Cleveland forgotten abductee Michele Knight may have been beaten the worst, Kevin Annett Video

- Ariel Castro may have beaten Michelle Knight worst in Cleveland hell house
- New details emerge about Michelle Knight — oldest of the woman freed from Cleveland hell house
- Behind the forgotten abductee Michele Knight
- Kevin Annett video

Ariel Castro may have beaten Michelle Knight worst in Cleveland hell house
The first victim in the Ohio house of horrors was allegedly the captors’ main ‘punching bag.’
By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, May 16, 2013

Inside Ariel Castro’s Cleveland hell house, three young women allegedly suffered over a decade of abuse — but his first captive, in particular, may have borne the brunt of that beast’s brutality.

Michelle Knight’s family friend told CNN that she was Castro’s main “punching bag,” having been beaten so severely with hand weights and other objects that she suffered vision and hearing loss, as well as muscle and joint damage.

Back in August 2002, Castro abducted Knight, 21, but she was removed from the FBI’s missing persons database after 15 months and slowly forgotten; whereas, awareness campaigns sprung up for the other victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.

Castro allegedly raped the women repeatedly and impregnated Knight at least five times. But each time, he starved her for at least two weeks before punching her stomach until she miscarried, the police report read….

Knight appears to have gone into seclusion, even from some family members, her grandmother said.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/michelle-knight-worst-article-1.1345709

New details emerge about Michelle Knight — oldest of the woman freed from Cleveland hell house
Michelle Knight disappeared Aug. 23, 2002.

She was reportedly beaten repeatedly by her captors and suffered hearing loss and damage to some of the bones in her face — but her mother tells the ‘Today’ show she never gave up hope. By Corky Siemaszko / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Word that Michelle Knight had escaped from the Cleveland house of horrors came as a double shock Wednesday to her twin brother Freddie.

“I was freaking happy as hell because I didn’t know my sister was kidnapped,” he told CNN. “My mother never tells me anything.”

Freddie Knight said his mom, Barbara, kicked him out of the house when he was 14 and he was estranged from the rest of the family. But the years melted away when he saw his sister at the hospital….

Knight, who is believed to be 32, was reportedly beaten repeatedly by her captors and suffered hearing loss and damage to some of the bones in her face….

Police have already conceded that they paid more attention to the disappearances of the younger women Knight had been imprisoned with — Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry.

Knight reportedly had a troubled childhood and dropped out of high school at 17 after she was bullied by classmates….
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/details-cleveland-escapee-michelle-knight-article-1.1338149

Behind the forgotten abductee Michele Knight
Matt Young     news.com.au     May 10, 2013
Knight was never officially classed as a missing person
Abducted women found alive in Cleveland home

HORRIFIC details are emerging about Cleveland abductee Michele Knight’s difficult past, including an alleged gang-rape before her decade-long kidnapping.
Knight is also reported to have given police crucial evidence indicating there may have been more victims, telling authorities she was unsure how many women were detained inside the house.

It’s alleged she suffered up to five miscarriages while imprisoned and lived in darkness for long stretches of time….

19 Action News reports she is being treated at Metro Health Medical Centre for anxiety, and reports she may undergo reconstructive surgery to “heal injuries suffered at the hands of her attacker during her decade in captivity”.

“When she was severely beaten, he had beat her so bad in the face, she has to have facial reconstruction, and she’s lost hearing in one ear,” her grandmother, Deborah Knight said.

But it is unclear whether those injuries were sustained during her imprisonment or whether it was due to a gang-rape which allegedly occurred in junior high school, one year before her August 2002 disappearance.

Knight’s grandmother claims three of her classmates “grabbed her by the arm and raped her at school”.

Knight bore a child after the ordeal, a boy named Joey. She later lost custody of the child who was placed in foster care, reports the Daily News….
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/behind-the-forgotten-abductee-michele-knight/story-fnat7jnn-1226639583612

Kevin Annett video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C7g111Ih-pU#!

 

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says, – Neighbor Reported Screams in Past, Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution

- Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says
- Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past
- Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Preyed on His Daughters’ Friends, Emily Castro Says  By RUSSELL GOLDMAN   May 16, 2013

Ariel Castro, the man accused of kidnapping three women and keeping them imprisoned in his home for a decade, stalked the neighborhood where his daughters lived and preyed on the girls’ friends, his daughter says.

Two of his alleged victims, Gina DeJesus and Amanda Berry, went to school with Castro’s two daughters and the four girls all knew each other, his daughter Emily told a private investigator in a recorded jailhouse interview obtained by ABC News.

“It couldn’t be coincidence,” Emily Castro told private eye Chris Giannini of her father’s decision to allegedly target two girls his daughter’s knew.

READ: Cleveland Kidnap Suspect Comforted Victim’s Mom Last Year

Emily Castro is serving a 25 year prison sentence for stabbing her own infant daughter in 2011.

At the time of her 2003 abduction, Berry lived just a few houses down the block from the home in which Castro’s daughters lived with their mother and stepfather. And Emily’s sister Arlene was the last person to see DeJesus before she disappeared.

Berry, now 26, and Emily, now 25, attended school together. “I went to Wilbur Wright (Middle School) with her,” Emily Castro told Giannini.

She said she was bothered that her father allegedly “used” her and her sister to look for victims on their street where they lived and played….

