suspension came one day after a 2016 police report surfaced, accusing him of sexually abusing a teenager beginning in 1986. That man, Ashok Pai, has since spoken to The New York Times about the alleged abuse, as have the two other accusers, whose allegations date back to 1968. 

Gelb told the Times on Saturday that the Met first learned about Pai’s abuse allegations last year, but didn’t do anything then as Levine denied the allegations and police in Illinois, where the report was filed, did not advance the case. The statute of limitations had already expired for a possible sex crime in Illinois, according to the New York Post, which was the first to publish news of Pai’s police report.

So, it appears the Met was happy to continue with the pederast at the helm as long as it didn't make the news. Kind of shows where their real heart lies.

Chris Brown, who played principal bass in the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for more than 30 years, told the Times that Levine had inappropriately touched him and instructed him to touch Levine back when he was 17. The abuse allegedly occurred at the Meadow Brook School of Music in Michigan, where Levine was on the summer program faculty and Brown was performing.

The third accuser, James Lestock, described similar sexual experiences with Levine beginning when he was 17 years old and studying cello, also at Meadow Brook.

In his report filed with the Lake Forest Police Department in October 2016, Pai said he first met Levine as a child at the Ravinia summer music festival in Illinois with his parents. They met again when Pai was 15, and he said Levine became a kind of mentor to him. He said Levine showered him with gifts like conductor batons and encouraged him to come to New York to audition as a conductor, the New York Post wrote citing the police report.

Eventually, Pai said, some uncomfortable hand-holding in Levine’s car turned into Levine masturbating in front of him and, as he got older, the conductor inappropriately touching and fondling him. The alleged abuse continued after he turned 18, Pai said in the police report.

A spokesperson for the Ravinia festival, reached by HuffPost on Monday, said they had not been aware of the allegations against Levine until they were contacted by a reporter on Friday.

“Ravinia finds these allegations very disturbing and contrary to its zero-tolerance policies and culture,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Ravinia will take any actions that it deems appropriate following the results of these investigations. Ravinia has no other information to share at this time.”

As of Monday, Levine was still listed on Ravina’s website for a 2018 summer residency, during which he will conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and lead master classes.

Requests for comment left with Levine’s manager and with the Lake Forest Police Department were not immediately returned.

Michigan Congressman Conyers retires
under pressure over sexual harassment

Stars are Falling - Senior Congressman

Representative John Conyers, Jr. (D-Michigan) has announced his retirement from Congress, amid allegations of sexual misconduct. His departure was effective immediately, his lawyer said.

“I am retiring today,” Conyers, 88, said Tuesday on a Detroit radio show. “And I want everyone to know how much I appreciate the support – the incredible, undiminished support I've received across the years from my supporters, not only in my district but across the country as well.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) read a letter from Conyers to his colleagues on the House floor, saying he notified Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) that he was vacating his seat.

"Given the totality of the circumstance of not being afforded the right of due process in conjunction with current health conditions and to preserve my legacy and good name, I am retiring," the letter said, according to AFP.

Arnold Reed, a lawyer for Conyers, told AFP the departure was effective immediately.

Conyers said he was “in the process of putting together my retirement plans.” He reportedly endorsed his son, John Conyers III, to run for his seat in 2018.

“My legacy can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now,” Conyers said, according to AP. “This too shall pass. My legacy will continue through my children.”

“I’m absolutely going to file for his seat. The work of our congressional district, where I come out of, has to continue,” the younger Conyers said, according to the New York Times. “We have got to have someone who has depth and experience but also historical understanding of what it takes to fight this type of evil in Washington.”

Ian Conyers, a grandson of Conyers’ brother and currently a Michigan state senator, told the New York Times that he also plans to run. The 13th District congressional seat will most likely be filled via special election in the coming months.

Conyers checked into a Detroit hospital last week amid calls from top Democrats to step down, after a report published by BuzzFeed in late November revealed that he had reached a financial settlement with a former staffer who had accused him of sexual misconduct.

