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Archives > Volume 9 Issue 49 - December 7, 2011 Another Penn State victim comes forward...A 19-year-old man has filed a complaint with state police alleging he was sexually abused by Jerry Sandusky after the former coach gave him liquor on the Penn State campus in 2004, the accuser's lawyer said Tuesday. FoxNews story here 
Charles Schmidt said the client, whom he did not identify, went to his law firm about three weeks ago, after Sandusky was charged with sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period. "He suffered one incident of abuse, to use the legal term -- involuntary deviate sexual intercourse -- allegedly at the hands of Mr. Sandusky," Schmidt said. "That occurred on the Penn State campus, we believe in the area of the football facilities." The new claim came the day a lawyer for another young man who accused Sandusky of sexual abuse said he expects his client and at least five other accusers to testify at a preliminary hearing next week. The lawyer said he has information that the six young men whose testimony before a grand jury contributed to a report detailing allegations against Sandusky will be called to testify next Tuesday. The attorney spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he said he is trying to ensure his client's identity isn't revealed publicly. Sandusky is charged with 40 counts of child sex abuse, and prosecutors allege he met his victims through a charity he founded in 1977 to help at-risk children, The Second Mile. Sandusky, 67, denies being a pedophile and has vowed to fight the charges. In interviews with NBC and The New York Times, he has said he showered and horsed around with boys but never sexually abused them. Schmidt told the AP that his client was 12 years old, dealing with the death of his mother and suffering emotional issues at the time of the campus incident. The lawyer said the two met through The Second Mile and his client claims Sandusky gave him liquor while in the office on campus. The grand jury report did not allege any instances of Sandusky giving boys alcohol. For more on our coverage of the Penn State scandal, see vol9_iss45, vol9_iss46, vol9_iss47 and vol9_iss48. For all of CBS News' coverage, visit cbsnews.com. NY prosecutor to discuss Syracuse abuse inquiry... A New York district attorney who has been sharply critical of police and Syracuse University investigations into allegations that an ex-assistant basketball coach molested 
boys is set to discuss the claims Wednesday. AP story here
Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick has been tight-lipped about what he'll say about the investigation into Bernie Fine, and his spokesman declined to comment. The U.S. Secret Service also is investigating accusations that Fine molested three boys, including two former ballboys. The 65-year-old Fine, who had been Hall of Fame coach Jim Boeheim's top assistant since 1976, has denied wrongdoing. The claims led victims' advocates to call for the resignation of Boeheim, who at first staunchly defended his longtime friend and criticized the accusers. He later apologized and said he should not have questioned their motives. Fine was fired Nov. 27 after the three men made public accusations and ESPN played a 2002 recording of a phone call in which a woman ESPN identified as Fine's wife tells an accuser she knew "everything that went on." Accusations from two of the men, former ballboys Bobby Davis and Michael Lang, happened too long ago to be prosecuted. The claims of the third man, 23-year-old Zach Tomaselli, of Lewiston, Maine, fall within federal statutes of limitations and are being investigated by the Secret Service. Meanwhile, the third man who accused former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting him admitted this week that he sexually abused a boy in Maine. second AP story here Zach Tomaselli, of Lewiston, told The Associated Press that he sexually abused the boy when the victim was 13 and 14 years old. Tomaselli said he knew the boy and worked as a counselor at a camp the boy attended. Now that he's getting counseling, Tomaselli said he understands that he was subconsciously grooming the boy for a relationship, as is often the case with pedophiles. He said he's glad that he was caught before the abuse became worse, so that he can get help. Tomaselli, 23, became the third man to level sexual abuse allegations against Fine when he told police in Syracuse that Fine first molested him in a Pittsburgh hotel room in 2002. He said Fine - who has denied any wrongdoing but was fired by the university - showed him porn, fondled him and watched him shower naked. "The only thing that transpired was the same stuff that happened to me," Tomaselli said of his relationship with the teenage boy in Maine. "This kid has been through a lot because of the way I controlled him and abused him." In other news... It's either a new, safer era for adult content on the Web or the first step in creating a digital porn ghetto, depending upon who you ask. CNN story here On Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET, 
more than 100,000 websites are expected to go live with the new .xxx domain. The suffix was approved as a "top-level domain" address last year by ICANN, the international not-for-profit that coordinates Web addresses. The idea, they say, is to more safely organize content that has become, like it or not, common on the Web. But as you might expect, not everyone is pleased with the move. "The establishment of a .xxx domain would increase, not decrease, the spread of pornography on the Internet, causing even more harm to children, families and communities," said Patrick Trueman, CEO of Morality in Media and former chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, when ICANN was voting on the plan. The new .xxx sites will be tagged in a way that will make it easy for parents, employers or others to block them on their networks. Parents can block adult sites via parental-controls settings on most computers' control panels or by installing parental-control software. To protect their reputations against porn purveyors who might seek to capitalize on their name, some universities and businesses have bought .xxx domain names that correspond with their .edu or .com addresses. For example, Penn State in September paid $200 each for four .xxx domains. The proliferation of .xxx addresses doesn't mean porn will disappear from .com sites. Adult sites that buy a .xxx domain are free to keep their .com or other current URL as well. For more on what parents should know about kids and pornography, visit eGuide/porn.
