Archive for the ‘General’ Category

(March 9) — Predatory sex offenders do not generally strike at random. Instead, they methodically plan out their crimes and carry them out with cunning efficiency.
"When you are dealing with someone who assaults a child that is not within the family, you are dealing with a special breed of predatory offender," Houston crime victim advocate Andy Kahan told AOL News. "They are secretive, devious, calculating and diabolical. Unfortunately, there are a lot of these sick and depraved people out there, and there is no easy way to identify them."
To describe the mind of a predatory sex offender, Kahan cited a journal that authorities found inside a convicted sex offender’s jail cell.

Courtesy of Texas Crime Victims Division

This is an excerpt from the journal of a child molester. Andy Kahan, an advocate for crime victims, said the man "wrote a how-to book on how to find child victims."

"The convict wrote a how-to book on how to find child victims from 8 to 12 in different scenarios, such as grocery stores, laundromats, funeral parlors, etc.," Kahan said.
Kahan wouldn’t comment on the offender’s name or the facility in which the journal was confiscated, but he said the entries within it are "diabolically chilling and brilliant," due to the comprehensive scenarios.
One of the tactics outlined in the manual details how to find a victim at a funeral home.
"Check newspaper under death and look for large families with young children," the journal entry reads. "Also, look for those being laid out during the week (gives me time to call family). I’ll look for their phone number or call information. Also try the funeral home for phone number of family. When family member answers … say you purchased furniture or appliances and was told to call [to find out] when to deliver. Ask when to deliver/pick up and so forth. Visit funeral home a couple hours before it opens. Stand outside the building near the entrance. Talk to the family with young girls of interest. Speak to the child."
Kahan declined to continue detailing the entry, citing his desire to prevent too much information from getting into the wrong hands.
"You and I can’t think like that," Kahan said. "It is incredible to look into their mind and see how they go about getting prepared."
A similar entry in the journal details abducting a child from a grocery store:
"Go to the grocery store. If girl enters store alone, approach saying that your mother said [to] pick up a box of tea bags. Ask if [they] have enough money. Say, ‘How much do you need [to] get the tea bags?’ Help with the shopping. Walk to the cart and so forth."
The entry then offers instruction on how to incapacitate the victim and includes examples of what to say: "If you don’t do as I say, my friend will kill your mother."
Westley Allan Dodd, a convicted serial killer, child molester and pedophile, also kept a journal, in which he detailed plans for his victims.
"Just had a brilliant thought — I must purchase an audiocassette recorder. That way I’ll later be able to log exact words and reaction descriptions during a rape, molest, operation, murder, etc.," a diary entry reads. "That will do until I can afford the more expensive camcorder with sound. Kidnap victims will not be told anything until I can do it on tape."
Dodd was arrested in November 1989 for trying to abduct a young boy from a movie theater in Washington state. When police searched his home, they found a torture rack and other evidence, including photos of his victims. Dodd was ultimately arrested and convicted for the murders of three children, ages 4, 10 and 11.
True crime writer Gary C. King wrote about Dodd’s life and exploits in the book "Driven to Kill." King spoke extensively with Dodd and was given exclusive permission to use and reprint the diary.
"Like many such pedophiles, Dodd was a meticulous planner," King told AOL News. "He told me that he spent many an evening at home alone, after getting off work from his job, planning his future outings, his ‘hunt’ for victims, studying area maps and marking the locations where he wanted to focus his attention. He especially liked to stake out parks and school playgrounds."
From Dodd’s journal: "While most of my future victims will die (in various ways), I also hope to have some long relationships with children as well. I’d like to make some child porno movies. I also hope to get ‘before and after’ photos of my ’sex-murder’ victims as well."
King says Dodd spent a lot of time fantasizing and admitted he liked to masturbate while recalling his prior molestations. "I believe that is one of the reasons he kept such meticulous notes of his crimes. Fantasy was very important to him," King said.
Dodd was executed by hanging on Jan. 5, 1993. In addition to the murders he was convicted of, Dodd is believed to have molested more than 50 children.
According to David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, 10 to 20 percent of all sex offender cases involve predator cases.
Finkelhor said that incidents of child sexual abuse are on the decline. "There’s been a pretty big decline, in terms of cases being substantiated by child protective authorities," Finkelhor told AOL News. "It’s down about 62 percent since 1993."
Finkelhor said that "greater awareness" and "prevention" are responsible for the decline. "Getting caught is also a pretty big deterrent," he added.
Despite the decline in cases, the number of victims remains high. Darkness to Light, a nonprofit organization that offers programs to raise awareness of sexual abuse, has collected statistics that show one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. Additional statistics show that an average serial child molester may have as many as 400 victims in his or her lifetime.
Kahan said that is 400 victims too many.
"The numbers are unacceptable," he said, adding that statistics, especially those dealing with repeat offenders, are not entirely reliable.
"Recidivism can be defined in too many different ways," Kahan said. "For example, we have people who are on parole/probation that are not considered recidivists because they didn’t go back to prison, but they got a new conviction. So they are easily manipulated statistics."
We are in the middle of a "national public safety health crisis" that needs to be dealt with not only through education and preventative measures but also through the criminal justice system, he said.
"We need to recognize this problem for what it is and start handing down lengthy sentences to these offenders, particularly those that target children," Kahan said.

A Kentucky woman was charged with assault after she allegedly squirted breast milk into the face of a deputy, sparking online debate Sunday in the local media.

Toni Tramel, 31, was arrested Thursday for public intoxication in Owensboro, WYMT-TV reported, but it is what she did next which has attracted headlines.

As Tramel changed into an inmate uniform, she squirted a stream of breast milk into the face of the female deputy watching over her.

A press release from the Daviess County, Kentucky, Detention Center, said that after the deputy decontaminated herself from the “bio-hazard”, Tramel was charged with third degree assault.

While the public drunkenness was merely a misdemeanor offense, the assault is a felony charge and a US$10,000 bond was set.

Reports of the case have sparked debates about whether using breast milk as a weapon should constitute a felony assault case, with many readers likening it to an accused person spitting on an officer.

Also sparking feedback has been the use of the term “bio-hazard” to describe breast milk.

Kevin Ricks

FEDERALSBURG, Md. – Police are looking for victims who may have had unsupervised contact with a teacher who faces sex offenses from as far as a decade ago.

Federalsburg police said Kevin Ricks, who is in custody as of Friday morning, is accused of sex offenses against a 16-year-old former student in Manassas, Va.

Police said they conducted a search warrant at Ricks’ home in Federalsburg this week and discovered potential evidence, including pictures that show abuse on a victim who appears to have passed out. Authorities said they’re trying to identify possible victims, particularly boys.

Anyone with children who may have had unsupervised contact with Ricks is asked to call police at (410) 754-8966.

(March 5) — A South Korean couple addicted to the Internet left their 3-month-old daughter to starve to death while they raised a virtual daughter online during 12-hour bouts at a cyber cafe, police said.
The husband and wife had been on the run since their baby, born prematurely, died five months ago of severe dehydration and malnutrition, police said. They were arrested this week near their home south of the capital Seoul and charged today with child abuse and neglect.
Police say the couple left their infant alone in their apartment and rushed back from the Internet cafe just once a day to feed her. South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency first reported the arrests, quoting police.

Prius Online

A South Korean couple was accused of leaving their infant unattended while they played the online game Prius for hours on end. This is an image from the game.

The case highlights what experts say is as a growing trend of Internet addiction in South Korea, which has the highest broadband penetration per capita in the world. Its 24-hour cyber cafes are a mecca for online gaming. Last month, a 24-year-old man collapsed and died in an Internet cafe in the southwestern city of Kwangju after playing computer games for 86 hours straight.
The trend has grown worse with rising unemployment. In this case, police said the couple "indulged themselves online" to escape reality. "The couple seemed to have lost their will to live a normal life because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby," police officer Chung Jin-Won told Yonhap.
The couple "raised" a virtual character called "Anima" in the popular role-playing computer game Prius Online, police said. The game, similar to Second Life, allows players to create another life for themselves in a virtual world, which includes choosing a job, interacting with other users and earning an extra avatar to nurture once they reach a certain level.
"They indulged themselves in the online game of raising a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby," Chung said.
The couple, 41-year-old Kim Yoo-chul and his 25-year-old wife, Choi Mi-sun, also met online. It was not clear whether they had a lawyer.

