Articles Posted in Sex Crimes

On December 6, 2007, Pasqual R was convicted of one count each of second degree burglary and endangering the welfare of a child as well as four counts of third degree sexual abuse. At trial, the jury sent the judge a note questioning how the age of the victim impacted intent with regard to the burglary charge. The court essentially stated that it would advise the jury that the age of the victim was irrelevant. Mr. R’s criminal defense attorney objected and asked the court to reread its original instruction. Defense argued that age of the victim was a factor in determining intent to commit burglary. The court reaffirmed its stance and delivered a more specific instruction to the jury. The jury found Mr. R guilty of the above-mentioned charges and his defense attorney appealed to the Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department.

The appellate court was asked to consider whether the court should have reread the original instruction as requested by defense counsel. Defense claimed that the revised instruction the trial judge provided was incorrect and prejudicially misleading. With regard to the defense’s argument, the court held that it was appropriate for the trial judge to have delivered more specific instructions to the jury, rather than the readback of the charge that was originally requested since the jury clearly did not understand the information given to them initially.

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On October 16, 1997, a male identified only as C.B. made a videotaped confession to a Bronx Assistant District Attorney following his arrest. During the confession, C.B. discussed numerous criminal offenses and described on at least 11 different occasions on which he had entered private residences unlawfully and in some cases, masturbated onto a sleeping female victim. He also claims to be an exhibitionist and states that he needs help because he has a problem or illness that made him repeatedly commit the crimes.

C.B.’s criminal defense attorney subsequently filed a motion with the Bronx County Supreme Court to exclude statements made in the confession that related to the charges he was arrested on. The motion also included a request to exclude testimony from the victims and the minutes of the Grand Jury proceedings. Specifically, defense counsel argued that the victim should be precluded from testifying at trial since the statements offered would be irrelevant; that the videotaped confession should be excluded since it contains evidence of unrelated and uncharged crimes; that the videotape itself was prejudicial; and that C.B. was not competent to testify as to his own mental capacity.

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In September 2000, Darrin H was accused of sexually abusing his 16-year-old daughter and having sex with one of her 15-year-old friends. Police arrested Mr. H and after reading him his Miranda rights, he signed a written statement attesting to the fact that he may have had sex with his daughter while drunk. He was subsequently charged with 120 separate crimes, including multiple first degree sodomy charges, first degree rape charges and endangering the welfare of a child.

At the conclusion of Mr. H trial, 88 of the 120 counts were submitted to the jury. He was convicted of two counts of third degree rape, incest, seven counts of endangering the welfare of a child and two counts of third degree sodomy. His criminal defense attorney filed a motion to set aside the verdict, which was denied. Mr. H was sentenced to an aggregate term of 5 1/3 to 16 years. He subsequently appealed his conviction to the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division.

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Brian F was charged with and convicted of multiple counts of sodomy, sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. His criminal defense attorney challenged his conviction with the New York Court of Appeals, on the grounds that the testimony of his victims was insufficient to prove his guilt in connection with the sex crimes.

Specifically, Mr. F argued that the testimony did not meet the corroboration requirement as set forth under New York law. Section 60.22 of the CPL and Section 130.16 of the Penal Law preclude a conviction for sex crimes based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice or victim.

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It is truly disturbing for ordinary people the crimes that are happening in our society today. You can never be sure anymore that you are safe inside your own home let alone out in the streets. Take a look at this particular case in which an innocent woman suffered indignity and humiliation on a regular night out with friends.

A woman, with her two friends were having a nice time at the Unger’s Bar. This was around midnight on September 10, 1983. The woman felt a bit hungry and went out to get something to eat at the restaurant next door. After ordering two hotdogs, she went outside to sit at the passenger’s side of her friend’s car because she didn’t want to eat alone inside the restaurant. According to a Lawyer, shortly after the woman began to eat a man, the defendant, suddenly went inside the car and sat on the driver’s side of the vehicle. He was already agitated and he spoke with so much anger at her that she did not understand while holding a knife at her throat. It all happened so fast that the woman could not understand what had happened.

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There are many sex crimes these days that are discovered by a New York sex crime lawyer to have been caused by mental health or abnormality. Aside from SORA there is also the SOMTA or what is called as the Sex Offender Management and Treatment Act which deals with sex crimes that involve the Mental Hygiene Law. In this particular case, the one accused is Harold Nelson convicted of promoting prostitution, kidnapping and also bail jumping. He was given the charge of 9 to 18 years for kidnapping, 4 to 8 years for the kidnapping, and 3 to 6 years for the bail jumping.

