3 Caregivers, 2 of Them Women, in Pedophile and Perverts List Today

NY State Woman (caregiver) receives up to

35 years in child sex-abuse case

Judge: No remorse from woman convicted of child prostitution

Kelsey Boudin/Olean Times Herald

Tina Wagoner of Salamanca (at rear), who was convicted in June on charges related to child prostitution, awaits sentencing Wednesday morning in Cattaraugus County Court with court-appointed standby defense counsel Bryan Milks and District Attorney Lori Rieman looking on. Wagoner received 35 years in prison.

LITTLE VALLEY — Condemning a perceived lack of remorse, a Cattaraugus County judge sentenced Tina L. Wagoner of Salamanca to up to 35 years in state prison Wednesday for what authorities describe as a frightful, years-long child prostitution saga.

Wagoner, 52 — who was convicted in June of trading a young girl in her care to men for sex in exchange for drugs and alcohol — stood motionless, shackled in a green-and-white striped jail jumpsuit and afterward inquired only about the appeal process.

“The most shocking is the fact the victim was a child in your care,” Judge Ronald Ploetz told Wagoner before handing down the sentence, which also included 10 years of post-release supervision and a permanent order of protection for the victim. “You were supposed to guide her and protect her, but instead you used her. You took away that child’s youth, just as surely as you had put a bullet in her head.”

Following a three-day trial, a jury handed down guilty verdicts June 22 to first-degree rape, a class B felony; first-degree attempted rape, a class C felony; and two counts of second-degree promoting prostitution, class C felonies. The maximum sentence would’ve been 40 years.

While not a direct participant, Wagoner was charged with rape and attempted rape as a facilitator to sex crimes against the girl. The jury determined she received drugs and alcohol as payment for several men having sexual contact with the girl between January 2010 and October 2012, when she was between 10 and 12 years old, at the Hemlock Hills trailer park in Salamanca.

“There’s no evidence of any remorse or even that you care,” Ploetz added.

Investigators after the trial told the Times Herald they believe the abuse could have dated back to when the victim was 7 — she’s now 16 — with up to 30 men. District Attorney Lori Rieman said the true extent of the sexual abuse was nearly impossible to prove.

“The victim was interviewed multiple times, actually, which we try to avoid in most cases, but because of her traumatic situation it took her a while,” Rieman said after sentencing. “Initially … she had told me back pretty far, but it took a while for her to really say what happened. Once she was to that point, several of the men had died and several of them we couldn’t locate. Of course, the ones we could locate denied having any knowledge or involvement.”

The Department of Homeland Security also assisted the investigation.

Reading a victim-impact statement in court Wednesday, the girl said she remembered it beginning when she was 6.

“Tina betrayed me,” the victim said. “… When I think of my childhood memories, I get emotional because the memories I do have are not like other people’s memories. They’re memories of horrible abuse and neglect. These memories flash before my eyes every day.”

She said she wants to “overcome everything,” graduate high school and get a job.

The victim was kept in relative isolation and removed from public school, investigators said. She could read only at a low-elementary level when she was removed at 12 years old from Wagoner’s custody in October 2012, Rieman noted.

“We have a lot of interventions in the schools to try to promote disclosure of sexual abuse or child abuse,” the district attorney said Wednesday, “but all of those tracks are taken away when the child is kept exclusively in the home and not allowed to leave.”

Isn't there someone who checks on children who do not attend school? There should be!

Wagoner, who represented herself on trial with her dismissed defense attorney, Brian Milks, court-appointed as a standby counsel, continued her denials in a defense statement.

“I know I did not trade (the victim) to anybody,” Wagoner said.

Addressing the girl personally, she said, “You’re here today to put me in prison for the rest of my life.”

Wagoner originally was indicted for the crimes alongside three other men in March 2015. Two of the men took lesser plea deals and one’s case was dismissed. Invoking “concert liability” as necessary for her conviction, she asserted the dismissal and plea deals negated the prosecution’s case.

Ploetz disagreed.

Wagoner continued: “You are now 16, and you can say where you want to live. And they don’t care about you. They might make it appear so, but they don’t. They only care about your money. … The DA never went after the guys she promised she would put away for raping you. She only wanted you to accuse me, and within a few years, they will probably send you a friend to get you hooked on drugs or something.”

