3/14/14: Today’s Round-up of Child Sex Abuse in the News
LOCAL
San Diego, CA – Trial Date Set for Karate Instructor Accused of Molesting 2 of His Students
A May 2 trial date was set Thursday for a karate instructor accused of repeatedly molesting two of his teenage students at his Tierrasanta martial arts studio. Juan Melesio Flores, 38, pleaded not guilty to 15 felony charges of oral copulation and committing a lewd act on a child. A readiness conference was set for April 28. Read more here:
Corona, CA – Corona Daycare Worker Suspected of Molesting Children Must Stand Trial
A Corona daycare worker accused of molesting two young girls must stand trial on felony charges, a judge ruled this week. Miguel Flores Jr., 27, was arrested in October following an investigation into his alleged encounters with an 8-year-old and an 11-year- old, neither of whom was identified. Flores is a former employee of the Bixby Oaks Daycare Center. Read more here:
Berkeley, CA – Schools Revise Sexual Assault Policies
Instead of working on her thesis, UC Berkeley senior Shannon Thomas is spending much of her time attending student conduct meetings, planning for press conferences and talking to reporters. That’s because Thomas has been outspoken about how she says her school mishandled her case against a fellow classmate who allegedly sexually harassed her in class. Read more here:
Isla Vista, CA – VOX Rallies in Response to Recent Sexual Assaults
VOX: Voices for Planned Parenthood will be holding a march called “Rally for Isla Vista Unity” today at 7:30 p.m. in front of the Student Resource Building to encourage unification efforts within the community in response to the recent sexual assaults in I.V. Read more here:
NATIONAL
Alexandria, VA – Worker at military daycare charged with abuse
Prosecutors have charged a Maryland woman with misdemeanor assault on a child for allegedly hitting toddlers under her care at a military daycare center. A complaint filed Thursday at federal court in Alexandria alleges that 47-year-old Va Nessa Taylor of Temple Hills, Md., was seen on surveillance footage hitting and pushing four different children at the Child Development Center on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington. The children ranged in age from 18 months to 2 years. Read more here:
Silver Spring Township, PA – Police investigating allegation of sexual misconduct between teacher, student
Silver Spring Township police have confirmed to News 8 that they’re investigating an allegation of sexual misconduct between a Cumberland Valley High School teacher and a student. No charges have been filed yet. The Cumberland Valley School District says the teacher resigned yesterday – two days after being placed on administrative leave. The district issued the following statement on Thursday: Read more here:
Las Vegas, NV – Substitute teacher accused of sex with a minor
A report released Thursday by Metro investigators says it was a two-week romance between a 15-year-old student and a 22-year-old substitute teacher that was discovered by the boy’s father and later resulted in her arrest. Tanikka Queen, a substitute teacher at Hyde Park Middle School, faces 24 counts, including kidnapping, statutory sexual seduction, sexual assault and sexual misconduct with a student under 16. She is being held without bond at the Clark County Detention Center. Read more here:
Kansas City, MO – Sexual misconduct report at Kanas City elementary school prompts investigation
An investigation is underway after a sexual misconduct report was made by an 11-year-old student at a Kansas City Catholic school. The girl told authorities that a teacher’s assistant at St. Thomas More School, 11800 Holmes Rd., made inappropriate advances toward her on multiple occasions, dating as far back as December. Read more here:
Phoenix, AZ – Ex-Gilbert teacher gets probation for sex with student
