Volume 6, Issue 66
October 21, 2008
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The Child Protection eNewsletter Six year old Las Vegas boy freed... Another arrest has been made in the investigation stemming from the abduction of a 6-year-old Nevada boy who was found during the weekend. CBS News story here FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said that 42-year-old Terri Leavy was taken into custody by Fontana, California police officers on Sunday. Leavy is believed to be the companion of Clemons Fred Tinnemeyer, the grandfather of the boy, Cole Puffinburger. Cole was set free late Saturday on a quiet Las Vegas street. Authorities said Leavy was wanted on an outstanding federal material witness warrant. She is expected to appear in a Riverside, California courtroom with Tinnemeyer. Authorities are looking into whether Tinnemeyer had ties to drug dealers. Police say he may have stolen millions of dollars from them. Police have declined to elaborate on what role he played in the drug operation or whether the kidnappers had been seeking a ransom. Police said they interviewed "several persons of interest" along with Cole about his nearly four days in captivity in hopes of gaining clues to the identity of gunmen who abducted him last week. Two gunmen posed as police officers, bound his mother and her boyfriend, ransacked their home and kidnapped the boy last Wednesday morning, authorities have said. See vol6_iss65. The boy was dropped off unharmed Saturday night in a residential neighborhood near downtown Las Vegas, and was found by an alert bus driver taking disabled passengers to their homes. Police said they believed the abductors were Mexican nationals involved in a methamphetamine ring, but said they could not be sure. We don't know who the suspects are at this point, so how can we say what nationality they are," police spokesman John Loretto said. Police have said a third man also was involved. Police Captain Vincent Cannito said police have served "several" search warrants in different jurisdictions in their investigation of the kidnapping, but declined to be specific about what was found. Cannito said police had "dozens of leads" and had interviewed numerous people, including several "persons of interest." Nebraska lawmakers agree on safe-haven age limit... Stung by the abandonment of children as old as 17 at Nebraska hospitals, the governor and lawmakers struck a deal Monday to rewrite the state's safe haven law so it applies only to infants up to three days old. ABC News story here A rash of drop-offs in recent months, particularly those of teenagers and from out of state, thrust the state into the national spotlight. The law was ridiculed on an episode of "Saturday Night Live" this past weekend. Forty of the 49 senators in the unicameral Legislature and Governor Dave Heineman have agreed to the changes, Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood said during a news conference on Monday. The state's safe-haven law allows caregivers to abandon children–interpreted by some to include those as old as 18–at hospitals without fear of prosecution. The age cap would change Nebraska's safe-haven law from the most lenient in the country to one of the most restrictive. Sixteen other states have a similar 3-day-old age cap. At least 18 children, aged 22 months to 17 years, have been abandoned since the law took effect in July, including a child from Iowa and a Michigan child who was driven from there by his mother. See vol6_iss59 and vol6_iss63. The Nebraska law, intended to prevent infants from being dumped or abandoned in dangerous places by mothers who don't want them, has had "serious, unintended consequences," Heineman said. "This law needs to be changed to focus on infants." Heineman has said he would prefer not to call a special session to change the law before the regular session starts in January, though he indicated that if more out of state children were abandoned under the law he might change his mind. In the past decade, all 50 states have passed some kind of "safe haven" law that permits the parents or guardians of newborns to turn over children to the state by literally dropping them off at a hospital or a police station. CBS News story here Meanwhile, the state of Michigan was granted temporary custody of four suburban Detroit siblings, including the 13-year-old abandoned in Nebraska by his adoptive mother. MSNBC News story here An Oakland County, Michigan juvenile court referee scolded Teri Martin for dropping off her adopted son at an Omaha hospital with $10 earlier this week. Nebraska is not a "humane society for animals," Referee Karla Mallett said. "He is a child." In other news...  A woman was convicted of manslaughter in the death of her tiny, malnourished 7-year-old daughter, who suffered abuse that shocked New Yorkers and hastened reforms in New York's child welfare agency. CBS News story here Brooklyn jurors deliberated three days before convicting Nixzaliz Santiago in the January 2006 death of Nixzmary Brown, who was severely punished after she was caught stealing yogurt. Santiago–like her husband–was acquitted of murder and convicted of manslaughter. Cesar Rodriguez, who delivered the fatal blow, was convicted in March and is serving 29 years in prison. Evidence included grim crime-scene photos from the room where Nixzmary was bound to a chair, starved and forced to urinate in a litter box. Nixzmary was so malnourished when she died that she weighed only 36 pounds–about half the weight of an average girl that age. Santiago could face up to 33 years in prison–more than her husband–when she is sentenced on November 5. For more on this case see vol6_iss60, vol6_iss26, vol6_iss12, vol6_iss5 and vol4_iss4.  Evangelist Tony Alamo told a federal judge in Arkansas that he understood that he could get life in prison if convicted of taking a minor across state lines for sex, and he'll argue next week that he should be released from custody pending trial. AP News story here Alamo's appearance in federal court was his first since shortly after his September 25 arrest in Arizona. Five days before the arrest, his compound in Fouke, Arkansas was raided and six girls were taken into protective custody. See vol6_iss58 Alamo is charged with two felony counts: a violation of the Mann Act–which prohibits children from being brought across state lines for sex–and that he aided and abetted a Mann Act violation. Alamo, 74, has said he believes girls should be allowed to marry when they reach puberty. In interviews with The Associated Press between the time of the raid and his arrest, Alamo reaffirmed that assertion but denied he conducted any such marriages and said no child abuse occurred at his compounds. Alamo also has operations in Fort Smith, California and New Jersey.  Vermont state police have charged a Guilford, Vermont day care provider after she allegedly locked two infants and two toddlers inside a garden shed. WPTZ News story here Diane Wood, 40, locked the children in the shed in order to avoid an audit from Department of Child and Family Services officials who had visited her home on October 3, Vermont state police said. Wood was allegedly providing day care for more children than her license allowed, which is why she hid the children in the shed, police said. The children were discovered by DCF auditors after they heard voices coming from the shed, police said. Wood said she had locked the children in the shed only 15 minutes before they were discovered. Wood faces four counts of cruelty to a child younger than 10 years old and unlawful restraint. Johns Hopkins researchers reported in a study published in February in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that between 1973 and 2004 the incidence of HPV-related oral cancers among people in their 40s nearly doubled. Today more than 34,000 people have oral cancer and 39 percent of those cases are related to HPV, according to data from the American Cancer Society. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=6034244&page=1 High-risk HPV strains cause cancer by using special proteins to disrupt healthy cells. It makes cells unable to repair themselves and unable to control how they are duplicated. The virus is transmitted by direct contact. You only get HPV in the location it attaches to, so it never travels through the bloodstream. So just exactly how it gets in the mouth may stun you. "There is absolutely a link between oral sex and oral cancer," said Dr. Ellen Rome, of the Cleveland Clinic. *for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org" |
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