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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 42 - July 22, 2009 Alamo wants to take the stand...Evangelist Tony Alamo walked into court Tuesday and told reporters he planned to take the stand in his sex-crime trial, even though his lawyers have advised against it. Find law.com AP News story here 
"I'm going to testify. I've already won. They've got nothing," the 74-year-old Alamo said.
Prosecutors wrapped up their case Tuesday after playing recordings of phone conversations Alamo had from jail. In one, Alamo tells a girl she has to clean up a mess she made or leave his compound. In another, women and girls giggle as he discusses how the charges against him might differ had his alleged crimes occurred in Texas or Arkansas. The defense team expects to call up to 10 witnesses, and their biggest liability might be their client. Defense attorneys face a skeptical jury and the likelihood that Alamo will choose to testify even though they've advised him not to. Defense lawyer Phillip Kuhn said Alamo's team planned to call as many as 10 witnesses. Whether that will include Alamo remains to be seen, Kuhn said. "If he gets on the witness stand, it will be against my advice," Kuhn said Monday. In court Monday, the evangelist blurted out a reference to the raid on the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas. The outburst came as defense lawyers argued whether an FBI agent could say he worried about the safety of Alamo's followers after a Sept. 20 raid on Alamo's Arkansas compound. "After Waco, they are looking for safety too, from the FBI," Alamo interjected from the defense table, referencing the Branch Davidian religious compound in Texas that federal agents stormed in 1993. Leader David Koresh and dozens of followers died as the complex burned. Kuhn said after the hearing that U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes heard the comment. "The judge asked me to ask him to cool it," Kuhn said. But as Alamo left the courthouse in prison scrubs, he remained visibly upset. "The FBI likes to burn Christians," Alamo told reporters. "I should be putting them on trial, not them on me. They're guilty." Jurors heard last week from the five former followers who say Alamo abused them as girls. In graphic testimony, they said that they traveled to California, Tennessee and West Virginia for sex with their pastor or responded to his call and returned to Arkansas from out of state and had sex with him. Each count in the indictment is punishable by 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. For more on this story see vol6_iss78, and vol7_iss41. New Zealand sued over 500 abuse cases in government run homes... It is being called the biggest case of child abuse in New Zealand - three decades of alleged violence and sexual abuse in children's homes run by the state. 3news.co.nz story here 
The Government is being sued over the more than 500 cases of alleged abuse at children's homes, run by the former Department of Social Welfare.
A 60 Minutes investigation has revealed the abuse happened in the 1960s through till the late 1980s in institutions which were supposed to care for troubled or abandoned children. Some say what is alleged to have happened to the victims is the country's greatest shame. "I wasn't raped, but I suffered what I consider to be serious sexual assaults," says victim, Keith Wiffen who spent time as a young boy in Epuni Boys' Home. It was not only sexual abuse - physical abuse is said to have happened daily, and at random. "Your cell would open up at night time and a couple of boys would run in and give you a hiding," says another former resident Mark Baker. "That's the staff organizing that stuff." The cases of the abused fill shelves at Sonja Cooper's law practice. She says it is the biggest case of child abuse in New Zealand's history. It was essentially in every institution that was run by social welfare and it was pervasive," she says. Ms Cooper is representing hundreds of complainants and is calling for a Government level enquiry into what went on in the homes. "The fact that we represent 500 people is, in my view, just the tip of the iceberg," she says. "My calculation is that we are probably only acting for, at present, one percent of the potential victims." The Attorney General Chris Finlayson says the Ministry of Social Development already has teams set up to deal with complaints. In other news... 
A report detailing the alleged sexual abuse of 450 children by Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin was handed to the Irish Government yesterday. The Times news story here It is the second one this year to examine the extent of abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church in Ireland and will undermine further its position in a country that only a few decades ago conformed rigidly to standards set by the Vatican. The Report of the Dublin Archdiocese Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was delivered to Dermot Ahern, the Justice Minister, who must decide if and when to make its findings public. Two priests named in the report are facing prosecution and publication may prejudice their trials. When the Ryan commission report found systematic sexual, physical and emotional abuse of hundreds of thousands of children in institutions run by the Christian Brothers, Sisters of Mercy and other religious orders, there was national anger. See vol7_iss33. Dr Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, has already acknowledged that this is likely to be repeated once the latest report is published. Dr Martin handed over 66,583 documents to the commission, which is presided over by Justice Yvonne Murphy. In a television documentary, he said that since 1940 more than 400 children had been abused by at least 152 priests in the Dublin area. In April the Archbishop told his congregation that the report's revelations would "shock and horrify us all". He said: "It is likely that thousands of young people across Ireland were abused by priests in the period under investigation and the horror of that abuse was not recognized for what it is." See vol7_iss26.
