Sex crimes of all nature, especially child sex abuse crimes, are considered very serious crimes in Pennsylvania. Under Pennsylvania Statutes Sections 3121-3130, you could be charged with the most serious felony crimes of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, institutional sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, or misdemeanor charges for indecent assault, indecent exposure, sexual intercourse with an animal or conduct relating to sex offenders. Prosecutors vigorously try these cases and courts are harsh on sentencing convicted sex offenders involving sex crimes against children. Prison sentences for the most serious sex felony crime convictions are lengthy ranging from maximum minimum 10 year sentences to 40 years for crimes involving rape and multiple deviate sexual intercourse charges involving minors, especially minors under 13 years of age and fines up to $100,000. Convicted sex offenders must register on the state sex offender registry after serving their sentences, which could affect where you can live and may affect other aspects of your life such as employment. Even if you are not accused of these offenses, you can still be charged with failing to report serious sex crimes to law enforcement and also be subject to perjury charges if you lie under oath about not having knowledge of such crimes.

Case Example

Former Penn State football defensive coordinator and assistant football coach Gerald “Jerry” Sandusky was arrested on November 5, 2011, accused of child sex abuse crimes involving eight boys over a time span of approximately 10 years. He was released on a $100,000 bond after the arraignment on 40 criminal counts according to the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General. Charges include seven felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of a child, indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor, single counts of aggravated indecent assault and attempted indecent assault. Sandusky is facing up to 20 years in prison for the seven felony counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse alone besides additional sentences for other charges if he is convicted. Mr. Sandusky denies the charges. Penn State athletic director Tim Curley, 57, and the University’s vice president for finance and business as well as having responsibility for overseeing the University Police Department, Gary Schultz, 62, have been charged with perjury and failing to report information they had regarding the sex abuse allegations.

At one time, Mr. Sandusky was considered to be a likely replacement for the legendary Joe Paterno, Penn State’s head coach position, prior to his retirement in 1999. After retiring from Penn State, Mr. Sandusky continued his work with at-risk-children through his non-profit organization Second Mile, which he founded in 1977. All of the victims in the case are alleged to have initially come into contact with Mr. Sandusky through his Second Mile organization. In 1999, Mr. Sandusky was banned from the Clinton County school district after the mother of an approximate 11 or 12 year old boy at the time reported to the high school that her son received expensive gifts and trips to sporting events and reported to her that he had been sexually assaulted by Mr. Sandusky during an overnight stay at his house. These charges triggered the State’s investigation into Mr. Sandusky’s current alleged sexual abuse charges.

Other allegations by a graduate assistant, Mr. Kelly, took place in 2002 when he reported that he saw Mr. Sandusky sexually assaulting a naked boy approximately 10 years old in a locker room of the Lasch Football Building located on the campus. He and his father reported the incident to Mr. Paterno, who then reported it to Mr. Curley, but it was not reported to any law enforcement agencies or Child Protective Service Agencies as required under Pennsylvania Law. Mr. Paterno has not been charged with any wrongdoing in the case according to prosecutors. Mr. Curley testified that he banned Mr. Sandusky from bringing any children onto the campus and that he reported the matter to Penn State President Graham Spanier. Mr. Sandusky was no longer coaching at Penn State during this time.

On November 9, 2011, Joe Paterno announced he was retiring at the end of the season, but the University made the decision to ask Paterno and President Spanier to leave effectively immediately, naming defensive coordinator Tom Bradley as the interim coach and provost Rodney Erickson as interim University President. With such a major scandal for a school that has maintained one of the most pristine images in college sports and one of four major schools that have never been found guilty of any major violations by the NCAA, this is a devastating blow. With the school’s reputation at stake, the University has hired their own investigator, former FBI director Louis Freeh, to conduct an independent investigation regarding the Sandusky child sex abuse allegations.

Hire an Attorney

If you are accused or charged with Pennsylvania sex crimes involving minors or other related sex offenses, these are very serious charges and require the assistance of a Pennsylvania Criminal Sexual Offense Attorney to defend you. The attorney understands the Pennsylvania laws and can aggressively defend you by interviewing witnesses and may be able to convince authorities and prosecutors to drop or dismiss charges against you, or in some cases, avoid charges from being filed against you if were falsely accused. The attorney may also be able to get charges filed against you reduced to a lesser crime such as indecent exposure or get you community service or probation.

