Officer Donald L Silcott Arrested for Sexual Battery

A veteran Jacksonville Sheriffs Officer has been arrested on charges of sexual battery and lewd and lascivious battery on a juvenile.

Sheriff John Rutherford's office announced the arrest of 47 year-old Donald L. Silcott. He was arrested at his Orange Park home.

The alleged victim is a female who was known to Silcott, but police are not elaborating on their relationship

Silcott is a 19 year veteran of the JSO, working as an evidence technician.

Silcott is being held in the Duval County Jail.

Any time an allegation or suspicion of criminal activity involving a JSO employee ccurs, the Integrity Unit investigates. They brought in our Sex Crimes Unit, and upon investigation (and working with the State Attorney's Office) determined that charges would be filed and an arrest made," said Sheriff John Rutherford.

Silcott's status with the JSO was not clear.

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/metro/crime/2009-08-08/story/jacksonville_officer_charged_with_sexual_battery_on_minor

Female sexual abuse: The untold story of society's last taboo

Sharon Hall is a small, timid figure with wide brown eyes that dart nervously between the floor and her hands as she speaks.

During our conversation, her sentences fluctuate between slow, fractured prose and sudden, spluttering outbursts as her words fall over each other in a fight to assemble. It has been almost 10 years since Sharon last tried to speak about the childhood memories she has spent much of her life trying to suppress – and that particular encounter, as we shall see, left her feeling sorrily dejected. The experience of sharing her story today she describes as a gruelling rite of passage, one she feared would prove too painful to complete: "Every moment I feel the effects of what I went through," she starts in a small, raspy voice, pausing briefly to brush an imaginary strand of hair from her cheek, before continuing, "I've been trapped by my past for all these years. Being able to finally talk about it is strangely exhilarating."

The story that Sharon, who is now 40, has been unable to tell before today is one that few would wish to hear: from as far back as she can remember until the day she left home at the age of 16, Sharon, an only child, was sexually abused by her mother. The particulars of her abuse are too horrific to bear repeating in detail; this was sustained sexual violence, which she suffered silently at the hands of the one person who was supposed to love and protect her above all others.

Sharon's ordeal went undetected for her entire childhood, despite her becoming increasingly withdrawn over the years; her weight fell to below six stone by the age of 15, and she had few if any friends at school. The problem was, she says, that even if others had suspected something was wrong, few would have guessed what it was – and fewer still would have wanted to know the whole truth. "I did try telling my doctor once," she says, blinking heavily, pulling at her shirt, "but it's like I said, no one really wants to know that."

It was at the age of 30, when she became pregnant with her own daughter, that Sharon finally summoned the courage to speak to her GP for the first time about what had happened to her. Her fear was that if she didn't seek help to overcome her issues, they could in turn have a damaging effect on her unborn child. But her doctor's response was: "Don't be silly, mothers don't sexually abuse children. You're understandably worried about becoming a parent yourself, but don't let your imagination run away with you."

And it seems this reaction is all too common.

While researching this piece, I spoke to a number of adults – men and women – who as children endured horrific sexual abuse at the hands of their mothers, aunts, grandmothers and female carers. Very few of them had ever had a chance to tell their story before, and the effect of keeping their experiences to themselves for so long has had a disastrous effect on their mental state.

Sharon's mental scars are manifest in her serious anorexia and agoraphobia, and the effect on her daughter has been devastating, too; Debbie, who is now 10, suffers from severe panic attacks and low self- esteem. "The problem," Sharon explains, "was that I never knew how to bond with Debbie. I was terrified of even touching her."

Sharon says that she might have learnt to cope better if she had been given the help she so desperately needed when she approached her doctor before her child was born. "You can't imagine how deflating it is after all those years of keeping your disgusting secret to finally get the courage to tell someone and then be told that you're making it up," she recalls. "But the worst thing about it is that even though my mother is now dead – and never even met her granddaughter – she has managed to ruin my daughter's childhood too."

