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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 37 - June 17, 2009 Ex-con gets 1 year for rape of 4-year-old...A plea deal that sent an ex-convict accused of raping a 4-year-old girl to jail for only a year has prompted outrage across Oklahoma, where lawmakers are calling for the removal of the judge who approved the deal and the attorney general is investigating a new set of abuse allegations. AP News story here 
Under the deal, David Harold Earls, 64, of the southeastern Oklahoma town of McAlester, pleaded no contest last month to first-degree rape and forcible sodomy. Normally, the rape charge carries a sentence of between five years to life in prison, but the deal he struck with prosecutors called for 19 years of his 20-year sentence to be suspended.
Residents have since peppered the local newspaper with e-mails and letters questioning why the sentence wasn't harsher. "I think they should have dropped the hammer on him," said Chris Lenardo, 35, who works at a local barber shop in McAlester, a town of about 18,000 people about 120 miles southwest of Oklahoma City. "I'm still trying to figure out why he's only getting a year." Prosecutors said they only agreed to the plea bargain because the case rested largely on the testimony of the girl, now 5, who made contradictory statements during pretrial hearings. After initially testifying about the assault, she later said she couldn't remember the rape. At one point, the girl ran out of the room and down the hallway. The case has generated more outrage as new accusations have surfaced. After Earls entered his plea, an estranged relative came forward to make a new allegation of a past rape. Although the statute of limitations likely has expired, it's possible the allegations could be used in another case against Earls if another victim comes forward, Attorney General Drew Edmondson said. Edmondson said his office is looking at reviving a case against Earls involving the girl's brother. Those charges were dropped when the 5-year-old boy changed his story and said he couldn't recall the incident. Such problems involving testimony from children in criminal cases aren't unusual, said Barbara Bonner, director of the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Maine mom broadcast abuse over internet... A mother of four young children in Maine was charged Monday with gross sexual assault after British investigators more than 3,000 miles away used the Internet to allegedly catch her in the act of Webcasting a sexual assault of her young child. Fox News story here 
Julie M. Carr, 30, of Mars Hill, Maine, was arrested at about 11 p.m. Friday. Her four children - believed to range from 18 months to 5 years old - were taken into protective custody.
The Child Exploitation Investigation Team of England's West Midlands Police said their unit received information late Thursday that a local man was using the Internet to show inappropriate material of children. An unidentified 18-year-old man was later arrested in Walsall, England. A day later, on Friday, additional information was obtained by investigators, prompting the West Midland Police to contact officials at the Child Exploitation Online Protection and the U.S. Embassy. "Our officers worked through the night on Thursday and Friday to ensure the identification and safety of these children across the other side of the world," West Midlands Police Detective Chief Inspector Dave McCrone said in a statement obtained by FOXNews.com. "Many people use the Internet safely and securely; however, there are a small minority who choose to use it to commit criminality." "We work to make people safer, sooner. The very same technology used to commit the crime enables us to work quickly to protect those who may be vulnerable." In other news... 
A small group of people gathered Tuesday to remember Caylee Anthony, whose remains were found in December, on the anniversary of the 2-year-old's disappearance. CNN News story here At a park in Orlando, Florida, members of a Facebook group formed in Caylee's memory asked Richard Grund to lead the gathering. Grund's son, Jessie, was engaged at one time to the girl's mother, Casey Anthony, who has been charged with Caylee's murder. Grund told about 30 people gathered under the park pavilion near the children's playground that he believed it was important to remember Caylee in a park and not at the location where her remains were found. Grund said it was important to hold "a memorial to remember Caylee to mark this day to remember her as a little girl, to remember her joy and laughter." For more on this story see vol7_iss36.
