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Archives > Volume 7 Issue 67 - November 13, 2009 Breaking news: Tony Alamo sentenced to 175 years...Evangelist Tony Alamo was sentenced Friday to 175 years in prison for taking little girls as young as 9 across state lines to have sex with them. Fox News story here 
He was convicted in July on the federal charges. Alamo had denied the charges, claiming they came from a Vatican-led conspiracy against the church he led, called the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.
Alamo was sentenced Friday in Texarkana, Arkansas, for convictions on a 10-count indictment for transporting children from state to state for sex. U.S. District Judge Harry F. Barnes listened to testimony from three of Alamo's child "brides" before giving Alamo the maximum time allowed by federal guidelines. He told Alamo that he will one day face "a greater judge," and said "may (God) have mercy on your soul." For more on this story, see vol6_iss78 and vol7_iss43. Family of abusers shocks Missouri... Five family members charged in a child sex abuse case made their first court appearance. MSNBC News story here 
A 77-year-old father and his four adult sons are charged with several felonies, including sodomy and rape involving children under 12.
The suspects are Burrell Edward Mohler Sr. and his sons, Burrell Edward Mohler Jr., 53, Jared Leroy Mohler, 48, Roland Neil Mohler, 47, and David A. Mohler, 52. Meanwhile, authorities were preparing to resume the search for evidence, including possible bodies, on land in nearby Bates City where the abuse allegedly occurred. The property, east of Kansas City, was once owned by two of the men arrested Tuesday. "There has been an indication that there are body or bodies in numerous locations," said Lafayette County Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh, although he would not say whose bodies they might be. A small excavator could be seen moving across the property Wednesday. Two ambulances were parked nearby, and crews were searching a creek with metal detectors. The allegations, which include bestiality, forcing children into fake marriages with relatives and making an 11-year-old have an abortion, date from 1988 to 1995. Three of the five men are lay ministers in the Community of Christ church whose licenses have been suspended, church spokeswoman Linda L. Booth said. The Community of Christ, with headquarters in Independence, split from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1860 and was known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints until 2001. It has about 250,000 members worldwide. Sheriff Kerrick Alumbaugh said his department and other law enforcement agencies investigating the case are seeking witnesses and more possible victims. CNN News story here 
"I believe that there is, and I believe every investigator here, after seeing the evidence, believes there's more victims," Alumbaugh said. "Pedophiles don't stop at one."
Six children, who are siblings, came to law enforcement authorities with stories of sexual performances, mock weddings, rape with various objects, and a forced abortion, according to court documents obtained by CNN affiliate KSHB in Kansas City. Alumbaugh also put out a request for anyone who may have a missing person from the 1980s and 1990s because they have reason to believe there is a body or bodies on property near Bates City. KMBC News story here "We believe that there are other victims out there. And we believe people in the public can give us more information on each and every one of these suspects," Alumbaugh said. Hours after the father and his four middle-aged sons shuffled into court Thursday, a sixth man was arrested in connection with the expanding child sexual abuse investigation. Kansas City Star story here A 55-year-old Kansas City man, identified as an associate of Burrell E. Mohler Sr.'s extended family, was arrested on suspicion of rape of a child less than 14 years old. He was being held in the Lafayette County Jail. More alleged victims also have been identified since the case went public, according to the Missouri Highway Patrol. Missing North Carolina 5-year-old spotted, lost again... A North Carolina man has admitted to kidnapping a 5-year-old girl, authorities said Friday, but investigators still have not found the child more than three days after she disappeared from a mobile home park. Fox News story here 
Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, admitted to taking Shaniya Davis, said Fayetteville Police Department spokeswoman Theresa Chance.
He was charged with kidnapping while authorities dropped charges against another man, Clarence Coe, who was initially arrested in the case. "We're hoping we find her alive," Chance said at a news conference. "We found Mr. McNeill, and Miss Davis was not with him." Police said Shaniya Nicole Davis was seen at a Sanford hotel on Tuesday morning with McNeill. WRAL news story here A hotel worker called police on Tuesday to report seeing a child matching Shaniya's description, according to Theresa Chance, spokeswoman for the Fayetteville Police Department. Surveillance video showed the child with McNeill at the hotel at 6:11 a.m., less than a half-hour before her mother reported her missing from the family's home at 1116-A Sleepy Hollow Drive in Fayetteville. Police immediately traveled to Sanford, but McNeill had already checked out of the hotel. Chance said Shaniya appeared to be "well taken care of." "We believe she is safe. We have no reason to believe he would harm her," Chance said. McNeill has a criminal history, including arrests for fleeing to elude arrest, assault on a female and drug possession. McNeill's relationship to the child is unknown. Authorities urged McNeill to bring Shaniya to the closest law enforcement or medical facility so she could be safely reunited with her family. McNeill is the second suspect in the girl's disappearance. On Wednesday, police arrested Clarence Darriel Coe, 30, of 211 Brookwood Avenue in Fayetteville, and charged him with first-degree kidnapping in the case. In other news... 