The systemic denial of female sexual abuse is one of the scandals of our times. While in recent years the issue of male paedophilia has been placed firmly at the forefront of public debate in Britain, with endless high-profile media and Government campaigns bringing this formerly underground issue into the public spotlight, it seems that the involvement of women in cases of child molestation is an enduring taboo, and in order to break that wall of silence we must start by addressing a series of serious shortfalls that run throughout the child protection services in this country.

According to Zoe Hilton, policy advisor for child protection at the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), "Professionals in all areas of the system tend to be disbelieving of cases of female sexual abuse". In her role at the NSPCC, Hilton is responsible for lobbying the Government and advising on what systems need to be put in place to tackle the sexual abuse of children across the board. She argues that – as a first step – there needs to be "far more training and education and greater reporting of female sexual abuse when such cases do come to light".

Yet, she continues, it is hard to imagine how the child welfare system is supposed to progress when the underlying denial of the issue of women who sexually abuse runs far deeper, throughout society and into the very Government departments charged with overseeing and directing these individual welfare organisations.

Hilton is not the only one to have noticed how deep-rooted the problem is. Michele Elliott is the founder of the children's charity Kidscape, which she set up in 1984. She observes that the situation now is very similar in many respects to that in the Seventies and Eighties, when the existence of paedophilia in any shape or form was scarcely believed. Around the time that she set up Kidscape, Elliott recalls approaching the Department of Health and expressing concerns over the cases of male sexual abuse she was learning of in her line of work. The response of officials there, she says, was: "This is not a problem in this country."

These days, of course, we can hardly ignore the issue of the sexual abuse of children in Britain. According to ChildLine, the 24-hour counselling service provided by the NSPCC, the number of reports they receive is at an all-time high. Some 13,237 children called their helpline with such stories – an increase of more than 50 per cent in three years. The NSPCC claims that as many as one in six people in Britain suffers sexual abuse by the time they are 18 years old. Yet, while such figures have forced us to face the reality of male child sex abuse in the UK, there are enduring myths that surround our ideas of paedophilia – including ideas about the type of people who abuse.

As well as founding Kidscape, Elliott is also a child psychologist with 40 years' experience and the author of Female Sexual Abuse of Children: The Ultimate Taboo. She understands all too well that predators come in all shapes and sizes, male and female. In the early Nineties, while researching her book on female sexual abuse, Elliott was a guest on the Richard and Judy breakfast show. During her brief television appearance, she invited viewers with personal experiences of female sexual abuse to phone in and share their stories. Immediately, she says, the lines started buzzing. There was barely enough time on air to answer a fraction of the calls she received from men and women of all ages, from across the country, getting in touch to share their stories.

Since then, Elliott has been contacted by some 800 victims, 780 of them in the UK, each desperate just to talk. In a large percentage of these cases, the abuse took place within the family home, which is one of the reasons why cases of female sexual abuse are so incredibly hard to spot. Yet, sadly, this doesn't mean that the abuse isn't happening. As Elliott points out: "Considering that I am just one woman working for one relatively small charity, and this many people have managed to get in touch with me, I dread to think of the true scale of the problem."

Extraordinarily, in the vast majority of cases involving female sexual abuse (of both boys and girls), the child's mother turns out to be involved in that abuse, whether offending alone or with another woman or a man. Almost all of the victims who have contacted Elliott to share their stories have mentioned being "brainwashed", and many have spoken of being made to believe that their abuse was what constituted parental love.

Very few have ever before felt able to talk about the abuse because they feared they would not be believed – and those who have already come forward, to a doctor or therapist, have usually had their worst fears realised. One man, now 60 years old, recalls: "When I tried to tell my therapist of my abuse when I was 35, I was told: 'You are having fantasies about your mother and you need more therapy to deal with that.' In reality, my mother had been physically and sexually abusing me for as long as I can remember. The abuse was horrific, including beatings and sadomasochistic sex."

Another victim recalls how she had been sexually abused by her babysitter between the ages of six and 10. She explains: "I actually thought all babysitters did that to kids until we got another babysitter. When I tried to get her to have oral sex with me she told my mother and I got into trouble. Believe me, from then on I kept it a secret."

