Tag: News
Sex Offender Impersonates Officer To Rape Woman
You would think some sex offenders would try their best to stay out of trouble but I guess that’s wishful thinking.
A sex offender is now back in custody after he impersonated an officer to kidnap and rape a woman in Mississippi. Louis Winston Scott, 44, was arrested Monday afternoon after two incidents where he tried to used red and blue flashing lights to pull over women.
The first incident happened early Saturday morning. The victim said she noticed a black car behind her with flashing red and blue police lights so she pulled over. The suspect pulled his vehicle up next to the woman’s and yelled at her before driving off.
Less than an hour later a similar situation took place with another woman. She noticed the same black car and pulled over. The suspect made her get out the car at knifepoint and made her get in his car. He then took her to a remote area where he sexually assaulted her then took her back to her car.
The suspect was captured Monday in the woods behind his home. He was charged with one count of rape and kidnapping and attempted kidnapping. Scott could also face charges for impersonating a police officer.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/sex-offender-impersonated-officer-kidnap-rape-woman-article-1.3452257
Accused child molester impregnated 10-year-old girl, police say
Nicholas Deon Thrash is facing 10 counts of child molesting.
The victim’s family says the man accused of molesting and impregnating the then 10-year-old girl was no stranger. In fact, he was living with her mother.
The young girl’s grandmother said she met Thrash multiple times and never thought he would be capable of doing something like this.
She described him as polite and helpful around the house, saying he had them fooled.
She says her granddaughter is now 20 weeks pregnant. The grandmother wanted to share their story to let parents know how important it is to talk with your kids, and let them know that they can come to you if something isn’t right.
She says it’s heartbreaking to watch someone so young go through this.
“She’d come out and ask, ‘Can I get my Barbies?’ I said, ‘Of course you can.’ She’s still a little girl that wants to play, and now her whole life has changed. She’s scared, being in that for so long and knowing you have to carry this baby,” the girl’s grandmother told WISH.
The director of Prevent Child Abuse Indiana says conversations with your kids about appropriate boundaries are important and they should be had at a young age.
She said to be cautious of adults who are looking to spend too much alone time with a certain child. She says about 80 percent of sexual abuse occurs in one-on-one situations.
The family has not yet decided whether to put the baby up for adoption. In the meantime, they are in need of maternity clothes for that young girl. She is a size small.
CONVICTED FELON HIRED AS VICE PRINCIPAL OF CHESTER HIGH SCHOOL
Freddie Dean Smith has a lengthy record, but that hasn’t stopped him from bouncing around from state to state applying for jobs working with kids.
A quick Google search of his name easily turns up reports of his sordid past. So, we are asking how he slipped through the cracks and into a Delaware County high school.
Article after article written by New York journalist Robert Cox documents a decade of investigations into the elusive Freddie Dean Smith.
“This is a guy who keeps managing to keep slipping through the cracks, and to me is a dangerous, sick individual who does not belong anywhere near children,” Cox said.
Cox says Smith was denied teachers certifications in Maryland and Virginia, but somehow this convicted felon landed in Chester High School.
“This is somebody with a criminal record. I can’t imagine that any parent would want someone like that as an administrator at their child’s school,” said Cox.
A background check and records obtained by Action News show in 2002 he was found guilty of eluding police, which is a felony. And in 2001 and 2003 in two separate incidents in South Carolina he was charged with sex crimes for approaching women in two different stores, and exposing himself and touching himself in a lewd fashion.
We went to Chester High School looking for Smith and answers. Superintendent Dr. Juan Baughn directed us to a written statement they provided, which says in part: “Mr. Smith was only with the school district for one day as per diem assistant principal. He took part in training sessions, during which he had no unsupervised contact with students.” We told the superintendent how some people say Smith is unfit to be around kids.
“He is not around our kids. He is not around our kids. He is not here,” Baughn said.
Sources tell Action News that Smith was hired for the last six weeks of class at Chester High School using an emergency certification to fill a void after the principal left and a vice principal was promoted.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education could not tell us if Smith has a valid Pennsylvania teaching certification, and the Department of Human Services would not tell us if any background checks were run as required by law, citing privacy concerns.
The superintendent said the school district did a background check themselves. Smith worked there on May 2nd, last week for a single day, until his criminal past was revealed.
And while we were not able to track down Freddie Dean Smith, Cox says that is no surprise. He’s been trying for a decade, and he wonders if and when Smith will show up somewhere else.
“Freddie Dean Smith is a very elusive figure who understands how to game the system and avoid public scrutiny from the media,” Cox said.
Cox tells us that Smith is still licensed in the state of New York, and he has been able to get jobs using that certification in other states that have reciprocal agreements with New York.
