Counter Pedophilia Investigate Unit

RICHMOND, Va. — Legislation that spells out the duties and deadlines of college coaches and other professions to report evidence of child abuse and increases punishment for those who don’t received a House committee’s unanimous blessing Thursday.

The three bills are Virginia’s response to child abuse allegations that rocked Penn State’s mighty football program and forced the November firing of its legendary head coach, Joe Paterno. (more…)

Phoenix: Two Arizona parents were arrested by sheriff’s deputies after apparently posting pictures on Facebook that showed their children, an infant and a toddler, bound with duct tape, authorities said on Thursday.

Coconino County deputies arrested Frankie Almuina, 20, and Kayla Almuina, 19, on suspicion of two counts of child abuse on Wednesday at their northern Arizona home after being alerted to the photos by an anonymous tip. (more…)

As high-profile pedophilia cases rivet the nation, psychiatrists uncover fascinating new details about the mental illness, from how offenders justify abuse to striking patterns in brain scans.

Amid the past month’s disturbing revelations about child sexual abuse at Penn State and Syracuse—and the debates over morality and complicity and punishment—it can be easy to forget that pedophilia is a mental illness, and that legally, it only becomes a crime when acted upon. Yet the key to preventing and treating the disorder may lie in its clinical details. (more…)

CAPE CORAL, Fla.- In mid-September, a Cape Coral couple discovered that their 14-year-old daughter was having inappropriate contact online via social media with a person believed to be a 15-year-old male, but was actually a 34-year-old male named Stephen Kozak of Brandon, Florida.

The parents contacted Cape Coral Police and the case was assigned to a detective that belongs to the FBI’s Innocent Images Task Force.

The child’s Facebook account was taken over by the Cape Coral Police Detective and the Innocent Images Task Force and contact was resumed with Kozak. Kozak engaged in graphic sexually charged conversations online with the Detective (whom he believed was a 14-year-old girl). (more…)

Forget for a brief moment what he did to a little girl, Jose Luis Ledezma believes he’s been terribly wronged by Orange County’s criminal justice system.

Yes, Ledezma freely admitted that in August 2008 he raped, sodomized and got forced oral copulation from a 6-year-old girl when he was 20 years old.

But he thinks that he should have been allowed to plead guilty and then have some time–a few weeks or months?–to contemplate the consequences and then change his mind. (more…)

CALGARY - It’s impossible to imagine a more helpless victim, or a more sickening crime.

A teenage quadriplegic, brain-injured and confined to a wheelchair, repeatedly molested by his own perverted caregiver.

The disgusting deed was caught on surveillance video, and police in two countries are now trying to catch the creep convicted of the crime – a former Calgarian believed to be hiding in Canada.

“He’s wanted for several counts of sexual misconduct with a minor,” said Deputy Jason Ogan of the Pima County, Arizona Sheriff’s Department.

George Ross Wilcox vanished before a Pima County Superior Court could sentence him for the crime after he was found guilty of four counts of sexual conduct with a minor under 15.

It was June 9, 2009, when Wilcox fled Arizona and a seemingly certain jail sentence after the court found him guilty – in part based on the video which documented the pedophile attacks on the child.

So keen are police to catch and jail 53-year-old Wilcox, who was born and raised in Calgary, that the case was given top billing on America’s Most Wanted, a website and TV show dedicated to catching fugitive criminals.

“Before Wilcox was sentenced, he took off. He is a Canadian citizen and police believe he may have fled the states – hiding out in Calgary or Vancouver, Canada,” reads the Most Wanted description.

From a family with nine brothers and sisters, Wilcox still has strong family connections to Calgary, including his mother, father and many of his siblings. (more…)

A Deltona man who routinely invited teenage girls into his house for marijuana and alcohol was behind bars on child molestation charges Wednesday after sheriff’s investigators said one girl collapsed drunk on a sidewalk near his home and another described enduring sexual abuse in his bedroom.

Deputies charged 45-year-old Mauro Angel Hanco — who they said eyed teenage girls as they walked past his home on Trade Street, near two Deltona schools — with lewd and lascivious battery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office.

And investigators urged other victims in the neighborhood, if any, to come forward.

The investigation into Hanco began last week after a 15-year-old girl stumbled out of his home, drunk on vodka, and passed out on a sidewalk on Howland Boulevard, sheriff’s spokesman Gary Davidson said. Deputies said they found the girl so incoherent she could only give them her name.

She was taken by ambulance to Florida Hospital Fish Memorial to have her stomach pumped. (more…)

A legendary high school basketball coach from New York avoided jail time yesterday when he pleaded guilty to statutory rape of a child and disseminating pornography in Boston.

Robert Oliva will instead serve five years of probation for raping a 14-year-old boy during a trip to Boston 35 years ago to see the Red Sox take on the Yankees.

“I now realize I lost my childhood to Bob Oliva,” said the victim in his impact statement. “I was his sex toy or his sex trophy.”

Oliva took the boy to Boston in 1976 where they saw the Sox game and stayed at the Sheraton Hotel, prosecutors said. That’s where Oliva assaulted the boy and showed him pornographic movies.

(more…)

SHAWANO — Two registered sex offenders from Shawano have been jailed on charges of possessing child pornography.

The men, ages 22 and 23, are expected to make initial court appearances today in Shawano County Court on 10 counts of possession of child pornography.

Additional charges are expected, according to authorities.

Shawano County Sheriff’s Capt. Thomas Tuma said the men were arrested Wednesday after police searched an undisclosed residence in Shawano and found child pornography.

The search warrant was issued following a joint investigation involving the sheriff’s department and Shawano police. Tuma said authorities received information that the men kept child pornography at the residence.

Source: Postcrescent