Tag: child abuse

Leading Academic Journal Publishes Paper Claiming “Sexual Relations Between Youths and Adults” Are Not Harmful

A leading academic journal has published an article questioning the need for age of consent laws and claiming that discussions of “youth sexuality” are unjustly hindered by “cancel culture.” The author, Marshall Burns, is a physicist and technology entrepreneur who was involved in the development of the early computer industry and operates a website titled “Consenting Juveniles.”

In his article, which was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior in June and titled “The Elephant in the Room: Youth Sexuality,” Burns argues that “sexual relations between youths and adults” is wrongfully seen as a contentious issue in society.

“The Archives of Sexual Behavior special section on cancel culture is an important reference on a dangerous phenomenon taking place in front of us. Yet the section omits discussion of the primary cancellation issue that arguably helped set the stage for what we face today and that remains the most lightning-rod subject of all,” Burns writes.

“It ignores the elephant in the room: youth sexuality, and in particular, discussions of sexual relations between youths and adults without an a priori assumption of abuse and harm.”

In the article, Burns presents a selection of previous academic publications alongside reactions in order to highlight what he portrays as examples of cancel culture in action. The first incident he provides describes criticism leveled against Dutch-American, Columbia-affiliated academic and LGBT activist Theo Sandfort, who, Burns says, found that sexual relationships between adults and minors are “mostly harmless.”

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‘Teacher of the month’ who likes to ‘build relationships’ with pupils charged in student sex assault case

A Tennessee high school teacher who’d been awarded “teacher of the month” has been charged with statutory rape after allegedly having sex with one of her students. 

Casey McGrath, a 28-year-old geometry teacher at Chattanooga Central High School, was suspended without pay in March after a months-long investigation into alleged “inappropriate physical contact with a student” WTVC reported.

She was indicted on Aug. 14 and charged with “unlawfully and knowingly engag[ing] in sexual penetration with a person of at least 13 years of age, but less than 18,” according to court documents obtained by Fox News.

The indictment noted that she is “at least 10 years older than the victim.”

McGrath was arrested on Aug. 18 and is out on release after posting a $10,000 bond. She is scheduled to be arraigned in Hamilton County Criminal Court on Sept. 6.

McGrath — who had also taught at nearby East Ridge Middle School, according to school records. She had recently been nominated by Central High School students as “teacher of the month,” according to an online article in the school’s newspaper that has since been taken down.

The teacher told a student reporter that her favorite part of the  day was “getting to interact with students and build relationships with them” — despite challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Feds Demand Action on School Sexual Misconduct. Will California Heed the Call?

Across the nation, schools have repeatedly hidden instances of teacher misconduct that, in some cases, allow educators to inflict the same behaviors on more students. 

San Francisco’s public school district has entered into resignation agreements with 19 employees accused of sexual misconduct since 2017, The Standard previously revealed. One of those teachers had left another Bay Area school under separate sexual misconduct allegations 20 years prior, unbeknown to administrators. 

To prevent schools from unwittingly hiring teachers credibly accused of sexual misconduct, federal education officials want states to tighten regulations. Though criminal background checks are required for most school staff across the nation, the U.S. Education Department warned it creates a false sense of security. In a July 2022 report, the department called on states to enact more protections. 

California is one of many states that does not explicitly prohibit the suppression of information about employee misconduct. And, nearly one year after the federal report, state leaders have made little progress in assessing what needs to be done. Gaps also remain when it comes to tracking non-credentialed school staff accused of misconduct, and in tracking records of staff from out of state.

In response to questions regarding potential new practices, the California Department of Education said, it “has, by statute and regulations, a limited role in local matters with public schools. Any change to this oversight would require legislative action.”

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How the Victorian Education Department’s historical child sexual abuse scandal was hidden for decades

On June 27, 2019, the viewing areas of Melbourne’s County Court were a hive of nervous energy as Justice Gabriele Cannon arrived to deliver a sentence that would publicly account for the private sorrows of dozens of people in the room.

Slumped beside his defence counsel, a 78-year-old former primary school teacher who’d once sneered at his victims that they’d never be believed was now a diminished and defeated figure.

But it was not just the reputation of Vincent Henry Reynolds on trial that day.

