Who is covered in today's extraordinary stories:
Roman Polanski
A Catholic teacher, priest and Monsignor
L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology
A high school football coach
A man who abused 2 young relatives
A DC school janitor
A mental health pro who abused abused children
A Pentecostal Pastor
Another sex assault claim against Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
A Catholic teacher, priest and Monsignor
L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology
A high school football coach
A man who abused 2 young relatives
A DC school janitor
A mental health pro who abused abused children
A Pentecostal Pastor
Another sex assault claim against Roman Polanski
Woman comes forward to make allegation on-the-run director
abused her in 1973
Robin, 59, a new client of lawyer Gloria Allred, reads her statement claiming Roman Polanski sexually victimized her in 1973, in Los Angeles, California, U.S. August 15, 2017.
AFP
Los Angeles: A third woman came forward Tuesday to accuse Roman Polanski of sexual assault when she was a minor, 40 years after he went on the run for raping another girl.
The woman, identified only as Robin, told a news conference in Los Angeles she was “sexually victimized” by the legendary French-Polish film director when she was just 16, in 1973.
“The day after it happened, I did tell one friend that Mr Polanski had done that to me,” she said, reading from a prepared statement.
“The reason, with this exception, that I kept it to myself is that I didn’t want my father to do something that might cause him to go to prison for the rest of his life.”
Robin said she was prompted to come forward after the victim at the centre of a rape case against the famed director recently urged authorities to put the case to rest.
Lawyer Gloria Allred, who is representing the victim, said the incident happened in southern California but added that her client would not be going into any further detail.
Although the statute of limitations has expired on her case, she could be called to testify in a future trial, the lawyer said.
The director of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Chinatown,” who turns 84 on Friday, was accused of drugging Samantha Geimer when she was 13 before raping her at Jack Nicholson’s house in Los Angeles in 1977 while the film star was away.
Polanski admitted statutory rape after a number of more serious charges were dropped, and spent 48 days in custody to undergo psychiatric evaluation before being released.
According to court documents filed by his lawyer Harland Braun, Polanski was promised by the judge overseeing the case that the seven weeks he spent in custody would be the only time he would serve.
But in 1978, convinced the judge was going to scrap his plea deal and send him to prison - possibly for decades - he left for France.
The director - who is married to French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, with whom he has two children - has since refused to return without assurances that he would not serve additional time in prison.
He was hit with fresh sex crime allegations in 2010, when British actress Charlotte Lewis claimed the director “forced himself” upon her just after her 16th birthday.
Polanski’s attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Catholic school teacher convicted of
child rape freed early
By ANTHONY IZAGUIRREPHILADELPHIA — A former Catholic school teacher convicted of raping a child was released more than a decade early from prison on Wednesday after a judge threw out his conviction amid questions about his accuser’s truthfulness.
Rather than face a new trial, however, Bernard Shero, 54, pleaded no contest on Monday to less serious child rape and assault charges and was sentenced to the roughly four years in prison he’s already served. He originally was sentenced in 2013 to up to 16 years.
The accuser had helped to convict three other church officials, including a monsignor who became the first to be criminally charged for mishandling complaints about sexual abuse by priests.
Retired detective Joseph Walsh, who had worked on the case for the district attorney’s office, told prosecutors several times that he could not corroborate the accuser’s story. But the detective said they dismissed him, with one assistant district attorney going so far as to tell him “you’re killing my case,” according to a court filing.
Shero’s attorney George Bochetto said he was “deeply, deeply concerned with the way the prosecution took place in this matter.”
Prosecutors declined to comment on the ruling or the plea, citing ongoing litigation in related cases.
Another one of Shero’s lawyers, Jeffrey Ogren, said prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence of time served in exchange for Shero pleading no contest. “The option was staying in jail for 11 and a half years or pleading no contest and getting out today,” he said.
The accuser said he was sexually assaulted by Shero and two priests when he was an altar boy in the late 1990s. He has settled his claims against the church in an undisclosed agreement.
The accuser’s testimony also was linked to a child endangerment conviction of Monsignor William Lynn, the first church official charged over the mishandling of abuse records. Lynne’s conviction has since been overturned. Lynn’s lawyer declined to comment, citing ongoing court proceedings.
Shero’s plea was first reported by the Philadelphia legal blog BigTrial.net.
'Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath'
Details Child Abuse Allegations in Season 2 Premiere
The Emmy-nominated A&E docuseries returned for its sophomore run Tuesday.
The women, childhood best friends Saina Kamula and Mirriam Francis, were both born into the Church (Francis in 1984, Kamula in 1985, with Francis leaving in 2010 and Kamula leaving in 2013).
