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A sex offender just released from prison is accused of groping a woman on a RIPTA bus. The woman got up from the window seat, pushed past the heavy-set Austin, and told the bus driver what was happening, LaCross said. That’s when Austin suddenly got off the bus in Barrington. The woman was able to identify the groper from photos. The police said that she picked out Austin, who’d been released from the Adult Correctional Institutions two weeks earlier after serving 4½ years for second-degree child molestation.

Local law enforcement, led by the District Attorney's Office, is hopping mad that 52-year-old Lawrence Joseph Brown is scheduled to be released to Orange County from Chino State Prison tomorrow after serving 25 years of a 49-year sentence for brutally raping two young girls after kidnapping them in broad daylight."Please help me spread the word to everyone in California that a few unelected, unreviewable, anonymous bureaucrats and psychologists have decided that starting November 17, a dangerous, violent sex offender will be a free man to walk the streets of Orange County and prey upon our children," DA Tony Rackauckas said...

California might be gazing into a $20 billion deficit abyss, but it doesn't stop them from hosting their own version of "Who wants to be an illegal alien millionaire." Fernando Ramirez, a 24 year old illegal alien was arrested for molesting a 6 year old child in Orange County. Fernando Ramirez, 24, was in jail after being charged with molesting a 6-year-old girl at a local park. He eventually pled guilty to the lesser charge of battery against a child. He was held in Orange County Central jail, where other prisoners let Ramirez know that they took exception to...

His lawyers presented Monroe County Court Judge Jennifer Sibum with several motions: to dismiss the case or, failing that, change the venue for a trial that is set to begin next month. Sibum reserved decision. She is expected to make a ruling next week. Ritter is charged with contacting who he thought was a 15-year-old girl in an online chat room in February 2009 and starting a sexually based conversation. The “girl” turned out to be a Barrett Township police officer working undercover. Ritter served as the U.N. chief weapons inspector for seven years, was a harsh critic of the...

John Joseph Merzbacher, a notorious Baltimore child abuser accused of molesting dozens of students at the Catholic school where he taught, could soon be released from a life sentence, under a federal court order handed down Friday. Merzbacher, now 68, is a former middle school teacher at the city's Catholic Community School. He was sentenced in 1995 to multiple life terms after a jury found him guilty of raping a preteen Elizabeth Ann Murphy decades earlier. He has already served 15 years. But his case is now being sent back to state court so he can be offered a 10-year...

ELKO, Nev. — A Twin Falls woman convicted of forcing a 13-year-old boy to touch her breasts was sentenced Monday to life in prison. Michelle Lyn Taylor, 34, was convicted of lewdness with a minor under 14 in November after a week-long trial in Elko County, Nev., District Judge Mike Memeo’s courtroom. With the conviction, Taylor faced a mandatory life sentence, and Memeo set parole eligibility after 10 years, the minimum sentence. If released on parole she must register as a sex offender and will be under lifetime supervision. The district attorney’s office did not offer a plea agreement in...

Ukiah, Calif. (AP) -- A Northern California man who fatally shot a family friend accused of molesting him for years was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison in the vigilante shooting. Aaron Vargas, 32, was sentenced after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the death of 63-year-old Darrell McNeill.Vargas said McNeill began sexually abusing him when he was 11 . . . several other people ... came forward to say McNeill had molested them.Hundreds of supporters ... asked authorities for leniency for the shooter.. . . Judge Ronald Brown said he imposed the harsher sentence because he believed...

Usually, when someone who’s been a mainstay of a community gets shot and killed in his own home, there’s a public outcry to bring his killer to justice. But not in the idyllic Pacific Coast town of Fort Bragg, Calif., where the citizenry has risen up in support of the man who pulled the trigger. Aaron Vargas has been in jail ever since Feb. 8, 2009, when police say he shot and killed Darrell McNeill, the man he alleges sexually abused him when he was just 11 years old. After the shooting, 12 other men came forward to say that...

Fr Thomas Brundage, the former Archdiocese of Milwaukee Judicial Vicar who presided over the canonical criminal case of the Wisconsin child abuser Fr Lawrence Murphy, has broken his silence to give a devastating account of the scandal – and of the behaviour of The New York Times, which resurrected the story. It looks as if the media were in such a hurry to to blame the Pope for this wretched business that not one news organisation contacted Fr Brundage. As a result, crucial details were unreported. Moreover, Fr Brundage – who seems to have shown admirable tenacity in pursuing the...