The staffer said she was fired for refusing his sexual advances and “blackballed” into accepting a settlement of $27,000 in 2015.

An icon of the civil rights movement, Conyers was first elected to Congress in 1964. His was the sixth-longest congressional tenure in US history.

Upstate NY man arraigned on sex abuse charges

LITTLE VALLEY — An East Otto man was arraigned Monday in Cattaraugus County Court on felony sex charges.

Jeffrey H. Horn, 53, of East Otto but presently incarcerated in Cattaraugus County Jail, was arraigned on and pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree attempted criminal sexual act, class C felonies; two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, class D felonies; and endangering the welfare of a child, a class A misdemeanor.

According to District Attorney Lori Rieman, whose office reported the case among others heard Monday, Horn attempted to engage in sexual conduct with another person by forcible compulsion this past March in East Otto. Horn was arrested on the charges Friday afternoon by the Cattaraugus County Sheriff’s Office.

The case has been adjourned for motions.

Child sexual predator from Nevada convicted

By Staff/WCDA Release 
         
RENO, Nev. (KOLO) - A Washoe Valley man has been convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault on a child. He will be sentenced January 30, and he faces life in prison.

61-year-old Thomas Goepner was found guilty of five counts of Sexual Assault on a Child Under the Age of Fourteen Years, three counts of Sexual Assault on a Child Under the Age of Sixteen Years, two Counts of Sexual Assault and one count of Open and Gross Lewdness.

Goepner was arrested in October 2016 after an investigation by the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Crimes Against Persons Unit.

The case began when patrol deputies responded to a report of a sexual assault and met with a 16-year-old victim and several of her family members and friends. The girl reported she had been sexually abused by Goepner since age 8 and that she had recently disclosed that abuse to others.

Based on interviews with the victim and witnesses, as well as evidence collected from Goepner's home, investigators determined Goepner had been sexually assaulting the victim for more than eight years. The Washoe County District Attorney's Office says Goepner forced the girl to perform sexual acts on multiple occasions and threatened her so she wouldn't tell.

Goepner was also convicted of having groped a second female victim. The investigation also revealed Goepner was reported to have repeatedly sexually assaulted another child in the late 1980s, but he was unable to be prosecuted because the crimes were reported after the statute of limitations.

The prosecution was coordinated through the Washoe County Child Advocacy Center (CAC) multi-disciplinary team including authorities from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, the Washoe County Child Abuse Response and Evaluation team, Washoe County Social Services, and the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office.

The DA's office says the CAC's mission is to safeguard the health and safety of children in our community who are victims of abuse through a neutral, child-centered environment. To date, more than 1200 forensic interviews of children have been conducted. Since opening, more than 90 life sentences have been imposed on sexual and physical abusers of children.

And that's just one county! Good grief! 

Illinois man arrested in connection with a

child sexual abuse case

By WIFR Newsroom
         
FREEPORT, Ill. (WIFR) - A 44-year-old man is arrested in connection with a sexual abuse case in Freeport.

Freeport police say Jonathon Fisher was arrested Tuesday on charges related to a sexual abuse case. They say the case involves more than one child and happened between June and August of this year.

Investigators say an arrest warrant was issued for Fisher and he was arrested at home without incident.

Fisher was arrested on four counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, two counts of distribution of harmful material and one count of unlawful grooming. His bond has been set at $600,000.

Fisher is innocent until proven guilty.

Trial ordered for Michigan married couple in

child sexual abuse case

By Michael Kransz mkransz@mlive.com

SAGINAW, MI -- A trial was ordered for the married couple accused of sexually abusing a minor and forcing the girl to eat half a pack of cigarettes and smoke the rest.

The couple, 33-year-old Kyle David Roy and 46-year-old Jennifer Edith Roy, waived their preliminary examinations Monday, Dec. 4, and were bound over to Circuit Court for trial on all charges against them.