In his first deposition with opposing attorneys, a retired cottage father accused of abuse at the former Florida School for Boys (see vol6_iss76 and vol6_iss77) denied the beatings alleged by hundreds of men in a class-action lawsuit against him. News Herald story here "Never was a boy beat in my presence," said Troy Tidwell, 85, one of two people named in the suit. The other person is believed to be dead. The full transcript of Tidwell's May 21 deposition details his view of "spankings," not beatings, to discipline boys who broke rules or tried to run away from the school. In response, former school ward and Fort Walton Beach war veteran Bryant Middleton said, "It's remarkable that the man would even have the gall to say that." In the lawsuit, more than 300 plaintiffs led by four men, including Middleton, seek unspecified damages from the state of Florida for years of abuse in the 1940s, '50s and '60s. It alleges Tidwell and another defendant, Robert Curry, were among those responsible for brutal beatings in the "the White House," a cinder-block building set aside for discipline at the school, known today as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys. In the building, Middleton said, boys were lashed dozens of times per session with a long, metal-reinforced leather strap. Cottage fathers sometimes competed to see who could draw blood in the fewest blows, he said. Other sessions allegedly lasted 50 lashes or more. The full deposition is available online from the News Herald at http://video.onset.freedom.com/nwfdn/kl74go-whitehouseboysdepo.pdf
More than 50 years after a 2-year-old boy disappeared from outside a bakery in suburban New York, a man from Michigan has come forward to claim that he was the missing boy, authorities said Tuesday. Fox news story here The missing boy's father, Jerry Damman, said he was hopeful the man is his son. "After all those years, you kind of lost all hope," he said Tuesday. Authorities didn't release the Michigan man's identity. He approached Nassau County police and federal authorities over the past few months and said he believes he is Steven Damman, Nassau County Police Lieutenant Kevin Smith said. The case was referred to the FBI and authorities are awaiting DNA results to determine if the man's claim is true, Smith said.
State, federal and local authorities have arrested 77 suspects on child-pornography charges and rescued five young victims in what officials are calling "Operation Orange Tree," Florida Governor Charlie Crist said Tuesday. Tallahassee Democrat news story here Among those arrested was Nicholas Andrew Martin, 19, of Leon County. He was arrested on charges of 10 counts of sexual performance of a child. "America's Most Wanted" TV host John Walsh and Attorney General Bill McCollum joined Crist at a news conference to announce results of the 10-week crackdown. The suspects range in age from 17 to 83 and include two registered sex offenders. The last person was arrested Tuesday in Tallahassee. Nearly all have been charged with possession of obscene material or child pornography. One each has been charged with distributing child pornography, molesting children and obscene communication. Five children were removed from suspects' homes, including three who were subjects of videos, said Florida Department of Law Commissioner Gerald Bailey. He said authorities found evidence the other two children also had been sexually victimized. Seventeen suspects were in possession of a step-by-step manual on how to molest children, Bailey said
A Boston jury gave Clark Rockefeller a new identity Friday: convicted felon. New York Daily News story here The man who claims he is a descendent of the famous New York oil tycoon was found guilty of snatching 7-year-old daughter "Snooks" after losing custody to his ex-wife. Then Christian Gerhartsreiter was sentenced to four to five years in prison. It was a jarring finale for the German con man, who came to America as an exchange student, slipped into a life of lies and may be linked to the disappearance of a California couple. The jury deliberated for four days before convicting him of parental kidnapping and assaulting a social worker who tried to stop the abduction. Dressed in a dark suit, Gerhartsreiter showed no emotion. District Attorney Daniel Conley said he hopes the verdict gives Gerhartsreiter's ex-wife, Sandra Boss, and their daughter "some sense of justice." Gerhartsreiter, who also was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, was acquitted on an assault count and of giving cops a fake name. "We got two out of four not guiltys," defense lawyer Jeffrey Denner said. "We would have preferred four." Rockefeller did not testify. His lawyers argued he is nuts and believed his daughter had sent him telepathic messages begging him to come rescue her. Prosecutors said he was faking insanity and had planned the kidnapping for many months. See more on this story at vol7_iss36.
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