According to a lawyer, Nelson forced his victim and raped her over and over again. He even forced her to be a prostitute and even physically beat her including the involvement of drugs. He was a detained sex offender who was found out to have been suffering from some kind of mental abnormality. According to a New York law describes SOMTA as crimes that are sexually motivated.

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In a lot of sex crimes these days, an expert lawyer says that there are many accused who suffer from a certain kind of mental abnormalities. Such case lets the court decide that such accused undergo certain treatment like the SORA. But in this case, the alleged named as Elias M. However, in this case he keeps on appealing that such program is unconstitutional and that he would fight for his right.

According to the lawyer who became a part of the case, the court did not agree that the decision for the SORA is unconstitutional. It even scored him as a sex offender who is of high risk and falls as level 3 offender. But the defendant still continue to disagree and never stopped submitting written submissions to serve as additional support to what he is trying to prove. Another lawyer also believes that there is no valid reason at all to have his level 3 designation to be lowered for he was certainly considered as a high risk offender which means he is of great harm to the society.

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On September 17, 1992 the Family Court of Kings County, New York heard a disturbing case involving the two children, two boys and a girl who were possibly being abused by their father. The allegations of sexual abuse stated that the father pinched and squeezed the buttocks and genitals of the boy children. However, it was claimed that this handling occurred while they were wrestling and playing. The father stated that he did handle the boys, but it was in no way sexual. He stated that it was just horsing around type of behavior. He stated that he had grabbed the boys’ genitals and buttocks during wrestling, but that he had been similarly touched as a child and had not considered it wrong. He stated that he realizes that it “transgresses proper parental boundaries.” The professionals called upon to review this case state that in order for the touching to be considered sexual abuse, there must be an element of sexual gratification in the touching that does not appear to be evident in this case. The doctor who examined the children stated that she could not say with absolute certainty that the boys had been abused. She advised that there were perhaps inappropriate parental boundaries, but that is not abnormal. Many parents involve in interplay with their children especially in “early stages of development that consists of touching, squeezing, patting, and pinching various parts of the child’s body including buttocks and at times genitalia.” The doctor stated that the difference is that when the child is older, the same behavior is not acceptable. She stated that some parents lack the respect for the child’s right to privacy of his own person that the child should develop as it grows and matures. The parent therefore, continues with the same games only now the child or society perceives them as inappropriate. It is agreed that there seems to be a gray area in the parental child relationship that must be examined with extreme care in order that normal parental interactions are not erroneously defined as sexual abuse. By falsely identifying this behavior as sexual abuse, a parent /child relationship can be severely damaged.

Another aspect of this allegation that must be examined is the aspect that the mother may have coached the children to make the allegations. The allegations were made to a third party outside of the normal interactions in the home which is not normal. The mother stated that years before, she had made the children watch a video tape about reporting sexual abuse. The court officers have observed the mother’s displays of illogical thinking and reports of her being incoherent. The mother has publically accused the father of sexually abusing the boys and has refused to comply with court ordered visitations because she states that he is a sex abuser. It is difficult to determine if the alleged abuse actually occurred, or if during normal family type play, touching was engaged in that had nothing to do with sexual gratification. Since it is unable to determine the intent behind the touching, the court has no choice but to dismiss the sexual abuse allegations in this case. Not only was the court unable to find that there was intent involved. The timing of the allegations to fall shortly before the hearing of this custody case is suspect especially, since it is alleged that the contact was several years earlier. Something that they do consider has led to the some of the bad feelings that the children have towards their father is the ongoing domestic violence that the children observed growing up in the home.

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These days, it is very hard to trust others especially when it comes to leaving our kids with people who you can truly rely on. There are many cases these days where nannies and even babysitters are accused of committing sex crimes that involve the children of their own employers according to a lawyer. This goes the same for this case that is considered as an example here in this report for you to understand better the legal proceedings for such cases. The one involved here as the accused is James Watt.

As per the lawyer who studied this case, Watt was convicted of rape, sodomy and for putting into danger the welfare of a little child. The crimes involved in his case are considered very heinous since it was committed against innocent and helpless tiny girls who are under 11 years old. These kids according to their parents were entrusted to him since he operates a basement based daycare center in the community. The problem that made everything worse is that the daycare center was not registered.

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On September 29, 2008, a petition was put before the Family Court of Tioga County to have a certain child classified as a neglected child under Family Law. What would this mean and how did it come about?

The child was born in 2005. In 2007, his biological parents began living together, and were later married. On April 16, 2008, a report was filed alleging that the husband had committed domestic violence against his wife twice, in the presence of the child.

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