She said her father was routinely abusive of her mother Grimilda Figueroa, even beating her once while her mother was recovering from brain surgery. During the incident Emily Castro said she jumped on her father’s back stabbing him with a pencil in an effort to get him to stop.

Ariel Castro was arrested following that incident, but the charges were later dropped….
http://abcnews.go.com/US/accused-kidnapper-ariel-castro-preyed-daughters-friends-emily/story?id=19195556

Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past 05/07/2013
Juan Perez discusses his neighbor Ariel Castro, who was arrested in the abduction of three women.

Transcript for Castro Neighbor Reported Screams in Past

We’re joined by another neighbor, juan perez. Thank you for joining us this morning. I know you live just two houses away from ariel castro.

Before you saw the police pull up last night, had you had any sense that something terribly wrong was happening inside that house? No, I had no idea.

He was loving to all the kids in the neighborhood. He was nice to me since I was 5 years old. Never had any kind of suspicions….

What can you tell us what happened there? Well, my sister — my mother had heard the screaming and then I heard it too. My sister then reported it.

But we didn’t know which direction it was coming from. We didn’t know seriously if it was from the right side or the left side because we were inside the house, but there’s a difference between — there is a difference between a woman that’s, you know, playing around and joking around screaming and there’s another kind of scream that makes you want to report. And my sister reported it….
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/missing-cleveland-girls-found-alive-castro-neighbor-reported-19123728

Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution
Part 2 of 2008 “Primetime”: Two Ohio cousins kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery.
05/10/2013

Transcript for Teen Girls Held Captive, Forced Into Prostitution

Two teenage cousin. — who vanished off the streets of Toledo have now been missing for 48 hours. I think it — price — something’s happened.

Police think the girls ages fourteen and fifteen have probably run away in the most likely come home soon. — Kimberly his mother Stephanie refuses to just sit and wait….

All the while the girls are being held captive for us towns and — – less than six miles away by a pimp and two prostitutes.

….The FBI thinks it’s the bigger number a 100000. Minors in America. Forced to trade sex for money.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/teen-girls-held-captive-forced-prostitution-19153038

‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics

- ‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics
- Horrific ordeal of ‘Girl D’ who was raped injected with heroin, branded and sold for sex at £600 an hour
- We the People
- Plan to stop child sex tourism

‘It was like they were prisoners of war:’ Gina DeJesus cannot move her head after being chained up with Michelle Knight in basement for years, say medics

The basement where the women were held had chains coming from the wall, and dog leashes attached to the ceiling, according to police sources
Description comes as lawyers for Castro announce that he will plead not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges
The women were restrained with them and duct tape in ‘stress positions’ for long periods that left them with bed sores and other injuries
Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were in worse condition than Amanda Berry with the source saying: ‘There is a reason why you have only seen a picture of Amanda
Abductor would duct tape the women over all parts of their faces, even their eyes, only leaving an opening so they could breathe
Former daughter-in-law Monica Stephens says Castro always gave her ‘the heebie-jeebies’
The women, especially DeJesus and Knight, were now exhibiting signs of malnutrition as Ariel Castro used food as a means to torment them

By Reuters Reporter
15 May 2013

Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight, two of the women imprisoned in a Cleveland house in conditions described as similar to a prisoner of war camp, have suffered from severe malnutrition.

The women will require long-term therapy for injuries such as hearing loss and joint and muscle damage, two sources with direct knowledge said.

The harrowing details come as Castro’s attorneys claim he’s not the ‘monster’ depicted in news reports – and he will plead not guilty to kidnapping and rape charges….

Castro appeared to treat Berry – his ‘favorite’ – better than the other two, the sources said.

‘There is a reason why you have only seen a picture of Amanda,’ said one of the sources, referring to the condition of DeJesus and Knight.

Knight told investigators she fell pregnant five times, but lost the baby each time. She said that Castro starved and repeatedly punched her in the stomach to force her to miscarry.

Police sources told the National Enquirer that Castro had no interest in having children with Knight, because she was only 4-foot-7 and believed her to be ‘mentally disabled.’

The magazine’s source added that he was grooming his 6-year-old daughter with Amanda, Joselyn, as another sex slave because the other captives ‘were getting to old for him.’….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324731/It-like-prisoners-war-Cleveland-women-suffer-injuries-severe-malnutrition-including-hearing-loss-muscle-damage.html

Horrific ordeal of ‘Girl D’ who was raped injected with heroin, branded and sold for sex at £600 an hour

Mohammed Karrar plied girl with drink and drugs and raped her
She then became his ‘property’ and a sex slave
Was loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour

By Arthur Martin   14 May 2013

The ordeal for one of the victims began after she became desperate for love and attention because she was forced to care for her sick parents.

So when Mohammed Karrar entered her life, bought her perfume and treated her like an adult, she believed in him. But the ‘nicey-nicey honeymoon period,’ as she described it, would last barely a year.

After grooming her, Karrar made sure she was ‘out of it’ on drink and drugs before raping her on his sofa.

From that moment she became his ‘property’ and a sex slave loaned out to abusers around the country for up to £600 an hour.

Over five years she was repeatedly attacked in what she described as ‘torture sex’. Injected with heroin, she was sold to groups of Asian men who violently gang-raped her in bedsits and guesthouses around Oxford and elsewhere.

