The Child Protection eNewsletter

Civil Rights leader convicted of incest… 

A Virginia jury convicted an iconic civil-rights figure of incest after concluding that he had sex with his teenage daughter 15 years ago.  Read More

The Reverend James L. Bevel, 71, a top lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. who also helped organize the Million Man March, faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced.

The four-day trial in Loudoun County Circuit Court included bizarre testimony about Bevel's philosophies for eradicating lust, and parents' duty to "sexually orient" their children.

Bevel's daughter testified that she was repeatedly molested by Bevel beginning when she was just 6 years old, culminating in an act of sexual intercourse in 1993 or 1994 that formed the basis of the incest charge.

The jury reached its verdict after about three hours of deliberations.  It later recommended a 15-year prison sentence for Bevel.  Jurors could have recommended a sentence ranging from five to 20 years.  The judge can lower the recommendation, but he cannot increase it.

Before the verdict, the jury had heard only passing reference to Bevel's role in the civil rights movement.  But during the sentencing phase of the trial, the jury saw a documentary that spelled out Bevel's key role in organizing the 1963 Birmingham Children's Crusade.  Bevel and King were leading organizers of the marches, in which police turned fire hoses and dogs on child protesters, drawing international attention to the brutality that was keeping segregation in place in the South.

Bevel was also a leading organizer at other iconic events in the civil rights movement, including the 1965 march at Selma, Alabama

Prosecutor Nicole Wittmann acknowledged Bevel's accomplishments but said the jury shouldn't be swayed by them.

"There's nothing I can say to take away what this man has accomplished, but there are two Jim Bevels," Wittmann told the jury.  "We're talking about the one who had sex with his child."

Jurors heard a phone call between Bevel and his daughter in which he never explicitly admits to sexual intercourse but seems to take for granted that it occurred.  During the call he explains the importance of teaching his daughter "the science of marriage" and admits that he did not want her to get pregnant after the incident.

In other news… 

The 16-year-old girl--pregnant for a second time and possibly suffering from three broken ribs--who alerted Texas authorities to raid a polygamist compound (See  vol6_iss27.) wanted to escape and save her younger sister from the same fate, court documents have revealed.  Read More  The girl, whispering into a cell phone late at night so she would not be overheard, was apparently terrified to be caught.  But by the end of her final phone call to a family violence shelter, she broke down crying and tried to get counselors to forget what she had said.  "She began crying and then stated that she is happy and fine and does not want to get into trouble and that everything she had previously said should be forgotten," court documents stated.  Police are still trying to determine whether she is one of the 416 children taken from the Yearning for Zion Ranch.  In a series of hushed calls from a cell phone that wasn't hers, the girl told family violence counselors how she had been forced into a "spiritual marriage" with a 50-year-old man who had six other wives and would force himself on her sexually.  Meanwhile, the 57 page petition for protection of children in an emergency is now available online at Read More.  The affidavit unsealed Wednesday mentions a 16-year-old girl who has four children.  Texas law prohibits polygamy and the marriage of girls under 16.

A McHenry County, Illinois school district moved to fire an elementary school principal arrested over the weekend in Wisconsin and accused of improper conduct with two teenage girls.  Read More  Daniel Markofski, 47, principal of Spring Grove School in far north suburban Richmond, was suspended without pay, and the Nippersink District 2 School Board also scheduled a dismissal hearing.  Markofski, who lives in Richmond, was accused of taking the girls, cousins ages 15 and 16, to a motel near Milwaukee for a weekend that police say included alcohol, marijuana, pornography and sex, a Wisconsin official said.  He is charged with having sexual contact with a minor and two counts of exposing minors to harmful material.

A Baltimore teacher said she was beaten by a student inside her classroom in an attack that was caught on camera.  Read More  Jolita Berry said the attack happened at Reginald F. Lewis High School.  The video, taken from a cell phone, showed up online.  It shows a classroom fight, and Berry said the person at the bottom being beaten is her.  Berry, an art teacher, said she told a student to sit down and behave just before the attack occurred.  "I looked over, and her friends were cheering her on," Berry said. "And before I knew it, she hit me in the face."  Other teachers helped break up the fight.

Madeleine McCann’s parents, family friends and other holiday-makers have been called back to Portugal to participate in a reconstruction of the night she disappeared, the London Times has learned.  Read More  Detectives want to replicate the events at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz on the evening that Kate and Gerry McCann reported their eldest daughter had been abducted.  They have asked dozens of people to attend the event after the completion of a series of interviews with key witnesses.  The unprecedented reconstruction is planned for the middle of next month, shortly after the first anniversary of Madeleine’s disappearance on May 3.  Portuguese police have written to witnesses, asking them to cooperate by attending the event.  The reconstruction would involve dozens of people who were in Praia da Luz from the early afternoon of May 3 until Madeleine was reported missing from her bedroom at 10 p.m.  Meanwhile, the McCanns implored the European Union to set up a cross-border alert system for abducted children.  Read More  They told lawmakers in the European Parliament that the system could be modeled on a similar program in the United States, the so-called "Amber" alert.  They noted that the U.S. program helped recover 68 kidnapped children in 2007--and several hundred over the past five years.

Child custody determinations in scores of Australian Family Court decisions could be challenged following a ruling debunking parental alienation syndrome, a controversial diagnosis of the effects on a child when one parent denigrates the other.  Read More  The Psychologists Board of Queensland last month disciplined prominent Brisbane clinical psychologist William Wrigley, saying he had acted unprofessionally in giving evidence about parental alienation syndrome to the court.  An investigation found that Dr Wrigley's evidence three years ago, which had led to a mother losing custody of her two children, constituted "professional conduct that demonstrates incompetence or a lack of adequate knowledge, skill, judgment or care".  For more on the so called syndrome, visit vol2_iss3

Police said they have identified two victims after the arrest of a 36-year-old man who they said videotaped himself having sex with a handcuffed girl.  Read More  Matthew Kent Sheley faces one charge of sexual battery on a minor.  On the tape, police said, Sheley is seen having sex with a girl believed to be between 7 and 9 years old.  Police said that although Sheley's face is not seen on the tape, he was identified from distinct tattoos on his body.  Police said a birthmark on the girl's left forearm visible in the video helped them locate the girl.

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