Warning: This story contains details of child sexual abuse

The story presented of Reynolds’s career would soon be understood as a microcosm of the unravelling crisis of historical sexual abuse in the Victorian education system. It would reveal in granular detail the methods by which the Victorian Education Department had covered up the sexual abuse of children — methods that lawyers for survivors say have been identified in dozens of other cases. 

The catchwords for Cannon’s sentencing remarks were succinct and compelling: “historical sexual offending”; “42 charges”; “38 child complainants”; “period of offending about 31 years”; “abuse of power”; “gross breach of trust”; “brazen and prolonged offending”; “systemic failures in duty of care”.

Yet as disturbing as the raw numbers were, they sold short the devastation wrought by Reynolds’s decades of rampant abuse of children placed in his care at government-run schools, reflecting only the reported cases of those who’d both survived their ordeals and mustered the strength to endure the justice system’s lengthy and often dispiriting delays.

One after the other, survivors stepped forward to read victim impact statements to the court.

“The Education Department knew he was a sick child abuser, knew that he preyed on kids, but they turned him loose on me and my classmates, and on lots of other kids in country Victoria,” one of them would later say.

Survivors who’d spent decades negotiating their traumas alone now gathered as a collective, participating in the unfortunately rare experience of personally witnessing the comeuppance of their abuser.

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CA preschool teacher blasts ‘innocence,’ says toddlers should be taught ‘queerness,’ sexuality in classroom

A preschool teacher repeatedly attacked the idea of “childhood innocence” and claimed that topics considered “inappropriate” can be shared with children, according to his scrubbed social media accounts. 

The California teacher, William “Willy” Villalpando, has said the idea of “childhood innocence” is a “myth,” and claimed topics deemed “inappropriate” – such as “queerness” – can be suitable for the pre-K age group. The district has repeatedly ignored Fox News’ requests for comment. 

The Rialto Unified School District was asked months ago whether Villalpando was currently employed there and working with its schoolchildren. They did not respond. However, after receiving a tip from a concerned source – it can now be confirmed the teacher works at Trapp Preschool. 

“There is a common mythology that children live in this world of pure innocence, and that by introducing or exposing them to the real-world adults are somehow shattering this illusion for them. Therefore, there is a banning of topics and issues that children should not be exposed to, as if they are not experiencing them already,” he said. 

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Ex-headteacher at school attended by Prince George committed child sex crimes

The former deputy headteacher at the London primary school attended by Prince George and Princess Charlotte was convicted of paying tens of thousands of dollars for photos and videos of children being sexually abused.

Matthew Smith — who worked at the ritzy Thomas’s Preparatory School — was sentenced to 12 years in prison this week for paying more than $85,000 for sexual images of children as young as seven, according to the South West News Service.

The conviction of the 35-year-old former teacher left staff at the school “shocked and appalled beyond measure,” a school spokesperson said.

The $25,000-a-year school, located in Battersea, southwest London, said that Smith has not worked at the school since charges had been brought against him.

The spokesperson emphasized Smith’s brief tenure at the school — just around eight weeks.

“Mr. Smith’s employment at the school, which commenced in September 2022, was terminated with immediate effect when the school first learned of the charges against him in November,” the school said.

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Inside the very sinister world of Lil Tay: Influencer and rapper faced fury over vulgar N-word videos at age NINE – before mysteriously VANISHING amid claims she’d been ABUSED by her dad and ‘exploited’ by brother Jason Tian

14-year-old influencer Lil Tay was involved in a bizarre fake death scandal this week – which marked a wild twist to an already tragic story that was filled with rumors of exploitation and allegations of abuse.

Lil Tay, whose real name is Tay Tian, was skyrocketed into the spotlight when she was just nine years old, after she began posting a series of vulgar videos online, which showed her using the N-word and getting into fights with strangers. 

She was hailed as one of the internet’s biggest rising stars in 2017, and quickly racked up millions of followers – but her bizarre clips left some people on the web concerned for her wellbeing. 

Soon, rumors began to swirl that she was being forced to partake in the videos by her family, which were only fueled when footage that seemingly showed her then-16-year-old brother, Jason Tian, coaching her on what to say made its way around the web. 

Lil Tay sparked more concern in July 2018, when she shared a chilling message asking for help to her Instagram Stories, only to suddenly erase all of her videos hours later.