Full statement from Chester Upland School District:
It is our standard procedure to conduct criminal background checks on all new hires before they begin employment with the school district. The check performed on Freddie Dean Smith did not reveal any misconduct related to sexual assault.
Mr. Smith was only with the school district for one day as per diem assistant principal. He took part in training sessions during which he had no unsupervised contact with students.
He is no longer with the district. As always, the safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority.
via: http://6abc.com/news/convicted-felon-hired-as-vice-principal-of-chester-high-school/1973641/
UNDERCOVER AGENTS FIND REGISTERED CHURCH TO BE SEX CLUB
Undercover inspectors have determined that a building registered as a church was being operated as a sex club.
WTVF-TV reports that the city of Nashville has filed a complaint against the owners for “maintaining a public nuisance by permitting acts of lewd conduct” and violating a state law banning sex clubs from operating within 1,000 feet of a school.
The longtime downtown swingers club underwent a conversion in 2015 when it relocated to a run-down office park in the community of Madison, calling itself a church because the new location is near the back of the private Goodpasture Christian School.
Two codes inspectors paid $40 to enter the facility in March and filed affidavits detailing sex acts they witnessed within.
The city is seeking to close the club.
via: http://abc7chicago.com/news/undercover-agents-find-registered-church-to-be-sex-club/1988838/
BOY, 8, BULLIED AT SCHOOL DAYS BEFORE KILLING HIMSELF
The 8-year-old hanged himself with a necktie in the bedroom of his Cincinnati home on Jan. 26. School officials called the boy’s mother the day her son was bullied and said he had fainted, attorney Carla Leader told The Associated Press.
“They didn’t tell her the whole story,” Leader said. “The school also said his vitals were fine and he was alert.”
The mother learned of the bullying and the surveillance video after her attorneys obtained a Cincinnati police investigative file over her son’s death. The file included a copy of a Feb. 3 email from a homicide detective to an assistant principal at Carson Elementary School and other Cincinnati school officials describing what he saw on the video obtained from the school district’s security department.
Cincinnati Public Schools, in a statement issued Thursday, did not address the allegation that officials at the elementary school didn’t tell the boy’s mother what had happened. School district spokeswoman Janet Walsh said the detective “mischaracterized the events in the video,” the existence of which was first reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Leader said she watched the surveillance video and that it shows another boy acting aggressively toward students. When the 8-year-old approached him and tried to shake his hand, the boy threw him against the wall, knocking him unconscious, Leader said.
Other students stepped over the boy while others poked him with their feet as he lay unconscious for 7 minutes before an assistant principal and then a school nurse came to his aid, Leader said. The mother came to get the 8-year-old after the school called her.
The mother took him to a hospital that evening after the boy vomited and complained of stomach pains. Doctors said he had a stomach virus and sent him home. Neither doctors nor the boy’s mother knew what had happened earlier that day, her attorneys said.
The ages of the other children involved or present at the attack were not immediately available. The elementary school’s website shows that it serves children from prekindergarten through the sixth grade and has 750 students.
The Cincinnati Public School statement provides a different version of events. It says that “while we are concerned about the length of time that (the boy) lay motionless and the lack of adult supervision at the scene,” school administrators followed protocol by having the nurse evaluate him. The boy’s mother was asked to pick him up and take him to a hospital “to be checked out,” the statement said.
The mother’s attorneys said her sister, who was caring for the boy while she was at work that night, called to tell her the boy had been vomiting.
Leader described the boy as a “happy-go-lucky kid” who had shown no signs of mental issues. Leader said the boy came home from school on Jan. 26, spoke with his mother and went into his bedroom. She later discovered him hanging from his bunk bed.
The email from the homicide detective, which was shared with The Associated Press, describes what he saw in the surveillance video. The detective said it appeared that the “primary agitator” hit one child in the stomach, sending him to the floor on hands and knees. The 8-year-old then approached the aggressor and tried to shake his hand but was pulled to the floor, the detective wrote.
The aggressor “appears to celebrate and rejoice in his behavior as (the boy) lay motionless. For many minutes, many students step over, point, mock, nudge, kick” the boy, the email said.
The detective told school officials that while he had concerns about the bullying, which could be considered a criminal assault, he added that the school would be better suited to handle the situation because of the children’s ages.
Meanwhile, the coroner has reopened its investigation into the boy’s suicide, and his school district is expected to release video showing the incident.
A Hamilton County coroner’s office spokesman said Friday that new evidence has prompted the reopening of the case, but he wouldn’t say what that evidence is.
A Cincinnati schools spokeswoman says the video might be released Friday.
‘I Don’t Want to Go to Jail, Mommy’: 8-Year-Old Found Steering Car for Drunken Mom, Police Say
A mother faces multiple charges after she allowed her young son to steer the car while driving down a Milwaukee freeway Thursday, authorities said.