It's a question which has troubled science since Darwin: if homosexuality is, at least in part, inherited, how are those genes being passed down to new generations? Canadian researchers say they have found the first evidence to back up the theory that gay men have the evolutionary advantage of being "super uncles", a way of enhancing the survival prospects of close relatives and -- indirectly, at least -- making it more likely their genes are passed on. Paul Vasey, associate professor in the University of Lethbridge's department of psychology, said his research found evidence that gay men may be more...

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U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested two suspects in separate incidents with warrants related to murder. On Thursday, Nogales agents arrested a male who first claimed to be an illegal alien, but then admitted to being a U.S. citizen. A fingerprint check showed an active felony warrant out of Pima County for his arrest on a charge of first-degree murder. Daniel N. Taddey, 32, was charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the Nov. 13, 2008, death of Frank T. Gonzales. He was turned over to Tucson police. In a second incident Friday morning, agents assigned to the Ajo station arrested...

DAVIE - The father of a 3-year-old allegedly molested by a family friend may get a harsher penalty than the alleged offender police say he and a neighbor severely beat. Thirty-eight-year-old Luke Petruschke was so badly hurt in the weekend attack he had to be placed in a medically induced coma. Police say 27-year-old Manuel Vega and a friend tried to make it look like he was in a car accident. The boy's grandmother says Vega is a good dad who just "lost it." If he recovers, police say Petruschke will face charges of lewd and lascivious molestation. Vega and...

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) – Inmate John Evander Couey, who was on death row for kidnapping, raping and burying 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in 2005, has died at a Florida hospital, officials said on Wednesday. He was 51 years old. Couey passed away at 11.15 a.m. local time at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital, where he was transported to on August 12. Gretl Plessinger, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections, said Couey died of natural causes. Couey abducted 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, a native of Gastonia, from her bedroom in 2005 before he raped and burried her. If Couey's body is not...

A vampire worshiper accused of plotting to kidnap a 12-year-old South Boston girl he met online was under indictment for child molestation in West Virginia and out on bail when caught by Boston police, the Herald has learned. Bryan Confere, 20, of Diamond, W.Va., is being held on $25,000 cash bail pending a pretrial hearing Wednesday in South Boston District Court. He is facing 7 years in prison in Massachusetts if convicted of child enticement and child endangerment. Prosecutors in Kanawha County, W.Va., last week filed a motion to revoke the $70,000 property bond he was free on when Boston...

(San Antonio)-Sean Michael Block broke down crying, but it didn't help. Sean Block, the northside bartender who was convicted of trying to sell his girlfriend's five year old daughter for sex, today was sentenced to thirty years in federal prison, 1200 WOAI news reports. "It's thirty years that children will be safe from Sean Block," Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Thompson Braun said following the sentence. "There is no doubt that he is a sexual predator, and we can stop him from harming children for thirty years." Block, 40, tearfully told U.S. District Judge Henry Hudspeth that his problems stem from...

"What we've been told is that he's a sexual pedophile," said Haleigh's mother Crystal Sheffield. The child's grandmother, Teresa Neves, said Croslin described him as a "jerk" and she was worried. "I couldn't tell you anything about him," a distraught Neves told reporters Friday, adding that she only knew of the cousin by his first name Joe. "I can't tell you how they could have taken her from a family that absolutely adores her."

A seven-year-old boy who died defending his older sister from a potential rapist has been honoured posthumously. Zhenya Tabakov's mother received the order of courage medal on behalf of her son. Just over two months ago Galina lost her son and she's still struggling to get over the shock. Zhenya was brutally murdered by a robber, as the boy was trying to save his 12-year-old sister from being raped. It all happened in late November, in the small military town of Noginsk-9 - a place where even small crimes are rare. Around midday, a man rang the bell of...

SAN ANTONIO – A convicted child molester who pushed for the Texas law that allowed him to be voluntarily castrated more than a decade ago may go back to prison for allegedly possessing sexually explicit material. Authorities held a hearing Wednesday to determine whether to revoke Larry Don McQuay's supervised release. The Texas Board of Pardons and Parole was expected to decide in the next few days, said Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. McQuay, 44, who claimed to have molested hundreds of children, could be held in prison until 2016, the end of his...

An Ohio man is in jail for posing as an underwear researcher and examining children. Ken Hawkins is accused of arranging meetings this Spring with parents of at least three children to conduct a marketing research survey involving children's underwear and razors. While at the house of an eight-year-old girl, he instructed her to try on several pair of underwear while he took notes. Hawkins then took several measurements of the victim while she wore only the underwear. Prosecutors said Hawkins also ran his fingers around the waistband and looked at the rear of the panties to check out the...