Sources

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1121/Penn-State-appoints-ex-FBI-director-to-lead-child-sex-abuse-investigation

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577020001842475304.html

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/story/2011-11-05/penn-state-abuse-case/51083628/1

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/7212054/key-dates-penn-state-nittany-lions-sex-abuse-case

http://deadspin.com/5859426/pa-criminal-attorney-on-sandusky-judge-i-have-never-had-a-client-who-was-charged-with-those-counts-released-on-unsecured-bail

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/nation-world-news/pa-sex-crime-laws-under-focus-with-abuse-case-1290464.html

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/Search/statuteSearchAction.cfm?maxfiles=10&autoStopLimit=1000&index=cons&request=rape

Couple Allegedly Routinely Shot Kids with BB Gun

Officers say that the children of Jessica Pack, 31, were shot with a BB gun dozens of times over a period of three months by both her and her live-in boyfriend, 23-year-old Jackie Nanney.

• Pack has been accused of shooting only one of her children, pulling the trigger at least once
• Nanney has been accused of shooting all three kids

Mother Claims She Tried to Prevent Shootings

Pack insists that she tried to prevent Nanney from shooting her kids, ages 4, 5, and 7. During her first court appearance she explained, “I tried to stop him, but he still wouldn’t.”

Officer Chris Reynolds countered her claim by saying Pack should be held responsible because she failed to contact authorities.

Boyfriend Denies Criminal Charges

Nanney denied the accusations against him, “We’ll shoot cans. That’s all we shoot. I don’t shoot no kids.  No shooting anybody’s going on. We’re just out there having fun.”

Officers point out that the welts and bruises all over the children’s bodies are evidence that cans were not the only targets being shot at.

Others Disgusted by Child Abuse, Assault

The stepmother of Pack’s 13-year-old son, who was not one of the victims, expressed her disgust. “I wouldn’t imagine somebody touching a youngen, especially not shooting a BB gun at them,” said Mendy Payne.

Kids Shot For the Fun of It

Police said that the most disturbing thing about the situation was the fact that it appeared that the kids had been shot because Pack and Nanney thought it was amusing. ”Looks to be he was doing it for the fun of it,” said Reynolds. “It just became what appeared to be a pleasure for him of shooting individuals.”

He added, “They were hit in the bathroom, in the bathtub, outside playing and riding their bike.  It was like fun and games for him.”

(Source:  Gaston Gazette)

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The young man, only identified as “Kyle,” had been in the custody of his aunt, Caren Ramirez, for over the past year. Ramirez—along with Michael Schumacher and Kelly Lau—are the three adults that face criminal charges in this case.

The three defendants face criminal charges including:

• Torture
• Kidnapping
• False imprisonment

If convicted, each of these defendants faces over 15 years in jail.

History of Kyle’s Imprisonment

According to authorities, Kyle’s recent imprisonment was only the latest incident in a string of abusive situations Kyle has escaped. After taking him away from his abusive father a few years ago, Sacramento County Child Protective Services (SCCPS) had placed Kyle in a foster home, which he ran away from due to abuse.

Defendants Have History of Child Abuse

In an effort to keep him with family, SCCPS then placed Kyle with Ramirez. However, in 2007, Ramirez was arrested for child abuse after she was caught beating Kyle with:

• Sticks
• Brooms
• Kitchen utensils

In the incident report, authorities found serious bruises all over Kyle’s body. While Ramirez received probation for this abuse, she was eventually arrested when she failed to appear in court.

At this point, SCCPS placed Kyle with another family in the Sacramento area—from which he also ran away. Since this 2007 disappearance, no one—except Ramirez, Schumacher and Lau—knew where Kyle was.

Kyle’s Escape

The details of Kyle’s recent imprisonment have only come forth after Kyle jumped over an 8-foot fence to escape the Ramirez house. Earlier this week, Kyle—wearing only boxers and a 3-foot padlocked chain around his foot—ran into a nearby gym and begged employees to hide him from his captors.

Employees took him in, called authorities and fed Kyle while they awaited police. Despite being 17 years old, Kyle was so emaciated that he appeared to be about 5 years younger, according to the gym’s employees.

Local authorities are still investigating the details of Kyle’s past year at the Ramirez house. They haven’t specified the precise nature of his recent abuse.
A trial date has yet to be set for this case.

(Source: Los Angeles Times)

Have you been charged with a crime? If so, contact us today to talk to an experienced professional who will provide you with the legal support you need to get your charges reduced, if not dropped altogether.