The victim identified as Girl D for legal reasons, frequently broke down in tears giving evidence via videolink as she described her horrific ordeal….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2324621/Horrific-ordeal-Girl-D-raped-injected-heroin-branded-sold-sex-600-hour.html

We the People    James Haven  Honorary Senior Advisor on Global Issues at Harvard; Founder, CoreCause Foundation 05/10/2013

….66% percent of adults in treatment for drug abuse reported being abused as children.

80% of young adults who suffered child abuse or neglect, met criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder by age 21, including depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.

42% percent of children who are molested are suicidal by their teens.

Abused and neglected children are 11 times more likely to engage in criminal behavior as an adult.

Sentencing in crimes against children typically carries 25 percent of the sentencing if the same crime was committed against an adult.

Child abuse and neglect in America is growing at a very high rate. And the most vulnerable is 0-6 in age. Thousands are being exploited and millions are in poverty and living on our streets across the nation.

124 billion is the minimum annual cost to the U.S. directly related to child abuse… Healthcare for mental illnesses and substance abuse… Child welfare and protection… Law enforcement and court systems to handle juvenile and adult criminal cases.

Those are very sobering statistics. But they also prove the most important statistic of all. That as Fredrick Douglas once said, “It is easier to build strong children than it is to fix broken men.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-haven/we-the-people_4_b_3254727.html

Plan to stop child sex tourism
May 15 2013 By BARBARA COLE

Durban – South African hotels are signing up to help protect children from sex tourism and are on the lookout for suspicious guests who try to check in with underage companions.

South Africa has the right combination of factors, such as poverty and violence against women, which put children at risk of exploitation.

In a move to stop South Africa becoming a child-sex tourism or trafficking destination, there were certain factors that created an environment for the exploitation of children, said Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa, a non-profit organisation and the local representative of the Tourism Child Protection Code of Conduct. The code is based on the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Some of these realities are explained as follows: “The inflow of tourists, the ease with which people can cross (the) borders, societal beliefs that tolerate violence against women, high levels of poverty, and growing inequality since 1994 suggest that tens of thousands of children are at risk of sexual and other forms of exploitation.
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/plan-to-stop-child-sex-tourism-1.1516301

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Beat Wife, Threatened Neighbors, Police Records Say

Accused Kidnapper Ariel Castro Beat Wife, Threatened Neighbors, Police Records Say
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN and MATTHEW JAFFE CLEVELAND May 13, 2013

Cleveland cops were summoned six times to handle accusations that accused kidnapper Ariel Castro had assaulted or menaced people, including three alleged beatings of his wife, but he was only convicted once and was never sentenced to any prison time.

One of the accusations against Castro was that he battered his wife while she was recovering from brain surgery, according to newly released police records.

It is unclear whether any of the reported incidents could have led police to the three women allegedly held as sex slaves for a decade in his house, but the number of times his name pops up in the Cleveland police database is far more than the two incidents police originally reported.

There was no immediate response today from police or prosecutors….

Castro’s ex-wife, Grimilda Figueroa, who died last year, first accused Castro of assault in 1989, 1993 and again in 2005, three years after he allegedly abducted his first victim Michelle Knight in 2002.

Castro was “a monster,” according to Figueroa’s family members who spoke to ABC News last week on the condition of anonymity. He was “nice when he was outside but behind closed doors he was an animal. Two faced. He had done terrible things to her [Figueroa] and treated her like trash.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/accused-kidnapper-ariel-castro-beat-wife-threatened-neighbors/story?id=19169152

Ariel Castro, Cleveland suspect, has a dark past that foreshadowed crimes he’s now accused of
By Manuel Roig-Franzia, Jerry Markon and Luz Lazo, Published: May 11

Cleveland — Shorty needed a ride home.

She got confused sometimes, the result of some undefined mental condition, and wasn’t always sure where she’d wandered. Her family knew this about Michelle “Shorty” Knight, all 4 feet 7 inches of her, and that’s why they worried.

She got in a car.

It begins there, with that simple act, a 21-year-old — in many ways still very much a girl — got in a car. Aug. 22, 2002. If she’d looked up in that last moment of freedom, she would have seen a church steeple.

Eight months later, another girl. Same road. Two-tenths of a mile away.

Mandy had just finished her shift at Burger King, was still in her Burger King hat and shirt. Tomorrow would be Amanda “Mandy” Berry’s 17th birthday; a party was planned.

She got in a car.

The hunter of girls had found a rich hunting ground, a stretch of road clotted with used-automobile lots, discount jewelers, fast-food joints — and schoolgirls.

A year later, April 2, 2004, the hunter was back. Gina, just 14, was walking home with friends from Wilbur Wright Middle School, a stately brick building set on a shaded street two blocks from Burger King. Georgina “Gina” DeJesus broke off on her own, steps away from the spot where Knight was taken.

A car pulled up. The driver was the father of one of her best friends.

She got in the car.

For the next nine years, authorities say, Knight, Berry and De­Jesus together endured an excruciating ordeal as captives in a seemingly normal house on a seemingly normal street in a busy residential neighborhood less than four miles away. Until their remarkable rescue last week, authorities say, they were physically, sexually and psychologically abused by their captor, Ariel Castro, a school bus driver who played salsa music in nightclubs and harbored a dark past that foreshadowed the crimes he’s now accused of committing.