Francis told Remini and Rinder that she was sexually abused by her father in her native Australia while her mother was working for the Church of Scientology, and the abuse continued after the family moved to Los Angeles and her father joined the Sea Org.
The Sea Organization (Sea Org) is a legally nonexistent Scientology organization, which the Church of Scientology describes as a "fraternal religious order, comprising the church's most dedicated members". All Scientology management organizations are controlled exclusively by members of the Sea Org.
Kamula, who moved to Los Angeles from Finland when her mother joined the Sea Org in the early '90s, said an older member of the Church sexually abused her as she struggled to socialize with her classmates at the Apollo Training Academy, an accredited school attended by the children of Sea Org members. After reporting the incidents to a teacher, she was punished for being "counter-intention," for acting against the interests of Scientology's message.
(Read the Church of Scientology's statement in response to Kamula and Francis' allegations here.)
L. Ron Hubbards a pedophile?
Remini and Rinder both discussed how Scientology views child-rearing — in an impersonal manner that relies on the idea that children are just old souls in young bodies.
While L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics contains a passage that reads, "The seven-year-old who shudders because a man kisses her is not computing ... at seven she should see nothing wrong in a kiss, not even a passionate one," in a statement aired on the show, the Church claimed it "abide[s] by any and all legal requirements to make reports to law enforcement authorities in instances where non-privileged information comes to our attention of child abuse, including illegal sexual activity between an adult and a minor."
In 1994, Kamula and Francis were moved to a Southern California Sea Org facility for children called Canyon Oaks Ranch (or PAC Ranch), which was subsequently closed in 2007. Kamula described the facility as "military-esque" and "like Lord of the Flies," and detailed treatment that included being forced to eat lunch behind dumpsters infested with maggots, and missions to demolish possibly asbestos-infested walls or to lay the brick that paves L. Ron Hubbard Way in Los Angeles. As preteens, they signed billion-year contracts to become full-fledged Sea Org members. Kamula detailed the 60-hour work weeks she was forced to endure as an underage teen, and revealed that she was placed on suicide watch several times.
While Kamula's abuser remains an "active and respected member of the Church," Francis said her father eventually confessed his sexual abuse to her. After the confession, Francis said she was audited and revealed her father's abuse — but the auditors wouldn't accept what she said about her father's actions and she was deemed a potential troublemaker.
Explained Remini, "You cannot attack any Scientologist or Sea Org member," which is why the Church brushed off the accusations.
In 2009, when Francis was assigned to the same Sea Org base as her father, she told the Church she wanted to leave — but wasn't allowed until she signed a waiver that she forgave her father and wouldn't sue him or the Church for his sexual abuse. She later filed a police report in Australia outlining the abuse, but no charges were ever brought forth against her father. The Church alleges that Francis' father was dismissed from the Sea Org in 2002 after they learned of the abuse.
And yet, in 2009 they forced her to sign a waiver saying that she would not sue her father?
After telling Remini and Rinder their stories, Kamula and Francis reported their abuse to the LAPD and are now officially considered enemies of the Church.
Texas football coach charged in '90s
child sex abuse cases in Waco
By Rissa ShawWACO, Texas (KWTX) McLennan County sheriff's deputies have arrested an Irving area football coach accused of sexually abusing at least two boys in Waco in the 1990’s.
According to sheriff's officials, two men allege Risener made them perform inappropriate sexual acts sometime between the years of 1990-1995.
One of the alleged victims recently contacted the agency, and after looking into it, the sheriff's office obtained warrants for an arrest.
Risener turned himself in Monday morning.
A source close to the investigation says Risener lived with a well-known, church-oriented family in southern McLennan County while attending Baylor.
The source said he used that position to lure young teens, enticing them to play games, ultimately involving them in sexual activity. One of the two victims involved in the case decided to come forward to law enforcement after learning Risener was a high school football coach.
"Unfortunately, and that's the crying shame in this, it's not unique, it's not out of the realm, it's someone using a social setting, a friendship, a church group, a place where people are not on-guard, and exploiting that to exploit children," said Chief Deputy David Kilcrease.
MCSO officials believed both victims to be credible.
Risener was released from the McLennan County Jail just after noon on Monday after posting bonds totaling $30,000.
Sheriff's officials said they were fairly certain more victims are out there and encouraged them to come forward as there is no statute of limitations on felony child sex crimes in Texas.
At least one other alleged incident occurred at a religious camp out of state. The case file is being referred to a jurisdiction in Oklahoma, so additional charges on Risener could be added, officials said.
