Tag: child abuse

NYC family convicted of running sex trafficking ring using ‘threats of force, fraud and coercion,’ bribing cop with sexual favors

The Queens family that allegedly operated a years-long sex trafficking ring involving young women and girls from Mexico — and bribed an upstate cop to cover up their horrific offenses in exchange for sexual favors — was found guilty this week, federal officials said. 

Luz Elvira Cardona, 35, her partner Jose Facundo Zarate Morales, 34, as well as her mother Blanca Hernandez Morales, 53, and the older woman’s partner, Roberto Cesar Cid Dominguez, 60, were all found guilty Thursday after a four-week jury trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.

During the sick scheme, Cardona even paid for her 15-year-old niece — who lived in Mexico — to come to New York back in 2007 under the pretense that she could start working as a cleaner, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. 

But once the teen arrived in Queens, her aunt, along with Morales, brokered a deal with a client to sell her virginity.

She was then forced to engage in “commercial sex” with 20 or more men daily, officials said. 

The family’s nefarious plot began in 2002 when they pressured young women and girls – including one other minor besides Cardona’s niece – to come to the US with false promises of a better life, and work lined up for them, the jury heard.

Instead, they “used force, threats of force, fraud and coercion” to pressure their victims to engage in prostitution, prosecutors said. 

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NJ father-and-son teachers accused of possessing child sexual abuse material

A father and son, both teachers at a K-8 school in Rochelle Park, N.J., are facing charges for second-degree possession of child pornography.

Jeffrey Grossman, 65, and his son Steven Grossman, 24, are employed at Midland School No. 1. They allegedly viewed, downloaded and possessed images of nude and/or sexually explicit children, PIX11 reported.

Both men live near the school in Tenafly and viewed or downloaded over 1,000 digital files of the explicit material, according to authorities.

“It is a very difficult time for our family,” Jeffrey Grossman’s wife said in a Thursday statement. “Please understand we are trying to manage as best we can. I am happy to say I love my husband, I love my son, and we are going to support one another.”

The men have been released from custody and will be allowed to stay in their home until their trial, despite their release being against the wishes of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office.

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Whistleblower: The World Bank Helped Cover Up Child Sex Abuse at a Chain of For-Profit Schools It Funded

FOR SHANNON MAY and her husband Jay Kimmelman, the conference call scheduled with the World Bank on September 12, 2020, was make or break. It had been just over 10 years since the Harvard graduates had launched Bridge International Academies, a chain of for-profit schools that had exploded in Africa and South Asia. With the backing of Silicon Valley’s elite and the support of international financial institutions like the World Bank, the founders were now in negotiations to raise fresh capital that would allow them to move into several new countries. 

Rapid expansion was essential to the company’s business model. Bridge had figured out a way to slash the biggest cost drivers of a school budget — teachers’ salaries and traditional school houses — but the business was a low-margin enterprise that couldn’t slow down. The company was aiming for 10 million pupils, and it wasn’t as unreachable as it sounded: Bridge had already taught more than 1 million kids, backed by the for-profit investment arms of some of the world’s most famous philanthropists, including Bill Gates and eBay and Intercept founder Pierre Omidyar. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative provided Bridge with $10 million in seed funding; its previous round of financing, the so-called Series E, which closed in 2017.

Bridge was now raising its next round, Series F.  May and Kimmelman had a lot to lose: The couple had relocated from Cambridge to Kenya, and had done well enough to helicopter to their vacation home on the coast.

Just days before the call, in early September, May and Kimmelman had gotten bad news. In 2016, there had been a dozen or more cases of serial sexual assault at a Bridge school in Kenya. Several years later, at another Bridge location, a child on school grounds had been fatally electrocuted by a dangling live wire, while another had been badly injured. May and Kimmelman were already aware of the tragedies. Indeed, the company had internally documented many more cases of sexual abuse, but they had not been reported to the World Bank and stayed out of the local press. Now, a World Bank investigation threatened to bring them to light. 

