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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 54 - September 29, 2009 Oklahoma teen kept in closet for over 4 years...A woman was arrested after her 14-year-son told authorities he escaped from a home where he'd been kept for 4 1/2 years, spending most of his time locked in a bedroom closet, police said. ABC News story here 
A security guard at a National Guard facility in Oklahoma City called police on Friday after the teen showed up malnourished and with numerous scars and other signs of abuse, police Sergeant Gary Knight said.
"He was hungry. He was dirty. He had numerous scars on his body," Knight said. "It was very sad." The boy was taken to a hospital to be examined and then turned over to the custody of the Department of Human Services, Knight said. After police interviews, officers on Saturday arrested the boy's mother, 37-year-old LaRhonda Marie McCall, and a friend, 38-year-old Steve Vern Hamilton, on 20 complaints each of child abuse and child neglect. Formal charges have not been filed, and both were being held on $400,000 bond, according to jail records. The teen, wearing only a pair of oversized shorts held up by a belt, walked up to a security guard at the Guard facility around 5 p.m. Friday and asked where a police station was located so he could report being abused, according to a police report. He told police that scars on his stomach and torso were from where alcohol had been poured on him and set on fire. Other scars were from being tied up, hit with an extension cord and choked, the boy told police. "He had scars covering most of his body," Knight said. "They were basically from head to foot." The teen told police he moved to the Oklahoma City area from New Jersey about 4 1/2 years ago after his mother was released from jail. Since arriving in Oklahoma, he said, he had never been to school and spent most of his time locked in a bedroom closet. He told police the closet door was mostly blocked with a stepladder or a bed and that he managed to push the door open enough to escape and leave the house. Knight said six other children living at the home were taken into DHS custody, but none showed signs of abuse. McCall had lived at several different addresses in the Oklahoma City area, he said. Fugitive Polanski fights justice... Imprisoned director Roman Polanski is in a "fighting mood" and will battle U.S. attempts to have him extradited from Switzerland to California to face justice for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, his lawyer said Monday. Fox News story here 
An international tug-of-war over the 76-year-old director escalated Monday as France and Poland urged Switzerland to free him on bail and pressed U.S. officials all the way up to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the case.
Polanski was in his third day of detention after Swiss police arrested him Saturday on an international warrant as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. Authorities in Los Angeles consider Polanski a "convicted felon and fugitive." The director had pleaded guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse and was sent to prison for 42 days but then the judge tried to renege on the plea bargain. On the day of Polanski's sentencing in 1978, aware the judge would sentence him to more prison time, he fled to France. Polanski has told Swiss officials that he will contest a U.S. request that he be transferred to the United States, attorney Herve Temime said in an e-mail. Temime said Polanski's legal team would try to prove that the U.S. request was illegal and that the Oscar-winning director should be released from Swiss custody. Polanski seems most likely to spend several months in detention, unless he agrees to forgo any challenge to his extradition to the United States. Under a 1990 accord between Switzerland and the U.S., Washington has 60 days to submit a formal request for his transfer. Rulings in a similar dispute four years ago over Russia's former atomic energy minister Yevgeny Adamov confirmed that subjects should be held in custody throughout the procedure. The U.S. request for Polanski's transfer must first be examined by the Swiss Justice Ministry, and once approved it can be appealed at a number of courts. Earlier this year, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza in Los Angeles dismissed Polanski's bid to throw out the case because the director failed to appear in court, but said there was "substantial misconduct" in the handling of the original case. Espinoza said he reviewed not only legal documents, but also watched the HBO documentary, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," which suggests there was behind-the-scenes manipulations by a now-retired prosecutor not assigned to the case. A native of France who was taken to Poland by his parents, Polanski escaped Krakow's Jewish ghetto as a child during World War II and lived off the charity of strangers. His mother died at the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp. Polanski has lived for the past three decades in France, where his career has continued to flourish; he received a directing Oscar in absentia for the 2002 movie "The Pianist." He has avoided traveling to countries likely to extradite him. Balmer said the difference this time was that authorities knew when and where Polanski would arrive. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said it had multiple contacts with several countries in efforts to arrest the Academy Award-winning filmmaker, including once with Israel as recently as 2007. MSNBC News story here In other news... 
Jonathan Clark, age 30, of Greenbelt, Maryland, was sentenced to 121 months in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, for receiving child pornography, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein. Prosecutor's press release here Clark was taken into custody immediately to begin serving his sentence. According to his plea agreement, Clark responded to a U.S. Postal Inspection Service's undercover online operation in March of 2007, requesting a custom-made movie of children having sex. Clark sent two e-mails detailing how two girls, ages 8 and 11, were to be sexually assaulted for his movie. Clark also ordered a pre-made movie in which a 7-year-old girl was raped. While awaiting his requested videos, Clark sent another e-mail asking for websites to view for pictures until he received his movies. Agents seized 4,069 images and videos found on Clark's work computer documenting the sexual abuse of children, whose ages range from infants to 14 years old. Clark's collection included sadomasochistic images that involved, among other things, the bondage of children and the sexual penetration of infants.
A small group of homeless sex offenders have set up camp in a densely wooded area behind a suburban Atlanta office park, directed there by probation officers who say it's a place of last resort for those with nowhere else to go. Fox News story here Nine sex offenders live in tents surrounding a makeshift fire pit in the trees behind a towering "no trespassing" sign, waiting out their probation sentences as they face numerous living restrictions under one of the nation's toughest sex offender policies. The muddy camp on the outskirts of prosperous Cobb County is an unintended consequence of Georgia law, which bans the state's 16,000 sex offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, parks and other spots where children gather.
A former Harrison County, Ohio police chief was arrested and charged with two counts of sexual battery against a teenage boy. WTOV 9 News story here Ronald Bone, who was previously chief in Hopedale, is accused of having sex with a 17-year-old boy. Investigators said one of the encounters happened in the city building while Bone was on the job. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation is handling the case because of a potential conflict of interest. Bone resigned from Hopedale on August 31 but officials said his resignation had nothing to do with the investigation. The allegations surfaced on Tuesday. Bone faces a maximum of five years in jail on each count if he is convicted. His bond was set Friday at $100,000. 
Cell phone footage showing a group of teens viciously kicking and striking a 16-year-old honors student with splintered railroad ties has ramped up pressure on Chicago officials to address chronic violence that has led to dozens of deaths of city teens each year. CBS News story here The graphic video of the afternoon melee emerged on local news stations over the weekend, showing the fatal beating of Derrion Albert, a sophomore honor roll student at Christian Fenger Academy High School. His death was the latest addition to a rising toll: More than 30 students were killed last school year, and the city could exceed that number this year. Prosecutors charged four teenagers Monday with fatally beating Albert, who was walking to a bus stop when he got caught up in the mob street fighting, authorities said. During the attack, captured in part on a bystander's cell phone video, Albert is struck on the head by one of several young men wielding wooden planks. After he falls to the ground and appears to try to get up, he is struck again and then kicked.
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