Four months later, an anonymous person started sharing harrowing posts to her account in which they claimed that her ‘abusive’ dad, Chris Hope, was trying to take her away from her mother. 

Chris denied the allegations, claiming that he was actually protecting her. He insisted that he was trying to ‘stop things that he felt were dangerous to her physical and mental health and to her future’ and separate her from people who were motivated by ‘the possibility of making money off of her.’

Then, three years later, her brother issued a desperate plea for help through a GoFundMe page, in which he claimed that Lil Tay was ‘fighting for her life, future and freedom’ after being ‘physically and mentally’ abused by her ‘absentee’ father, who wanted to ‘gain control’ of her and her earnings.

He alleged that Chris had stolen millions of dollars from his sister, took control of her career, forced her into silence, and was now trying to gain full custody over her.

Then, on Wednesday, someone shared a post to Lil Tay’s Instagram claiming that both she and Jason had passed away, explaining that the ‘circumstances surrounding’ their deaths are ‘still under investigation.’

Hours later, however, Lil Tay told TMZ that she was still alive and that her account had been ‘hacked.’ 

As the young star is shrouded in controversy once again, FEMAIL went ahead and rounded up everything we know about her – from her scandalous rise to fame and why she suddenly disappeared from the spotlight five years ago to what she said about her father and what we know about her recent fake death.

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GOP donor Anton Lazzaro sentenced to 21 years for sex trafficking minors in Minnesota

A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges.

Anton “Tony” Lazzaro was found guilty in March by a federal jury of seven counts involving “commercial sex acts” with five girls ages 15 and 16 in 2020, when Lazzaro was 30. The charges carried mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years with a maximum of life in prison.

Prosecutors had requested a 30-year sentence for Lazzaro. They likened Lazzaro to financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested in 2019 on federal charges accusing him of paying underage girls for massages and then abusing them at his homes in Florida and New York. The defense asked for no more than 10 years.

“He’s a sex trafficker,” prosecutor Laura Provinzino said. “One who has shown absolutely no remorse. He has accepted no responsibility for his crimes.”

U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz came down in the middle and had harsh words for Lazzaro.

He said Lazzaro showed sympathy to only two people during the trial — “to himself and Jeffrey Epstein.” And the judge said he was struck by the “soulless, almost mechanical nature” of how Lazzaro exploited the girls.

“It’s almost as if Mr. Lazzaro set up a sex trafficking assembly line,” Schiltz said.

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Ohio officer accused of having sex with minor

The FOX 8 I-Team has learned a Chester Township police officer has been charged with having sex with a 16-year-old girl while on duty.

Chardon Municipal Court records show Nicholas Iacampo, 29, was arrested Sunday a few hours after the alleged incident took place. According to a complaint filed with the court, Iacampo admitted to the offense while speaking with detectives.

Iacampo now faces a felony count of sexual battery. He appeared in court Monday. He was arraigned by a visiting judge and bond was set at $50,000. He was released on bond Monday afternoon.

His attorney, Ian Friedman, told the I-Team that the case is just beginning.

“We will assess the situation as the information comes in and will prepare the appropriate defense,” Friedman said.

Iacampo filled in as a school resource officer from January until June, according to Chester Township Police Chief Craig Young.

Iacampo was immediately placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, Young said in a statement Monday evening.

Young said his department sought help from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office for a third-party investigation.

“The Lake County Sheriff’s Office investigation is ongoing and will continue until it reaches a conclusion,” Young is quoted in the statement, later adding, “Additional information will be released as the investigation continues.”

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Global investigation leads to child sex abuse operation that charged 19 men, removed 13 Australian children from harm

The murder of two FBI agents in the United States during a child sexual abuse investigation has led to charges against 19 men and 13 children being removed from harm in Australia.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) has revealed details of the joint FBI operation targeting child abuse material on the dark web.

The investigation dates back to February 2021 when FBI agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were gunned down as they served a search warrant on a paedophile computer programmer who was distributing child sexual abuse material in Florida.

The programmer, David Lee Huber, was thought to have watched the agents through a doorbell camera before shooting them through the unopened door and then killing himself.

Three other agents were injured in the shooting.

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