At Castro’s home on Seymour Avenue, he chained the young women in his basement, according to a police report. Eventually, investigators say, he moved them to the second floor of his house, a two-story place with a small back yard, a saggy porch, peeling paint and faded white siding. Most of the time, they were trapped inside, and on the rare occasions they were allowed to venture into the yard, Castro forced them to wear wigs and sunglasses, the report says. He told them to keep their heads down.

Castro, now 52, raped all his captives, authorities say….

In the beginning, the romance between the 20-something Ariel Castro and Grimilda Figueroa went fine. But it quickly deteriorated.

In the early 1990s, the unmarried couple lived on the second floor of the home of Figueroa’s parents. Once, Castro shoved Figueroa down a steep flight of stairs, family members recall. Her father, aided by a pack of neighbors and relatives, beat Castro in retaliation. He didn’t fight back. “He didn’t fight no man,” Figueroa Jr. says.

Things only got worse when the couple moved to their own place; Castro’s beatings of his common-law wife became more frequent and more severe, Figueroa’s relatives say.

He exhibited strange, domineering traits. Grimilda Figueroa became a near-prisoner in her home, a sister, Elida Caraballo, says. Castro padlocked doors from the outside when he left. One day, Caraballo went into their house and saw Castro shoving Figueroa into a cardboard box and closing the lid….

More recently, neighbors say police have been contacted at least twice in the past two years because of suspicious activity. The first time, neighbor Elsie Cintron says she called police after spotting a child’s face in an attic window and hearing banging. Officers responded, Cintron says, but left when no one answered the knocks at Castro’s door. The next time, her son Israel Lugo says, a group of elderly women who were exercising in the area called police. According to Lugo, the women and his sister had all seen a naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck in Castro’s back yard. Cleveland police say they have no record of the calls….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cleveland-suspect-ariel-castros-american-dream-darkened-by-allegations-of-violence/2013/05/11/61302bd8-ba44-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html

Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’, Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’, NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges

- Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’
- Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’
- Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case
- Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice
- NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges

Ariel Castro to cops: ‘I’m coldblooded’
DNA test shows Castro is the father of one of the victim’s 6-year-old daughter
Tom Meyer, WKYC-TV May 10, 2013

CLEVELAND — During interrogation with police, Ariel Castro, the man charged with kidnapping and raping three women over roughly 10 years, referred to himself as “coldblooded,” addicted to sex and unable to control his impulses, WKYC Channel 3 News has learned.

With exacting detail, Castro recalled the abductions of Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, explaining how he met each victim and even what he was wearing that day, according to sources….

The 52-year-old unemployed school bus driver was “cocky” during the interview, showing remorse only over his capture, Channel 3 News was told.

Castro, who was arrested on Monday after Berry escaped from Castro’s house with the help of neighbors and called police, was ordered held on $8 million bond Thursday by a Cleveland Municipal Court judge.

Meanwhile, in a suicide note discovered in his house by police, Castro blamed the girls for their abductions, writing that they were the ones who got into his car in the first place, the sources said. Castro did write that he wanted to give his money and possessions to the women if he was caught, the sources said.

The note appears to have been written in 2004, about the time police were investigating him on an apparently unrelated matter involving a child left on his school bus. In the note, he also mentioned his sex addiction, as well as having previously endured physical abuse as a child.

None of the abductions seemed planned, the sources said. Rather, they appeared to be crimes of opportunity….
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-cleveland-abduction-cold-blood-kidnap/2149831/

Ariel Castro’s Ex-Relatives Say Ohio Accused Kidnapper, Rapist Is A ‘Monster’
AP  By MEGHAN BARR 05/10/2013
CLEVELAND — The man accused of holding three women captive for a decade in his home terrorized the mother of his children, frequently beating her, playing twisted psychological games and locking her indoors in the years before their relationship disintegrated, her relatives say.

Several relatives of Grimilda Figueroa, who left Ariel Castro years ago and died last year after a long illness, painted a nightmarish portrait of Castro’s family life as authorities made public horrifying details of the abuse endured by the imprisoned women.

In interviews with The Associated Press on Thursday, the relatives described Castro as a “monster” who abused his wife and locked his family inside their own home. Their views were at odds with those of some of Castro’s family and a neighbor, who knew the former school bus driver only as a happy and respectful man.

Figueroa’s relatives said Castro savagely beat her, pushing her down a flight of stairs, breaking her nose and dislocating her shoulder, among other injuries. Her sister, Elida Caraballo, said Castro once shoved Figueroa into a cardboard box and closed the flaps over her head.

“He told her, `You stay there until I tell you to get out,’” said Caraballo, who cried as she recounted her late sister’s torment. “That’s when I got scared and I ran downstairs to get my parents.”

Castro, to frighten his wife, kept a mannequin wearing a dark wig propped up against a wall and sometimes drove around the neighborhood with it, relatives said.

“He threatened me lots of times with it,” said Angel Caraballo, Castro’s nephew, who used to play with his cousins at the house where the kidnapped women were found. “He would say, `Act up again, you’ll be in that back room with the mannequin.’”….

Some relatives of Castro have said they were shocked by the allegations against him. An uncle, Julio Castro, said it’s been difficult news to absorb.

