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The news from LA's Miramonte Elementary School keeps getting worse: in addition to Mark Berndt (accused of feeding kids his semen, among other stomach-turning crimes) and Martin Springer (accused of fondling seven-year-old girls), a third teacher is now implicated. The unnamed woman allegedly helped Berndt by sending female students to his classroom to "get cookies" (which were in at least one case apparently coated with his semen). A lawyer for the alleged victims describes this teacher's role: "The way Berndt pulled this off is he'd come into her class in the middle of the day, he'd go up to her and whisper in her ear. Then she would go pull out two little girls, and she'd walk the little girls right through the common door into Mr. Berndt's dungeon." More »
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Parents of kids at LA's Miramonte Elementary School are understandably disturbed now that two teachers have been arrested for molesting kids — one for making them taste his semen. Some say the school ignored previous accusations against the teachers. In a high-profile move to restore parent trust, the school is replacing all the teachers and staff. They'll still be paid, and could come back to Miramonte at a later date. The school also emphasizes that none of the other teachers or administrators is suspected of any crime. More »
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Child abuse is a dark and depressing reality in American life, but until now, it's never been clear just how widespread a problem it was. A new study, led by Dr. John Leventhal of Yale University, offers the first comprehensive estimate of serious injuries caused by child abuse in the U.S., and the results are pretty horrifying. More »
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Apparently divorced dads are all pedophiles. At least, that's the assumption a parenting expert makes — and it may point to bigger problems. More »
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You might think that when looking for more information on a man accused of molesting multiple children, investigators would skim through the man's suspiciously-named autobiography, or at least be aware of its existence. Police working on the Jerry Sandusky case spent nearly a year trying to corroborate the first accuser's story before finding a 1998 Penn State campus police report about a boy being forced to shower with the coach. When police tracked down that boy, dubbed "Victim 6" in the grand jury report, his mother asked police if they'd checked out Sandusky's book. While flipping through the pages of Touched with the boy's sister, they were able to identify other boys who'd attended football games together. Consulting the book, which was available in Penn State's book store, helped police identify another four victims. More »
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It became apparent that the story of Jhessye Shockley, the 5-year-old Arizona girl who's been missing for more than two months, wasn't going to end well when police said last month that her mother lied about her disappearance and they don't expect to find her alive. Today authorities released more information about Jhessye's possible fate, and said they still consider her mother, Jerice Hunter, the number one suspect. More »
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In yet another instance of child abuse victims being inspired to go public by the case against Jerry Sandusky, three women and a man have come forward to say that they were molested by Bill Conlin, a Philadelphia Daily News columnist and Hall of Fame baseball writer. The alleged abuse occured in the '70s, but they say they want to tell their stories now because the Sandusky case is bringing up painful memories, and they hope to draw attention to the consequences of putting a statue of limitations on sex crimes. Conlin can't be prosecuted because the incidents were never reported at the time, but after being confronted with the accusations yesterday but, as our brothers at Deadspin predicted, Conlin immediately resigned from his position at the Daily News. More »
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Sadly, a media personality getting a DUI isn't all that unusual, but the circumstances of NBC Correspondent Jay Gray's arrest in Pennsylvania early on the morning of December 12 are rather interesting. He was leaving the home of Jerry Sandusky attorney and sleazeball in his own right Joe Amendola, who invited several journalists hoping to score an exclusive interview with Sandusky to watch the New York Giants game with him. So apparently that's how your "exclusive interview with an alleged child molester" sausage gets made. More »
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We've been repeatedly horrified over the years by incidents similar to the case of Joseph Fritzl, the Austrian man convicted of holding his daughter captive for many years while he sexually abused her. However, "Adolf B," the man dubbed the "German Fritzl" by the media, has managed to add a disgusting new twist to the tale by arguing in court that his daughter consented to their 34-year sexual relationship, which she says started when she was 12. To make matters worse, a court just sided with Adolph B and sentenced him to less than three years in prison. More »
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Somehow when searching for an attorney to defend him against more than 50 counts of child abuse, former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky managed to find the real-life Lionel Hutz. For the past few weeks, Joe Amendola, who impregnated a teen client and later married her, has been suggesting that the alleged victims in the case are probably making up their claims to get some quick and easy cash. Incredibly, Amendola has managed to make Sandusky even more hated, so you'd think that hiring another lawyer would be a good idea. However, the latest addition to Sandusky's defense team is now under fire for suggesting that Sandusky wasn't raping kids in the Penn State showers, he was just teaching them to use soap. More »
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It's already unclear what exactly Penn State coaching assistant Mike McQueary saw when he walked in on former coach Jerry Sandusky and a boy in a locker room shower in 2002, and now yet another version of events has emerged. Supposedly, a family friend was present when McQueary went to his father to ask what he should do, and he's testified that McQueary didn't even see a boy being abused. More »
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Though earlier this week a Pennsylvania district attorney said that Zach Tomaselli's claim that Bernie Fine molested him isn't credible, yesterday Tomaselli filed a lawsuit against the former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach. Fine has been accused of abuse by two other men, but he won't be charged because the statute of limitations has passed. More »