Jefferson County man charged with sex abuse of 4 children over span of 10 years
By Carol RobinsonA northeast Jefferson County man is charged with 10 felonies in connection with the sex abuse of four children over the span of a decade, authorities announced Wednesday.
Sheriff's Chief Deputy Randy Christian said deputies in June of 2016 received a report from a parent that their child had been subjected to inappropriate sexual contact by a male relative. Detectives from the sheriff's office Youth Services Division began an investigation.
Over the course of the investigation, Christian said, three more child victims came forward to report that they, too, had been subjected to inappropriate sexual contact. Investigators determined all four children had been abused at the hands of McHoward while they were visiting the relative.
The abuse, Christian said, took place over a period of 10 years.
McHoward is charged with seven counts of first-degree sexual abuse, two counts of attempted sexual abuse and one count of first-degree sodomy. He remains in the Jefferson County Jail with bonds totaling $240,000.
Jefferson Co., AL
DC Janitor Pleads Guilty To Sex Assault
Of Juvenile Student
By Cameron Luttrell (Patch Staff)
WASHINGTON, DC — A Prince George's County man pled guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting a juvenile girl while he was working as a janitor at a Southeast Washington elementary school, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips.
Mandell L. Whitted, 50, of Capitol Heights, pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted first-degree child sexual abuse stemming from the 2005 assaults.
According to facts submitted at the hearing, Whitted worked as a janitor at J.C. Nalle Elementary School in the 200 block of 50th Street in Southeast Washington. The 12-year-old female victim worked on a cleaning crew during the summer of 2005 and then worked at an after-school program in the fall of 2005.
Whitted allegedly sexually assaulted the girl on numerous occasions at various locations — including the janitor's office — between May 2005 to November 2005, Phillips said.
Following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Department, Whittam was arrested in February 2017. He has been in custody ever since.
The plea calls for an agreed-upon sentence of five years in prison, Phillips said. After Whitted is released, he will be required to register as a sex offender for ten years. Whitted will be sentenced Nov. 16.
5 years? Numerous occasions? 21 years old? Wow! Another great plea bargain for a pervert!
Mental health counselor who raped 3 child-sex victims denied break on 25-62 year jail term
By Matt Miller
A counselor at a mental health agency who used his position to rape three women who were victims of childhood sexual abuse will keep serving 25 to 62 years in state prison.
The nature of Tucker's crimes prompted President Judge Emeritus Kate Ford Elliott to include an unusual warning in the opinion she wrote rejecting Tucker's appeal of his multiple sex crime convictions.
"We caution the reader that the details of the sexual assaults are necessarily factually graphic due to the specific issues presented by (Tucker)," she wrote.
Those details - including explicit descriptions of oral sex and forcible rapes - had to be aired because Tucker claimed he didn't use force to make the women - two clients of the center and a job applicant - engage in sex acts.
Tucker, now 50, of Philadelphia, was convicted in 2015 of raping the victims repeatedly at the Norristown center between July and October 2011.
Elliott concluded that the evidence showed Tucker did employ physical force and psychological manipulation to commit the crimes. He "used his position of authority and trust to sexually assault the emotionally vulnerable female victims," she wrote. The judge added that one of the assaults occurred after Tucker pulled the victim out of a rape counseling session.
One woman told investigators she was too embarrassed at first to report the rapes because she felt no one would believe her, Elliott noted. That same woman claimed Tucker told her the abuse was "our secret."
Elliott rejected Tucker's claim that his lawyer was wrongly barred during his trial from questioning one victim about a sex abuse lawsuit she had filed against another psychologist. Such testimony was irrelevant to the allegations against Tucker, the state judge found. Even if the woman had sued another mental health profession for sexual abuse, "it would not make it more or less likely that (Tucker) committed the offenses charged," Elliott wrote.
Finally, the state court turned aside Tucker's argument that he should have received separate trials on the accusations made by each victim.
The "numerous and substantial similarities" between the cases justified a single trial, Elliott found. "All three female victims experienced childhood sexual abuse and other trauma, which (Tucker) exploited for his own sexual gratification," she concluded.
North Richland Hills man accused of sexually
assaulting two girls while their pastor
BY MITCH MITCHELLPolice arrested a man Wednesday on suspicion of sexually abusing two girls when he was a preacher at a Fort Worth church.
Two adult females made outcries of numerous sexual abuse incidents that occurred when they were both juveniles living in Hurst between 2007 and 2013, police said.
Investigators concluded that Bernal met the girls while he was their pastor at the Tabernaculo De Vida Pentecostal Church on West Dickson Street in Fort Worth.
North Richland Hills, TX
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