“Of course we have taken it hard,” he said. “We only knew one Ariel, my sweet nephew. He was a sweet, happy person, a musician. We didn’t have the slightest idea of the second person in him.”….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/10/ariel-castro-monster_n_3251920.html

Long before he was charged, Ariel Castro was accuser in sexual assault case
Fernando Colon was accused by Ariel Castro in 2004 of sexually assaulting the latter’s daughters, Emily and Arlene, who also were his stepdaughters. He was initially charged with 28 counts, including rape and kidnapping, but was found guilty of five lesser offenses.  By Mark Schone  NBC News investigative editor

Nearly a decade before being charged with kidnapping, raping and torturing three Cleveland women, Ariel Castro was himself the accuser in a sexual assault case involving his daughters. The accusations, which resulted in the conviction of his ex-wife’s second husband, now offer a new window into Castro’s tangled family relationships.

The case against Fernando Colon also raises questions about whether FBI agents squandered an opportunity to question Castro about the disappearance of two of the women in the months after their abductions.

Castro made the accusations against Colon, 39, in July 2004, shortly after 14-year-old Georgina “Gina” DeJesus vanished on her way home from the west Cleveland middle school she attended.

Colon, the husband of Ariel Castro’s ex-common-law wife, Grimilda “Nilda” Figueroa, says he told two FBI agents nine years ago to investigate Castro in connection with the disappearances of Amanda Berry and DeJesus, but that the agents seemed uninterested in his tip….
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/09/18150055-long-before-he-was-charged-ariel-castro-was-accuser-in-sexual-assault-case

Sex assault survivors, former gymnasts, reunite for justice
Catholic Church and others oppose change that would let them sue
May 07, 2013 SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) ….

But with the smiles expressed by six former Olympic-hopeful gymnasts were also tears.
“I was raped,” said Charmaine Carnes, a former gymnast who shared the same coach as the other women.

One by one, this reunited group shared a painful past.
“The rape that was happening was rampant. It was nonstop,” added Monica Lenches, another teammate.

The group of six met in Sacramento on Tuesday to lobby for a proposed change in the statute of limitations civil law involving past victims of child sexual abuse.

“This man was extremely, extremely good at controlling us and manipulating us into believing this is what we wanted,” said Anne Malver, another teammate.

Current California civil law limits the ability of child sex-abuse victims to seek damages — an action must be filed by the plaintiff’s 26th birthday, or within three years of the date that the plaintiff reasonably discovers the psychological trauma he/she is suffering (comes) from consequences of sexual abuse, read a news release from the sponsors of SB 131….

However, the California Catholic Conference, as well as a list of other private organizations, oppose the bill because it would virtually exempt all public employees and public schools from the proposed change in statute of limitations, said Kevin Eckery, a spokesperson for the Catholic Church….
http://www.kcra.com/news/sex-assault-survivors-former-gymnasts-reunite-for-justice/-/11797728/20052016/-/sjblpt/-/index.html

NSW priest facing 124 child sex charges AAP May 8, 2013
A former Catholic priest is accused of 124 child sex offences after scores of additional charges were laid against him.

The 59-year-old man faced Armidale Local Court, in the NSW New England region, on Wednesday, when prosecutors laid 64 fresh charges….

Police allege the offences relate to alleged assaults on a boy and two girls, aged from nine to 19, that took place in the early 1980s at Moree, Narrabri, Inverell and Armidale.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/latest/a/-/newshome/17067429/nsw-priest-facing-124-child-sex-charges/

Ariel Castro Allegedly Kept Sexually Abused Kidnap Victims In ‘Chains And Ropes’, Eric Toth, accused of child pornography, evaded authorities for 5 years

Ariel Castro Allegedly Kept Sexually Abused Kidnap Victims In ‘Chains And Ropes’
05/08/2013

The three kidnapped women who endured a decade inside a rundown Cleveland home were bound by ropes and chains and rarely let outside, according to Cleveland’s police chief.

“We have confirmation that they were bound and there was chains and ropes in the home,” Police Chief Michael McGrath said Wednesday morning on the “Today” show. He also said they were “very rarely” permitted in suspect Ariel Castro’s backyard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/ariel-castro-had-ropes-an_n_3237412.html

Ohio man charged with kidnapping, rape By Meghan Barr and Thomas J. Sheeran Associated Press  May 08, 2013

CLEVELAND (AP) — Kidnapping and rape charges were filed Wednesday against a man arrested after three women missing for about a decade were found alive at his home.

Homeowner Ariel Castro was charged while his brothers, Pedro and Onil Castro, were held but faced no immediate charges.

The men were in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment. Their brother-in-law has said the family is ‘‘shocked’’ after hearing about the women at the home.
The three women were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and suffered miscarriages, a city councilman briefed on the case said Wednesday.

Councilman Brian Cummins said that many details remain unclear, including the number of pregnancies and the conditions under which the miscarriages occurred. He also said the women were kept in the basement for some time without having access to the rest of the house. Police said they were apparently bound with ropes and chains.

The horrific allegations came out as police built a case.

‘‘We know that the victims have confirmed miscarriages, but with who, how many and what conditions we don’t know,’’ Cummins said. He added: ‘‘It sounds pretty gruesome.’’….

A 2005 domestic-violence filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court accused Ariel Castro of twice breaking the nose of his children’s mother, knocking out a tooth, dislocating each shoulder and threatening to kill her and her daughters three or four times in a year.

The filing for a protective order by Grimilda Figueroa also said that Castro frequently abducted her daughters and kept them from her.