Once a self-taught area of interest in pediatrics, child abuse has now been recognized by the American Board of Pediatricians as a critical medical field. St. Louis today.com news story here This fall, about 130 pediatricians nationwide will take the first board exams in the subspecialty, answering questions on 1,200 topics - everything from interviewing a suspected victim of sexual abuse and the biomechanics of a skull fracture, to documenting a case for court. Next summer, the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will be one of about 20 schools nationwide to offer a newly designed three-year fellowship program in child abuse to be accredited by the American Board of Pediatrics. A team of doctors, nurses and social workers is consulted when a child admitted to the hospital or a clinic presents with an injury like a fractured skull that doesn't match the explanation of what happened. Pediatrician Dr. Robert Block, who helped design the subspecialty's standards for the American Board of Pediatrics, said the field is prompting research that shows child abuse as a major public health problem. Doctors are now learning that child abuse leads to health problems later in life, he said. Block and St. Louis pediatrician Dr. Robert Paschall hope the biggest result will be in a general pediatrician's office. Those doctors will be able to consult with a pool of specialists on cases. Block said the field gives specialists time to learn these social issues firsthand and aims for better outcomes for everyone. "The big question for a doctor is, how can I find this early enough so I can protect this child and I can protect this parent," he said. "We'd like to be able to get families into counseling and some sort of resource development so that the children can stay with the parents and be at home where they belong.
A 5-month-old boy who was reportedly stabbed by his mother was in critical but stable condition at OU Medical Center after police rescued the screaming infant from a pump-side trash can at an Oklahoma City gas station. Newsok.com story here Latasha Harmon, a 24-year-old woman believed to be the child's mother, is in custody on complaints of assault with a dangerous weapon and child abuse. Officers say witnesses called 911 to report a woman stabbing a baby in the parking lot of a Circle K store at SW 59 and May. Police say a man who tried to intervene was also stabbed. Police arrived to find the woman walking naked along the street and say they followed a trail of blood to the trash can where the baby was found inside, crying. "She was obviously high on something," Police Lt. Jeff Cooper said. "We don't know exactly what she was high on. But she's obviously under the influence of something."
A 5-year-old Michigan girl whose body was found in a cement-covered grave last month may have been buried alive. ABC News story here Autopsy results showed Neveah Buchanan suffocated after inhaling dirt, according to the Associated Press, leaving investigators to believe she was still breathing when she was put into the crude grave along the banks of the River Raisin or her face was forcibly held in the dirt. Nevaeh's body was found by fisherman June 4, wearing a shirt that matches the description of the clothing the little girl was last seen in before she disappeared from the parking lot of her Monroe, Michigan apartment complex on May 24. Her family is now left to imagine the horrors Nevaeh experienced in her last moments alive. Monroe County Sheriff Tilman Crutchfield said shortly after the discovery of Nevaeh's body that there were no visible signs of abuse and that she had been buried along the River Raisin "for awhile." He declined to comment specifically about how the body was buried, only that it had some type of concrete or cement on the top. He also would not say what else investigators recovered from the grave. There have not been any arrests made yet in the case. For more on this story see vol7_iss35 and vol7_iss36.
Authorities said three emaciated children found in a Dallas motel bathroom this month were kept there day and night for almost a year, maybe longer. The DFW News story here One of the children said she thought they had been in the motel bathroom since October, but investigators do not know whether she was referring to 2007 or 2008, the Dallas Morning News reported. The children, ages 6, 10 and 11, were in a hospital for 10 days after they were found July 2. Court records detail the children's gruesome living conditions and awful abuse by the mother's boyfriend, the newspaper said. The 11-year-old said her mother's boyfriend had been raping her for three years. She had told her mother about the sexual abuse several times, the newspaper reported. The girl also said she and her siblings hoarded food because they would not be fed for days. The 10-year-old boy told investigators they were locked in the bathroom because their mother believed her boyfriend's accusations that the children had molested their youngest sister. He said they were not allowed around other children at first, then they were kept from going outside, before they eventually ended up in the bathroom. His 11-year-old sister said they were only allowed out of the bathroom when their mother's boyfriend took a shower. The 10-year-old boy said the man beat him and his mother. The boy was covered in bruises when the children were found. The children were discovered after the mother's brother came to Texas from Ohio to check on them. The mother had told family members in Florida that her boyfriend was abusing her and had threatened to kill the children.
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