The teacher who admitted to having sex with a 17-year-old student last April in the classroom of a Gilbert charter school was sentenced to lifetime probation and will have to register as a sex offender, according to a judge’s ruling on Thursday. Andrew James Teaters, who formerly taught at Gilbert Early College, received two sentences for child abuse from Superior Court Judge Warren Granville during the hearing in downtown Phoenix on Thursday morning. Read more here:
Concord, NH – Ex-Concord youth coach Joubert convicted in second child sexual assault case
After a week of sensitive and at times heated testimony, a jury yesterday found Robert Joubert, a former Concord area youth baseball coach, guilty of molesting a player he lived with more than a decade ago. Jurors deliberated for roughly an hour before convicting Joubert, 60, on three felony counts of sexual assault, one of which was aggravated. The player testified that he was made to perform sexual favors on Joubert from 2002 to 2004, when he was between the ages of 10 and 12. Read more here:
Laramie, WY – Judge orders former Rock River teacher to answer charges of sexual assault against student
A former physical education teacher at Rock River School faces felony charges alleging sexual assault of a minor student. The Laramie Boomerang reports that Circuit Court Judge Robert Castor on Monday ordered 25-year-old former teacher Ray James Moore bound over to district court on four felony charges of third-degree sexual assault of a minor. Read more here:
Storrs, CT – Committee Bill Would Mandate Sexual Assault Training on College Campuses
State colleges and universities will be mandated to provide annual student and employee training on sexual assault prevention as part of legislation approved Thursday by the Higher Education Committee. The bill has been a top priority this year for the panel, which began holding hearings on the subject last year in response to a Title IX complaint against the University of Connecticut. In the complaint, current and former students claimed the school violated their rights by showing indifference when they reported being raped or sexually harassed. Read more here:
Bradenton, FL – Bradenton sex offender charged with molesting girl, 5, he was babysitting
A registered sex offender has been charged with molesting a 5-year-old girl he was babysitting, according to Bradenton police. Jerry Lejaun Solomon, 37, admitted to molesting the girl, according to a news release. Detectives determined that between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. Tuesday, Solomon “had touched the 5-year-old female inappropriately on at least one occurrence.” Read more here:
Pasco, WA – Child molestation not first charge levied against Pasco teacher
KEPR is continuing to investigate the former Pasco teacher accused of molesting a teen. Brian Dean was suspended from Kingspoint Christian School more than a month ago. We dug deeper into the case and learned this isn’t the first sex crime Dean was investigated for. “You’re not going to find every bad guy that preys on children in a creepy looking van outside the park,” says Detective Scott Runge. He says a bad guy could be found teaching Bible classes right in a private Christian school. Read more here:
Columbus, GA – Closing arguments expected Friday in child molestation case
The prosecution concluded its child sexual molestation case against Carlton Steve McKissic Thursday morning in Muscogee County Superior Court by recalling the oldest of the three victims to testify. McKissic is charged with molesting three girls ages 9, 10 and 13 on March 20, 2012, during a slumber party. Now 37, McKissic faces charges of aggravated sodomy, aggravated child molestation and three counts each of child molestation and furnishing alcohol to minors. The most serious charges — aggravated sodomy and aggravated child molestation — were allegedly against the youngest child. Read more here:
Florence, AZ – Florence man charged with years of molestation
A 51-year-old Florence man has been arrested for allegedly molesting a child over a 10-year period.
