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A New York couple has been arrested and accused of plotting to babysit children as a cover to drug and sexually abuse them, federal prosecutors said. Special agents with the FBI and NYPD detectives arrested Bebars Baslan, 35, and Kristen Henry, 25, from Brooklyn, on Tuesday night at a hotel in Jersey City, N.J. Prosecutors say they believed they were going there to meet an acquaintance and three children, including a 1-year-old and a 3-month-old baby, that the group was planning to drug with children's Benadryl and take sexually explicit photos. Prosecutors say that acquaintance was actually an informant who...

FULL TITLE: 'He's a monster': Pedophile who videotaped sex abuse of 18-month-old toddler and two other young girls sentenced to 20 years in prison A Connecticut man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing three young girls, including an 18-month-old toddler, and videotaping the acts assaults at his home. David Csanadi, 36, of Newtown, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court in New Haven after entering a guilty plea in November to one count of producing child pornography. Federal prosecutors say Csanadi abused the children of his friends in 2006 and 2007 and recorded the assaults on...

HURLINGHAM, Argentina — Father Julio Cesar Grassi was a celebrity in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. The young, dynamic, media-savvy priest networked with wealthy Argentines to fund an array of schools, orphanages and job training programs for poor and abandoned youths, winning praise from Argentine politicians and his superior, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Grassi called his foundation Felices los Niños, "Happy Children." Today, Grassi is a convicted sex offender who remains free on a conditional release after being sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 for molesting a prepubescent boy in his care. Yet in the years after Grassi's...

A former pastor of a northwest Indiana mega-church who has admitted having a sexual relationship with an underage parishioner exchanged hundreds of text messages with the girl and told her Jesus Christ sanctioned their relationship, prosecutors say. The messages are quoted in a memorandum from prosecutors as they argue for a 10-year prison sentence for Jack A. Schaap, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges that he took a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. The memorandum, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Hammond, details how Schaap, 55, "groomed" the girl into...

(Newser) – A mother of four has killed herself in Britain after testifying that her former music teacher had sexually abused her years ago, the Telegraph reports. The body of Frances Andrade, 48, was discovered just days after she testified that Michael Brewer, 68, had regularly fondled her in the 1970s. The jury was not told of her death until after passing its verdict: guilty on one count of indecent assault but not guilty on five others due to insufficient evidence regarding dates. Andrade had a difficult time on the witness stand under the grilling of a prosecuting attorney...

Accusations that a State College psychologist had inappropriate sexual relationships with two patients could cost the local doctor his license and subject him to more than $1 million in civil penalties. The state Board of Psychology has filed a formal disciplinary action against Richard Scott Lenhart, accusing him of 111 counts of professional misconduct relating to two long-time patients. The charges stem from an investigation by the Pennsylvania Department of State, which began after the two patients came forward with accusations, according to press secretary Ron Ruman. Lenhart, whose office was on South Pugh Street in State College, had his...

PORTLAND, Oregon — The Boys Scouts of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a Portland man who said they didn't do enough to stop a Scout troop leader from sexually abusing children. A document filed Nov. 15 in U.S. District Court in Boise said both sides agreed to an undisclosed monetary settlement. SNIP The lawsuit alleges the leader of a Boy Scout troop in Nampa in southwestern Idaho sexually abused the plaintiff over three years in both Idaho and Oregon starting in 1967, and that the abuse left...

ALBANY -- A middle-school teacher who had been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a former student was found dead of an apparent suicide Monday morning, authorities said. James Izumizaki, 28, an Albany resident, was found between 10 and 10:30 a.m. in his car on Via Alamitos in San Lorenzo, according to Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff's Department. A family member who lives nearby found Izumizaki, he said. The death is being treated as a suicide, Nelson said. He would not disclose the manner of Izumizaki's death, but said that a gun was not involved. Izumizaki,...

An Episcopal priest who was accused of sex crimes against a young parishioner died of an apparent drug overdose last night on the sixth floor of the Government Center parking garage, police and his lawyer said. Police said they were called to the garage about 7:40 p.m. and found a man inside a gray 2006 Saturn. Police attempted to perform CPR on the man, but were unsuccessful. Boston EMS declared the patient dead at 8:05 p.m., and the call was referred to the Medical Examiner, police said.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A 17,000-member megachurch deep in Oklahoma's Bible Belt has been rattled by allegations that five employees waited two weeks to report the rape of a 13-year-old girl in a campus stairwell, allegedly by a church worker. Tulsa police say the girl is among at least three victims of alleged sex crimes by two former employees of Victory Christian Center who face criminal charges. A child crimes investigator says more victims could surface as police continue to investigate. Authorities, however, fear some parishioners in the large, tight-knit south Tulsa congregation may choose to pray about the allegations...