According to court documents, the sexual and physical abuse took place from November 2014 until October 2016 at a home in Thomas Township.

Kyle Roy also allegedly "made (the girl) strip naked and hit her with a belt, punched her with a fist and choked her," the complaint states.

Both Roys are charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, second-degree criminal sexual conduct and third-degree child abuse in that case.

First-degree criminal sexual conduct is punishable by up to life in prison.

In a second case, Kyle Roy is accused of engaging in sexual contact with another minor. That abuse allegedly took place from May through December 2014 in Thomas Township.

He is charged with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct in that case.

Iowa Christian school teacher accused of sexual abuse

bonds out of jail

NICK HYTREK nhytrek@siouxcityjournal.com 

ORANGE CITY, Iowa | A former teacher charged (6th story on link) with having sexual contact with more than a dozen children has been released from custody.

Curtis Van Dam posted 10 percent of his $150,000 bond Tuesday and bonded out of the Sioux County Jail. The bond was secured through Lederman Bail Bonds.

Van Dam, 36, of Sioux Center, Iowa, has pleaded not guilty in Sioux County District Court to 146 charges related to sexual contact with at least 13 children between August 2014 and this past October. He is scheduled to stand trial March 6.

As part of his bond release, Van Dam promises to appear for future court hearings.

District Judge Patrick Tott on Monday had continued Van Dam's bond at $150,000. As part of the order, Tott said that if Van Dam bonded out of jail he must wear an electronic monitoring device on his ankle and be supervised by the Department of Correctional Services.

Other conditions of release include:

-- He must not go within 100 yards of a child care or educational facility.
-- He may have no contact with any child under age 15 except for his own children or the children of family members if supervised by another adult.
-- He may not leave Iowa without permission of his pretrial supervision officer. He may travel to Spirit Lake, Iowa, to meet with his attorney, Edward Bjornstad.

Van Dam was arrested Oct. 23 after a complaint was filed against him for inappropriate contact with a student. Administrators at Sioux Center Christian School removed Van Dam, who taught fifth grade, from the school after the complaint was filed. As Sioux Center police investigated the complaint, they filed additional charges related to incidents with other children, and Van Dam was fired.

Police have said the incidents took place at various locations, including the school, where Van Dam taught for nine years. Court documents and police have not revealed the gender of the alleged victims.

Some or all of the children were under age 12 or 13. Van Dam is accused of sexually abusing or having inappropriate contact with some of the children on at least 24 separate occasions over several months.

Van Dam is accused of having children fully or partially undress in front of him, permitting children to touch his genitals and exposing himself to some of the children.

Tennessee man arrested on child sex abuse charges

A Haywood County man has been arrested on multiple sex offenses involving a child in the wake of an investigation by Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the state Department of Children's Services.

According to a TBI release, Randy "Derek" Byrd, 36, was indicted by a grand jury Monday on charges of rape of a child, sexual battery by an authority figure, sexual exploitation of minor images, continuous sexual abuse of a child, and two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor by electronic means.

TBI began an investigation into Byrd's activities Aug. 10. Their findings showed that Byrd was engaging in inappropriate sexual relations with a child.

Byrd was arrested without incident Tuesday and was booked into Haywood County jail on a $500,000 bond.

Wyoming man faces prison for sex abuse of a child

       

A Cheyenne man is facing up to 100 years in prison for having sex with a child.

Roney Lee McClintock, 49, has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor. The plea comes amid a bargaining process with prosecutors.

McClintock allegedly admitted to performing, and receiving, oral sex with a 9-year-old girl throughout 2011. If convicted on all charges, McClintock is facing 50 to 100 years in prison.

No News is Not Good News When It Comes to Child Sex Abuse

One of the two main objectives of this blog is to raise the awareness of child sex abuse, the astonishing extent of it and the devastating effects that it has on its victims. That need is made obvious when major publications like the Times and the Post ignore the suffering of the thousands of victims in New York alone, who do not have the right to redress from the institutions that allowed their abuse to happen and to continue unabated for decades.