Quite how much it meant just to be listened to and believed was summed up in one letter sent to Elliott soon after her appearance on Richard and Judy: "Finally someone is willing to open up the subject of female sex abuse and really listen to us victims," the woman wrote. "This is fabulous – a day I never thought would come." But sadly it seems her response might have been optimistic, as very little seems to have been done on a wider level in the intervening years to help bring the matter of female sexual abuse out into the open.

And this view is one corroborated by a number of frustrated officials currently working in child welfare organisations and different parts of the British justice system, who wish to remain anonymous. These individuals say they just aren't being given the tools they need to address this issue, or even being made aware that it is an issue at all. This is perhaps not surprising when you learn that there is hardly any official information available pertaining specifically to the area of women who sexually abuse children, and barely any research being carried out, either. There have been a couple of Government-led initiatives to educate officials in welfare agencies about the issue – including a conference held in Manchester last April entitled "Child Abuse: The Female Offender". But still nowhere near enough is being done.

In fact, during the course of my research for this article, all I could find – under the direction of several Government press officers, from the Ministry of Justice to the Home Office – was a figure relating to the number of women who have been convicted of sexual offences in the UK. This figure derives from a report released in 2006, and suggests that women form just 0.5 per cent of all sex offenders in prison, and around 1 per cent of convicted sex offenders in England and Wales.

Yet this is not entirely helpful – as conviction rates in cases involving sexual offences across the board are hardly indicative of the true state of affairs. Indeed, the 0.5 per cent statistic might be more useful in highlighting the shortcomings of the British justice system than painting a true picture of female sexual abuse. Prosecutions in cases of sexually motivated crimes in the UK are generally few and far between, and rarely reflect the true story. Take the proportion of reports of rape cases that result in prosecution in Britain, for instance. This is the lowest in Europe, according to a study released earlier this year, which claimed that the rate in England and Wales is just 6.5 per cent, and an even more pitiful 2.9 per cent in Scotland.

Furthermore, conviction rates only tell us about cases that actually make it to court, and according to one expert, Hilary Aldridge, the large majority of all cases of sexual abuse aren't even reported – as many as 90 per cent, she says – let alone put before a judge. In the unlikely event that a case of sexual abuse is reported, there is still a long and arduous process to go through in order to get it to court.

Aldridge is the chief executive of the Lucy Faithfull foundation, one of the few organisations in the UK which works solely with female abusers. She works on a daily basis with offenders in cases referred to her organisation by the family and criminal courts. She explains how tricky it can be to get a case of child abuse to court. "In the first instance, a child has to first come forward and tell someone what is happening, which is often extremely difficult for them to do," she explains. "Or someone else needs to notice that something is wrong, and then pick up on what that is. They then have to make the police take the allegation seriously and if they are able to do that, which is often difficult, then the child protection services will become involved and someone there has to take it seriously, too."

All things considered, we might do better to look somewhere other than the Government data for an idea of the prevalence of cases of child abuse involving female offenders in the UK – and the most widely respected sources for this are the independent studies from ChildLine and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which are believed to provide a much more accurate picture. Suddenly, the issue of female sexual abuse doesn't look quite as uncommon as we might otherwise have believed.

In 2004, childline asked each of those callers who were ringing their helpline about sexual abuse to tell them the gender of their abuser. It revealed that over the period of one year, 11 per cent of callers said they were being abused by a woman: a total of 8,637 children, of whom 6,538 were girls and 2,099 boys. The NSPCC also conducted its own research in 2005, the results of which suggest that around 5 per cent of children who suffer sexual abuse in Britain do so at the hands of a woman, which is the number regularly cited by other experts in the field. But as Zoe Hilton, the charity's policy advisor for child protection, suggests: "The true extent of female sexual abuse is still a hidden picture." Furthermore, it is not a picture that many seem in any hurry to clarify.