Defendant’s Right to Cross-Examine His Accusers

The “Confrontation Clause” of the Sixth Amendment guarantees the accused in a criminal trial the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The purpose of the Confrontation Clause is to allow the defendant to cross-examine his accusers. It assists in the truth-finding process by allowing the judge or jury to examine a witness’s demeanor in the courtroom to determine whether he or she is being truthful. Requiring an accuser to be in the presence of the accused encourages truthfulness, because it is more difficult to lie about someone in their presence.

Many states, however, have essentially eliminated the confrontation requirement in child sexual abuse cases. Due to the young age of child accusers and the sensitive nature of the subject matter being discussed, many states have given judges the discretion to keep the accusers out of the courtroom. Prosecutors claim that traumatized child victims must be shielded from further trauma that they believe will result from facing the defendant in open court. Instead, child accusers in these states are permitted to testify via closed circuit television from a location other than the witness stand and other than the courtroom. Although defense attorneys have challenged this position, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld this practice. In Maryland v. Craig (1990), the Court ruled that, although the right to confront your accuser is important, that right is not absolute. Face-to-face confrontation sometimes gives way to the state’s interest in protecting children from potential psychological harm.

Do Defendants Lose the Presumption of Innocence?

Yet defense attorneys continue to argue that shielding child accusers from the accused presumes the defendant’s guilt. More importantly, it deprives the defendant of the presumption of innocence. The threat increases that innocent people could be convicted if a child witness is lying or if the child’s memories are influenced by suggestive questioning from adults.  Only by requiring a child witness to testify and be cross-examined in front of the defendant can a fact-finder arrive at the truth. While the youngest members of our society deserve to be protected, it should not be at the expense of fundamental due process rights of criminal defendants.

Despite its ruling, the Supreme Court continues to recognize the importance of face-to-face confrontation in criminal trials. Craig requires prosecutors to satisfy certain requirements in order to waive a child’s appearance in the courtroom. “The trial court must hear evidence and determine whether use of the one-way closed circuit television is necessary to protect the welfare of the particular child witness who seeks to testify.” Craig, 497 U.S. at 855.

Impact of a Child’s Presence in the Courtroom

Because the presence of the child in the courtroom can have such an impact on the finding of guilt or innocence, a criminal defense attorney should vigorously refute the necessity of closed-circuit testimony. A defense attorney can accomplish this by showing that the child witness’s trauma would be caused only by the courtroom generally, and not by the presence of the defendant. A skilled defense attorney will hold the State to its obligation, as the party with the burden of proof, to present evidence that the appearance of the child accuser in court will render the taking of testimony impossible. While seemingly a small battle in the war that a sexual abuse trial will be, its loss may result in denying a defendant his constitutional right to a fair trial.

Many Sexual Abuse Cases Involving Children Were Unfounded

These cases represent only a small sample of an apparent epidemic of sexual abuse that plagued the country. The accusations were marked by lurid details of torture, satanic rituals, and elaborate sexual abuse scenarios. They involved hundreds of children, and led to thousands of charges filed. If the stories seemed to horrifying to be believed, it is because, in many cases, they were not true. The McMartin case wore on for seven years and is the longest and most expensive case in U.S. history. It resulted in no convictions. Margaret Kelly Michaels was convicted of 115 counts of sexual abuse and spent five years in prison, before the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned her convictions. The charges in the Wenatachee “sex ring” were deemed entirely untrue, and the case has been described as, “the worst example ever of mental health services being abused by the state …” (“Pastor and wife are acquitted on all charges in sex-abuse case,” New York Times, December 12, 1995.) Certainly some children in some cases had been sexually abused, but research showed that between 23 percent and 33 percent of child sexual abuse cases involved false allegations, between 2 percent and 8 percent of cases involved deliberate lies by children, and the majority of reported cases were unfounded (“False sex abuse accusations lead to revision of theories,” Psychiatric News, June 20, 2003).

Techniques Used to Gather Evidence Are Flawed

Years after these and similar sexual abuse cases the psychiatric and law enforcement communities were left to determine how their systems had led to and perpetuated this modern-day witch hunt. What research in the past decade has indicated is that most interview techniques and assumptions used in the child abuse investigations were seriously flawed. In overturning one conviction, the court of appeals concluded that the alleged victims were subjected to aggressive, highly suggestive questioning. When the children denied being abused, the investigators badgered them until they gave the “right” answer. In addition, “[i]nterviewers were gullible, asked leading questions, conducted multiple interviews that led to delayed disclosures with fantastical details, and failed to consider other explanations for the children’s behaviors.” (“False sex abuse accusations lead to revision of theories,” Psychiatric News, June 20, 2003).