While 2009 dragged on, records show 47 assaulted

In December 2008, an investigation into alleged sex crimes by Lewes pediatrician Earl B. Bradley was blocked when a Sussex County Superior Court judge rejected the state’s attempt to raid the doctor’s office.

Dealt a setback, Delaware authorities never took further steps that could have stopped the suspected pedophile.

While the doctor continued to treat hundreds of children a week, police and prosecutors didn’t present the search warrant to another judge, or bolster it with new evidence. They didn’t seek an arrest warrant. They didn’t ask federal authorities for help. They didn’t report Bradley to the state medical board, which could have suspended or revoked his license.

Over the next 12 months, a stretch during which a state police spokesman said detectives "didn’t have anything to work with," Bradley raped or sexually assaulted 47 young girls in the Disney-themed office and filmed the attacks, last month’s indictment said.

The fact that so many children were allegedly abused after the search warrant was rejected has led some to question whether prosecutors and police did enough. While Attorney General Beau Biden said prosecutors decided not to report Bradley to the Board of Medical Practice and risk damaging their case, some legal and medical experts said officials needed to do everything they could to keep the doctor away from more children.

"It’s incomprehensible that a prosecutor would not try to stop the further abuse of children for fear of jeopardizing the investigation," said Colm F. Connolly, U.S. attorney for Delaware from September 2001 until January 2009. "This is inexcusable and too many people have paid a horrible price for the lack of judgment."

Biden, who has touted his get-tough approach with sex criminals who prey on children, insists authorities took "affirmative steps and that work resulted in Bradley’s arrest" in December. But Biden and police have refused to provide a single example of how they furthered the investigation in the year leading to Bradley’s arrest.

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Some official statements, however, belie Biden’s contention that his office ran a successful investigation while Bradley was abusing roughly one new girl a week at BayBees Pediatrics.

State police spokesman Sgt. Walter Newton said troopers "had exhausted all their leads" and were stymied until police were contacted by the parents of a 2-year-old girl who said Bradley abused her Dec. 7. "It was the critical piece of information that allowed us to go forward" with an arrest on Dec. 16, Newton said.

Compounding the lack of new leads was the fact that the initial lead detective on the Bradley case, Lawrence Corrigan, retired in early 2009 and case files were turned over to Detective Thomas Elliott.

After The News Journal reported in January that criminal investigations of Bradley in 2005 and 2008 failed to result in charges — a revelation that angered parents and the public — Biden initiated an investigation into why no one in law enforcement or the medical community reported the doctor to the Board of Medical Practice, as required by law.

Biden, however, is reviewing only the 2005 investigation of Bradley overseen by the office of Attorney General M. Jane Brady. Biden said the 2008 case during his tenure is not subject to his inquiry because the investigation was "active" and "ongoing" — relieving prosecutors and police of the obligation to report Bradley to the medical board.

If they had reported Bradley, Biden said, the board would have been required to notify the doctor and he could have destroyed evidence — "a risk prosecutors were unwilling to take," Biden said.

But Connolly’s opinion that the medical board should have been notified is shared by James T. Collins, director of the Delaware Division of Professional Regulation that oversees the board.

"We work with law enforcement. We get an idea of what they have done and what their plan is, and we will collectively move together on a path forward," he said. According to the law, state police and the Attorney General’s Office are among agencies that must file a written report "within 30 days of becoming aware" of a doctor’s misconduct.

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Biden also stressed that while the enormity of Bradley’s alleged crimes is now known, in 2008, investigators suspected only that the doctor was doing inappropriate exams in the presence of a parent.

While Biden says preventing child sex abuse is a focus of his administration, the attorney general acknowledges he knew nothing about the Bradley investigation until sometime after returning to work in October after a one-year stint in Iraq with his National Guard unit. Biden would not say whether he knew of the Bradley case before the doctor’s arrest.

While Biden was away, chief deputy Richard S. Gebelein was acting attorney general. Now working in Europe, Gebelein said by e-mail last week that he never knew about the Bradley investigation. Gebelein resigned after Biden returned in October.

A slew of allegations

The crimes Bradley is accused of committing would rank him among the worst pedophiles in U.S. history.

In 2009 alone, Bradley forced dozens of patients as young as 3 months old to engage in intercourse and oral sex, authorities said. Tapes seized from his office once authorities were able to search it after the doctor’s arrest show girls crying, screaming and running from Bradley, who yelled at some to obey his commands, his face contorted in rage, detectives wrote in court papers. Five girls appeared to lose consciousness or stop breathing during attacks, according to the February indictment.

Bradley faces 471 charges relating to the taped rapes and sexual abuse of 102 girls and one boy from December 1998 through December 2010, and Biden expects to file more charges based on interviews with parents and patients. Bradley, 56, who is being held at the state prison near Smyrna in lieu of $2.9 million bail, will pursue a mental-illness defense, defense attorney Gene Maurer said.

More than a year before his arrest, police received three abuse reports, between September and December of 2008, when parents of three girls complained that Bradley conducted inappropriate vaginal exams, Elliott, the detective, wrote.

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One complaint occurred after a 12-year-old went to Bradley for a sore throat and pink eye. Bradley did not take her temperature, a throat culture or urine specimen. Instead, he performed a vaginal exam, penetrating her "for two minutes," then gave her a toy fit for a toddler.

Another mother said Bradley gave her daughter a four-minute vaginal exam when she went to be tested for attention deficit disorder, then kissed her and asked, "Is the wetness on your cheek from my kiss or from your tears?" He later kissed her again and "asked if she wanted to stay with him for the night," Elliott wrote.

Finally, an 8-year-old who went to Bradley for excessive urination received a vaginal exam, and was told to come back two more times with a urine specimen — appointments at which Bradley again conducted vaginal exams. The girl said Bradley wore no gloves and kissed her on the lips. After Bradley told the girl to repeat the process a fourth time, her grandfather took her to another doctor who did not have her remove her clothes.

On Dec. 17, 2008, a former employee of Bradley’s told police the doctor installed surveillance cameras around his office that he could access from his home computer.

During the course of the 2008 investigation, state police also learned of the 2005 investigation by Milford police, who tried to charge Bradley with offensive touching after a girl complained that he kissed her too much. Police could not arrest him because prosecutors decided they could not prove their case.

Police reviewed Milford’s files, including interviews with employees who said Bradley took antidepressants from office samples and that parents told of improper touching of patients, such as putting "his hand under their clothing."

Milford police interviewed three pediatricians who had worked with Bradley. One saw him hold and kiss girls. Another said patients transferred to him because Bradley forced girls "to get undressed" or took them away from parents.

In addition, Dr. Lowell Scott told police he called Bradley a "pedophile when talking to colleagues" — a remark Scott told a reporter was "taken out of context."

Search warrant rejected

Armed with what they thought was ammunition to raid Bradley’s office, authorities took a search warrant application to a judge in Georgetown. To get a warrant approved, authorities must convince a judge there is "probable cause" a crime had been committed and evidence would be found there.

While probable cause is a nebulous term, Delaware defense attorney Michael W. Modica defined it as "more likely than not" that evidence would be found.

The judge ruled that police had not met the legal standard to conduct the search, Biden said. Neither he nor police would identify the judge. None of Sussex’s three Superior Court judges at the time — T. Henley Graves, Richard Stokes or E. Scott Bradley — would say whether he rejected the warrant application.

Failure to get the warrant meant police would not discover the trove of evidence in computer files at the doctor’s Coastal Highway office.

The warrant’s contents remain a mystery. Police, prosecutors and judges would not release a copy, saying it is not a public document. Nor would they reveal the date it was rejected. Asked why the date was secret, Biden spokesman Jason Miller said, "We are not going to comment about evidence." Asked how a date constitutes evidence, he said, "You have our answer."