Jorelys Rivera, the 7-year-old girl whose body was found in a Georgia dumpster, was bludgeoned, sexually assaulted and stabbed in a remarkably vicious attack by a killer who 
police believe lives in her apartment complex. ABC News story here The wounds to the girl's body were so severe that Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Vernon Keenan refused to describe them beyond that fact that she had blunt force trauma to the head and stab wounds. Keenan described the crime as a "very horrific and brutal murder." Jorelys had been missing since Friday and was last seen at her apartment community's playground in Canton, Ga. Her body was pulled from a dumpster Monday and an autopsy was completed Monday night. "We don't know if the child was targeted or not. We do know from what was determined through the autopsy and other evidence this was a very calculated and planned crime," Keenan said. Police believe the murderer is still nearby. "The investigators feel very strongly the killer of the child resides in the apartment complex or has ready access to the apartment complex," said Keenan. "It's very important that persons who live in that apartment complex ... If they have any information that could have bearing on this case, to let us know." Keenan said there are several registered sex offenders who have resided in the River Ridge apartment complex, but they have all been interviewed and "we have no reason to believe at this point that [those] sex offenders are involved."
Sexting -- the phenomenon of teens using phones or computers to send each other sexual 
photographs -- is not as widespread as once thought, a new study suggests. MSNBC story here University of New Hampshire researchers conducted a telephone survey to ask 1,560 Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 whether they'd made, sent or received sexual photographs in the past year. Only about 1 percent of kids were sexting sexually explicit photographs. "It's somewhat reassuring," said study author Kimberly Mitchell, an associate professor of psychology at the University of New Hampshire. "The media ... has portrayed it as a big problem." A related study showed that law-enforcement agencies respond to about 1,750 cases of sexting each year in the United States. Both studies were published today in the journal Pediatrics.
If a spate of recent allegations proves true, Hollywood may have a hideous epidemic on its hands. The past two weeks have brought three separate reports of alleged child sexual 
abuse in the entertainment industry. FoxNews story here Martin Weiss, a 47-year-old Hollywood manager who represented child actors, was charged in Los Angeles on Dec. 1 with sexually abusing a former client. His accuser, who was under 12 years old during the time of the alleged abuse, reported to authorities that Weiss told him "what they were doing was common practice in the entertainment industry." Weiss has pleaded not guilty. On Nov. 21, Fernando Rivas, 59, an award-winning composer for "Sesame Street," was arraigned on charges of coercing a child "to engage in sexually explicit conduct" in South Carolina. The Juilliard-trained composer was also charged with production and distribution of child pornography. Registered sex offender Jason James Murphy, 35, worked as a casting agent in Hollywood for years before his past kidnapping and sexual abuse of a boy was revealed by the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 17. Murphy's credits include placing young actors in kid-friendly fare like "Bad News Bears," "The School of Rock," "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" and the forthcoming "Three Stooges." Revelations of this sort come as no surprise to former child star Corey Feldman. Feldman, 40, himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, unflinchingly warned of the world of pedophiles who are drawn to the entertainment industry last August. "I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia," Feldman told ABC's Nightline. "That's the biggest problem for children in this industry... It's the big secret."
*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" |
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