Carrie Bernard, 37, faces one count of second-degree recklessly endangering safety and one count of DUI with a minor child in the vehicle. She also faces a third charge for allegedly violating the terms of her interlock ignition device agreement.
According to a criminal complaint, around 2:30 p.m. a deputy observed a vehicle “having difficulty negotiating the curve on the ramp” to the freeway at Fond du Lac Avenue at 107th Street.
The deputy noted the vehicle was making “jerky motions” and at one point, it drove up onto the grass on the side of the ramp, before entering the freeway. Once on the freeway, the complaint says the vehicle “could not keep its lane of travel,” and the deputy, once alongside the vehicle, noticed a small child sitting on Carrie Bernard’s lap in the driver’s seat.
The complaint states “the child had both of his hands on the steering wheel, manipulating the vehicle.”
The officer pulled the car over, and, during the traffic stop, the 8-year-old child was seen jumping to the passenger seat, and putting his seat belt on, according to the complaint.
When told why she was pulled over, prosecutors say Bernard replied: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one was operating this vehicle except me.”
The 8-year-old child, sitting in front of a pit bull that was also in the passenger seat “began to cry,” and said, “I don’t want to go to jail, mommy.”
The complaint says Bernard then turned to her son and said: “You’re not going to jail. Just remember her face. She’s the one that did this to us,” referencing the deputy.
Prosecutors say Bernard’s speech was slurred, she moved lethargically and had pinpoint pupils. She allegedly told investigators: “I took my meds this morning, so?” When asked what type of medications she took, the complaint says Bernard replied, “I don’t think that’s important.” When she was asked to step out of the vehicle, prosecutors say Bernard refused — rolling up her window and locking the doors.
When additional squad cars arrived on scene, prosecutors say Bernard eventually exited her vehicle after a deputy threatened to break the window and forcibly remove her. Police arrested Bernard after she failed a field sobriety test and took a sample of her blood at the Milwaukee County Jail.
The complaint notes that Bernard was convicted of DUI in January and July of 2014. Her license was revoked at the time of the alleged incident on May 4th, according to DOT records.
MONTANA WOMAN USED METH AS TODDLER LAY DYING, PROSECUTORS SAY
A Montana woman abused a 13-month-old girl in her care, used methamphetamine while the child was unconscious and when the girl stopped breathing, put her body in a duffel bag and threw it in a trash can before going home to sleep, federal prosecutors said.
Janelle Red Dog, 43, of Poplar, has reached an agreement to plead guilty to second-degree murder in the April 2016 death of Kenzley Olson on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, home to about 10,000 members of the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes in northeastern Montana.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris has set a change-of-plea hearing for May 1 in Great Falls.
Prosecutors were prepared to show that Kenzley was ill and Red Dog was frustrated because she could not get the girl to stop crying, according to an offer of proof filed Thursday. She hit the girl on the head four times, causing her to have a seizure and lose consciousness, court records said.
Red Dog did not seek medical help for Kenzley and instead used meth with a friend. Sometime early the next morning, she decided to take the girl to the hospital. Red Dog said the girl stopped breathing on the way.
“Red Dog, believing (Kenzley) to be dead, disposed of her body by placing her into a duffel bag and throwing the duffel bag in an alley trash can,” prosecutors said.
Kenzley died of multiple blunt force injuries, but an exam also noted numerous bruises from head to toe in various stages of healing, suggesting a pattern of continued physical abuse and neglect, an autopsy found.
“It could also not be determined if (Kenzley) was deceased at the time she was placed in the duffel bag, so asphyxia or cold exposure could not be ruled out as contributed to her death,” court records said. Kenzley had the flu and was in the beginning stages of pneumonia, the autopsy found.
Red Dog initially reported Kenzley missing on April 19, 2016, and suggested she may have been kidnapped.
Kenzley’s death came just weeks after John Lieba II abducted a 4-year-old girl from a park in the reservation town of Wolf Point and sexually assaulted her before trying to kill her. The girl was found several days later. Lieba was convicted earlier this month of kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse and assault resulting in serious bodily injury. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 3.
The day after making the report, Red Dog confessed and led investigators to the girl’s body.
Red Dog had been caring for Kenzley for three to four weeks prior to her death, court records said. Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure has said Kenzley’s mother was being held in the tribal jail at the time.
Red Dog’s mother, Rhea Starr, said her daughter was caring for Kenzley when no one else would.
“That baby was passed along like yesterday’s gossip,” Starr told The Associated Press last year.
