|
Archives > Volume 7 Issue 32 - May 13, 2009 L.A. Unified School District failed to follow up on teacher abuse complaints...
A jury late last year ordered the Los Angeles Unified School District to pay nearly $1.6 million to the families of three girls molested by Ricardo Guevara, who is now serving 15 years in prison for lewd acts with a child. LA Times news story here
But there was something the jury - and the public - was never told: This was the third set of accusations that Guevara had molested students. Twice before, when law enforcement officials had decided they lacked the evidence to win a criminal conviction, L.A. Unified officials had quietly put him back in the classroom. Guevara's case fits a pattern, a Times investigation shows: Repeatedly, the district failed to follow up on sexual misconduct complaints against employees once police or prosecutors dropped criminal actions. Some ended up at new schools. In at least one instance - involving Guevara - the new principal had no idea of his history. In three other cases documented by The L.A. Times, the employee went on to be charged with or convicted of molesting another student: *An elementary school teacher was investigated for allegedly molesting a fourth-grader in 2001. After prosecutors declined to pursue the case, he was transferred to other schools and eventually molested a student in 2004. Convicted of a lewd act, he was sentenced to six years in prison. *Another elementary school teacher was accused in 2002 of repeatedly forcing a female student to sit on his lap and pose for a camera. Police recommended that the district pursue the issue "administratively." School leaders handled the matter by telling him to stop. The teacher later pleaded no contest to sexual abuse of a child and received 16 years in prison. *Steve Thomas Rooney, an assistant principal at Markham Middle School in Watts, was arrested last year on suspicion of sexually assaulting a student, sparking public outrage and calls for reform. In 2007, prosecutors had declined to prosecute Rooney for allegedly waving a gun at the stepfather of a student with whom he was suspected of having had a sexual relationship. Prosecutors say molestation cases are extremely difficult to try because they often depend heavily on the accounts of young, frightened and shame-filled victims. But nothing prevents L.A. Unified from looking further into cases that police or prosecutors decline to pursue. Indeed, district policy has long required school officials to perform an independent inquiry. Under state law, the district can fire teachers for conduct it deems immoral or unprofessional, even if the acts fall short of criminality. Rooney, for instance, allegedly showed up at the house of the first student at night and drove her around in his car. Had the district substantiated this, it might have been grounds for dismissal. For more information on this subject see eGuide/educator abuse. NY police search for more victims of babysitter... 
A college sophomore who worked as a nanny and baby sitter for more than 20 families in and around New York City has been charged with sexually abusing three boys from Manhattan, officials said on Friday. New York Times news story here
The man, Jonathan Then, 21, a student at Hunter College, was ordered held without bail after his arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday on sexual abuse, predatory sexual assault and other charges, the authorities said. But the case is "far from over," a prosecutor, Rachel Ferrari, said in court. The police asked anyone with information about the case to come forward. "We have learned that the defendant has been a live-in nanny and baby sitter for more than 20 families throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey, and that number is growing," according to a statement Ms. Ferrari read in court. "Each family we have spoken to has given us names of other families who hired the defendant and whose homes the defendant has been in." Mr. Then also volunteered in second- and third-grade classrooms at two private schools in Manhattan, coached children in several sports leagues and worked at summer camps in New York and New Hampshire and at a day care center in Mansfield, Conn., the prosecutor said. Cops arrested him three weeks ago for allegedly molesting a Brooklyn boy. He posted bail after three days in jail and was released. New York Daily News story here He was busted again Thursday at Hunter College, where he's an education major, and charged with preying on three Manhattan boys. Charges of sexual assault against a child, 14 counts of sexual abuse, possession of child pornography, and other crimes could send him to jail for life. A prosecutor warned that Then "had access to hundreds of other young boys" in some of the city's swankiest neighborhoods in recent years. In other news... 
The search for missing New York teenager Brittanee Drexel has been scaled back, authorities in South Carolina told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Fox News story here The Rochester, New York teen on spring break in Myrtle Beach, was reported missing two weeks ago. Clues led investigators over the weekend from Myrtle Beach south 55 miles to Charleston County, where Brittanee's cell phone last picked up a signal. Investigators were also searching areas in Georgetown County. "It's getting to the point where we don't have any more clues," Georgetown County Sheriff Lane Cribb told the newspaper, adding the search there was temporarily suspended last week. Police, however, told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle they will continue to investigate her disappearance. Dawn Drexel has said her daughter suffers from depression and may have been upset because she and her husband are getting divorced. But she insists the girl would never run away. For more on this story see vol7_iss31.