‘Content to sit and wait’

Only police, prosecutors and the judge know if the warrant had critical weaknesses or could have been strengthened. But Modica said that because authorities had evidence that Bradley could be continuing to abuse children, they needed to do whatever they legally could to "dress up the warrant" and establish probable cause.

Knowing the date that the judge reviewed the warrant also would help others understand the evidence police had at the time, legal experts said. Court records say that on Dec. 17, police were told Bradley had installed cameras inside his office, cameras he could view from home. If authorities knew about the cameras when they sought the warrant, that information should have been included, experts said. If they omitted the cameras or learned about them after the warrant was denied, they should have added those facts to the warrant and taken it back to the judge.

Connolly called the cameras "a critical fact" that could have nudged the judge to approve the warrant.

Modica agreed: "It would raise a red flag."

Ferris W. Wharton, Delaware’s former chief deputy attorney general and Biden’s Republican opponent in the 2006 election, said prosecutors faced hard choices. "You’ve got a guy you know is molesting children and has got access to children on a daily basis. What do you do?" he said.

One possible move, Wharton said, would have been to ask a judge to sign an arrest warrant. Though they couldn’t persuade the judge that evidence of molestation would be found in the office, the statements of parents who witnessed abuse, coupled with the children’s accounts, could have justified an arrest.

"They had probable cause that he was doing these pelvic exams on children in the presence of parents and there was no medical basis for that," Wharton said. "That could be probable cause that he committed a crime."

If Bradley was arrested at the office, police might have seen evidence or Bradley might have made an incriminating statement that could have persuaded the judge to allow a search, Wharton said.

Connolly also said prosecutors could have tried other methods, such as taking the warrant to a new judge or reporting Bradley to the medical board or child protection officials.

"They didn’t try, though. They were content to sit and wait until other victims came forward as opposed to doing something proactive to prevent more kids from being victimized," Connolly said.

Connolly said Biden’s office also could have sought help from federal authorities, who have more resources. Federal officials were not contacted until after Bradley’s arrest, to help decrypt video files, said Connolly’s successor, David C. Weiss.

Though political pundits have called Wharton and Connolly potential GOP foes against Democrat Biden in his bid for re-election this year, both said they were not running.

Eli H. Newberger, a renowned Boston pediatrician and author who has written extensively about child abuse, said he suspects that what happens elsewhere occurred in Delaware — investigators were not aggressive enough when pursuing a prominent person — in this case, a doctor.

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"The protection of children is a paramount value," Newberger said. "Compromising it suggests a higher priority to protecting a doctor and the image of medical professionals over the protection of children. It raises serious questions about the ethics and intentions of these so-called investigators."

‘Nothing was being done’

The vast majority of the rapes with which Bradley has been charged occurred after January 2007, when Biden took office after promising to start a child-predator unit.

The seven-employee Child Predator Task Force includes a prosecutor and three state troopers and gets input from other law enforcement agencies. The unit’s primary focus is tracking those who view and share child pornography online, and it also assists in cases that involve digital images, text messages or other computer files.

There is no evidence in the public record that Bradley shared images of the sex acts he is charged with filming.

Biden said the task force has worked on the Bradley case since the 2008 reports surfaced, but would not say what was done.

Though Biden will not talk about specific steps he said investigators took after the warrant was rejected in December 2008, he and aides defended the decision not to take it to a different judge or to report Bradley to the board.

Steven P. Wood, who served as state prosecutor before Biden took office, said that while it’s legal to take a denied warrant to another judge, in 25 years as a prosecutor in Delaware, he doesn’t recall it ever being done here.

"It’s a practice called judge shopping and it’s grossly inappropriate. I’m sure the court would not look kindly on the practice," Wood said.

Wood and Jennifer D. Oliva, deputy state solicitor, also said Delaware case law has established a right for police investigations to remain secret, and both said they know of no Delaware cases where information about an ongoing investigation was shared with the medical board..

"The only way to protect all of Delaware’s children from the doctor was to get a conviction with incarceration," Oliva said.

The bottom line, Biden said, is that "Dr. Bradley is in a place where he cannot hurt any of our children." Biden said his "laser" focus on the case led him to seek re-election in November instead of the U.S. Senate seat his father, Joe Biden, left in 2009 to become vice president.

But the fact that Bradley allegedly attacked dozens of children during the year the case languished has infuriated some parents.

"It’s an absolute disgrace," said one mother who believes her daughter was abused in the late 1990s and expects her attack to be included in subsequent charges filed against Bradley. "You don’t keep exposing children to this predator while you are trying to build your case. But it seems like nothing was being done.."

Modica said investigators must be second-guessing themselves. "Somebody has got to be having trouble sleeping," he said, "knowing all those kids got abused."

Trafficking

Human trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, harbouring, or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery, forced labor, and servitude. It is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world.

The following letter is from Good Shepherd Sister Helene Hayes on her trip to Saipan in January 2009.

Dear Sisters,
“We were dead. You brought us back to life. You are helping us to rebuild our
lives in abundance.”

I’ve survived my eighteen and a half hour plane trips to and from Saipan (temperature 85 degrees!) and thought I would share a brief description of my experience there. My purpose in going to Saipan was to work on an evaluation of the Guma’ Esperansa program (meaning “House of Hope”) for trafficked persons funded by the U.S. Department of Justice/Office of Victims of Crime. The program is sub-contracted with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops/ Migration and Refugee Services. Saipan is a small island in the middle of the Northern Pacific Ocean (12.5 miles long, 5.5 miles wide) population, 69,000 persons – the majority of which are foreign contract workers, many of them from the Philippines, China, Thailand and Korea. Saipan is the seat of government for the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), a three hundred mile archipelago of 14 islands, of which Saipan is the largest. The CNMI, a US territory, is considered to be a “hot bed” of human trafficking perhaps due to it’s proximity to Asia and the fact that it has had its own immigration and labor laws. The influx of guest workers allows traffickers to hide victims of human trafficking in plain sight of the general population. However, in June of ‘09 the borders will be federalized by teh US government, hopefully reversing this situation to some degree. I stayed with Sr. Stella Mangona, RGS, of the Mid North American Province, who works at Guma’ Esperansa as a group and individual Counselor and who also opens her home and her heart to the Philippine community and the women and girls from the program.

In the process of the evaluation, an On-Island Consultant and I (the Off-Island Consultant) met with three groups of Philippine girls and women who have been trafficked and were clients of Guma’ Esperansa who now live, work or are in search of work in the broader community and continue to receive services from Guma’ Esperansa. In the Focus Group Discussion we asked the women how their lives had changed as a result of being in the program. One young Philippine woman raised her hand and said, “We were dead. You brought back to life. You are helping us to rebuild our lives in abundance.” Many of the girls have received their T Visas under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 and are in the process of relocating to the States or to Guam. The program has been in existence for 2 years and has helped 62 women survivors of sexual trafficking and 1 man from India who is a victim of labor trafficking. They are in need of a host of services; housing, medical care, food, translation services, counseling, legal and employment assistance.

In the Spring, I will meet with the On-Island Consultant, a Japanese young woman named Keiko here in Marlborough to complete our work of analyzing data from our 4 surveys; Client Satisfaction, Human Trafficking Intervention Coalition, Staff Self-Evaluation, Program Director Input and the results of our 4 Focus Group Discussions.

Saipan is a suffering community due to its deep level of poverty and an unemployment rate that rises as high as 35%. It is also an island of enormous natual beauty and promise. Please keep all the trafficking survivors and those who work so zealously with them in your good prayers.

Thank you and love,
Helene

60 Lashes Ordered for Saudi Woman

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 24, 2009

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi court sentenced a journalist on Saturday to 60 lashes after she was charged with involvement in a television show in which a Saudi man talked about sex.

The journalist, Rozanna al-Yami, 22, is believed to be the first female Saudi journalist to be given such a punishment. The charges included involvement in preparing the program and advertising it on the Internet. Ms. Yami said she had worked as a coordinator for the program but had not worked on the episode in question. She said the judge, in the western city of Jidda, had handed down the sentence “as a deterrence.”

