Bradley Preston Found Guilty of Sexual Abuse on 8-Month-Old

A Hancock County jury found a Storm Lake man guilty of second-degree sexual abuse and incest last week in Hancock County District Court.

Bradley Gene Preston, 27, formerly of Britt, was charged in July 2007 with the sexual assault of his eight month-old child. His trial, which took five days, concluded on Oct. 20.

According to a criminal complaint filed in the office of Hancock County Attorney Karen Salic, police were called on June 12 to 114 1st Ave. SW in Britt. Preston told police he was carrying his daughter down the stairs when he slipped on a camera on the steps. He said he thought he might have squeezed her hard enough that it caused her to have a hard bowel movement.

The child was taken to Hancock County Memorial Hospital, but was later moved to Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines for two days of evaluation.

Doctors found perianal bruising on the child and noted blood in her stool. They determined the child's injuries were not consistent with Preston's story.

Preston was the only adult present at the time of the injury, the complaint said.

Preston was free on bond until his court date. He is now being held in the Hancock County Jail pending sentencing, according to Salic.

Judge Stephen Carroll has ordered a pre-sentence investigation. A sentencing date has not been set.

Second-degree sexual abuse is a Class B felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison. Incest is a Class D felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Officer Antonio White Arrested for Rape & Incest

MPD Officer Antonio Jose White is now on administrative leave and is facing a number of charges after an investigation by the Houston County Sheriff's Office.

He was arrested Thursday afternoon and is charged with Rape, Incest, Aggravated Child Molestation, Aggravated Sexual Battery, Statutory Rape, Cruelty to Children 1st Degree, and Child Molestation.

White was hired by the Macon Police Department in September of 2007 and was assigned to Patrol for most of that time.
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Arthur Williams Sr Sentenced to LIFE for Sexual Assault

A Grovetown man was sentenced to life in prison today after a jury found him guilty of sexually assaulting a child.

In June, a jury convicted Arthur Clarence Williams Sr., 33, of Katherine Street, of four counts of child molestation, four counts of aggravated child molestation, two counts of rape and two counts of incest.

Mr. Williams was accused of sexually assaulting a girl at four Grovetown address between April 2004 and April 2008, when she was between 6 and 10 years old.

Superior Court Judge James G. Blanchard sentenced Mr. Williams to life in prison during a sentencing hearing at the Columbia County Justice Center in Evans.

Jason Belcher Convicted of Sexual Assault & Incest

Jason Belcher, Junior was convicted of 1st degree sexual assault, incest and sexual abuse by a parent.

The jury returned its verdict Wednesday afternoon after just a day-and-a-half of testimony.

Belcher was acquitted of three other charges.

Officials say the victim in the case was 2-years-old at the time of the abuse.

Belcher will be sentenced on August 31st at 8:30am.

He's being held in the Southern Regional Jail.

Three Men Arrested on Sex Crimes

The alleged sex offenders are:
John Harness, 61, of RD 4, Box 322A, Cameron, who was indicted on two counts of sexual abuse by a parent, guardian, custodian or person in a position of trust;

Michael Richard Patterson, 35, of 1103 Seventh St., Moundsville or 357 Ridgeview Lane, Moundsville, charged with single counts of incest, second-degree sexual assault, sexual abuse in the first degree and third or subsequent offense driving while his license was revoked for driving under the influence;

Jerry Clyde Hall, 27, of 1418 Pearl St., Moundsville, who was indicted on eight counts of third-degree sexual assault.

Harness allegedly tried to buy the silence of a sexual assault victim with a muzzleloader and other gifts. According to Marshall County sheriff's deputies, the 13-year-old victim reported the abuse to a school resource officer on April 9, telling the officer Harness had touched him inappropriately on several occasions.

During an interview a few days later, more details emerged, as the alleged victim told investigators the first incident happened close to Christmas, when he was staying overnight at Harness' home. The boy told deputies Harness later gave him a muzzleloader as gift to keep him from saying anything about the alleged abuse. Deputies said the boy claimed a second incident happened in March during a party.

Patterson was arrested in May for the alleged sexual assault of a female relative. Moundsville Police Detective Shawn Allman said the victim, whose age has not been released, claims the assault took place during a New Year's Eve party at Patterson's residence. Allman said the victim claims Patterson encouraged her to drink with him and a friend and gave her illegal drugs before she laid down on the living room couch and fell asleep.

When she awoke, she claims Patterson was watching pornographic videos; she fell back asleep and when she awoke a second time, she alleged Patterson was having sex with her. Allman said Patterson admitted to having sex with the girl and smoking marijuana with her.

Hall is accused of having sex with an underage girl. He was arrested in March following an investigation by the Moundsville Police Department. According to police, Hall allegedly admitted he had sex with the now-14-year-old girl one time in January, knowing she was underage, but claiming he was drunk at the time. Police said the girl claims Hall has had sex with her at least eight times since December, when she was 13 years old. He is lodged at the Northern Regional Jail.

Tony Slone Charged with Sexually Abused Stepdaughters

A long-haul truck driver pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he sexually abused his teenage stepdaughters and fathered one girl's baby.

Tony Slone, 43, entered the plea in Superior Court in Victorville, said Susan Mickey, a spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County district attorney's office.

Slone was charged with sexually abusing his now 13- and 16-year old stepdaughters over the last four years. His wife was charged with child abuse for allegedly letting her elder daughter continue to have contact with Slone after he fathered her 13-month-old child.

Tony Slone was arrested June 4 in Chester, N.Y., where he had traveled for work, and was extradited to California on Sunday. He is a registered sex offender and previously served an eight year-prison sentence for lewd acts with a child.
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Prosecutors say they learned of the abuse when a high school student reported reading sexual text messages on her friend's cell phone from her friend's stepfather.