In 1993, Castro was arrested on a domestic-violence charge and spent three days in jail before he was released on bail. A grand jury did not return an indictment against him, according to court documents, which don’t detail the allegations….
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/05/08/ohio-man-charged-with-kidnapping-rape/q3P6S4KfsEqM7Wx9T69ezO/story.html

Eric Toth, accused of child pornography, evaded authorities for 5 years
By Justin Jouvenal, Published: May 5

Eric Toth was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and had been featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” but last fall, one of the most notorious fugitives in America may have been set to take a stage.

He appeared to be booked to speak at a Las Vegas tech conference.

Colleagues knew the speaker under a different name as an Austin-based tech writer and computer technician they described as brilliant and friendly. But they now suspect that he is the same man who is accused of filming a sex act with a child while he was a teacher at the District’s exclusive Beauvoir school in 2007 or 2008.

They realized the night before the October speech that the tech writer had vanished. Calls and e-mails went unreturned. His Facebook page went dormant. They never saw him again.

His whereabouts remained a mystery until Toth, 31, was arrested in Nicaragua in April. Three people who saw arrest photos of the lanky man with long brown hair said he was the same person they knew from Austin. FBI officials declined to confirm their account. Toth’s attorney did not return a call for comment.

“My reaction was shock,” said Joel Stewart, one of the man’s former bosses at a computer repair store. “This was not an unlikable person. I think a lot of us came to think of him as something of a friend.”

During Toth’s five years on the run, the pattern played out again and again as the man the FBI says is an expert in social engineering and computers was able to invent fresh personas, allegedly obtain fraudulent documents and win the trust of unsuspecting people. When it appeared that he might be discovered, he would simply melt away.

All the while, the man, who authorities warned would not stop molesting children until he was caught, had contact with kids. The Washington Post has been able to reconstruct his time in hiding from the District to the Southwest to Latin America.

“It’s a case study in you never know who you are standing next to,” said Chris Bangs, who worked with the tech writer….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/eric-toth-accused-of-child-pornography-evaded-authorities-for-5-years/2013/05/05/02813d9a-ae8f-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_story.html

Operation Holitna – Guilty Pleas in Large Child P_rn Ring, Kidnapping Cases

- Massachusetts man pleads guilty to solicitation to kidnap a child
“Dungeon discussed in online chats discovered in defendant’s basement”
- Eastern Kansas man pleads guilty to producing child pornography
- Massachusetts man sentenced for production of child pornography
“Led to a network of child pornographers around the world; 38 arrested, 138 children rescued”
- Boston-area child sexual exploitation investigation leads to arrests in the Netherlands
“Dutch officials consequently arrested a 27-year-old daycare center employee who confessed to dozens of sex crimes with children.”
- Extraordinary endings in kidnapping cases
(Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Shawn Hornbeck, Natascha Kampusch)

News Releases  May 6, 2013 Boston, MA
Massachusetts man pleads guilty to solicitation to kidnap a child

Dungeon discussed in online chats discovered in defendant’s basement; discussed mutual interest in abducting, raping, murdering and eating children with others in California, Florida, Kansas, New Jersey and New Mexico – latest developments in Operation Holitna

BOSTON — A citizen of the United Kingdom and most recently of Worcester, Mass., pleaded guilty May 6 to solicitation to commit a crime of violence – kidnaping of a child – and distribution and possession of child pornography. The guilty plea is the result of an extensive worldwide investigation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

According to the agreed upon statement of facts, Geoffrey Portway, 40, of Worcester, engaged in numerous chats with many individuals about a mutual interest in abducting, raping, murdering and eating children. Many of these conversations were accompanied by the trading of child pornography. These chats also included images of children known to them, accompanied by discussions of the desire to sexually abuse, murder and cannibalize those children….

At least as early as 2010, Portway utilized Skype and other programs to communicate with Arnett, trading child pornography including images of injured, mutilated and deceased children while chatting about the sexual abuse, rape, abduction, murder and cannibalism of children. Over months, Portway repeatedly solicited Arnett to kidnap a child for him, with the intent that Portway would ultimately rape, kill and eat that child. These solicitations for help abducting a child included discussing real children – by name and photo – that Arnett claimed to know and have access to.

In the chats, Portway and Arnett discuss different ways to kidnap children and the age range that Portway prefers. During the time that Portway was soliciting Arnett, Portway had been told that Arnett had helped others with such requests before and that Arnett had experience with the abduction and sexual abuse of children. Arnett has since pleaded guilty in Kansas to the sexual exploitation of a child for the purposes of producing child pornography….

A forensic examination of the computers uncovered evidence of over 4,500 trades of child pornography between Portway and others. Many of these trades involved Portway distributing child pornography to others based on their stated specific preferences, including images and videos appearing to depict dead children and the cannibalism of children….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1305/130506boston.htm

News Releases  February 11, 2013 Kansas City, KS
Eastern Kansas man pleads guilty to producing child pornography

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A suburban Kansas City man, who was arrested in May as part of an international investigation into child sexual exploitation, pleaded guilty Monday in federal court to producing child pornography.

This guilty plea resulted from an extensive investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Michael D. Arnett, 38, of Roeland Park, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography. If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison.