“I am too frustrated and upset to appeal the sentence,” Ms. Yami said.

Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, the spokesman of the Ministry of Culture and Information, said he had no details of the sentencing and could not comment on it.

In the program, broadcast in July on the Lebanese satellite channel LBC, the Saudi man, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, described his active sex life and showed sex toys, which the station blurred. The same court sentenced Mr. Abdul-Jawad to five years in prison and 1,000 lashes.

The program scandalized this conservative country, and the government shut down LBC’s two offices in the kingdom.

Suspicions about Bradley not reported, plaintiffs’ lawyer says

By CRIS BARRISH • The News Journal • March 5,
2010

Lawyers who have filed 17 lawsuits against Dr. Earl. B. Bradley and Beebe Medical Center on behalf of
abused children have added new defendants: the Medical Society of Delaware and three physicians — all accused of knowing Bradley, a pediatrician accused of molesting patients, posed a threat for years but failing to report him to authorities.

The newest accusations are from parents of a 4-year-old girl and 5-year-old boy who filed suit Thursday, said their attorney, Bruce Hudson. The alleged victims are identified as Jane Doe 16 and John Doe 1.

The previous 15 complaints will be amended to include the society and three doctors, Hudson said. Besides the society, a trade group for physicians, the lawsuits name Dr. James P. Marvel Jr., former society president, and Dr. Carol Tavani, who chairs its Physician’s Health Committee.

Also sued was Dr. Lowell Scott, a Milford pediatrician who police said told them in 2005 that he referred to Bradley as a “pedophile” while speaking with medical colleagues, a remark he has since said was “taken out of context.”

Along with Beebe, where Bradley was employed or had privileges to treat hospitalized patients from 1995 until his December arrest, all are accused in the lawsuits of dereliction of duty and medical negligence for not reporting suspicions of Bradley’s “sexual abuse of young children” to the Delaware Board of Medical Practice, as required by law. The board licenses and disciplines physicians.

None have publicly acknowledged they suspected Bradley of abusing children. None would comment Thursday about the lawsuits.

Bradley, 56, who was investigated by police in 2005 and 2008 without charges being filed, now faces 471 counts of rape and abuse of 102 girls and one boy from 1998 through December. Graphic accounts of forced intercourse and oral sex have been documented in police affidavits, which say Bradley made videos of the assaults. He is being held in lieu of $2.9 million bail at the state prison near Smyrna.

The lawsuit did not detail the specific acts allegedly committed at Beebe by the society and the doctors, but Hudson said accounts from police affidavits, newspaper articles and interviews he and fellow attorneys conducted with clients and others formed the basis for the allegations.

“They could have prevented all of this from happening if they had just taken the appropriate steps in 2005,” said attorney Ben Castle, who represents the families with Hudson. “It would have saved all of the victims after that.”

Beebe officials have confirmed that in 2005, Milford police used a search warrant to try to get records about Bradley from the hospital and that they also became aware of vague allegations against him in Philadelphia, where he had practiced until 1994. Beebe officials also said Bradley was required to have a chaperone while treating patients for about a month that year.

The medical society has acknowledged getting a “communication” in late 2004 from Bradley’s sister and former officer manager, Lynda Barnes, about Bradley during that period, but Tavani has said Barnes did not report abuse of patients when she contacted the society.

omen as Shallow as Men, Says Dating Site

You might imagine that, after scanning guys’ dating profiles, women would be turned off by the douche who’s so proud of his gym-honed abs that he poses shirtless. But scientifically-collated data begs to differ: Dating site OKCupid has found that men whose profile photos include a shirtless shot get more responses—but only if they’re the proud possessors of a six-pack. Otherwise, it’s best to unveil your flabby love handles in person, duh.

Needless to say, if you’re a woman, you should hoik your boobs up to your chin for the camera: there’s a direct correlation between cleavage-exposure and number of responses, says OKCupid.

In conclusion: If you want to get a date in time for Valentine’s day, just put pride, decorum, and dignity aside and adopt D.J. Pauly D or JWoww as your role mode

Multimillionaire Pop Star in Standoff With Impoverished African Villagers
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“Malawi’s government has told a group of villagers they will have to move to make way for a $15 million girls’ school being built by pop star Madonna. Residents have refused to leave the site just outside Lilongwe, the capital.” [AP]

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: February 27, 2010

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Nicholas D. Kristof
On the Ground
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Times Topics: Evangelism

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?

“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground.

2010 Olympic Gold Medallist: “No Medal Compares to Having a Child”

By Patrick B. Craine

WHISTLER, British Columbia, February 25, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Russia’s biathlon relay team revealed the secret to their success following their gold medal victory on Tuesday, reports AFP.

“Go ahead and have babies — and get better in sports,” said Russian anchor Olga Zaitseva, 31, in a word of advice to the French and German teams, who won silver and bronze respectively.

Zaitseva told AFP that having her son, Alexander, who was born in 2007, helped her become a better athlete. “My child is my greatest happiness and he is my best little gold medal,” she said. “It has made me calmer.”

The four-member Russian team boasted three mothers, and Zaitseva’s advice was echoed by the two other mothers.

“No medal compares to having a child,” said Anna Boulygina, 30. “I think children are the main thing women are designed to do. Having a family is an enormous help to me and it is due to their support that I am able to achieve this result, so the answer is yes, it helps.”

Olga Medvedtseva, 34, said that athletes hoping to win Olympic medals should not fear that children would hurt their chances. “I would say it is a very stimulating experience and I would recommend having kids, don’t be afraid of it, you will only get better as you are all so young,” she said.

The biathlon combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. In the women’s relay, each athlete completes a 6 km leg with two stops at a shooting range. For every missed target, they must complete an extra 150-metre penalty lap.

The Russian team finished with a time of 1hr 9min 36.3sec, ahead of France at 1hr 10min 09.1sec. The Germans competed without their star athlete, Magdalena Neuner, who sat out the race after having already won two golds and a silver. They lost narrowly to the French with a time of 1hr 10min 13.4sec.

Suspect would face life if convicted in attack

WILMINGTON — Members of a street gang called "GLC" kidnapped a pregnant 19-year-old in December 2008 and took her to a Newark apartment where they punched her in the face and kicked her in the stomach, put out cigarettes on her face and held a knife to her throat while telling her she was going to die, according to prosecutors.

And when it was all over, a man the girl had dated, and who forced a gun down her throat during the assault and interrogation, told her that if anyone asked her what had happened, "We are unknown, right?" said Deputy Attorney General Joseph Grubb in opening arguments to a Superior Court jury.

That man, Vincent "Uno" Hicks, 33, of Wilmington is facing charges including first-degree kidnapping, second-degree assault, aggravated menacing and a series of weapons and conspiracy counts.

If convicted, he faces a minimum of life behind bars because of his previous record.

Five of six others charged in the incident — including the gang leader who the victim claims was the father of her then unborn-child, 30-year-old Wayne "Angel" King — have all reached plea deals with prosecutors and are awaiting sentencing.

Hicks’ defense attorney, Peter Letang, told the jury Wednesday that although his client knew the victim and the others and was at the Newark apartment where the beating took place, he did not participate and did not see it.

Letang also reminded the jury that nearly all the witnesses against his client are looking to minimize their own culpability and get reduced sentences by cooperating with prosecutors.

The victim, whose name is being withheld by the News Journal, testified that after the beating her eyes were so swollen she could barely see and gang members left her, in the dark, in downtown Wilmington to find her way back to her home a half-mile away.

She said she could not remember how long the assault lasted, testifying it began during daylight and ended after dark. It was unclear why she was beaten.

She testified she was picked up Dec. 17, 2008, by one of the female gang members at Wilmington Hospital after she decided against getting an abortion and had called King to tell him about her decision. At the apartment, witnesses said King and Hicks questioned her about how long she had been pregnant. She said King did not believe he was the father.

But the victim said another female gang member at the apartment, who went by the name "J Monster," and did not like that she had dated Hicks, was the first one to start hitting her and was the one who put out cigarettes on her face.