There is little political interest in Washington or Ottawa in the subject and that will continue until these and other major publications assume an attitude of empathy for the millions of survivors of child sex abuse.

A Bill Protecting Child Sex Abuse Survivors Isn’t Getting Coverage; Activists Want to Know Why

by Ronn Blitzer Law Newz

 
Image of NY Times building via Stuart Monk/Shutterstock 

Advocates for child sex abuse survivors, including Matthew Sandusky, son of Jerry Sandsuky, and activist Phil Saviano, who was portrayed in the movie Spotlight, signed an open letter to New York Times Public Editor Liz Spayd last week, asking why the newspaper had not covered recent legislative battles surrounding the New York Child Victims Act (CVA). The real story, however, might be that they’re not the only ones. The CVA aims to eliminate statutes of limitation for child sex abuse survivors seeking to bring criminal or civil actions against abusers.

The letter was published by Nancy Levine, who had previously asked Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet why the publication had not run articles about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing his support for the CVA, or protesters marching on the Brooklyn Bridge supporting the Act. 

In her correspondence with Baquet, and in the open letter to Spayd, Levine brought up what she referred to as “an appearance of a conflict of interest.” She noted that Whole Foods co-founder John Mackey has been an open supporter of religious leader Marc Gafni, who has been accused of child sex abuse in the past, and that Gabrielle Greene Sulzberger, wife of the Times’ publisher, is on the Board of Directors for Whole Foods. In a posting on Medium.com Levine alleged that perhaps there was a connection. She wrote that the newspaper reported about the opening of a new Whole Foods store, but not about protests against Whole Foods due to Mackey’s support of Gafni. The protests had been covered by outlets including the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.

According to Levine’s post, Baquet responded to the implications of a possible conflict of interest by saying, “Only someone quite paranoid would see such a connection.” Levine does acknowledge that it was the Times, after all, who reported on the Mackey-Gafni connection back in December. That article was a profile on Gafni that discussed, among other things, numerous allegations against him.

The Whole Foods connection indeed seems like a stretch for not covering the Child Victims Act. After all, the newspaper continues to report on child sex abuse cases, including an article just this month about the Indianapolis Star‘s report on abuse within USA Gymnastics. But that still doesn’t explain why Levine can’t get a straight answer.

Regarding the open letter to Spayd, the Times Public Editor’s office responded by saying:

The public editor is aware of your concerns, and we will be sure to monitor this; however, as I’ve mentioned to you before, our office is not responsible for The Times’s coverage decisions. I have shared your email with a ranking metro editor as feedback.

The most recent news story (not counting opinion pieces or letters to the editor) that the Times published about the CVA was in August 2009. I spoke to Levine, and she said that she’s confused as to why the Times hasn’t covered the topic in recent years and why they won’t give her a reason for it. “It’s all a little baffling,” she said. “Presumably there’s no conflict of interest,” she said, but wondered that if that’s they case, why won’t they at least give a journalistic reason. “All we want them to do is give a reasonable response, which hasn’t happened yet.” I reached out to Baquet for comment, but he has yet to respond.

But the Times isn’t the only newspaper who hasn’t covered the CVA. In fact, they’re not even the only New York newspaper who hasn’t reported on it lately. A search of the New York Post‘s website shows that they haven’t reported on it at all in the past year. The New York Daily News, on the other hand, has covered the CVA extensively, with multiple articles this summer.

The Jewish publication The Forward, based in New York, published an article about it in May, as did the Huffington Post. Albany’s WRGB covered it earlier this month. But I couldn’t find anything from other television stations or major newspapers.

So clearly, the New York Times is not alone is determining that a bill looking to protect child sex abuse survivors isn’t newsworthy. Maybe that’s the real problem.

No kidding! I guess no-one on staff at the Times or the Post have any clue as to the extent and the horrific effects of child sex abuse.