Nearly 17,000 children were rushed to emergency rooms in 2007, the last year for which complete figures were available, after heavy or unstable furniture fell over on them, a new study reported this month. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30686493/ The study, published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics by researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, found that such injuries had risen 41 percent since 1990. The increase correlated with the popularity of ever-bigger flat-panel televisions that Americans have brought into their homes in that time, along with the entertainment centers and narrow, less-stable stands to hold them. Injuries from televisions alone accounted for nearly half of all injuries related to falling furniture during the study period - 47 percent. Three-quarters of the victims of falling furniture are younger than 6 years old, and children that age "simply don't recognize the danger of climbing on furniture," said Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital. That makes it imperative that parents take steps to secure flat-panel TVs, which have narrow centers of gravity, and other top-heavy pieces, said Yvonne Holguin-Duran, a child safety specialist with University Health System in San Antonio, Texas.
An Argentine judge is investigating a woman's accusation that she had seven children with her father during decades of incest starting when she was 8. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30688871/ Armando Lucero, 67, denied the allegations as he was escorted into court Monday to testify in a case that has drawn comparisons to that of Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man convicted of holding his daughter captive for 24 years and fathering her seven children. Lucero refused to testify and was returned to a jail where he has been held in preventive custody since Friday, Mendoza province prosecutor Marcelo Gutierrez del Barrio told local media. The centerpiece of the case will be the pending results of DNA tests of the children allegedly born from incest, Gutierrez del Barrio said. 
A pedophile gang that carried out a series of attacks on children and infants, including a three-month-old baby, were found guilty yesterday at the High Court in Edinburgh in a groundbreaking legal case. The Times news story here The abusers, including a respected youth leader - who had met Tony Blair and the Queen - a civil servant, a bank clerk and a Church of Scotland elder, were part of the largest pedophile network to have been dismantled in Scotland. The convictions were the culmination of an 18-month international police operation codenamed Algebra, which has identified a further 70 suspects in 16 regions of Britain and led to action against another 35 suspected child abusers. Police and the prosecution hailed the verdicts as an important advance in the fight against child sexual abuse. For the first time in Scottish legal history the Crown brought a case of conspiracy to participate in the commission of sexual offences. The seven men and seven women of the jury sat through nine weeks of evidence, which presented a selection from a total of 125,000 still and video images shared among the eight men on trial, and a log of internet chatroom conversations revealing the extent to which child-sex abuse had engulfed their lives. These digital records detailed how Neil Strachan and James Rennie were able to breach relationships of trust formed with friends, procure and abuse their children, then invite their pedophile circle to assault the children too. The ring was uncovered when a computer was repaired. The Times news story here Police also uncovered links with Matthew Grasso, a notorious sex offender in Salem, Massachusetts, who was indicted in 2007 for having 150,000 images of child abuse in his home. Rennie had further connections to 300 child abusers in the United States, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland, many of whom are still being pursued.
Private investigators are looking into 30 new reported sightings of Madeleine McCann, Sky News reported. Fox News story here The calls came after her parents appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show to mark the two year anniversary of her disappearance. There have also been thousands of new hits on the Find Madeleine Web site. "All of the calls are being checked out and where there is a shred of hope they are being investigated," said McCann spokesman, Clarence Mitchell. Sky News story here Two former British detectives are now working for the campaign and will be handling the new information. For more on this story see vol7_iss31.
Guess who's most likely to step in and defend a victim of bullying? A girl. ABC News story here Several studies have come to that conclusion in recent years, but new research takes the finding a step further. Girls are more likely to challenge a bully than boys are, but it's not just because they are girls. "It has been thought that girls' sense of empathy and nurturing might play into their willingness to help the victim more often," said Jim Porter, who studied the subject for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Florida. "But it looks as if it's peer pressure, not the gender," that compels girls to defend victims more often than boys, said Porter, who received his doctorate in psychology this May. Porter surveyed 269 students (168 females and 101 males) in four middle schools in North Central Florida to see what they believed their parents, best friends and favorite teachers would expect them to do if they saw another student being bullied. The girls were much more likely than boys to say they'd be expected to intervene. For more information on bullying, see eGuide/bullying.
*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" |
Survivors And Victims Empowered
1725 Oregon Pike, Suite 106
Lancaster, PA 17601
(717) 569-0550 voice
(717) 569-3039 fax
http://www.childprotectionprogram.org