During a May 15 search warrant, investigators discovered images of child pornography on a computer at Arnett’s home in Roeland Park. The discovered child pornography included images of victims from Overland Park, Kan., who were identified through clues in the photos. For example, some photos showed a water bottle with a unique business logo and a phone number beginning with the 913 local area code. Both clues identified an aquatics business in Overland Park. This detective work allowed HSI investigators to significantly narrow the focus of their search for the victims.

With the assistance of teachers at an elementary school in Shawnee Mission, Kan., HSI investigators ultimately identified three boys who had been photographed at Arnett’s home at 5451 Juniper Drive in Roeland Park. At the time the photos were taken, the boys were 11, 8 and 2 years old….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1302/130211kansascity.htm

News Releases June 8, 2012 Boston, MA
Massachusetts man sentenced for production of child pornography
Led to a network of child pornographers around the world; 38 arrested, 138 children rescued

BOSTON – A Milford man was sentenced to 18 years in prison in federal court. This investigation has led to an international child pornography case involving the abuse of 138 children. This ongoing worldwide investigation is being led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Robert A. Diduca, 48, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to 18 years in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release. On Nov. 17, 2011, Diduca pleaded guilty to production, distribution and possession of child pornography….

Diduca engaged in an online chat with an individual being separately prosecuted in Arizona, persuading him to sexually abuse a four-year-old child and take sexually explicit photos of the child. Diduca provided the individual with a camera and suggested how the child should be posed.

Diduca was also a member of an online forum for those with a sexual interest in children, and sent a pornographic image of a child via email. An investigation of that distributed image led to the identification of the child, and the arrest of a Dutch national in the Netherlands, who was charged with production, distribution and possession of child pornography, as well as the sexual assault of 87 minors.

Forensic evidence revealed over 27,000 images of child pornography in Diduca’s possession….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1206/120608boston.htm

News Releases December 13, 2010 Boston, MA
Boston-area child sexual exploitation investigation leads to arrests in the Netherlands

BOSTON – Special agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Boston, along with Massachusetts State Police (MSP) detectives assigned to the Worcester District Attorney’s Office, conducted advanced computer forensics on a computer seized in a child sexual exploitation investigation in the Boston-area. After intensive investigative work, HSI special agents and the MSP, working with Interpol and Dutch authorities, were able to track these photos to the Netherlands. Dutch officials consequently arrested a 27-year-old daycare center employee who confessed to dozens of sex crimes with children….

Shortly thereafter, on the same evening, KLPD-Ipol, along with Amsterdam Police, arrested a 27-year-old suspect. The suspect had babysat the victim and had worked at at least two daycare centers in Amsterdam. He also offered his services online as a babysitter.

The man’s computers were seized and will be searched for evidence of child sexual exploitation and he has since confessed to dozens of sex crimes allegedly committed over the past year and a half. On Sunday, more than 50 parents were also informed that the suspect has either confessed to abusing their children or was thought to have done so….
http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1012/101213boston.htm

Extraordinary endings in kidnapping cases
Tue May 7, 2013
The rescue of three kidnapping victims is an extraordinary ending for the child abductees.

Such endings are rare, but here are some similar cases of child kidnappings which have occurred in recent years:

Jaycee Dugard
Ms Dugard was kidnapped in June 1991 in South Lake Tahoe, California at age 11 and remained missing for more than 18 years….

Elizabeth Smart
Ms Smart was abducted from her bedroom in an affluent suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah, in March, 2003, at age 14.
She was found nine months later in Sandy, Utah, only a few miles from her home….

Shawn Hornbeck
Mr Hornbeck was 11 years old when he was abducted near his home in Richwoods, Missouri while riding his bicycle and remained missing for more than four years.

He was found, along with Ben Ownby, 13, who had been abducted more recently, in the Kirkwood, Missouri, apartment of Michael J Devlin, in January 2007.

Devlin pleaded guilty to abduction and child sex abuse and was sentenced to life in prison.

Natascha Kampusch
Ms Kampusch was abducted at the age of 10 in March 1998 on her way to school in Vienna, Austria and held for more than eight years in a secret cellar in the small town of Strasshof until she escaped in August, 2006….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-07/extraordinary-endings-in-kidnapping-cases/4674938

Pope’s child porn ‘normal’ claim sparks outrage among victims, Pope conclave tainted by abuse scandal, Police warn on kidnap of new born babies, children in Abia

- Pope’s child porn ‘normal’ claim sparks outrage among victims
- Pope conclave tainted by abuse scandal: Our view
- Abia House tasks security agencies on kidnapping, child trafficking
- Police warn on kidnap of new born babies, children in Abia

Pope’s child porn ‘normal’ claim sparks outrage among victims

Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict’s claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.

In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said….

The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.

Asking how abuse exploded within the Church, the Pontiff called on senior clerics “to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred” and to help victims heal through a better presentation of the Christian message.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/popes-child-porn-normal-claim-sparks-outrage-among-victims-28577483.html

Pope conclave tainted by abuse scandal: Our view
The Editorial Board March 5, 2013
Cardinals tied to coverup should not take part.