In February 2020, an internal World Bank entity that independently reviews bank projects, called the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, had sent an investigative team, led by veteran investigator Daniel Adler, to Nairobi to look into complaints filed by a local human rights organization about workers’ rights and health and safety issues at Bridge schools. The CAO team, while in Nairobi, learned of additional allegations from parents and community members, namely the serial assaults and the electrocution. Adler quickly filed a report recommending a deeper look and asked Bridge for more information.

Bridge spent several months gumming up the process, successfully negotiating a nondisclosure agreement with the World Bank that would make it difficult to publish in full any report that might be completed. The company also pressured the head of the CAO, Osvaldo Gratacós, to ease off. Gratacós was pushed out by the World Bank, but the effort ultimately backfired; before his tenure expired, he formally launched an investigation — known internally as a CAO compliance process — into the sex abuse allegations at Bridge in September 2020. May and Kimmelman were now meeting with the World Bank to discuss how to respond.

With the company actively soliciting Series F financing and close to securing a deal to expand in Rwanda, the timing couldn’t have been worse. So the group — which included William Sonneborn, the World Bank official who oversaw the investment in Bridge, and another World Bank staff member, Shannon Atkeson — hatched a plan to keep the allegations hidden. 

With Gratacós already on his way out, the next step was to “neutralize Adler,” the CAO’s lead investigator. Bridge would file a complaint with a World Bank ethics office accusing Adler of violating CAO procedures and of impersonating a Bridge employee. It was right out of the Bridge playbook: The company had previously done the same to a Canadian graduate student writing a report on its schools in Uganda, going so far as to craft a bogus “Wanted” poster and place it in local newspapers. (A subsequent complaint Bridge filed with his university was dismissed.)

Next, Bridge would publish a consultant report favorably comparing its own record on student safety to that of Kenyan public schools — something to point to if the news leaked. The main objective, though, was to keep it quiet for as long as possible. The revelations would “spook investors” and undermine Bridge’s expansion plans in Rwanda. “Time matters,” as one person on the call put it. “Need to delay until Series F.”

There was only one problem: Someone on the call was taking notes.

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Payton Shires, 24, accused of having a relationship with a 13-year-old boy she was counseling

A 24-year-old school counselor has allegedly admitted to having sex with a 13-year-old boy after being ‘busted’ during a three-way call with cops and his mother. 

Ohio investigators discovered a disturbing video of Payton Shires having sex with the young boy following a report from his worried parent in September. 

Columbus Police officers charged Shires, of Mount Sterling, Ohio, with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, per ABC6. 

The boy’s mother began suspecting Shires of predatory behavior when she spotted texts between the licensed counselor and her son on his phone. The teen was receiving counseling from the 24-year-old. 

Charging documents show the mom contacted police on September 27 after seeing a message from Shires asking her son whether he had ‘deleted the videos’ – and whether anyone had seen them.  

The boy told detectives they had sex at least twice at different places in Columbus. 

Police set up a three-way call between the mother, detectives and Shires, where the social worker reportedly admitted to the sexual relationship.

Shires was taken into custody and police said further charges could be brought against her in the coming days. 

Police have released a mugshot of Shires, who is white with blue eyes and dyed blond hair.

State records show her counseling license was issued on June 12, 2023, and she used to work for the National Youth Advocate Program. 

The program, which supports families in the foster care system or who need advocacy, would not disclose why she stopped working for them, citing confidentiality and the ongoing police case. 

‘Protecting children is everyone’s responsibility.’ program representatives said in a statement. 

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TikTok-Famous Police Chief Swapped Incest Vids on Secret Twitter Account: Feds

A TikTok-famous small-town police chief traded incest videos via a secret Twitter account discovered during a search of his home office, according to a newly unsealed federal complaint reviewed by The Daily Beast.

Joel Justice Womochil, 38, went by “@ictbaddad” on the social media platform now known as X, with a profile picture of “Pedobear”—which the complaint describes as “a pedophilic cartoon utilized by some individuals engaged in the pedophile community.”

“Hello kids :)” read the banner across the top of the now-defunct account’s profile page. Womochil, as @ictbaddad, described himself online as a “38 w male looking 4 that special girl that was raised right and wants 2 continue the tradition,” according to the complaint. “If u luv the little things In life message on Wire same name[.]”