This is a deeply troubled woman. I hate to think of what she endured that made her that way.

Rieman visibly scoffed in response.

Wagoner will soon be sent to an all-women’s, maximum-security correctional facility, likely Bedford Hills in Westchester County, Rieman said.

“I feel that justice was done,” she added.

    Cattaraugus County, NY

Maine woman charged with child sex abuse,

another caregiver

Jessica Lynn Wells is charged with gross sexual assault and sexual abuse of a minor in Skowhegan July 13.

BY DOUG HARLOW STAFF WRITER, Centralmaine.com

SKOWHEGAN — A Skowhegan woman charged with sexual assault and sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy was released on $5,000 unsecured bail Wednesday in Skowhegan District Court.

Jessica Lynn Wells, 29, did not enter a plea before District Court Judge Andrew Benson because the charges are felonies and will go before a grand jury to determine if enough evidence is present to proceed with further court action.

Wells is charged with gross sexual assault, a class B felony; and sexual abuse of a minor, a class C felony. The alleged victim is a boy for whose long-term care Wells was partly responsible.

Dressed in a blue jail jumpsuit in court Wednesday, her hands cuffed in front of her, Wells tearfully told Benson she understood the charges against her. Benson told her that she could go to prison if convicted of the charges and could apply for a court-appointed lawyer.

Wells said she understood.

Unsecured bail is a dollar amount set by a judge, but the defendant does not need to pay the money. Wells was released on several conditions and with a promise to appear for her next court date. If she violates her bail, the state can require her to pay the dollar amount of the unsecured bail — in Wells’ case, $5,000.

The crimes are alleged to have taken place July 13 in Skowhegan. The boy’s mother reportedly received a text message from him and alerted police July 29. Wells was arrested Monday.

A caseworker with the state Department of Health and Human Services conducted interviews in Skowhegan, according to court documents. A police officer sat in on the DHHS interviews, which were audio recorded, and in which Wells admitted the assaults, police said. There also allegedly were other text messages, which police said Wells asked the boy to delete, saying otherwise she would go to jail.

Wells is to have no contact with the boy identified as the victim or with any male under the age of 18. She has a status conference scheduled with the judge, the prosecutor and her lawyer, for 8:30 a.m. Sept. 21

    Skowhegan, Maine

Texas day care owner's son charged with

child sex abuse

By: FOX4News.com Staff

Please parents, do not put your children in a daycare

where there are men or boys working or living

The son of a day care owner in Everman is accused of sexually assaulting at least one child his mother cared for. But police worry there could be more victims.

Everman police say Chance William Moore, 23, sexually assaulted a young girl for two years at his home where his mother ran a day care.

"There are 3 children that are involved. Currently, we are investigating the possibility of there being more,” said Everman Police Sgt. Craig Spencer. "My understanding is this has been an ongoing incident over the last several years."

Police say a child made an outcry last week and said the sex abuse happened "from the time she was 9 years old to the time she was 11 years old."

Case records also say the abuse "stopped only because the victim prevented herself from ever being alone with Chance W. Moore."

"They're trying to make contact with all those families and be very thorough in trying to ascertain exactly how many possibilities victims we're looking at,” said Spencer.

Child Protective Services say Moore's mother got a day care license in 2008. Police say they have at least two other cases, including one from 2008, that involved a relative of Chance Moore.

Police say they want to know if anyone else knew what was going on.

"Anybody else involved in the incident will be charged accordingly,” warned Spencer.

Police say they have families they'd like to talk with over the course of several years to see if they are looking at more victims from the Everman day care. CPS says the day care’s operations have been suspended during the investigation.

Moore is in jail and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child.

    Everman, Texas

30 Days in Jail for Edmonton Doctor Convicted of Sexual Assault, 30 Days!

I'm surprised they didn't give him a pat on the back and a gold watch.

Canadian sentences are so lame.

Dr. Ismail Taher will be on probation for two years after completing sentence

By Janice Johnston, CBC News


Dr. Ismail Taher leaves court with his wife while awaiting sentencing for sexual assault and assault convictions. (Janice Johnston/CBC)

An Edmonton, Alberta, Canada doctor was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail after being convicted last month of sexually assaulting a nurse at a Medicentre in 2013.