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Earlier this week, former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was arrested on new charges that he sexually assaulted two boys in addition the eight other alleged victims. One of the most chilling parts of the grand jury report said that Sandusky kept a boy in his basement and abused him during overnight visits to his home and, "on at least one occasion he screamed for help, knowing that Sandusky's wife was upstairs, but no one ever came to help him." Today Dorothy, Sandusky's wife, bailed him out of jail and responded to the allegations, saying that the accusers are all lying. More »
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Three men have accused former Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting them as children, but today a New York district attorney announced that he can't be prosecuted. Though he believes two of the accusers are credible, their claims weren't properly investigated when the came forward in 2002, and it wouldn't have mattered anyway because the statute of limitations had already expired. More »
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Another day, another horrifying dispatch in the case of former Penn State football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Two more young men have come forward to testify that abused them, bringing his total number of alleged victims to 10. All together now: Ugh. More »
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23-year-old Zach Tomaselli, the third man to accuse Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting him as a child, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he abused a 13-year-old boy in a similar way, but now he says he'll change his plea to guilty. Tomaselli admitted to the Associated Press yesterday that he abused the boy, who is now 14, when he was his camp counselor. Tomaselli says he knows the boy suffered from what he did to him, and he's "sick of hiding behind" his attorney. More »
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It's well known that experiencing or even just witnessing abuse as a child can have a significant effect on a person's development, and now researchers are looking into exactly how violence changes children's brains. A new study found that children who've been exposed to violence at home have such a profound reaction to the abuse that their brains function like soldiers who've been exposed to combat. More »
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You've probably heard more than you can handle about child molestation in the past few months — too bad, there's still more. In a case that proves the effects of the Sandusky scandal go far beyond the world of sports or even education, a Hollywood manager who specialized in child actors has been charged with sexually assaulting one of his young clients. However, he says he's nothing like all the other pedophiles we've been hearing about recently. You see, his victim was into it. More »
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Last week a former Australian MP and mayor was convicted of having sex with a 12-year-old and taking pornographic pictures of her, however he won't be serving any jail time. Terry Martin says medication he was taking for Parkinson's disease made him hypersexual and he believed the girl was actually an adult. Now a judge has agreed that Martin holds no responsibility for his behavior, especially because the victim looked and acted like an 18-year-old sexpot. More »
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If you thought that the case of disgraced former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky couldn't get any more stomach churning, think again. A lawsuit filed by one of Sandusky's alleged victims claims that founder of The Second Mile charity abused the boy more than 100 times and threatened the boy's family into keeping quiet, and that Penn State University and its football program routinely turned a blind eye to the abuse. He also claims that Sandusky's abuse began well before authorities think it began. More »
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When two men came forward to accuse Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting them as children, head coach Jim Boeheim called them money-grubbing liars. Then he apologized. He should have stopped there, but now he's saying he doesn't regret defending his friend. More »
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The Penn State abuse scandal has caused a spike in reports of child abuse, including charges against another high-profile college sports coach. About two weeks ago, two men accused Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine of molesting them when they were children in the '80s and '90s. Today a third man came forward with similar charges, and within hours the university announced that Fine has been fired. More »
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Yesterday new details emerged about missing 5-year-old Arizona girl Jhessye Shockley, who police now believe is dead. Police still won't say exactly what information convinced them that her mother, Jerice Hunter, was involved in her death, but it seems likely that an interview with Jhessye's 13-year-old sister was a factor. She says her sister suffered horrific abuse, and their mother coached her and her siblings to lie about the last time they saw Jhessye. More »
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Pennsylvania's Children and Youth Services agency revealed today that it's investigating two new cases of alleged sexual abuse by former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. Since these are the first reports to involve victims who are still minors, the new accusations have intensified the debate over why it took law enforcement so long to charge Sandusky if they believed he was an active threat to children. More »
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Recently in two widely-reported missing children stories, both sets of parents complained that the police were treating them like suspects, not victims. Now it turns out that at least one girl's mother was right, and tragically, it seems there's little chance that the case will end with the girl's safe return. More »
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Another layer of the putrid, rotten onion that is the Penn State sex abuse scandal has been revealed: "Victim One," the first alleged victim of former coach Jerry Sandusky, was recently forced to leave his high school during his senior year because he couldn't endure any more bullying. The 17-year-old's psychologist says other students at Central Mountain High School in Pennsylvania were threatening the boy and calling him names. Unbelievably, they're incensed about the firing of former head coach Joe Paterno, and unfazed by by claims that a classmate was horribly abused. More »
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After his latest victim-blaming move made one of his accusers even more determined to testify against him, people are beginning to take a look back at Jerry Sandusky's lengthy career —and at his 2001 autobiography in particular— to try to find something they may have missed, some indication that he'd been fooling them all along. And their findings coupled with the recent allegations are pretty chilling. Jerry writes: More »
