The Child Protection eNewsletter

Michael Devlin pleads “not guilty” to Ben Ownby abduction...DA says he confessed...

The man accused of kidnapping Missouri teen Ben Ownby pleaded not guilty to his abduction during a video arraignment Thursday, but the prosecutor in the case said the 41-year-old suspect had already confessed.  foxnews.com  Meanwhile, the parents of another teen found by police at Michael Devlin's home with Ownby said they believe their son was sexually abused by Devlin during his four years in captivity.  Appearing on The Oprah Winfrey show, Craig and Pam Akers nodded their heads "yes" when the talk show host asked if they believed Shawn Hornbeck, now 15, had been sexually abused by Devlin.  ap.org

The taking of Ben Ownby, 13, proved to be Devlin's undoing.  time.com  A detailed description of a white Nissan by a friend of Ownby's quickly led police to Devlin’s Kirkwood address.  On Thursday Devlin, who had just returned from what he said were a couple of days off due to illness, had been chatting up a visiting police captain, talking about how to use a bow and arrow to fish.  "He was just as calm as can be," says Michael Prosperi, Devlin's employer.  By Friday, however, Devlin had been called in for questioning.  Just about when that happened, Prosperi said Imo's got a call from Devlin's apartment.  Prosperi called back and a boy answered.  "Who is this," Prosperi asked.  "Who is this?" the boy replied.  Prosperi then said he was Devlin's boss and asked for him, repeating, "Who is this?  Is there an adult there?”  The boy then said, “This is Shawn Wilcox.  My father is a friend of Michael Devlin's."  Then, said Prosperi, the phone went dead.  Soon after, the police announced the miraculous rescue of Ben Ownby and Shawn Hornbeck.

Questions continue to arise on why Shawn Hornbeck didn’t run anyway when he had the chance and why no one suspected he had anything other than a normal teenage life.  One friend said she would tease Hornbeck when they saw news coverage about missing posters with his likeness.  gulf-times.com  “We would even kind of giggle about it and say you look just like Shawn Hornbeck but he never acted on it, no response, nothing,” Kelly Douglas told Fox News.

Many experts see Shawn’s reaction to bizarre events that surrounded him as normal.  "Most 11-year-olds taken from their support systems are in a state of shock," said Dr. Sharon Cooper, a pediatrician on the faculty of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine.  "Their worry is who is going to provide their basic needs."  azstarnet.com  Shawn, she said, was "was totally displaced from his family and home.  This offender had established a new life for that child and he accommodated that."  The boy, she added, grew to accept Kirkwood as "his community."  Cooper, a consultant for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, also said it's much easier to dupe a younger kid than a teen.  "When you take a pretty young child away from the city they live in, after a while the child becomes compliant and complacent in the environment they're in," she said.

John Rupp, prosecutor in Washington County, dismissed any suggestion that Shawn had run away.  "Shawn was abducted against his will," he said.  "Period.  End of story."

Catholic Bishops Aware of Widespread Embezzlement in US Dioceses… 

A survey by researchers at Villanova University has found that 85 percent of Roman Catholic dioceses that responded had discovered embezzlement of church money in the last five years, with 11 percent reporting that more than $500,000 had been stolen.  nytimes.com  The Catholic Church has some of the most rigorous financial guidelines of any denomination, specialists in church ethics said, but the survey found that the guidelines were often ignored in parishes.  And when no one is looking, the cash that goes into the collection plate does not always get deposited into the church’s bank account.  The study is available online at villanova.edu.

Meanwhile, the insurance company for Vermont's Roman Catholic Church wants to investigate the diocese's conduct in 27 lawsuits alleging child sex abuse by a former priest.  wcax.com  The Roman Catholic Diocese is trying to get its insurer to pay the legal costs in the lawsuits.  But the Minnesota-based United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company says it wants to look at what the diocese knew of accusations that former priest Ed Paquette had molested boys in two states before he arrived in Vermont.

MySpace to offer limited parental software in effort to quiet critics… 

MySpace.com, News Corp.’s popular online social network, plans to offer free parental notification software in a bid to appease government critics, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. msnbc.msn.com  It would not allow parents to read their children’s e-mail or see their profile pages, and it would alert children that their information was being shared, the paper reported.

In a related story, four families have sued News Corp. and its MySpace social-networking site after their underage daughters were sexually abused by adults they met on the site, lawyers for the families said.  breitbart.com  The law firms, Barry & Loewy LLP of Austin, Texas, and Arnold & Itkin LLP of Houston, said families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina filed separate suits Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation by the companies.

"In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users," said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer.

In other news... 

Federal prosecutors have filed their first charge against convicted murderer Joseph Duncan III, but it's not for abducting two north Idaho children and killing one of them.  ap.org  The charge for interstate car theft is a placeholder to make sure he is not extradited to another state before he is tried for the kidnapping of Shasta Groene and the abduction and slaying of her 9-year-old brother, Dylan, U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman Jean McNeil said.

A criminal defense lawyer was arrested after a sheriff's deputy found him naked with a 14-year-old girl in a courthouse conference room on the Martin Luther King Day holiday when there were no court sessions.  ap.org  The deputy looked into the room during rounds and discovered 49-year-old Larry Charles and the girl, said Lt. Dan Bagnell of the police department's Special Victims Unit.  Charles was charged with solicitation, attempted statutory sexual assault and related counts.

Joel Steinberg, the disbarred lawyer who served 17 years in prison for killing his illegally adopted daughter, must pay $15 million to the girl's birth mother, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.  ap.org  Joel Steinberg argued the award was excessive and should be reduced because Lisa died relatively quickly, after "at most eight hours of pain and suffering."  "We disagree, and in simply so stating acknowledge that sometimes words fail even those who use the language to render judgments on a daily basis," the court wrote.


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