"I am imposing a short jail term because I know it will have a profound effect on Dr. Taher and his family," provincial court Judge Greg Lepp said in his sentencing remarks Wednesday.

"Dr. Taher has been blessed with all of life's advantages," Lepp continued. "He abused his position for selfish, prurient and unwholesome reasons.  He had no excuse. There is no remorse shown here."

So why don't you give him the sentence he deserves, at least 3 years.

After he completes his jail term, Taher will be on probation for two years, Lepp said. He will be allowed to serve his sentence intermittently on weekends.

Taher received a two-year suspended sentence on a second conviction for common assault against a female manager at another Edmonton Medicentre.

Crown prosecutor Laurie Trahan had sought a three- to six-month jail sentence, followed by two years probation and mandatory counselling. "These incidents were not trifling," Trahan told Lepp earlier Wednesday. "They were intentional."

Again, why didn't you ask for a decent sentence. You say the incidents are not trifling yet you ask for a trifling sentence! Is there something you don't get about sex abuse?

But Lepp declined to order counselling. He said he believes the jail sentence will teach Taher, whom he described as an intelligent person, that his behaviour is not to be repeated.

He's so smart he didn't learn anything from the conviction for child sex abuse, for which he was given a suspended sentence. That's 3 assault convictions and he gets 30 days. 

The sexual assault conviction marks the second time Taher has been found guilty of that charge. He was convicted last year of sexually assaulting a teenage patient. 

In June of this year, Taher, 38, was found guilty of sexually assaulting a nurse in the summer of 2013 at an Edmonton Medicentre, and assaulting a female manager at a different Medicentre.

The married father of four young girls was found to have touched the nurse's breast twice and pinched her buttocks. The manager was also touched inappropriately, but the trial judge had a reasonable doubt about the sexual nature of touching, so convicted Taher of assault.  

The trial judge, Shelagh Creagh, said she believed both victims who testified about their ordeals and found Taher to be "misleading, disingenuous and purposely ambiguous."

One of the women Taher assaulted filed a victim impact statement that was read aloud by the prosecutor at the sentencing hearing.

The victim, who cannot be identified wrote, "I came to work feeling happy and normal. Something happened that day which changed me. Dr. Taher sexually assaulted me. He touched me inappropriately and without my consent."

The woman said after Taher touched her breast and pinched her buttocks she wondered, "What could I have possibly done wrong to deserve this?  

"I was a happy person. But after that day, I was emotionally shattered."  

Taher's victims were not in court for the sentencing hearing.

Doctor convicted last year of sexually assaulting teenage patient

Last year Taher was sentenced to 12 months probation after being convicted of sexually assaulting a female teenage patient. The court has been told he voluntarily stopped treating patients in May 2015, but he continues to own and manage a medical clinic in north Edmonton.  
Taher's lawyer said media attention has had "a significant impact" on his business and has resulted in a drop in patients at his clinic.

Defence lawyer Eamon O'Keeffe said media attention has created a hardship for Taher.

"His reputation has taken a hit," O'Keeffe said, "and he's been humiliated.  It's on the internet, so it will basically be there forever."  

When Taher left the courthouse, he became angry with a CBC reporter who took his picture.

Taher's wife put her hand in front of the camera in an attempt to block the next shot, then tried to wrestle the camera out of the reporter's hand. The couple later apologized to the reporter.

Taher's lawyer had asked the judge to consider "who Dr. Taher is and what Dr. Taher means to the community."

O'Keeffe suggested the physician should be given a suspended non-custodial sentence and placed on probation.

He told the judge Taher still faces disciplinary action from the College of Physicians and Surgeons and that it's "not a certainty he'll be allowed to continue practicing medicine."

He absolutely should not!

Peace Tour Ends With Woman Raped and Murdered

New York Times, 2008

Pippa Bacca in Istanbul a few days before she was killed. Ms. Bacca and Silvia Moro were stressing the need for global harmony. Credit Sirio Magnabosco

MILAN — The two friends, both performance artists, hatched the idea about a year ago: wearing white wedding dresses, they would hitchhike from Italy to the Balkans to the Middle East to send a message of peace and “marriage between different peoples and nations.”