One of the biggest problems, of course, is that the idea that women can and do sexually abuse children is highly provocative in itself – a fact confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Services (CEOP), a newly formed Government taskforce charged with "eradicating the sexual abuse of children" in Britain. "Women are perceived as the nurturers, those who are there to look after our young people," she explains, adding that female sexual abuse is often even more threatening than male sexual abuse as it undermines what we understand about the way women relate to children. In order for us to recognise it, the spokeswoman continues, we have to set our preconceptions aside. Otherwise, children will continue to suffer in silence: "How can a child be expected to understand they are being abused and that what they are enduring is wrong if we as a society cannot recognise women as abusers?" she asks.

Sexual abuse is usually understood as something bound up with issues of male aggression and power, and the idea of a female abuser totally undermines this well-established belief. Then there is a further problem in getting female abuse recognised: many people simply don't understand how – practically – a woman could abuse.

Understandably, this is a sensitive and highly emotive subject, the fallout from which Michele Elliott of Kidscape has witnessed at first hand. In 1992, she held a conference in London while compiling her book on the subject of female sexual abuse. She recalls how 30 women turned up to disrupt her address: "They stood up and started yelling about how terrible it was that I was detracting from the fact that male power was to blame. It is very disappointing when you encounter such extreme and closed-minded reactions. I was simply responding to what victims had told me."

And such closed-mindedness is rife in the criminal- justice system too, Hilary Aldridge confirms: "There is a tendency in the courts to see the woman as a victim of a male counterpart." But this isn't always the case by any means. Even when there is a male co-offender, this doesn't automatically mean that the female partner is an unwilling accomplice.

Indeed, one of the most disturbing aspects of child abuse committed by women is that – according to studies by independent researchers and highly respected charities – the large majority of it takes place in the home. Aldridge asserts that 60 per cent of cases take place within the family unit – and "women who abuse children regularly do so in the guise of normal, basic care". This, of course, is part of what makes it so hard to detect.

Sharon Hall, whose abuse by her mother went unnoticed for her entire childhood, knows all too well the devastating effects of being forced to suffer in silence. "If I'd had just the smallest impression that I'd be believed," she says, "I might have had the guts to come forward." The reality, she says, is that no one wanted to know what she was going through, and even today we continue to switch ourselves off from the suffering of an unknown number of children across the country.

If we are to have any chance at all of saving those children who are suffering now and those who will no doubt be suffering in the future, she says, the best place to start is by opening our eyes to the abuse going on around us. "I never had the chance to come to terms with what happened, and not only has my life been ruined, but so in turn has my daughter's," Sharon concludes. "All I hope now is that by coming forward and raising awareness of this issue, that I might in some small way be able to help those children for whom it isn't too late."

Steven Garber Sentenced for Beating, Burning, and Starving Child

The parents of a child who was beaten, burned and starved nearly to death last year were sentenced Thursday by a Blair County judge.

The father will go to a state correctional institution and the mother to Blair County Prison.

Steven Garber, 26, of Altoona RD 1 will serve 10 to 25 years behind bars and then serve 12 years' probation. Once Garber gets out of prison, he will not be allowed to have contact with children younger than 18, Judge Elizabeth Doyle ordered.

Garber entered guilty pleas to two counts of aggravated assault and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

At the sentencing, Blair County Assistant District Attorney Deanne Paul said Garber was so "demented" that he carried pictures of the child's injuries on a flash drive which he had on his key ring. She said he showed no remorse.

Paul broke down in court and was unable to speak as she described the physical abuse and pain the child suffered between February and July 2008 when city police and officials of Blair County Children and Youth Services entered the child's home and took the 13-month-old toddler into custody.

Melissa Hunter, 20, of 60th Street entered pleas to endangering the welfare of a child, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person. She will serve 11 to 23 months in county jail, followed by 12 years' probation.

Hunter described herself as a "dependent person" who did not act to stop the repeated beatings inflicted on the child by Garber.

The child's court-appointed guardian, attorney Mary Ann Probst, described the child as "gaunt" when he was first admitted to the hospital. He has regained his health, she said, describing the youngster, now in the custody of grandparents, as a "delightful child."

When it came to Hunter, the court placed an emphasis on teaching her how to be a good parent.

Hunter was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation. She also will participate in Women Aware, a program for women who are easily dominated by others, and take parenting classes through the county.