In Rome, where 115 cardinals are gathering to elect a new pope, the conclave will include these luminaries:

Cardinal Roger Mahony, former archbishop of Los Angeles, who in the 1980s plotted with an adviser to conceal child molesting priests from law enforcement.
Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s church, who failed in the 1970s to follow up on incriminating evidence against a priest, who went on to become a notorious serial molester.
Cardinal Godfried Danneels, the former head of the Belgian church, who once advised an adult victim of 13 years of childhood abuse against making “a lot of noise” about it because his molester, a bishop, was about to retire.
Cardinal Justin Rigali, former head of the Philadelphia archdiocese, where it took two grand juries issuing scathing reports of abuse before the cardinal saw fit in 2011 to suspend 21 priests accused of molesting children.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/03/pope-conclave-child-abuse-scandal/1961031/

Abia House tasks security agencies on kidnapping, child trafficking
February 26, 2013

BY ANAYO OKOLI

UMUAHIA —  ABIA State House of Assembly has called on security agencies and other relevant authorities to strictly enforce the law against kidnapping, child trafficking, among others to check the rising cases of child trafficking in some parts of the state.

There are reports of increasing cases of kidnapping of children and child trafficking among related crimes in the state especially in Abia South.

Reports of missing children and in some cases, some of them are found dead with vital body parts removed.

Last week, while giving five additional new Hillux Pick-up vans to the Commander of 14 Brigade, Ohafia, Brigadier General Abubakar, Governor Theodore Orji tasked him to tackle head-on the rising problem of child trafficking.

The governor lamented that some of the children have had the misfortune of being killed for  ritual purposes among others….

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/02/abia-house-tasks-security-agencies-on-kidnapping-child-trafficking/

Police warn on kidnap of new born babies, children in Abia
Friday, 08 February 2013
The Police Command in Abia State has alerted the public on the resurgence of kidnapping of new born babies and children by unknown gunmen in the state.

The command’s acting spokesman, Mr Jonathan Amaechi, gave the warning in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Umuahia on Wednesday.

Amaechi said that the police was currently investigating cases of abduction of children in different parts of the state.

“Recent intelligence reports showed the presence of hoodlums that specialise in stealing new born babies and children.

“Such victims are either on errand in markets, going to or returning from school or church,” he said.

Amaechi said that the criminals operated in buses, tricycles, motorcycles, posh cars and fanciful jeeps….

http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/4831-police-warn-on-kidnap-of-new-born-babies-children-in-abia

Utah kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart preparing memoir.

Utah kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart preparing memoir.
The Associated Press
Nov 23, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY — Ten years after her kidnapping, Elizabeth Smart is preparing her story of being held captive by a homeless street preacher, her improbable rescue after nine months, and how she advocated for children after the ordeal.

St. Martin’s Press bought the rights to the memoir from the now 25-year-old senior at Brigham Young University….

Smart has said she waited for the March 2011 sentencing of Brian David Mitchell before collaborating on the telling of her story, which has been in the works for nearly a year.

Mitchell, a onetime itinerant street preacher, was convicted of Smart’s kidnapping and sexual assault. He is serving two life sentences at a federal prison in Arizona.

Authorities say he snatched the then-14-year-old Smart from her bedroom at knifepoint on June 5, 2002.

The book won’t just be the story of Smart’s captivity but also will depict how she organized the Elizabeth Smart Foundation and brought more attention and law enforcement techniques to the cases of missing and abused children, said her publicist Christopher Thomas.

“She started the foundation to get her message across, and book was another way to do it,” Thomas said.

It will be the fourth book about the kidnapping that caused a national sensation.
http://www.pjstar.com/free/x1978608178/Kidnap-victim-Elizabeth-Smart-preparing-memoir

More lawsuits filed over sex abuse of Haitian boys, Molho – severe physical abuse

More lawsuits filed over sex abuse of Haitian boys
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN  AP 1/5/12

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Seventeen Haitian men are suing Fairfield University in Connecticut, the Society of Jesus and others alleging they failed to protect them from a man who sexually abused them when they were poor children or young adults attending a school he founded in Haiti.

The lawsuits bring to 21 the number of alleged victims suing Douglas Perlitz and the others. Perlitz was sentenced in 2010 to nearly 20 years in prison for sexually abusing children at Project Pierre Toussaint.

The victims ranged from ages 9 to 21 at the time of the abuse and are now 18 to 29.

The lawsuits seek $20 million for each victim. They contend Perlitz’s supervisors disregarded warning signs of inappropriate behavior with boys.

The Rev. Paul Carrier, a Jesuit priest who was Fairfield University’s chaplain, saw Perlitz show a student a pornographic video and saw boys in his bedroom, according to the lawsuits. A school board member, Hope Carter, flew to Haiti in 2008 and removed Perlitz’s computer, according to the lawsuits.
http://news.yahoo.com/more-lawsuits-filed-over-sex-abuse-haitian-boys-165002483.html

Toward the Within – George Molho Author, ‘Scarred: A Memoir’ 1/3/12

In 1978, at the age of 7, I was kidnapped and tortured for a year, taken by my father from my home in Houston, Texas to the northern mountains of Greece.

Born of my mother’s love and my father’s fury, I was his proof to the world that he could succeed at something. But the boy I was died in those mountains. I’ll never know what life he would have had….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-molho/writing-toward-the-within_b_1182285.html

Scarred, a Memoir
In 1978, seven-year-old George Molho was kidnapped by his own father. For a year, he survived mental and physical abuse to the point of torture. He found it easier to get used to hell, instead of hoping that heaven was around the corner. George eventually escaped, but surviving the aftermath proved to be much more difficult.

describes abuse in detail
http://georgemolho.com/scarred/