One of the gang members — a 15-year-old who goes by the name "Corrupt" and helped beat the girl — said they believed the victim had been "agitating" and was stirring up trouble between this gang, which saw itself as affiliated with the Crips, and another gang.

Despite the savage assault, the girl testified she later successfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

The trial before Judge Calvin Scott Jr. is expected to last several days.

Avatar Rape
February 25, 2010
By Michael Bugeja

Avatar harassment and sexual assault remain controversial issues because institutions hosting virtual worlds are not accustomed to dealing with — or even discussing — digital forms of these distressing behaviors.

Harassment and assault are frequent infractions in virtual environs, including those frequented by students and professors. London journalist Tim Guest, author of Second Lives: a Journey Through Virtual Worlds, estimated that “about 6.5 percent of logged-in residents” have filed one or more abuse reports in Second Life. By the end of 2006, he writes, Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, “was receiving close to 2,000 abuse reports a day.”
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Current statistics are unavailable. But you can monitor the types of offenses and where they occurred in Second Life by accessing its community incident report chronicling the 25 most recent infractions and resulting penalties. On Dec. 28, 2009, five of the 25 infractions concerned “indecency: broadly offensive content or conduct”; three, sexual harassment; and two, intolerance. Most penalties included warnings with four one-day suspensions and one three-day suspension. (In fairness, Linden Lab has tried to crack down on these community infractions, hosting guides such as this to inform users about abuse and how to file reports about repeat offenders.)

Educational institutions with a presence in or that introduced students to virtual worlds might want to analyze the phenomenon of avatar rape, which presents a unique challenge to traditional jurisprudence. Rape is assumed to be both physical and geographical, as in a crime scene. Both dimensions are missing on the Web. Nevertheless, avatars are symbols of the self. As such, it behooves us to investigate:

1. How avatar rape happens in virtual worlds.
2. What concepts and theories apply when the act is neither physical nor geographical.
3. Why the discussion is even necessary.

Before delving into avatar rape, I should note that such a discussion could have the unintended consequence of desensitizing the topic of real rape, whose ramifications, physical and psychological, are extreme. However, silence about virtual assault also has consequences in that many colleges and universities view virtual worlds as learning environments and may not know how to resolve issues when infractions occur.

Those unfamiliar with virtual worlds may wonder how avatar rape even happens. (You can access a short bibliography of online content devoted in part or in whole to issues involving virtual assault.) Typically, users encounter the act through three scenarios: You can lure others or be lured into it yourself. You can purchase or role-play it. You can “grief” it — a term that means to cause grief — or suffer it because of a griefer.

I became interested in avatar rape after I read an account in Gawker Media, titled “Second Life: Rape for Sale.” The post noted how users could indulge in rape fantasies (options: Rape victim, Get raped, or Hold victim) “for a trifling 220 Linden dollar things.” Diana Allandale (not her real name) shared her experience with avatar rape in response to an online article, “How exactly does ‘virtual rape’ even occur in Second Life?” Her incident happened on a beach — a typical landscape as avatars interact with each other on “islands” — when another avatar invited her to go skinny-dipping.

“Being the newbie I was, I didn’t understand that the word ‘love’ hovering over the top meant ‘intercourse.’ ”

When the rape began, she recalled, “my first thought was — ‘Hey! I didn’t consent to this!’ ” Allandale rebuffed her attacker, dressed her avatar and left, “feeling ticked off that someone would take advantage of my newbie-ness, but having learned a little about human nature.”

Allandale is no prude, by the way. She’s a high school teacher and author of erotic novels under the byline of Diana Hunter.

Then there are griefers who have haunted multiuser domains for years. In 1993, Julian Dibble published “A Rape in Cyberspace” in the Village Voice, narrating the deeds of one Mr. Bungle in the text-based virtual world, LambdaMOO:

They say he raped them that night. They say he did it with a cunning little doll, fashioned in their image and imbued with the power to make them do whatever he desired. They say that by manipulating the doll he forced them to have sex with him, and with each other, and to do horrible, brutal things to their own bodies.

Like many in academe, all I knew about avatar rape was what I had read about it. Then I witnessed an online sexual assault — and had a witness, too.

Tom Beell, a journalism professor at Iowa State, asked me about Second Life, knowing I had researched and written about it. He had never heard of the virtual world, so I opted to show rather than explain it to him using my office desktop.

I logged on and teleported to a beach. Within the first few minutes, we observed one nude male avatar violently rape another clothed male avatar drinking a pixelated martini at a boardwalk bar.

“What’s going on?” Beell asked. He looked startled. Thankfully, he couldn’t read the chat in the text bar of my monitor. In 30 years in academe, I have encountered homophobia in an inappropriate joke or offhand remark about lesbians, gays or transsexuals. Now I was reading hate speech so vile that I cannot summarize it here.

The incident occurred in 2007. I was thankful that audio was not available on my desktop at the time. If a student or staff member walked into my office and heard what I read that day on the chat bar, that person would have been exposed to hate speech in addition to avatar rape.

In researching the phenomenon, I sought viewpoints from directors of information technology and women’s studies at Big XII and other peer institutions. My research assistant Sam Berbano and I spent two months working with our Institutional Review Board, seeking approval to post our survey online.

Given the sensitive nature of the topic, the IRB asked us to warn survey participants about possible harm to their reputations should their responses be published. To lessen risk, the IRB also required signed copies of consent to anyone responding to our survey. So we opted for a snail mail version with a disclaimer: “A risk of participation in this survey may arise if some may find your opinions in the free-response section at variance with their own.”

My research assistant wondered how a survey measuring opinion about avatar rape could have more potential for harm than participation in a virtual environment in which such a digital act could occur.

As it turned out, only one respondent out of 43 provided comments for this essay. Jean Van Delinder at the time was chair of the Faculty Council at Oklahoma State University, where she is an associate professor of sociology. Van Delinder believed discussions like this raise awareness. “Since as a sociologist I view rape as an act of dominance and power,” she states, “virtual reality would be a setting conducive to this type of attack and students need to be made aware of it.”

Van Delinder also believed that “assault, even virtual assault, has a psychological and emotional component. It is more than just physical because the victim or target continuously replays in the mind what has happened and, in a sense, experiences it over and over again.”

One of the best articles citing material affirming that view is “Virtual Rape,” published by Richard MacKinnon in the March 1997 issue of Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. In one section, MacKinnon introduces a feminist definition of rape that involves damage to the self that may be physical, emotional, psychological or material. “In this way,” he writes, “rape becomes an assault not against a persona, but against the person behind the persona.”

Tim Guest, author of Second Lives, believes sexual assault in virtual worlds is real and imaginary. “As the saying goes, the thought is written in water, and the deed is written in stone. Events that take place in virtual worlds seem to lie somewhere in between, a kind of water with memory.”

He compares rape in a virtual realm to flashing in a real one.

Second Life advocates often note that avatar assault is easily avoided; you can teleport away, they say. Linden Lab recommends muting voice during verbal assaults. “Click! Problem solved,” it states.

Walking away from hate speech on campus doesn’t mean damage was circumvented or an epithet excusable or that charges cannot be filed against a person making slurs. Why should virtual reality be different when users assume liability for what happens there?

Guest agrees. Verbal assaults are just that, no matter where they happen. “The only difference being again no threat of violent escalation. Being able to teleport away is of little relevance, just another way to say you can’t be trapped or hurt.”

In most cases, he is correct. Many assume that crossover violence from virtual to real environs is unlikely because operators of avatars are in different locales. That is not always the case when people on residential campuses meet on an island operated by their residential institution.

The Lantern, campus newspaper at the Ohio State University, reported in a 2008 crime summary that a staff member contacted police about harassing phone calls at work. The harasser purportedly “knew the staff member through the Web site Second Life, and was under the impression they had been corresponding through the site for six months. … The staff member told the caller to stop calling after the caller said she had a package for the staff member and knew her address.”

Guest believes cases like this may constitute harassment and recommends that institutions transfer any existing policies in student handbooks to the virtual world. “The only danger,” he warns, “is to over-legislate the territory of sexuality, which needs a kind of animalistic disregard for propriety in order to thrive.