But the message delivered by their performance piece was mostly sad and raw. After just three weeks on the road, one of the two Italian artists, Pippa Bacca, 33, was raped and killed by a driver who offered her a ride.

Her naked body was found on April 11 in some bushes near a Turkish village after a suspect led investigators to the site. Although an official cause of death has not been given, local Turkish authorities said Ms. Bacca had been raped and strangled.

The killing has stirred broad public anger and grief in Turkey and Italy. Still, what Ms. Bacca would have wanted, her family and friends said, was her message of peace to live on.

“She thought that in the world there were more positive than negative people, and that it was right to be trusting,” said Rosalia Pasqualino, a sister of Ms. Bacca, whose real name was Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo. “Trust is a very human factor, and she believed that to understand people, you had to get to know them.”

“The family wanted to remember her in a joyous manner,” said Silvia Moro, 37, the artist who set out with Ms. Bacca on the trip, billed as “Brides on Tour,” on March 8. She said she last saw her friend on March 19 in Istanbul, where the two split up and agreed to rejoin each other in Beirut.

The performance piece, a trip through nearly a dozen countries in the Balkans and the Middle East, many of them ravaged by war recently, was meant to underscore that “by overcoming differences and lowering the level of conflict,” individuals and cultures could come together, Ms. Moro said in a telephone interview. “Meeting people was the key.”

It's a great ideal, but this is not an ideal world!

Ms. Bacca’s trip was cut short near the village of Gebze, about 40 miles southeast of Istanbul. An unemployed man, Murat Karatas, 38, has confessed to killing her shortly after picking her up on March 31, the authorities have said.

Pippa Bacca on her “Brides on Tour”
project for peace. Credit FotoUp

Accepting rides with strangers was crucial to the art performance’s success, Ms. Moro said. The artists’ statement at their Web site, bridesontour.fotoup.net, says, “Hitchhiking is choosing to have faith in other human beings, and man, like a small god, rewards those who have faith in him.”

That's a nice ideal too, but completely unrealistic. 

Italian and Turkish government officials immediately emphasized that the killing had been a cruel act by a possibly deranged person and could have happened almost anywhere.

“Just read any newspaper — people get killed for playing music too loudly, and women get raped in the subway; there are fiends everywhere,” Ms. Pasqualino said. “This was not a question of Turkey or of religion.”

It could have happened anywhere, but it happened in Turkey and was committed by a Muslim. Pippa was an infidel in a Muslim state. What he did may not have even contravened the Quran - "She who is in your right hand, do with her what you wish", Mohammed.


Update:
Hurriyet Daily News 2012


This file photo shows Italian artist Pippa Bacca during a visit to the Grand Bazaar. Hürriyet photo

The Court of Appeals has upheld a life sentence for a Turkish man found guilty of the 2008 rape and murder of Italian artist and peace activist Pippa Bacca, noting that he was detached from human values and felt no remorse for his deeds, Anatolia news agency reported yesterday.

The Court’s First Chamber, which handled the case, rejected objections from the defense that the victim had engaged in consensual sex with the man found guilty of her rape and murder, 42-year-old Murat Karataş, and that the lower court’s ruling was based on an incomplete assessment of the case. The court found that Karataş did not express any true remorse for the crime (after all, she was just an infidel) and failed to cooperate with the investigation, pointing especially to the facts that the assailant was captured after he took Bacca’s mobile phone and used it following the murder, and he refused to shed any light on the identity of a second man whose sperm was found on the victim’s clothes.

Pippa Bacca was the pseudonym of 33-year-old painter Giuseppina Pasqualina di Marineo. When she was killed she had been on a hitchhiking trip with a friend from Italy to Israel as part of their “Brides on Tour” project, a plea for peace in areas of conflict. She went missing in April 2008 after separating from her friend with plans to meet later in Beirut. Her naked body was found in a forest near the town of Gebze.


The murder caused a huge public outcry and a great deal of soul-searching in Turkey. Since then, many commemorations and cultural activities, including a documentary film, have been dedicated to Bacca.

Does anyone remember seeing this in the media when it happened?