Detectives arrested Luis Ramirez on March 6, according to the PInal County Sheriff’s Office. During the investigation, Ramirez made admissions which confirmed some of the victim’s allegations, according to the sheriff’s office. He was booked into the Pinal County Jail on charges of child molestation, sexual abuse and sexual conduct with a minor. Read more here:
Staten Island, NY – Staten Island man accused of molesting, rubbing meat on teen girl during ‘spiritual cleansing
A “spiritual reader” from Port Richmond is accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl by rubbing her body with raw steak and molesting her during a supposed ritual to ward off evil spirits. Rafael Paulino, 42, conducted what he described to detectives as a “spiritual cleansing” inside an apartment on Scribner Avenue in New Brighton, authorities allege. Read more here:
Silver Spring, MD – Mom charged with sex abuse, child porn involving daughter
A woman was held on $350,000 bail Wednesday on charges of using her 5-year-old daughter to make homemade pornography videos from a laptop. The woman, 26, of no fixed address was charged on 37 criminal counts stemming from a police investigation in 2012 and 2013. The Gazette is not naming the woman to protect the identity of the child. The alleged abuse of the 5-year-old took place in a basement in Silver Spring, according to a statement of charges filed in Montgomery County District Court. In September, Montgomery County police traced eight child porn videos to a townhouse in Burtonsville. The videos showed pre-pubescent boys and girls performing various sexual acts with each other and with adult men and women. Read more here:
INTERNATIONAL
Vatican City, The Vatican – Pope Francis: “Stop Using Church as Sexual Abuse Scapegoat”
Pope Francis has now once again (though to judge by the so far sparse coverage, you’d think he’d never said or done anything before) expressed his abhorrence of clerical sex abuse. Previous popes—indeed most senior clergy—are normally too reticent, however, to do what he has now done as well, that is to say, he has defended the Catholic Church’s record on tackling the sexual abuse of children by priests, by declaring what is now the simple truth: that “no one else has done more” than the Church to root out pedophilia. Read more here:
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia – Former teacher charged with molesting pupil
The Sessions Court here yesterday fixed March 27-28, this year for the trial of a former teacher charged with two counts of molesting an underage girl and forcing her to perform oral sex on him.
Robin was first charged with molesting the nine-year-old victim in a classroom of a school in Kudat in March, 2006. The charge under Section 354 of the Penal Code is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years or with a fine or whipping or with any two of such punishments, on conviction. On the second charge, he was alleged to have inserted his genitals into the mouth of the victim at the female rest-room of the same school, sometime in May, 2006. Read more here:
Ballarat, Australia – Royal Commission community forum in Ballarat next week
BALLARAT is only the second regional stop for the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse after Coff’s Harbour. The commission will hold a community forum in Ballarat next Wednesday night, facilitated by the Centre against Sexual Assault Ballarat (CASA). CASA manager Shireen Gunn said Ballarat had a terrible history of clergy sexual abuse. “Ballarat stands out as having a significant history,” Ms. Gunn said. “A number of victim survivors are quite vocal in our area (and) the Catholic congregation’s response is also leading the way.” Read more here:
Pudcherry, India – Yet another Puducherry teacher accused of molesting schoolgirls
An economics teacher at a government secondary school in the Union territory of Puducherry has been accused of molesting girl students. The Child Welfare Committee (CWC) has received complaints from two Class 12 students of Soucilabai Government Girls’ Higher Secondary School charging that economics teacher Subramanian has been molesting them for the past two years. Read more here:
Canberra, Australia – Officer awaits fate on indecency charges
An ACT policeman accused of molesting and taking an explicit photo of a boy in his care will have to wait until next week to learn of his fate. The officer, now suspended from the Australian Federal Police, allegedly indecently touched and rubbed a boy with a towel after he got out of the shower.
The Canberra man had been looking after the boy and his siblings in 2012 through a care program. He allegedly asked the boy whether he could dry him and touch his penis on a number of different occasions as he got out of the shower. The boy alleges the man touched him indecently on one occasion, and also focused on his genitals when drying him with the towel. Read more here:
Newcastle, Australia – Father, grandfather charged with sexual abuse of girl
POLICE are investigating allegations that a seven-year-old Hunter girl has been sexually and indecently assaulted repeatedly by her father and grandfather. The girl’s father, aged in his 30s, is currently in custody after being charged in January with three counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a child aged under 10. All three counts relate to his daughter and police will allege they have found video footage of at least one of the assaults. Detectives have also allegedly seized naked photographs of the girl. Read more here:
Islamabad, Pakistan – REAL LIFE: ‘I was sexually abused by my relative’
A report reveals that one out of every three children in Pakistan is a victim of some kind of sexual abuse. Further investigation shows that most of these children are abused by someone they know and trust, like a relative, family friend or a caretaker. For some victims within the community there is still a fear of who to turn to and who to trust. Read more here: