There is a saying in Russia - Where there is honey, there will be flies! It refers to pedophiles ability to smell out child victims and place themselves to have access to them, often in a position of responsibility. Unfortunately, it is not restricted to Russia but is everywhere there are children.
Victim's testimony helps convict sheriff's deputy after yearslong child sexual abuse
It took the girl a day of prayer to tell her mother she'd been molested. Even after she did, her abuser remained a fixture in their life for years to come.
WEST PALM BEACH — Jurors convicted a Broward County sheriff's deputy of child sexual battery Thursday, moved by the testimony of the young woman he molested decades earlier.
Oshea, who asked to be identified by her first name only, cried while recounting the times that Verol Cowans violated her on the drives to Roosevelt Elementary in West Palm Beach, where she attended the third grade. She said the abuse escalated at home, where her mother's then-boyfriend showed Oshea pornography and sexually assaulted her when the two were alone.
Cowans, a 66-year-old corrections officer who now faces life in prison, remained expressionless throughout her testimony. He later took the stand to deny the charges against him, maintaining that his only crime was being an inattentive father — paying more attention to Oshea's step-siblings, his own children, than to her.
Prosecutors countered the deputy's story with a recorded phone call in which Cowans appeared to admit to the crime and offer an explanation for why he did it.
"Given the right circumstances — in law enforcement, we say 'opportunity' — if you have an intent, all you need is opportunity," Cowans told Oshea, unaware of the detective listening in. "If you have intent, you have the ability. All you need is opportunity."
Cowans had all of the above, said assistant state attorneys Karen Black and Alexa Ruggiero. Even after Oshea, then 12, told her mother of the abuse that began five years earlier, Cowans remained a fixture in their home. Her mother told jurors that the financial support Cowans provided took precedence over her daughter's safety.
The mother deserves to be jailed too.
Defense attorney claims victim confused her childhood memories of abuse
Oshea, now in her early 30s, didn't talk about the abuse again for more than a decade. She told jurors that she wanted to report Cowans before she got married and had her first child, but both milestones passed without a word to police.
It wasn’t until she moved to a different city, far from Cowans, that Oshea said she “was finally able to stand up to the monster who stole my innocence away.”
Her report to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in 2019 triggered the response she’d expected when she told her mother years earlier. Deputies arrested Cowans while he worked at a satellite jail in Pompano Beach, pointing to incriminating statements he'd made when Oshea confronted him about the abuse in a call secretly monitored by PBSO.
In the call, played aloud for jurors during the trial, Cowans said he was "a different person then."
"This is one area of my life that I regret so much," the deputy said. "Man's heart is full of wickedness."
Defense attorney Bobby Gentile told jurors that Cowans was talking about his strained father-daughter relationship with the girl — not sexual abuse. He argued that Oshea had confused her decades-old memories of abuse and misidentified Cowans as the perpetrator.
Gentile pointed to a statement Oshea made during her initial interview with detectives. She said that years before Cowans entered her life, she'd suffered the same abuse at the hands of a babysitter.
"What impact would that have on a child at 4, or 5 or 6 years old?" Gentile's co-counselor, Michael Dutko, asked jurors. "What impact would that have, that might later result in flawed, faulty memories?"
Oshea called the argument "an insult, like a slap in the face." She said she trusted her memory but could only hope that jurors would, too. It took them an afternoon of deliberation to tell her, and the judge, that they did.
Deputy remains suspended without pay in the wake of his conviction
The Broward County Sheriff's Office suspended Cowans without pay following his arrest in 2019. In an emailed statement to The Palm Beach Post that same year, Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony said that any employee found guilty of a criminal offense, "especially as it relates to the nature of these allegations," would be permanently removed from service.
When asked about Cowans' employment status in the wake of his conviction, BSO spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright said he remains suspended without pay.
Cowans, who lived in Port St. Lucie, was hired as a detention deputy in 2005 and left for personal reasons in June 2011. He was rehired in 2013. Records show that Cowans was a loss-prevention officer for a hotel in Palm Beach prior to his initial stint with the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Circuit Judge Howard Coates is scheduled to sentence him at 1:30 p.m. on May 23. Cowans faces life in prison on three counts of sexual battery on a child younger than 12.
When asked Friday what advice she would give other survivors of sexual abuse, Oshea's message was simple: Stop being silent.
"Speak the truth, scream it to the sky. It’s time to yell, it’s time to scream, it’s time to end the silence," Oshea said. "The secrets that the monsters tell us to keep are not our secrets. It’s not our shame. We have nothing to be ashamed of."
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, the Palm Beach County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center can help. Reach their helpline at 561-833-7273, or toll-free at 866-891-7273.
Former scout leader jailed for third time for
child sex abuse
A former scout leader has been jailed for 14 years after he was found guilty of sex offences against a boy
more than three decades ago.
John Pycock, 83, of Winn Street, Lincoln, had denied abusing the boy in the late 1980s and early 1990s
while he was a scout leader in Billinghay and then Fiskerton.
A jury at Lincoln Crown Court convicted him of indecency with a child, two counts of indecent assault
and two other serious sexual offences.
It is the third prison term being served by Pycock who has been placed on the sex offenders register
for life.
He was previously jailed for six years in November 2020 after admitting three charges involving sex offences
against a young girl.
He was also given a 51 month sentence in June 2014 when he admitted five sex offences against young boys.
At Friday's sentencing, Lincoln Crown Court heard Pycock was in poor health and faced the prospect of
never leaving prison.
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