Treatment of children in Oklahoma's child welfare system has been "incomprehensible, unimaginable, outrageous and immoral," a child welfare expert stated in a report filed in Tulsa federal court. Oklahoman story here Child welfare consultant Peg McCartt Hess wrote that she reviewed the case files of five children in custody of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and was extremely alarmed by the "neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse" the children experienced while in state care. One foster care child was routinely "hit with tree switches" by his foster parents, Hess reported. She quoted one of the foster parents as stating, "If you don't beat them down they will run all over you." Hess described other children in state care who had been scalded in bath water, beaten with a belt or sexually molested. One 5-year-old boy was so emotionally distraught after being bounced around various DHS placements that he repeatedly threatened to harm himself by jumping out of a van or window "to go to heaven," Hess wrote. Another child welfare expert who reviewed the case files of nine DHS foster children concluded the system is dangerous for children. Federal government data show "children in OKDHS's care are more likely to be abused and neglected than are children in the care of almost any other state," child welfare expert John Goad said. The reports were filed by attorneys for Children's Rights, a New York-based child advocacy group that is seeking to reform Oklahoma's child welfare system through a class action lawsuit in behalf of all children in DHS care.
The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following the raid of a West Texas ranch was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called "spiritual marriage." AP story here Jurors who last week convicted Raymond Jessop, 38, handed down the sentence that includes an $8,000 fine. His attorneys had sought probation for the conviction that could have brought him up to 20 years in prison. Jessop, who prosecutors allege has nine wives, still faces a separate bigamy charge to be tried later. He is the first member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to go on trial since authorities raided the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in April 2008. The girl in the assault case, now 21, was previously in a spiritual marriage with Jessop's brother before being "reassigned" to Jessop when she was 15, according to documents seized at the ranch. She became pregnant at age 16. For more on this story, see vol6_iss78, vol7_iss62, vol7_iss63, and vol7_iss65.
A total of 14 felony charges have been filed against a 22-year-old Yuma, Arizona man who allegedly pretended to be a student at two Yuma high schools and had a sexual relationship with a minor. Yuma Sun news story here During his arraignment in Yuma Justice Court Monday afternoon, Anthony M. Avalos was charged with 11 counts of sexual conduct with a minor and three counts of forgery. Avalos, who actually graduated from a Florida high school four years ago, appeared before Justice of the Peace David Cooper, who ordered Avalos' bail remain at $110,865, which was set at a previous hearing. Cooper also set Avalos' next court date - a preliminary hearing - for 4 p.m. Friday in Yuma Justice Court. The criminal investigation into Avalos, who was No. 52 on last year's Kofa High School basketball team, began after officials at Kofa brought information to the attention of the school resource officer. According to court documents, a clerk at Kofa High School visited Avalos' Facebook page and discovered that he had posted that he graduated from Crestview High School in 2005.
A Minneapolis man allegedly beat a boy with an extension cord, burned him with an iron and turned on the oven as the child hid inside. KSRP news story here Hennepin County prosecutors charged William Tajahn Hurley, 23, with malicious punishment of a child. According to the criminal complaint, police received a call reporting child abuse on November 6. Officers responded to an apartment in Minneapolis. There they met with a 10-year-old boy who said his father, Hurley, "whooped" him for entering his mother's bedroom. Police said Hurley is not the boy's biological father. The boy said Hurley punched him and threatened to kill him. He said Hurley burned him on his leg and his arm with a hot iron. The boy told police he ran out of the apartment to escape, but his mother grabbed him and brought him back inside. He said Hurley whipped him with an electrical extension cord. He said he hid inside the oven, but climbed out when Hurley turned it on. The responding officers noticed marks on the boy consistent with being whipped and burned. According to the complaint, Hurley admitted that he had "whooped" the boy and that he would do it again. He allegedly threatened to beat the boy in front of the officers and had to be restrained.
Powerful scans are letting doctors watch just how the brain changes in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and concussion-like brain injuries - signature damage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. CBS News story here It's work that one day may allow far easier diagnosis for patients - civilian or military - who today struggle to get help for these largely invisible disorders. For now it brings a powerful message: Problems too often shrugged off as "just in your head" in fact do have physical signs, now that scientists are learning where and how to look for them. "There's something different in your brain," explains Dr. Jasmeet Pannu Hayes of Boston University, who is helping to lead that research at the Veterans Affairs' National Center for PTSD. "Just putting a real physical marker there, saying that this is a real thing," encourages more people to seek care. Hayes studied an affected man in a new way, tracking how water flows through tiny, celery stalk-like nerve fibers in his brain - and found otherwise undetectable evidence that those fibers were damaged in a brain region that explained his memory problems and confusion. It's a noninvasive technique called "diffusion tensor imaging" that merely adds a little time to a standard MRI scan. Water molecules constantly move, bumping into each other and then bouncing away. Measuring the direction and speed of that diffusion in nerve fibers can tell if the fibers are intact or damaged. Those fibers are sort of a highway along which the brain's cells communicate. The bigger the gaps, the more interrupted the brain's work becomes.
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