The Child Protection eNewsletter

MySpace finally hands over names of sex offenders… 

Faced with legal demands from state attorneys general, MySpace.com said Monday it will release data on registered sex offenders it has identified and removed from the popular social networking Web site.  Read More Here  The company, citing federal privacy laws, initially rebuffed a demand from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and colleagues in seven other states who last week asked for data on how many registered sex offenders are using the site and where they live.  vol5_iss35

MySpace agreed Monday to provide the information to all states after some members of the group filed subpoenas or took other legal actions to demand it.  The company said last week such efforts were required under the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act before it could legally release the data.  “Different states are going about it different ways,” said Noelle Talley, spokeswoman for Cooper, who filed a “civil investigative demand” for the information.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal used a subpoena that “compels this information right away — within hours, not weeks, without delay — because it is vital to protecting children,” he said.  “Many of these sex offenders may have violated their parole or probation by contacting or soliciting children on MySpace,” Blumenthal said.  MySpace obtained the data from Sentinel Tech Holding Corp., which the company partnered with in December to build a database with information on sex offenders in the United States.  MySpace has been under fire for more than year for creating what many feel is online playground for pedophiles.   (See vol4_iss11,  vol4_iss16,  vol4_iss17,  vol4_iss19,  vol4_iss26,  vol4_iss27,  vol4_iss41,  vol4_iss44,  vol4_iss50,  vol5_iss5  and  vol5_iss8)

Texas to release 226 more juvenile prisoners… 

The agency that runs the Texas state juvenile prison system said it will release 226 inmates after a review found their sentences were improperly extended.  Read More Here  Advocates for Texas Youth Commission inmates and their families have complained that sentences are often extended inconsistently or in retaliation for filing grievances.

Jay Kimbrough, who is heading an investigation into allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the agency's facilities, formed a panel to review the records of nearly all inmates with extended sentences. The six-member panel, which included community activists and prosecutors, reviewed the cases of 1,027 inmates whose sentences were extended.

550 prisoners were previously released because they had served their sentences and their sentences had not been extended.  vol5_iss24

Both chambers of the Texas legislature have approved legislation designed to correct deficiencies that led to widespread sexual abuse of young offenders held by the Texas Youth Commission.  Read More Here  Each version would end the practice of confining youngsters for misdemeanors and would institute better training for TYC staff.  The legislative sessions for each body have ended and the conference committee report has until Monday to be adopted or the legislation will die.  For more on the scandals that have rocked the Texas Youth Commission, see  vol5_iss13  vol5_iss15  vol5_iss19  vol5_iss23  vol5_iss30  vol5_iss31  and  vol5_iss32

In other news… 

A former South Dakota lawmaker is accused of molesting his own foster children and legislative pages.  Read More Herel  Ted Klaudt, 49, a Republican rancher from Walker, faces a long list of charges: eight counts of rape, two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, two counts of witness tampering, sexual contact with a person under 16, and stalking.  Sexual abuse of children runs in both parties and both houses of the South Dakota legislature.  Senate Democrat Dan Sutton was accused of “sexually groping” a male page last year. vol4_iss46

An Albany, New York social studies teacher at Columbia High School was charged Monday with repeatedly having oral sex in his classroom with a 16-year-old male student during the school day.  Read More Here  A subsequent investigation of the teacher found he had posed on MySpace.com as a 15-year-old boy.  Read More Here  "MySpace is a fantasy as is much of the Internet," East Greenbush Police Chief Chris Lavin said.  "It has played no role that we know of," Lavin said of the alleged activities in the classroom between Hellwig and the student.

Two College of Education researchers at Lehigh University have developed what they believe is the first comprehensive, K-12 curriculum designed to address sexual abuse and prevention education.  Read More Here  Recent reports indicate that nearly 20 percent of all girls and upwards to 10 percent of school-aged boys experience some sort of sexual abuse; many more cases go unreported.  One-half of all victims are under the age of seven.

The New Jersey State Supreme Court yesterday ruled that an appeals panel made a mistake in throwing out a $750,000 jury award to a Somerset County woman whose recollection of being sexually abused as a child was triggered by a dream.  Read More Here  An appeals court had tossed out the award because the accuser did not have an expert testify during the civil trial about the complicated and controversial theory of recovering repressed memories of sexual abuse.  The state's high court found that requiring an expert in such cases was not necessary.

An Indiana woman accused of strangling her four young children is incompetent to stand trial, a judge has ruled.  Read More Here  Elkhart Circuit Judge Terry Shewmaker on Tuesday ordered that Angelica Alvarez be committed to the state Division of Mental Health to determine if there is a probability she could become competent for trial in the "foreseeable future." If the agency finds that she will not become competent soon, he said, it should begin regular commitment proceedings.

Louisiana's Supreme Court ruled that a man may be executed for raping an 8-year-old girl, and lawyers say his case may become the test for whether the nation's highest court upholds the death penalty for someone who rapes a child.  Read More Here Both sides say the sentence for Patrick Kennedy, 42, could expand a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that held the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The high court said then that its ruling applied only to adult victims.

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