A Minnesota man charged with sexually abusing and assaulting a teenage girl was sentenced to 16 years in prison. A new complaint charged him with lying under oath while testifying at an earlier trial. A year earlier, a jury deliberated for 13 hours before a judge declared a hung jury.
A Louisiana high school teacher resigned after parents discovered he was a convicted sex offender. Law enforcement officials said they plan to pursue charges against the teacher for failing to register as a sex offender when he moved to Louisiana.
A man in Florida is facing 87 sexual offense charges in North Carolina, including "30 counts of statutory rape, 17 counts of incest with a child, 36 counts of indecent liberties, two counts of first-degree rape of a child and two counts of first-degree sex offense of a child."
In a split decision, a three-judge panel upheld a 65 year prison sentence for a Maryland man convicted last year of raping a 3-year-old girl in his apartment. The lone dissenting judge noted that the man's sentence was three times higher than state sentencing guidelines.
There are two exceptionally shocking stories here. How did the parents discover he was a registered sex offender? That stands out enough for you to highlight it. Was he registered where he lived but not where he worked? Why would that make a difference in discovery if the registry is statewide? The school checking the registry itself is a good idea but that does not support a world wide web registry. The school and the parents could both access that information without it being WWW.
On the second story, how many of the 87 counts are overcharging, if any? How many victims? Maybe the charges are accurate and maybe there are multiple victims, but it will be interesting to watch this case for possible overcharging. Even if overcharging turns out to be the fact, this story will stick in people's minds for good reason. It really is scary.
Posted by: Anon | October 20, 2007 at 01:28 PM