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Today in awful: Fearing their infant daughter would become fat and therefore gross, one Wisconsin couple attempted to limit their child's food intake to preserve her sexy bikini ready baby physique. Now, the baby's in protective custody and they're being charged with child neglect. Meanwhile, in another neighborhood in Whattheeverlovingfucktown, an Ohio woman has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after starving her teenage daughter with cerebral palsy to death. Dr. Spock is spinning in his grave so fast that he's creating an electrical current. More »
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It's been reported that as a result of the Penn State child abuse scandal, more people are coming forward to report that they've been molested. Now we have a sign that it may be influencing how companies deal with reporting possible sex crimes involving children. Recently it was discovered that a man who works in casting on Hollywood films, including many requiring young actors, is a registered sex offender. Rather than quietly letting him go, executives quickly went to authorities and made the incident public, even though there are no reports of children being harmed. More »
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On Monday when you watched Jerry Sandusky give an interview on national TV that convinced absolutely no one that he's innocent, you may have concluded that his lawyer, Joe Amendola, isn't very good at his job. Then when Amendola started appearing on news programs and suggesting that the alleged victims are liars who are just looking to make some money by claiming a Penn State football coach abused them, you probably figured out that he's also a terrible person. Now an attorney representing one of the accusers has come forward to call out Sandusky and Amendola for their victim-blaming strategy. More »
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There's been so much justified anger against the coaches and Penn State officials who knew about the sexual abuse allegations against Jerry Sandusky that many non-sports fans who haven't been following the story closely probably think that Joe Paterno is the abuser. Much of the reporting on the story has focused on the beloved head coach's silence, and yesterday Penn State coaching assistant Mike McQueary tried to send the message that he shouldn't be lumped together with Paterno and other school officials. In emails to friends that were released this week, McQueary says that when he saw Sandusky raping a boy in a locker room in 2002, he stopped the abuse and reported it. However, now authorities say that never happened. More »
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Yesterday, Jerry Sandusky told NBC's Rock Center that incredibly, eight boys misinterpreted his love of horseplay as repeated acts of brutal sexual assault. Now about 10 more victims have contacted police since the former Penn State football coach was charged, but that shouldn't taint anyone's opinion of the man. As his lawyer points out, it's entirely possible that 18 boys just fabricated the revolting accusations, possibly in an attempt to make a little money off of poor old Sandusky. More »
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The story of Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach accused of sexually abusing eight boys, took another sickening twist tonight as Sandusky denied the allegations and made a feeble attempt to explain how multiple witnesses mistook his behavior for child abuse. In a telephone interview on Rock Center, Bob Costas questioned Sandusky in detail about the charges, which the coach chalks up to locker room horseplay and outright lies. More »
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Just a week after it was revealed that Penn State officials were told coach Jerry Sandusky's was abusing boys and chose to do nothing, another school admitted that it failed to report child abuse. Now the Citadel says it regrets not telling police about allegations made against one of its graduates who has now been charged with sexually abusing five boys. Luckily for the military college, the story isn't getting as much play in the national media, possibly because it doesn't involve a beloved football coach. More »
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If you need a disturbing example of the world's screwed up attitudes toward rape and reproductive rights, look no further than the story of a 10-year-old Mexican girl who gave birth to a 3.3 pound baby boy after 31 weeks of pregnancy. Officials in the city of Puebla say they're investigating whether the girl could have been raped, though one might argue that a child can't give consent. She came to the hospital with life-threatening complications last month, but under state law abortion would have only been an option if she was able to prove that she'd been sexually assaulted. More »
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The mother of one of former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged abuse victims has spoken out on Good Morning America about her slow realization that her son was being molested — and her reaction to Joe Paterno's firing. More »
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Officials at Penn State may have failed to take action when they were first told that Defensive Coordinatory Jerry Sandusky had been abusing at least eight boys for more than a decade, but tonight they took decisive action — now that the allegations have exploded into a masive scandal. This evening Penn State trustees fired legendary football coach Joe Paterno, as well as university president Graham Spanier. More »
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As you'll recall, last month police pulled over a 9-year-old Michigan girl who was acting as her allegedly inebriated father's designated driver. She told cops, "What did you stop me for? I was driving good," making this a confusingly adorable criminal act. More »
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Allegations that former Penn State Defensive Coordinator Jerry Sandusky victimized eight young boys for more than a decade while university officials turned a blind eye have been met with widespread public outrage. No one in a position of any consequence is defending the actions of Sandusky. Three top university officials, including the University President, have been compelled to step down. Legendary football head coach Joe Paterno announced today that this will be his last season along the Nittany Lions' sidelines. Believing en masse that what happened is totally and completely fucked up and calling for the heads of those involved is the appropriate reaction to child abuse. If the victims or perpetrator had been female, however, it's hard to pretend the response would have been the same. More »
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In 2006, a 4-year-old boy was accidentally smothered to death when his mother followed advice from the pro-corporal punishment book To Train Up A Child. Last year, a 7-year-old girl was murdered by her parents, who were also followers of the "Biblical Chastisement" movement. At the time, Michael Pearl, the Tennessee pastor who wrote the manual along with his wife Debi, defended the book, saying the parents just took the recommended physical punishments too far. Now another child is dead, and the Pearls still insist there's nothing wrong with their methods. More »
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