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and victims of sex abuse by priests and others in authority have extended their court-ordered mediation into next week, prompting speculation that one of the Catholic Church's largest bankruptcies could be nearing a close. Lawyers for both sides met for another session Monday with the mediator, retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Randall J. Newsome of San Francisco, in hopes of hammering out a settlement that would compensate victims and allow the archdiocese to continue its mission.

A Philadelphia man who claims to have been paid to have sex with former Poly Prep football coach Phil Foglietta in 1979 as part of an alleged pedophile ring that included Jerry Sandusky sent an email to several Poly Prep officials Monday - including current headmaster David Harman - detailing the explosive allegation. Greg Bucceroni, 48, was a teenager when he said he met Foglietta at a Second Mile fund-raiser near State College, Pa. The Second Mile organization, which helped at-risk youths, was founded in 1977 by Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach who was convicted on 45 counts...

"It is good to be King," writes Rep. Greg Lavelle, Republican leader in Delaware's House of Representatives, in response to my Sunday Inquirer column, which compared the current efforts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to allow people who say they were raped or molested by Catholic priests many years ago to sue their local dioceses for cash damages, as happened in Delaware back in the late 2000s. Lavelle is talking about the way state law protects public schools and school employees, hit by growing reports of statutory rape of students by staff, from the level of complaints and damages that...

PROVO — A former BYU student who is accused of molesting two roommates faces charges of forcible sex abuse. Court documents indicate Antonio Rubalcaba Lacy, 18, inappropriately touched a roommate at least three times last year while the victim was asleep. Lacy is accused of doing the same thing three times to another roommate in 2012. The documents state Lacy confessed verbally and in a written statement after a two-hour meeting with his LDS bishop. Lacy, who is from Monterey, Calif., no longer attends BYU. He is charged with six second-degree felonies for forcible sexual abuse. He was never arrested...

SALT LAKE CITY — A former Boy Scout leader and hospital employee will go to prison for collecting and making child pornography. Third District Judge Robin Reese on Monday sentenced Shawn Thomas Whiting, 34, to a one- to-15-year prison term on four second-degree felony counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. Whiting pleaded guilty to the charges in April. He originally faced a total of 20 counts of the same charge, but the 16 additional counts were dismissed in exchange for the man's plea. Reese ordered the man to pay for the cost of counseling for his victims. The Utah...

The FBI added a former D.C. private school teacher who has been on the run from police in the District and Maryland since 2008 to its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list Tuesday. Eric Justin Toth, 30, who taught third grade at Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School, is wanted for possession and production of child pornography after a fellow teacher found sexually explicit photos of a boy on a school-owned camera Mr. Toth had been using in June 2008. Mr. Toth was charged with producing child pornography in Maryland and elsewhere in U.S. District Court in Maryland, and warrants were...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- After nine years and two grand jury reports, prosecutors have brought a landmark case to trial that explores how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia dealt with child sex-abuse complaints against scores of Roman Catholic priests. Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official ever charged over his handling of abuse complaints. He supervised more than 800 priests as the secretary for clergy in Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004. Prosecutors charge that Lynn kept dangerous priests in parish work around children to protect the church's reputation and avoid scandal. They say the church kept secret files dating to...

Beckley , West Virginia A Raleigh County man is in jail for the alleged abduction of a nine year old boy. Beckley Police say Christopher Jarrett of Crab Orchard allegedly lured the boy into an empty exam room at a local medical facility over the weekend. Once there, police say he removed the child's shoes and tried to restrain the boy. The boy then screamed and Jarrett let him go. Police believe there are other victims. They say Jarrett would lure young boys into restrooms at local businesses sniff their shoes or socks and become sexually aroused.

Would you accept an ad from a religious sect touting a divine revelation given to a convicted sex abuser of two girls under 16? That's what the Star Tribune did Friday morning, running two ads from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. One (on page A5 of my Minneapolis edition), simply says, "Jesus Christ, Son Ahman." The second, on A6, proclaimes "Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ Given to President Warren Jeffs," and offers serveral writings for sale. Jeffs, the president of the polygamist sect, was convicted in 2011 of molesting two "child brides" aged 12 and...

Introduction I was elected to the Penn State Board of Trustees more than two decades ago, and served on it as an alumni Trustee for twelve years — from 1988 to 2000. I came onto the Board thinking that it was a deliberative body such as one reads about in civics books. It is not. It took me years to understand what was really going on. In what follows, I hope to shed some light on the inner workings of the Board, as well as to explain both why the Board remains so secretive, and why it has offered so...