"They come to our attention only when someone is bragging about their relationship or the parents find out about it, or a hospital calls us when a teenager is delivering a baby,"
But if the "hospital" is an abortion clinic, the case is not brought to the attention of the police.....
i just find this whole story desperately sad and depressing..talk about never having a chance..jeeze she has lived thru horrors and she is only 20!
i just cant understand how guys like this think...i just cant believe they belong to the same human race as me..what sick perversion makes men act like this...and i just dont buy the 'i was abused therefore i abuse'. surely if you were abused and know how terrible it is you should go the other direction...i cannot reconcile those comments as an excuse, and trust me his defence will line this one up soon enough..
the chasm between normal behaviour and this man...there is something terribly evil here...
Judge dismisses final charges against Rutherford man charged in sex assault
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
BY KIBRET MARKOS
THE RECORD
STAFF WRITER
0 Comments
A judge has dismissed the final charges in the long and troubled case against a Rutherford man who was charged with sexually assaulting two underage girls.
Bergen County prosecutors said the latest setback in the case against Joseph Picolli came when one of the alleged victims declined to cooperate with authorities.
“I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders,” Picolli, a married father of two, said Wednesday in a written statement. “I look forward to moving on with my life without the dark cloud that has been hanging over my head for over five years.”
Picolli, 42, was charged in 2004 after a Lyndhurst girl told investigators that Picolli met her when she was 13 and he was 31, and had an affair with her for years, authorities said.
Another underage girl from Lyndhurst alleged that Picolli had sex with her in 1998 when she was 13.
Picolli, who denied both allegations, was indicted in 2005 on statutory-rape charges. The indictment was thrown out two years later after a judge found that prosecutors failed to present evidence that could have been favorable to Picolli.
The case was presented for the second time to another grand jury, which indicted Picolli on the same charges.
Picolli went on trial in Superior Court in Hackensack in January 2009, but a judge declared a mistrial on the first day after a prosecutor mistakenly introduced evidence that should not have been revealed to a jury.
Nine months later, another jury acquitted Picolli of charges that he had sex with one of the alleged victims.
Prosecutors said at the time that they would pursue the case of the second alleged victim. Last week, however, they filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, saying the alleged victim has decided not to cooperate.
“Right now, without a victim coming forward and cooperating with authorities, we cannot prove our case in court,” Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said.
Superior Court Judge Edward A. Jerejian dismissed the indictment in a one-page order signed on Monday.
“My client and I are obviously relieved that this matter has finally been concluded,” Picolli’s attorney, John Bruno, said Wednesday.
“After dozens of court appearances, conferences, investigations, motions, indictments, new indictments, a mistrial, an acquittal and finally a court order dismissing the final charges, it all came down to ‘he said, she said’,” Bruno said.