“Universities are probably not the place for this in SL, however.”

Some legal counsels have told me if institutions support or fund virtual worlds, they also have an obligation to inform learners through curriculums or workshops about virtual rape, harassment and other assaults on the psyche.

Diana Allendale aka Diana Hunter, who wrote about being lured into avatar rape, reminded me that online harassment happens daily to students in all manner of new media venues, not just virtual worlds. Text messages insult, she says. MySpace comments intimidate. Institutions not only need policies to deal with the fallout of these incidents, she says, but also have to educate students on how to handle them.

“It’s not a case of ‘if you are attacked,’ ” she adds, “but ‘when you are attacked.’ ”

Unlike harassing text messages or intimidating chat on social networks, the concern here involves terms of service that transfer liability to users — yet another reason that educators need to raise awareness about avatar rape and other forms of harassment.

By LAURA ITALIANO

Last Updated: 4:26 PM, February 24, 2010

Posted: 3:39 AM, February 24, 2010
A young mother who falsely cried rape, sending an innocent man to prison for nearly four years, will experience firsthand what he suffered — she’ll spend one to three years behind bars for perjury.

“I wish her the best of luck,” said William McCaffrey last night of Biurny Peguero Gonzalez.

“Jail isn’t easy.”

McCaffrey, 33, of The Bronx, was locked up after Gonzalez accused him of raping her at knifepoint on a Bronx street back in 2005.

It was a lie she repeated to doctors, cops, prosecutors, a grand jury and the jury that convicted McCaffrey.

“What happened in this case is one of the worst things that can possibly happen in our criminal-justice system,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon said as he pronounced sentence.

McCaffrey said he has some sympathy for Gonzalez and hopes she “doesn’t go through what I went though.

“I was an accused rapist in prison,” he said, adding that in prison, “rape is the worst crime possible.”

All is clearly not forgiven.

A person who would “lie and paint somebody as a rapist is worse than a real rapist or a real murderer,” McCaffrey said

He also blamed “the arresting officers, the prosecution.” Everyone, he said, “wanted to believe the lie, the ADA [assistant district attorney] first and foremost.”

Judge Solomon said, “It’s hard to imagine why anyone could have done this.”

It turned out Gonzalez robbed McCaffrey of four years of his life for the most trivial of reasons.

She’d been hanging out with a group of girlfriends when she accepted an invitation to get into his car.

After she returned, her pals were furious that she’d ditched them — so she made up the rape story to gain their sympathy.

She will be eligible for parole in a year — after serving a one-quarter of the time her victim was imprisoned.

Gonzalez was taken away after making a tearful apology to McCaffrey, who was not in court.

She also begged for mercy on behalf of her two sons, ages 3 months and 7 years.

“To Mr. McCaffrey, I am aware that nothing I do or say to him can bring back the years he spent in jail,” she said. “I want him to know I will carry this guilt for the rest of my life.”

Gonzalez, 27, had recanted her story last year after new DNA evidence proved she’d been lying and a priest to whom she’d confessed urged her to come clean.

Gonzalez had repeatedly insisted she was “110 percent” sure McCaffrey had raped her after they met in Inwood, in upper Manhattan, and she drunkenly accepted a ride.

“It was a complete and utter lie,” Assistant DA Evan Krutoy told Judge Solomon.

The outraged prosecutor asked that she be sentenced to two to six years “so that there’s a chance that she will serve what he served.”

Krutoy conceded that Gonzalez — with a previously clean record — looked like a good candidate for probation.

But ultimately, she needed to serve time, Krutoy said, “because of the extent of harm that she caused . . . She came into court and she lied.”

Her lie — blurted out as her girlfriends were slapping her around — took on a life of its own, fueled in part by McCaffrey’s long rap sheet of violent arrests.

Gonzalez could have pulled the plug on the prosecution at any time, but instead she watched McCaffrey get sent up the river for a rape he never committed.

Her lawyer, Paul Callan, conceded of the perjury, “It is not defensible.”

He insisted that Gonzalez suffered horrible abandonment and sexual abuse as a young teen, and has now had “a spiritual awakening.”

“She is not the same person as the one who committed this crime at age 22,” Callan said.

The lawyer said that at their first meeting, she’d told him, “I don’t care what happens to me. You have to get Mr. McCaffrey out of jail.”

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton

laura.italiano@nypost.com

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A young mother who falsely cried rape, sending an innocent man to prison for nearly four years, will experience firsthand what he suffered — she’ll spend one to three years behind bars for perjury.

“I wish her the best of luck,” said William McCaffrey last night of Biurny Peguero Gonzalez.

“Jail isn’t easy.”

McCaffrey, 33, of The Bronx, was locked up after Gonzalez accused him of raping her at knifepoint on a Bronx street back in 2005.

It was a lie she repeated to doctors, cops, prosecutors, a grand jury and the jury that convicted McCaffrey.
Steven HirschTHE PRICE OF DECEIT: Biurny Peguero Gonzalez gets slapped into cuffs yesterday in Manhattan court for concocting a
Steven Hirsch
THE PRICE OF DECEIT: Biurny Peguero Gonzalez gets slapped into cuffs yesterday in Manhattan court for concocting a “rape” that ruined a man’s life — all to cover herself for ditching her girlfriends.

“What happened in this case is one of the worst things that can possibly happen in our criminal-justice system,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon said as he pronounced sentence.

McCaffrey said he has some sympathy for Gonzalez and hopes she “doesn’t go through what I went though.

“I was an accused rapist in prison,” he said, adding that in prison, “rape is the worst crime possible.”

All is clearly not forgiven.

A person who would “lie and paint somebody as a rapist is worse than a real rapist or a real murderer,” McCaffrey said

He also blamed “the arresting officers, the prosecution.” Everyone, he said, “wanted to believe the lie, the ADA [assistant district attorney] first and foremost.”

Judge Solomon said, “It’s hard to imagine why anyone could have done this.”

It turned out Gonzalez robbed McCaffrey of four years of his life for the most trivial of reasons.

She’d been hanging out with a group of girlfriends when she accepted an invitation to get into his car.

After she returned, her pals were furious that she’d ditched them — so she made up the rape story to gain their sympathy.

She will be eligible for parole in a year — after serving a one-quarter of the time her victim was imprisoned.

Gonzalez was taken away after making a tearful apology to McCaffrey, who was not in court.

She also begged for mercy on behalf of her two sons, ages 3 months and 7 years.

“To Mr. McCaffrey, I am aware that nothing I do or say to him can bring back the years he spent in jail,” she said. “I want him to know I will carry this guilt for the rest of my life.”

Gonzalez, 27, had recanted her story last year after new DNA evidence proved she’d been lying and a priest to whom she’d confessed urged her to come clean.

Gonzalez had repeatedly insisted she was “110 percent” sure McCaffrey had raped her after they met in Inwood, in upper Manhattan, and she drunkenly accepted a ride.

“It was a complete and utter lie,” Assistant DA Evan Krutoy told Judge Solomon.

The outraged prosecutor asked that she be sentenced to two to six years “so that there’s a chance that she will serve what he served.”

Krutoy conceded that Gonzalez — with a previously clean record — looked like a good candidate for probation.

But ultimately, she needed to serve time, Krutoy said, “because of the extent of harm that she caused . . . She came into court and she lied.”

Her lie — blurted out as her girlfriends were slapping her around — took on a life of its own, fueled in part by McCaffrey’s long rap sheet of violent arrests.

Gonzalez could have pulled the plug on the prosecution at any time, but instead she watched McCaffrey get sent up the river for a rape he never committed.

Her lawyer, Paul Callan, conceded of the perjury, “It is not defensible.”

He insisted that Gonzalez suffered horrible abandonment and sexual abuse as a young teen, and has now had “a spiritual awakening.”

“She is not the same person as the one who committed this crime at age 22,” Callan said.

The lawyer said that at their first meeting, she’d told him, “I don’t care what happens to me. You have to get Mr. McCaffrey out of jail.”