Hunter had another child after her arrest in July 2008. She told Doyle she didn't know she was pregnant at the time.

She is likely to regain custody of her children upon the completion of her jail term, according to Altoona Detective Sgt. Ben Jones and Paul.

Doyle told Hunter that while a majority of the "terrible acts" against the child were committed by Garber, she, too, bore responsibility.

"We can't excuse your role. ... You do bear responsibility for the condition of your son," Doyle said.

Jones investigated the abuse, which began when the baby was 7 months old. He said that if police and county officials had not intervened, the child would have died.

Garber was accused by police of regularly beating the child with a closed fist, burning the child's fingers with a cigarette lighter and slamming the child's head on a concrete floor.

When taken into custody, the toddler had bruises on his body, lumps on his head and healing bone fractures.

Garber and Hunter were both lodged in Blair County Prison late Thursday.

Thomas Rinehart Pleads Guilty to Sexual Abuse

An eastern Illinois man already in prison for child sexual assault and child pornography convictions has pleaded guilty to molesting three young girls.

Thomas Rinehart of Coles County was sentenced to an additional 10 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Court officials say Rinehart admitted he abused the girls between November 2005 and September 2006. All three were younger than 13.

The 40-year-old Rinehart was already serving 38 years at Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois after being convicted of child sexual assault and possession of child pornography in 2007.

Rinehart will serve the sentences consecutively.

Zachary James Pence Charged with Rape of Child

A 19-year-old Clinton man has been charged with rape of a child and aggravated child abuse or neglect.

Zachary James Pence was arrested Thursday by the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office after a grand jury returned a three-count indictment. He is being held on a $100,000 bond.

The indictment was the result of an investigation involving the abuse of an 18-month-old boy and 3-year-old girl in July.

Pence is the boyfriend of the children’s mother, and she has not been charged. The investigation is continuing, however, according to Anderson County Chief Deputy Mark Lucas. More charges may be forthcoming.

The children have been removed from the home and are in the custody of the Department of Children’s Services.

Susan Blalock Arrested for Child Abuse

A one-year-old boy is found sitting in the middle of a sharp curve on a DeFuniak Springs roadway, and the baby’s caregiver is facing a felony charge. On Thursday morning, a couple was driving along High Lonesome Road when they suddenly stopped due to the child sitting by himself in front of them.

Walton County Sheriff’s Office personnel along with Department of Children and Family Service case workers arrived on the scene. Authorities would knock on the front door of Susan Blalock’s Arielle Lane home. She told authorities’ that she was the baby’s caregiver.

The 38-year-old woman told investigators that she came home earlier that morning. She took the baby out of the crib before feeding and dressing him. Blalock says she then laid the child next to her on the couch and fell asleep. At one point, the baby apparently got up and wandered out of the house while Blalock slept.

Sheriff’s officials say this is not the first time they were called to the residence. Last April, a similar incident took place involving the child. Following Thursday’s case, DCF personnel decided to remove the boy from the home.

Blalock was arrested on a charge of cruelty to a child without great harm and transported to the Walton County Jail. Her bond has been set at five-thousand dollars.

Bay City Man Arrested for Abusing his 7-year-old Son

BAY CITY, Mich.

A Bay City man who authorities say abused his 7-year-old son and allowed others to torture the boy has pleaded guilty in the case to a charge of first-degree child abuse.

The 37-year-old man entered the plea Friday in Bay County Circuit Court. A charge of second-degree child abuse was dismissed as part of the plea. He faces nine to 15 years in prison when sentenced Sept. 21.

Authorities say the abuse took place in 2007 at the man's Bay City home, and a couple also living at the home starved, tortured and burned the child.

The case was uncovered in September 2007, when a social worker from the Department of Human Services visited the home and noticed a burn on the child's arm.

The boy's mother died in 2003. He has since been adopted by family members.

Benjamin Koller Arrested for Abusing 10-week-old Son

LAFAYETTE, Colo.

A 10-week-old Lafayette infant who was rushed to Children's Hospital in Aurora two weeks ago with life-threatening injuries from alleged abuse has been moved out of the intensive care unit and is breathing on his own, according to Lafayette police.