What Caused the Day Care Abuse Hysteria?

The psychiatric community must share the blame with law enforcement. The day care abuse hysteria was partially brought on by the rise of “recovered memories” of sexual abuse. These memories were “recovered” when patients suffering from psychological problems were told by therapists that their symptoms suggested sexual abuse, and could be remembered through the use of suggestive techniques such as hypnotic regression. (“The danger of false accusations,” Boston Globe, April 22, 2002). But these therapists had “confused the absence of memory with repression of a traumatic memory, believed that memories were immutable and could be recalled from birth, and assumed a person who felt abused had indeed been abused.” (“False sex abuse accusations lead to revision of theories,” Psychiatric News, June 20, 2003). Moreover, recent studies by psychologists have demonstrated that traumatic memories can be implanted.

If there is anything positive to be gleaned from the sexual abuse hysteria, it is that many law enforcement agencies have developed standard investigatory protocols designed to avoid contaminating child testimony. These protocols include videotaping the questioning of child accusers in order to document the interview process. In addition, members of the psychiatric community have begun to treat recovered memories with more skepticism. While prosecutions based on false accusations are not completely behind us, there is reason to hope that lessons from the past will prevent mistakes in the future.

Victims of False Sexual Abuse Accusations

To the falsely accused, however, past lessons may be of little comfort. Victims of false accusations face a difficult legal battle and a public presumption of guilt that may be difficult to overcome. Defendants need the assistance of an attorney who understands the legal issues involved, and who has experience in defending the falsely accused. An experienced attorney will investigate the charges, aggressively dispute the allegation, and present an effective case in court. If necessary a defendant’s lawyer will defend him in the press and protect him from mistreatment. A criminal sex conviction can result in significant prison time, and the accusation alone can cause significant emotional damage. A skilled attorney will minimize the damage to the accused both inside and outside the courtroom, and will fight to ensure that justice is done.

A school custodian was accused of sexual abuse by five girls. The charges were later dropped when the girls admitted that they had fabricated the story because the custodian had reported them for vandalizing a restroom. An Assistant Superintendent jumped off a bridge to his death after being accused of abusing a student. He had been cleared of any wrongdoing earlier that day. A social studies teacher was accused of molesting a student during a school field trip. Eleven months later, his name was cleared when his accuser recanted. A nine year-old girl offered to pay each of her friends one dollar if they would accuse her teacher of abuse.

False allegations of child abuse against teachers and other school employees can be economically, emotionally, and financially devastating. It can lead to criminal prosecution and long jail terms. And it is a real phenomenon. One school administrator claims to receive 10-12 false accusations of abuse against teachers every year. Multiplied across the country, this number is staggering and disturbing.

Sexual Abuse Allegations Used Against Teachers

Because crimes against children are so horrific, naturally accusers are taken seriously. What this means for accused teachers, is that they are usually presumed guilty presumption that can be very difficult to overcome. The most common motive of students who falsely accuse their teachers is to punish teachers who either disciplined them or give them poor grades. A false accusation of physical or sexual abuse will usually ensure that the targeted teacher is, at the least suspended or fired, and at worst, brought up on criminal charges. If an investigation is not properly handled, or the accused educator is not adequately represented by legal counsel, they may lose their careers and their freedom.

Some schools are addressing the issue before the problem arises. School handbooks advise teachers not to have any physical contact with students. Others discourage teachers from ever being one-on-one with a student in a classroom. But despite these precautions, educators remain vulnerable to abuse charges due to the nature of their positions.

Consequences of a Child Abuse Conviction

The consequences of a guilty plea or conviction for physical or sexual abuse are potentially disastrous. Besides substantial jail time, the convicted abuser will lose his teaching license. If convicted of sexual abuse, one must register as a sex offender, and have their name and residence publicly posted. The convicted abuser will be barred from certain types of jobs, and will often be forced to undergo psychological treatment. This adds up to a steep price for simply choosing a career in education.

An educator accused of physical or sexual abuse against a child should seek counsel immediately. A competent attorney will investigate your case, gather character witnesses, and argue your case to the District Attorney. Your attorney should secure expert witnesses in the area of child psychology. In general, it is crucial that your attorney prepare a comprehensive legal strategy to combat the false accusations and prove your innocence.