Additional reporting by Reuven Fenton

laura.italiano@nypost.com

Our Western Director posted a little ditty that I wrote for the young children in my family. My granddaughter who is nine was inspired to write her own. I posted it.
Why ? To demonstrate that we must teach the next generation. They ARE the future. That future can be bright or grim. it can be a place where women will be valued and respected or one where women are objectified and used. It all depends on what we teach the little boys and girls NOW.
Looking at my little granddaughter Tara I am pretty optimistic and I don’t think I am being biased either.

A Glendale man accused of slaying his daughter in an “honor killing” will not face the death penalty.

After sparring with the suspect’s defense attorney over its death penalty review process, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office has said it will not seek death for Faleh Almaleki, 49.

The Iraqi immigrant is accused of slaying his daughter, 20-year-old Noor Almaleki, for being “too Westernized.”

Police say he used his Jeep Cherokee to run down his daughter and another woman in a Peoria parking lot Oct. 20. Noor Almaleki later died of her injuries.

Almaleki is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault and two counts of leaving the scene of a serious accident. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The decision not to seek the death penalty comes after Almaleki’s attorney, Billy Little, a public defender, asked a judge to take special precautions to ensure the County Attorney’s Office wouldn’t wrongly seek the death penalty because Almaleki is a Muslim.

Little requested that the office make public the process it uses to determine whether to seek capital punishment.

“An open process provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs,” Little wrote, referring to County Attorney Andrew Thomas’ Christian faith.

Laura Reckart, a county prosecutor, responded that Little’s concern about the “supposed bias” of the office’s death penalty review process was “without legitimate factual or legal basis.”

She wrote that the state can seek the death penalty for any person convicted of first-degree murder if it can prove the existence of at least one aggravating factor, not because of religion.

However, the debate stopped there. On Tuesday, Reckart filed a motion indicating prosecutors would not seek the death penalty.

Mike Scerbo, a spokesman for the County Attorney’s Office, issued the following statement Friday:

“The defendant is charged with first degree murder and, if convicted, will spend the rest of his life in prison. As is in all first degree murder cases, the decision on whether to seek the death penalty is made on a case by case basis. Cultural considerations played no part in the decision not to seek the death penalty.”

Prosecutors said Almaleki has admitted killing his daughter because she disgraced the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values.

They liken the case to honor killings that occur in the Middle East, Africa and other parts of the world. In tribal societies where the practice occurs, male family members feel they must kill a rebellious female relative who shames them by not adhering to traditional values.

Noor Almaleki had reportedly married a man in Iraq and returned to Arizona to live with a boyfriend and his mother in Surprise, police said.

HEY you nana babe
without him we would’nt have liberty
We’d probaly be brit ish slave’
if without him
but president george
would not be in his fame
without british to hate his name
I agree with you all right
good old george put up a fight.
Without him lincoln,babe ruth, martin luther king
would just not be
if george didn’t give us
that god given liberty
ya poem is good
and speaks the truth
without george they’ed be no babe ruth
alot of people wouldn’t be in there fame
if good old george had nothing to prove his name.

– Tara

authorities who raided a doctor’s office after allegations a woman died following an abortion made a shocking discovery: more than two dozen frozen fetuses.

For the second time in four days, Philadelphia Police, along with State Licensing officials and DEA agents, searched the West Philadelphia office of Dr. Kermit Gosnell on Monday.

Sources tell Eyewitness News that the search came after a patient reportedly died following an abortion on November 20.

According to the State Board of Medicine, Dr. Gosnell had an unlicensed staff member conduct vaginal exams and administer medication.

In the November 20 case, the state claims the staff member administered Demerol, Promethazine and Diazepam to the female patient.

After the doctor arrived at the clinic, the patient was given more medication. After the doctor performed an abortion, the patient started to have an arrhythmia and later died, state officials said. Autopsy results are pending.

Sources also told Eyewitness News that during the search, investigators recovered more than two dozen fetuses stored in a freezer, some dating back 30 years.

The fetuses are now being analyzed to reveal if illegal late-term abortions may have been performed.

Records indicate that back in 1995, Gosnell was publicly reprimanded by the State Licensing Board which found he ”employed a physician’s assistant that was not certified … saw at least one patient and treated him.”

Gosnell’s patients, many treated at the office for years, were surprised to learn about the investigation.

“Very good doctor. Very good doctor. I’ve known him for years from my family,” one patient told Eyewitness News.

Attempts to contact Dr. Gosnell at his home, office, by phone, and through an attorney were unsuccessful.

Dr. Gosnell’s license has been temporarily suspended. So far, he has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

The investigation is ongoing.

DOVER, Del. (Feb. 22) — A Delaware grand jury returned a sweeping indictment Monday against a pediatrician accused of serial molestation in what could be one of the worst child sex abuse cases in the nation’s history.

The 160-page indictment returned by a Sussex County grand jury charges Dr. Earl Bradley of Lewes with 471 counts of sexual crimes against 103 children.

Attorney General Beau Biden said all of the alleged victims, including one boy, were caught on more than 13 hours of video recordings, some dating to 1998, that were seized from Bradley’s office and home.

“The charges in this indictment are unique in the history of the state of Delaware, as far as I can tell,” he said.

“These were crimes committed against the most vulnerable among us – those without voices,” Biden added as tears welled in his eyes and he paused to collect himself.

Biden said that while there have been other cases around the country involving multiple victims, “I know of no other that has this many victims.”

The charges against Bradley include rape, sexual exploitation of a child, unlawful sexual contact, continuous sexual abuse of a child, assault and reckless endangering.

Bradley, who was arrested in December and initially charged with 29 felony counts for allegedly abusing nine children, is being held with bail set at $2.9 million. His medical license was permanently revoked by the state Board of Medical Practice last week.

Bradley’s attorney, Eugene Maurer, said he had not read the indictment but was not surprised by the allegations.

“I’m sure they have their reasons for including all these different victims in this indictment,” said Maurer, noting that under state law, a single conviction of rape would be enough to put Bradley behind bars for life.

Maurer added that the “real battleground” in the case will be Bradley’s mental state, not what is seen on the videotapes or alleged in the indictment.

The indictment alleges Bradley was videotaping his sexual exploitation of patients as far back as December 1998. Many victims were assaulted repeatedly, some on consecutive days, according to the indictment, which alleges that one girl was raped more than a dozen times over a period that lasted more than a year.

Authorities would not say whether they think Bradley had videotaped all of his alleged assaults or whether there may be more victims.

“I expect that we will add to this indictment with new charges over the coming months,” Biden said.

He encouraged parents and victims of Bradley, “regardless of age or gender,” to contact prosecutors, who have sent out about 3,100 letters to Bradley’s patients and set up an office in Lewes to handle complaints and direct potential victims and their families to counseling and other services.

“I know that today’s indictment will reopen painful wounds,” he said.

Sussex County prosecutor Paula Ryan declined to say how many alleged victims seen on videotape have been identified by name, or to provide an age range. The indictment refers to each alleged victim only as “Jane Doe” or “John Doe.”

After years of suspicions among parents and questions about his strange behavior from colleagues, Bradley was arrested after a 2-year-old girl told her mother that the doctor hurt her in December when he took her to a basement room of his office after an exam.

The case has shocked the close-knit coastal community of Lewes and the central Delaware town of Milford, where Bradley closed an office in 2005 after police investigated him.

While prosecutors allege regular and repeated abuse by Bradley, the indictment contains a gap of more than a year, from October 2004 to June 2006, in which no alleged crimes are listed.

Biden and Gov. Jack Markell have ordered reviews to determine whether doctors, hospitals, state agencies or law enforcement authorities failed to comply with a state law that requires all such entities to report to the medical licensing board in writing within 30 days if they believe a doctor is or “may be” guilty of unprofessional conduct.

Biden said Monday that those investigations are aimed at determining “how this physician could lurk in our midst for as long as he did.”

THE UNREPLACEABLE MAN

THERE WOULD BE NO SOJOURNER TRUTH

NO BETSY ROSS

OR BABY RUTH

IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR GEORGE.

NO INDEPENDENCE DECLARATION

OR ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION

IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR GEORGE.