When Jack Koller arrived at the hospital July 21, he was placed on machines to help him breathe, according to authorities. A week later, his condition was upgraded from critical to fair, and this week Jack was taken off life support, said Lafayette police Cmdr. Mark Battersby.

"It's a good sign that he's breathing on his own," Battersby said.

Jack's father, Benjamin Koller, 26, of Lafayette, was arrested July 24 on suspicion of abusing his son by dropping, shaking, suffocating and biting him. He was formally charged a week ago with child abuse resulting in serious injury, and he's being held on a $1 million bond in the Boulder County Jail.

Koller's common-law wife, Jennifer Schmidt, 20, has not been arrested in connection with her son's injuries, but detectives are continuing to talk with her.

Battersby said authorities are working with the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services in regards to custody of baby Jack.

Leslie Denise Nichols Charged with Sexual Abusing 9-year-old

A North Carolina-based civilian family readiness officer faces charges of sexually abusing a 9-year-old.

Leslie Denise Nichols, an employee with Marine Corps Community Services at Camp Lejeune, was arrested July 29 and charged with first-degree sex offense, five counts of indecent liberties with a minor, and five counts of child abuse by sexual act, according to warrants filed in the Onslow County, N.C., courthouse.

Nichols, 39, is the FRO of 2nd Air-Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, according to an outgoing message on 2nd ANGLICO’s family readiness officer voice mail.

The alleged sexual abuse occurred between June 29 and July 29, according to the warrants. Nichols is in the Onslow County jail under a $300,000 bond, and is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 20.

Brian Buchholz Charged with Sexual Assault

A 43-year-old York man is set to stand trial on two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child.

Police say Brian Buchholz forced the girl to watch a pornographic movie and sexually assaulted her.

If convicted on both counts, Buchholz could be sentenced to 100 years in prison.

Buchholz is free on $10,000 bond.

Ronald Preston Sentenced to Life for Sexual Abusing Children

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.

A McLean County judge says a man convicted three times of sexually abusing children will spend the rest of his life in prison.

District Court Judge Charles Reynard sentenced 51-year-old Ronald Preston to two life terms plus 180 years in prison Friday for predatory criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Prosecutors at Preston's trial in June said the most recent victim was abused for about five years -- beginning at age 5 --in the home where Preston and his wife baby-sat children.

Assistant State's Attorney Suzanne Geller said one victim who testified at Preston's trial could not come to court for the sentencing since she had been hospitalized for a suicide attempt.

Preston was earlier convicted of sexually abusing children in 1987 and 1995.

Timothy Adam Stary Charged with Sexual Assault

A judge upheld three sexual assault charges against a former juvenile-detention employee Thursday during a preliminary hearing in District Court.

The ruling means prosecutors can proceed with felony charges against Timothy Adam Stary, 31, a former shift supervisor at the Robert E. DeNier Youth Services Center.

The three charges include one count of sexual assault on a child and two counts of sexual assault on a client by a psychotherapist.

District Judge Jeffrey Wilson needed more time to determine whether prosecutors can charge Stary with two counts of sexual conduct in a penal institution. There was some question about whether DeNier is considered a penal institution under Colorado law because it is not overseen or operated by the Department of Corrections.

Stary is suspected of performing sexual acts with a 17- and a 19-year-old inmate at DeNier.

The alleged assaults occurred between October 2008 and January 2009.

According to an arrest affidavit, Stary had sexual intercourse with the 19-year-old woman on five different occasions inside the jail. He groped the 17-year-old girl on about four different occasions, the affidavit said.

The alleged sexual contact with the 19-year-old was consensual, but it is prohibited in a penal institution or if Stary can be considered a psychotherapist.

Jay Koedam, program director at DeNier, said Stary counseled inmates and acted as a mentor or parent to them.

Stary worked at DeNier from January 2008 to February 2009.

The alleged sexual contact with the 17-year-old girl was nonconsensual, according to the affidavit.

