The Child Protection eNewsletter

Sex offender who posed as child pleads guilty and will serve 70 years... 

A sex offender who posed as a 12-year-old boy to enroll in Arizona schools has pleaded guilty to seven criminal charges, two stemming from the charade he pulled for two years, and will go to prison for more than 70 years.  AP News story here

Authorities didn't find any victims of sexual abuse at the schools 30-year-old Neil Havens Rodreick II attended.  But when Rodreick's ruse was discovered in January 2007, they found an extensive collection of child pornography at his home.

Rodreick had originally faced 28 counts, but pleaded guilty to only a quarter of them in Yavapai County Superior Court in northern Arizona, according to a plea agreement document obtained Wednesday.  Rodreick pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor stemming from the pornography, as well as one count each of failure to register as a sex offender, fraud and simple assault.

The felony fraud and misdemeanor assault charge are the only ones that stem from Rodreick's involvement at schools.  Authorities say he enrolled in school under fraudulent pretenses, and that he grabbed a girl's buttocks at a charter school in Prescott Valley with the intent to injure, insult or provoke.

Authorities said that when the girl believed Rodreick to be a boy, she shrugged off his behavior as immature.  But when police told her his true age, the girl became upset and started to cry.

Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk said according to the terms of the plea deal, Rodreick must serve no less than 70 1/2 years in prison and will not be eligible for release until his sentence is up.  She declined to comment further.  See also vol5_iss6l.

In other news...

Another week has come and gone, and Caylee Anthony's mother Casey has been jailed and bailed a third time.  My Fox Orlando story here  In other developments on Tuesday, Circuit Judge Reginald Whitehead issued an order denying a request for temporary injunctive relief requested by the Chickasaw Oaks Phase III Homeowners Association Inc.'s.  In an effort to control protesters and gawking tourists, members of the association, representing the neighborhood of George and Cindy Anthony, filed an injunction seeking to keep the visitors and media confined to the back entrance of the subdivision near Hidden Oaks Elementary.  READ MORE:  order of denial (PDF)

A judge says Riviera Beach, Florida's "saggy pants" law is unconstitutional in the case of a 17-year-old who spent a night in jail for having his underwear showing.  Palm Beach Post story here  And a public defender said her office wants to get the law tossed altogether.  Julius Hart was charged when an officer spotted him riding his bicycle in the 2800 block of Lakeshore Drive with 4 to 5 inches of blue and black boxer shorts sticking out of his black pants.  A first offense carries a $150 fine or a requirement of community service; only habitual offenders face the possibility of jail time.  But, a report said, the charge against Hart meant a violation of his probation on a marijuana possession charge, so he went to jail.  Moyle ruled the law unconstitutional "based on the limited facts of this case."  Instead of issuing bail, the judge released Hart on his own recognizance.

Between 1993 and 2006, the number of infants taken by non-family members in hospitals and health settings, often by people impersonating nurses or other staff members, fell by nearly half, compared to an earlier period.  At the same time, however, the number of babies kidnapped from homes and public places nearly doubled, according to a study published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Nursing.  MSNBC News story here  Overall, the number of infant abductions by non-family members fell from about 13 a year to fewer than 10, according to the data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  That's a drop from the high of 18 babies under age 6 months kidnapped by strangers in the U.S. in 1987.

Officials say a Phoenix high school photography teacher who was looking at porn in class and inadvertently projected it onto a screen could face criminal charges.  ABC 15 News story here  Forrest Martin resigned from the staff of Arcadia High School where he had worked for five years.  Students in Martin's photography complained after the class projector began displaying pornography.  Martin told authorities he was unaware his computer was hooked up to the projector.  Teenagers in the classroom said they saw six video clips of what one student described as, "torture porn, of like girls being tied up."  "He forgot the projector screen was turned on and he started watching porn and we were all just like sitting there shocked that he was watching this in front of the class," the student said.  "He was just all into it, I don't even think he was paying attention to us, he was just all in his computer."

Meanwhile, Salt Lake City police have arrested an award-winning West High School teacher for the alleged sexual abuse of a 17-year-old student.  Fox News story here  Jose Bernaf Fajul was arrested on campus after classes ended for the day.  The 46-year-old social studies and world language teacher was booked into the Salt Lake County jail for investigation of forcible sexual abuse and forcible sodomy.  Fanjul was beginning his fourth year at West.  He was the recipient of Utah's 2007 No Child Left Behind American Star of Teaching Award.  For more information on educator abuse see our eGuide at eGuide vol1_iss30.

"What is your emergency?" asked the 911 operator.  The little boy replied, "My mom is making me blow air into her interlock."  ABC News story here  The Albuquerque, New Mexico youngster was asked to help his mother break the law and blow into her ignition interlock device to start the car.  Police responded to the call this week and charged 30-year-old Genevieve Sullivan with violating her probation for drunken driving.  According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, nearly 14 million Americans are considered problem drinkers and 76 million are exposed to alcoholism in family settings.  Studies suggest about one in four children in the United States is exposed to alcohol abuse or dependence sometime before the age of 18, according to the Children of Alcoholics Foundation.  Research shows parental substance abuse interrupts a child's normal development and cognition.  They are also more likely to become alcoholics themselves.

Elisabeth Fritzl has spoken for the first time about the horrors she and her children were forced to endure while imprisoned by their father in a cellar under the family home in Austria. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4722938.ece

The 42-year-old was kept prisoner by Josef Fritzl for almost a quarter of a century, during which time she bore him seven children.  Finally freed from her dungeon in April, Elisabeth has told the judge investigating the case that she was raped up to three times a week by her father and if she tried to resist, her children suffered. "He was very brutal against me," Elisabeth told judge Andrea Humer in an interview, extracts from which were published in The Sun. "And when I did not agree to have sex, then the kids would suffer. We knew he would kick us or be bad to us."

New research from Child Trends finds that 18 percent of women age 18 to 24 report having experienced forced sexual intercourse at least once in their lives. The research, summarized in a fact sheet entitled Forced Sexual Intercourse Among Young Adult Women, also shows that the most common types of force are verbal or physical pressure, and being physically held down. More than half the women forced to have sexual intercourse report experiencing each of these types of force.

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