Azure has said both cases show the impact of meth on the reservation. On Friday, Azure said drug use is still an issue on the reservation, but his department does not have the money and personnel to adequately address it.
via: http://abc7chicago.com/news/prosecutors-woman-used-meth-as-toddler-lay-dying/1938129/
Ex-Teacher in Texas Accused of Having Sex With 4 Students, one time was a 3-way
A former Texas kindergarten teacher is accused of having sex with four high school students, two of them at the same time, according to an arrest warrant released Monday. Heather Lee Robertson, 38, was arrested Saturday on four counts of an improper relationship, KTRE reports.
On April 20, police began investigating after receiving information about Robertson and several teenage students.
One student told police that he and Robertson started talking and “sexting” on Snapchat, the station said. Sometime after spring break, she asked him to come to her apartment to have sex, according to police — and that’s when he asked if a friend could come and join them.
Once at the apartment, they all talked for a few minutes before Robertson allegedly asked them to have sex with her.
Both students admitted to the incident.
In addition, two other students admitted to having a sexual relationship with Robertson on multiple occasions.
In an interview with investigators, Robertson said that she didn’t make the boys use protection because she couldn’t have children anymore, according to the Lufkin Daily News. She also said she wasn’t able to remember details about the encounters because she had recently started drinking heavily, the warrant stated.
On Friday, Hudson Independent School District Superintendent Mary Ann Whiteker released a statement to the paper:
“We acted immediately and began our investigation,” Whiteker said. “We pursued with the correct protocol we have to follow. I accepted the resignation (Thursday) afternoon, and it has been submitted through the appropriate legal channels. Our investigation has been finalized.”
If convicted, Robertson could face up to 20 years in prison, police said.
via: http://ktla.com/2017/04/24/ex-teacher-accused-of-having-sex-with-4-students-2-at-the-same-time/
WOMAN CLAIMS FITBIT EXPLODED ON HER WRIST ” I got pieces of plastic burned into my arm”
Diana Mitchell had only owned her Fitbit Flex 2 for two weeks when the alleged incident occurred as she was reading a book. She said there was no indication that there was anything wrong with the device.
“The Fitbit itself is totally melted. The bracelet melted, and I got pieces of plastic burned into my arm,” she told WTMJ-TV.
Mitchell said her doctor had to pick pieces of plastic out of her wound. A local emergency care provider confirmed that Mitchell was treated the day after she said the explosion occurred.
The Fitbit does come with a warning, cautioning consumers that “the device contains electrical equipment that could cause injury if not handled properly.”
Fitbit officials have issued a statement saying that they are investigating the incident. They said they are not aware of any similar complaints.
MAN HID MOTHER’S BODY PARTS IN REFRIGERATOR, COURT DOCUMENTS SAY
A Hawaii man accused of killing his mother months ago stuffed her dismembered body parts in seven plastic bags in the kitchen freezer of the Waikiki apartment they shared, according to court documents made public Monday.
Yu Wei Gong has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Liu Yun Gong.
He called 911 on April 11 and said: “‘I killed my Mom,'” according to a detective’s affidavit supporting an arrest warrant. When officers arrived and could not find the woman, Gong told them she was “in the fridge,” the complaint said.
An officer found what appeared to be body parts.
“Another covered object in the freezer felt to a different officer like a human leg and foot,” the complaint said.
Yu Wei Gong didn’t speak or enter a plea during a brief court appearance Monday. Deputy Public Defender Diamond Grace requested a Mandarin interpreter for his preliminary hearing, scheduled for Wednesday. He remained in custody with bail set at $2 million.
Grace didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment after the hearing.
Authorities say Yu Wei Gong told officers that he accidentally killed his mother in September after she became angry when the 26-year-old said he wanted to work instead of going to school.
Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Rachel Lange determined Liu Yun Gong had suffered blunt force injuries to the head, the complaint said. Her identity was confirmed by comparing fingerprints to those on file under her Hawaii driver’s license.
The manager of the apartment building where they lived told police he had not seen the man’s mother since before Christmas, the complaint said.
It said Liu Yun Gong did not show up for work on Aug. 21, 2016. When a supervisor called her phone, it went unanswered. Yu Wei Gong called the supervisor the next day, saying his mother was on another Hawaiian island and had left her phone at home.
Three women watched the hearing and said outside court they wanted to support Gong spiritually because he had attended their church.
Gong and his mother, who they knew by different names, attended Waipahu United Church of Christ, said former pastor Norma Desaegher.
“He has nobody. No family as far as we can tell,” she said, adding that it’s been several years since she last saw him. “We wanted to give him that spiritual support.”
Gong moved to Hawaii from China when he was 19, after his mother married an active church parishioner she met online, the women said. Mother and son stopped going to church after the man died in 2014.
The women said Gong took English classes at the church and moved with his mother and step-father to Waikiki so she could pursue a massage business.
“We just wanted people to know they were a good family” Desaegher said.