DeNier is a juvenile-detention center located in Bodo Industrial Park. The facility is owned by the state and operated by Rite of Passage, a private company based in Nevada.

In a written statement e-mailed to The Durango Herald on Thursday, Koedam said there have been no allegations of this kind in DeNier's 10-year history.

"I ask the community not to judge the DeNier center, its staff and the 10 years of its positive work solely on the alleged actions of one individual," Koe-dam wrote.

He said all DeNier employees are thoroughly interviewed and are required to pass state and federal background checks. Stary passed the background checks, had no previous allegations of impropriety and received "boundary training," the e-mail statement said.

"The DeNier Center's ultimate responsibility is to ensure the health, safety and welfare of all of the individuals in our care," Koedam wrote. "We have, and will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation in coordination with the Division of Youth Corrections policies to ensure that justice is served."

Stary appeared Thursday in court wearing shackles and a jail-issued jumpsuit.

He is being held in the La Plata County Jail on $100,000 bail.

An arraignment and bond hearing is set for Aug. 13 in La Plata County.

Carl Blake Charged with Sexual Assault

A Pahrump man is in custody facing two dozen criminal charges including sexual assault, child abuse, and lewdness with a minor.

Nye County Sheriff's officials say 35-year-old Carl Blake is being held on more than $123,000 bail. He was arrested this week after police got reports that he was sexually assaulting several young children.

In all, Blake is charged with 12 counts of sexual assault, seven counts of child abuse, and one count each of domestic battery with a deadly weapon, open and gross lewdness, ex-felon in possession of a firearm, lewdness with a minor under age 14 and child sexual abuse.

_______________________

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/aug/07/pahrump-man-accused-sex-assaults-against-children/

James Kersey Arrested for Child Porn

Leesburg man has been arrested on 29 child porn-related counts, after investigators discovered he was attempting to distribute the material, according to the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

James B. Kersey, 39, was arrested Thursday on 16 counts of possession of child pornography; two counts of transmission of pornography, prohibited; and 11 counts of attempted transmission of pornography, prohibited.

He is held on $10,000 bond for each of the 29 counts.

A search warrant was served at Kersey's Leesburg residence on Thursday.

During the search, Kersey "admitted that he intentionally downloaded numerous movie files of child pornography via his computer to DVDs with the intent to mail them to a person out of state," according to his arrest affidavit.

Kersey told deputies he used the search term "pthc" -- or pre-teen hardcore -- to find movies with images of children.

Investigators were able to download some of the porn. Kersey also admitted knowing that he had child pornography files available for others to download

Investigators found at least six movie files on the computer and at least 11 movie files on the DVDs containing child porn.

"All of the movies show young female children clearly under the age of 18 based on their lack of physical development," the affidavit states.

Charles Holbrook Arrested for Child Porn

Charles Holbrook found himself in familiar territory: under arrest for child porn for the second time in a decade.

Holbrook, who lives on Longstreet in Wyoming was arraigned today on two counts of Child Sexually Abusve Material, two counts of possession of child pornography, a weapons charge and accosting a child for immoral purposes.

Police worry there could be other victims out there.

Last Friday, Child Protective Services tipped off police; allegations of misconduct in the house owned by Holbrook, called 'Uncle Chuck' by some in the Wyoming neighborhood. Officers raided the house. Neighbor Kevin West told FOX 17 News, "I saw them throw something out, looked like a hard drive out the front door."

Police say they took dozens of bags with pornographic images of children and teens, 3 computers, and several guns, which are illegal for a felon to own. Police haven't been able to identify some of victims in the photos yet. Court records say he recently took naked photos of a child and asked a 14 year old girl to have sex with him.

Back in 2000, Holbrook was caught with child pornographic photos dating back to the 1970's. He pled no contest to third degree criminal sexual conduct. "When you think about child you think about innocence, and it's situations like this that destroy that or take that innocence away," Lt. Scott Beckman told FOX 17 News.

Holbrook faces up to 20 years behind bars if convicted. He's being held on $500,000 bond, and will be back in court August 19th.
__________________
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/fox17-holbrook-charged,0,4317438.story