Mickey said an attorney from the conflict panel was appointed for Slone. No one at the panel's offices was immediately available to comment. Slone's next court date is June 30.

Anita Slone, 47, reached a plea deal with prosecutors last week. She pleaded guilty in exchange for no more than 180 days in county jail and five years probation, said Kathleen DiDonato, a deputy district attorney.

DiDonato said the probation would help protect the daughters until they are adults. Anita Slone is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

David Earls Receives Only 1-year Sentence for Raping 4-year-old

A woman who says she was raped by her father — the man now at the center of a controversy for the rape of a child in Pittsburg County — took her case to a national audience Friday with the hope he gets a longer prison sentence.

Through a satellite hookup in Tulsa on Friday morning, Denise Earls, 43, told CNN how she came to be raped by her father, David Harold Earls, when she was 8.

She was joined during the interview by state Rep. Mike Ritze, R-Broken Arrow, who has expressed outrage at the one-year prison sentence David Earls received last month in McAlester for the rape of a 4-year-old girl.

Ritze has also appeared on national TV in recent days, most notably the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News, to vent his anger at the sentence and also to call for state authorities to investigate the case.

Ritze and state Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, have called for proceedings to oust Pittsburg County District Judge Thomas Bartheld, who accepted the plea bargain Earls, 64, received on May 13.

Adding intensity to the outrcy on Earls is that he will serve just three more months in a county jail and won't go to prison.

The one-year plea bargain took into account the time he was booked and held in jail since Sept. 24, 2008.

As a result, Earls is tentatively scheduled to be released Sept. 24, Pittsburg County jail administrator Missi Eldridge said.

Earls pleaded no contest last month to charges of first-degree rape and forcible sodomy.

As part of a plea bargain, he was sentenced to a year of incarceration, and 19 years of a 20-year sentence were suspended.

The plea bargain and the 4-year-old's pretrial court appearance in front of Earls triggered national and international outcries, even threats to District Attorney J.B. Miller, whose assistants agreed to the sentence.

On Friday afternoon, a bomb threat was called in to Bartheld's office, leading sheriff's deputies to evacuate the Pittsburg County Courthouse. No explosive device was found.

Prosecutors and the child's family had feared that the 4-year-old would freeze up during the planned closed-circuit testimony, Miller said. That, along with Earls' age and his terminal cancer, led to the plea bargain before the trial began.

Ritze said Denise Earls, who is not related to the 4-year-old girl, appeared on CNN on Friday with the hope that somehow her father would be punished with a longer prison sentence, "and also to make sure that what happened to her doesn't happen to someone else."

In a recent interview with The Oklahoman, Denise Earls called her father a "monster" who got a year sentence, while "I got a life sentence."

She has established a life with her husband, daughter and grandchildren and long ago separated from her father's family.

She knew nothing of her father's criminal case until her estranged mother called recently.

She said her father's sentence angers her.

"They have computers; they have all kinds of ways to determine that he has family members," she said. "You would have thought they would have tried to contact me to see if anything happened to me."

Denise Earls said the inappropriate touching began while she was living with her mother and grandmother in Blackwell. Her father was divorced from her mother when she was 1, she said, and she seldom heard from him.

In 1974 her father spent one night in the washroom behind the garage where she was living. She said that's where he raped her.

Her father told her that if she told anyone, she would no longer be allowed to live with her grandmother, she said, so she kept quiet.

"I was too afraid," she said. "My grandmother was my rock. My grandmother was my savior. She's the reason I'm a good person today."

Denise Earls said she confronted her father in 1995, after she'd been married many years.

"He said, 'I was drunk. I'm sorry. I don't remember,' " she said. "I said, 'I have vivid memories.' "

Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson has already weighed in on the allegations made by Denise Earls.

"My investigators have talked to this newly identified victim," he said.

"We're attempting to determine whether, in all likelihood, the statute of limitations has run on those offenses.

"But it would be additional information that if there were a trial of this person, Earls, that information may be admissible to show the propensity to commit this kind of crime."

Stacy Wright-Farmer Charged with Sexual Abuse of Child

An investigation into the discovery of sexually explicit photographs of a juvenile found at a residence in Alaska has resulted in the arrest of a McDowell County woman on multiple charges, police said Monday.

Stacy Wright-Farmer, 31, of Cucumber, is charged with sexual assault first-degree, sexual abuse first degree, sexual abuse by a custodian, incest, distribution of child pornography and child endangerment, according to Senior Trooper B.J. Garrettson of the West Virginia State Police Welch Detachment.

Garrettson said officials in McDowell County were contacted Sunday by a federal agent in Alaska representing the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency. Garrettson said the call was in reference to a search warrant that was executed at a residence in Alaska.

Garrettson said the search warrant in Alaska uncovered several photographs of Wright-Farmer and a female juvenile that were “sexually explicit” and “pornographic in nature.”

“After looking at the photos, we served the search warrant on the residence of Mrs. Farmer who was staying out over in the Cucumber area in McDowell County in which several computers, digital cameras, and digital recorders were seized during the execution of our search warrant,” Garretson said. “Mrs. Farmer was arrested last night and taken to the Welch holding facility. There are several different charges stemming from sexual assault first-degree, sexual abuse first-degree, sexual abuse by a parent or custodian, incest, distribution of child pornography and child endangerment. There were a total of 75 counts.”

Garrettson was assisted in the investigation by Cpl. D.C. Eldridge, Cpl. C.K. Moton, Senior Trooper K.L. Pack, Senior Trooper J.W. Keffer, and Trooper B.A. Woods with assistance from agents with the U.S. Immigrations and Customs service.

“This is still an ongoing investigation,” Garrettson said.