WHILE OTHERS FOUGHT AND BANDIED WORDS,

LIKE TORY, TRAITORS DIRTY BIRDS

GEORGE MAINTAINED QUIET DIGNITY

AN ANCIENT SACHEM WITH SECOND SIGHT

PREDICTED THAT GEORGE WOULD WIN THE FIGHT.

“A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HE,

SPREADING THE FLAME OF LIBERTY.”

THE SACHEM’S OTHER PROPHESY:

“WOUNDED IN BATTLE HE’LL NEVER BE.”

BECAUSE HE WAS INDESPENSIBLE.

HIS PERSEVERANCE NEVER FAILED

EVEN WHEN HE BADLY TRAILED

LONG ISLAND, TRENTON, VALLEY FORGE,

PUSHING FORWARD WAS OUR GEORGE.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WOULD’VE BEEN

JUST A RAILSPLITTER WITHOUT HIM.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, MARTIN LUTHER KING,

JIMMY DOOLITTLE, JANETTE RANKIN

NO ONE WOULD’VE EVER HEARD OF THEM

EXCEPT FOR GEORGE’S GIVEN WORD.

HE SAID:

“I WON’T ACCEPT THE CROWN OF A KING.”

NO ONE HAD EVER SAID SUCH A THING !

HIS CHARACTER AND INTEGRITY

CREATED A LAND WHERE MEN COULD BE FREE

AND NONE OF THIS WOULD’VE HAPPENED,

IF IT HADN’T BEEN FOR GEORGE.

By Helen McCaffrey

CNSNews.com
Porn and Valentine’s Day
Friday, February 19, 2010
By L. Brent Bozell III
Listen to Commentary Podcasts

Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday this year, which could be celebrated as a day where our lifelong romantic love builds a foundation for our families and our faith. Or, to television executives, it could be a holiday for infidelity and pornography.

The cable channel G4 – little known except to video-game junkies, including young boys – announced they would host a “Romance-Free Valentine’s Day,” where viewers “looking for an escape from the mush can turn to the only network that will showcase unfaithful lovers and naughty adult superstars to commemorate Cupid’s holy day.”

After an all-day marathon of the show “Cheaters,” which exposes affairs – the channel promoted it as “13 hours of fistfights, screaming, and the most extreme relationship drama imaginable” – came a two-hour special touring and promoting the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, hosted by porn star Sasha Grey.

Grey is a key figure in the current campaign to take porn into the mainstream. Director Stephen Soderbergh cast her last year in his art film “The Girlfriend Experience,” which thankfully never made it into the suburban multiplexes despite rave reviews from film critics like Roger Ebert. It wasn’t an acting stretch: Grey played a high-priced call girl, instead of a cable TV hostess.

The AEE show, which aired from 10 pm to midnight (Eastern time), warned viewers of sexual content and carried a rating of TV-14, as if 14-year-old boys won’t be shocked by what followed – a seamy underworld of smut.

The programming geniuses ran this special with almost no commercials, which shows that they knew this concept was commercially radioactive, but their ardor for making a perverse “splash” won out. Is this the kind of channel that most families would choose to put in their cable package? Or is it just another smutty channel we pay for even if we avoid it like a bad neighborhood?

G4 has been trending away from its original vision of attracting gamers aged 12 to 28, as its studios have been merged in with E! (which has featured a series of porn-mainstreaming reality series like “The Girls Next Door” from the Playboy mansion).

During Sunday’s porn-expo special, they repeatedly advertised a new series called “The International Sexy Ladies Show,” which showed bimbos around the world wrestling in flour and other goofy stunts.

G4 hostess Olivia Munn appeared on the cover of Playboy last summer and did a semi-nude pictorial inside. But G4’s website promoted it wildly, quipping “This is the most historic event since the moon landing.”

This is not a “pay cable” channel. This is a regular cable channel majority-owned by Comcast, the incoming owners of NBC. Comcast clearly isn’t nervous that this kind of sleaze will endanger its merger bid before Congress.

Within a few minutes of the show’s opening credits, Grey stripped (briefly) for the camera and hopped into a bubble bath. A few minutes later, the routine was repeated by another porn star. At one point, Grey changed outfits in front of the camera – pointless except for the pixilated nudity. Near the special’s end, Grey rode a mechanical bull, except it was costumed as a giant pink representation of the male anatomy.

This causes almost the entire frame to be pixilated. There was almost endless pixilation in this special, but it’s not meant to maintain a sense of dignity. There was no dignity at this convention. It was just another way of teasing the viewer into buying the products advertised at the “mind-blowing booths,” as G4 promoted a long list of sex toys, “real dolls,” puppy and bunny masks, and even “fairly priced bondage gear.”

Some moments were ridiculous, like when one porn star named “Stormy” likened her tours of strip joints as “kind of like going to see Santa at the mall…and you get to hold my boobs.”

But some of it was just sickening. Perhaps the lowest moment of this low special is Grey proudly touting a new product she calls the “Sasha Grey Deep Penetration Vibrating Something Something that I cannot say on camera.” It’s a simulated plastic version of Grey’s lower torso for sale.

G4 even promoted the Mustang Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada. G4 host Blair Herter traveled to the site, going through the motions of how he would order a prostitute and browse the menu of services offered.

This degrading spectacle thoroughly demonstrated that pornography is naturally “romance-free” and an antidote to the “mush” of Valentine’s Day. It’s a sick joke that the “world’s first sex robot” was promoted on this special in Orwellian terms, as “True Companion.”

True love, true romance, and true companions are not found when sex is just a momentary thrill exchanged for money, but that’s not the lesson that game-playing teenagers will learn from watching cable television.

Your opinion of Sarah Palin either politically or personally is not the question. The question is how low can editorial commentators, political analysis, and the entertainment world go and how low will the American people allow it go to get a cheap thrill or a laugh at the expense of young women and special needs children.  This is as low as it gets….God Help Us.  It is not enough that the women her self has to endure the constant barrage of belittling, tasteless jokes, every move being dissected, every word being scanned for something to us as fodder for humor that is as tasteless as last weeks dry toast, now it appears that it is perfectly acceptable to use her children as the makings of even more tasteless jokes.  If you care for anything more tasteless I a supply of farm animal droppings that maybe some would care to “dine” on.

If these comments were being made in a fashion that referred to race or ethnicity, how far do you think it would go.  If the daughters of the President or his wife were being treated in such a manner over their looks, color, dress, body type, or any thing that can and at times will be used as bad press material, what would be the response.  These actions would be labeled as deplorable, and the powers that be would shout to the heavens, cry racism, reprimand the perpetrator of such actions and their political, and editorial death would be eminent.

Just because Mrs. Palin walks a different path, because she is what so many of us are, a mom, a woman who has chosen to give birth to five.  She has chosen not to be afraid to voice her opinion, an opinion that is shared by more that just a few, that does not give license to any one to use her children as the brunt of such mean deplorable attacks.

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The incident occurred Feb. 5 at the Classic Motel, 20762 Du Pont Blvd., said Georgetown police Lt. Lawrence Grose.

Police learned of the assaults from a third party Sunday and began to investigate, Grose said.

Arrested were Felix J. Flores, 22, of Laurel; Erik O. Maldonado, 18, of Milford; and Alex E. Alvarado, 18, of Laurel.

Each was charged with first-degree rape and three other offenses.

Maldonado rented a room Feb. 5 for his two friends and the 16-year-old girl, who was there because she had a past relationship with Maldonado, Grose said.

During the evening hours and into the next day, the teenage victim was repeatedly raped by all three men, Grose said.

When the men left to get some food, the victim was able to escape.

Grose said the teen was checked by a sexual assault nurse examiner, who found signs that she had been sexually assaulted.

The victim also was interviewed at the Child’s Advocacy Center and disclosed the same information to detectives.

The suspects were committed to Sussex Correctional Institution after failing to post $133,000 secured bail.

Flores and Alvarado are in the country illegally and a detainer was placed on them by immigration officials, Grose said.

Alex E. Alvarado (from left), Felix J, Flores and Erik O. Maldonado