Womochil became police chief in Burns, Kansas, a town of 250 people, in February 2022, and served until his sudden resignation in early August. He said only that it was in the “best interest of me and this department,” though he continued working part-time as a detention deputy in neighboring Butler County. A little over a week later, Womochil was arrested on state charges of possessing child sexual abuse material. As of Friday, he is now facing two federal counts of receipt and possession of child pornography, with penalties that could put the disgraced lawman behind bars for decades.

The details of what Womochil allegedly had been seeking out and exchanging online have not been previously revealed.

His TikTok videos of life as a police officer regularly racked up tens of thousands of views, with some getting more than 600,000.

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FBI Issues Warning About Newly Discovered Pedophilic, Satanist Extortion Cult Targeting Children Online

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a warning about a newly discovered pedophilic, Satanist extortion cult targeting children online.

The cult uses platforms including Roblox, Discord, Twitch, Soundcloud, and Telegram to find new victims.

The FBI said in their public notice that the cult uses many names, including 676, 764, CVLT, Court, Kaskar, Harm Nation, Leak Society, and H3ll, but “continuously evolve and form subgroups under different monikers.”

“To gain access to a majority of these groups, prospective members are required to live-stream or upload videos depicting their minor victims harming animals or committing self-harm, suicide, murder, or other acts of violence,” the FBI said. “The key motivators of these groups are to gain notoriety and rise in status within their groups.”

The group was discovered after police in New York arrested a 23-year-old named Angel Almeida on gun charges and began investigating his social media posts. Items found in his apartment included books pertaining to the Order of Nine Angles, and a flag bearing the insignia of an American O9A offshoot, the Tempel ov Blood.

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Drunk dental receptionist who groped schoolboy, 13, and told him she wanted to ‘ride him till morning’ before exposing herself and waking up ‘remembering nothing’ after a white wine binge is spared jail

A dental receptionist sexually assaulted a 13-year-old boy after she began chatting him up at random following a white wine binge.

Jade Berry, 27, was staggering through Rivacre Valley Country Park in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, at 9pm when she accosted the child as he sat on a woodland bench talking with a friend about his forthcoming 14th birthday.

Berry sat between the two boys and began stroking the 13-year-old’s genitals over his clothing before offering him sex and saying she would ‘ride you till morning’.

As the shocked youngster and his friend got up to leave, she pulled down her trousers and exposed herself before passing out in a drunken stupor.

The two boys took videos of Berry before getting up to leave. She was identified after leaving her bank card and phone on the bench. 

When interviewed by police, Berry exclaimed: ‘Oh My God, I do not recall anything’ – but was later picked out by the boy at an identity parade.

The 13-year-old, who has ADHD, said he was so traumatised by the encounter that he tried to take his own life.

At Chester Crown Court, Berry – who lives in the village of Little Sutton near Ellesmere Port – pleaded guilty to sexual assault and was sentenced to 12 months in jail suspended for 18 months. 

Berry was also ordered to wear an electronic ‘sobriety’ tag for 120 days as part of an alcohol abstinence monitoring programme and will have to complete 35 rehabilitation activity days. 

She was told to sign on the Sex Offenders’ Register for ten years.

Berry had told the court she had mental health issues. 

The incident occurred on October 3 last year after Berry was making her way through the 300-acre nature reserve after a drinking session with friends. 

James Coutts, prosecuting, said: ‘The victim was seated on a bench in woodland when the defendant approached him. 

‘She was unknown to him and was clearly intoxicated. She sat between the two boys and began to touch and rub his genitals and the upper area of his thigh over his clothing whilst making highly inappropriate and sexualised comments. 

‘She said she was going to “ride him till morning”.

‘They had in fact been talking previously about his upcoming 14th birthday – and it was quite clear to them she knew how old he was.

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NEW JERSEY ‘SHAKEN BABY SYNDROME’ RULING PUTS ‘JUNK SCIENCE’ DIAGNOSIS UNDER FIRE

Darryl Nieves’s wrongful prosecution began as many Shaken Baby Syndrome cases do—with a call for help.

On February 10, 2017, Nieves’s 11-month-old son, D.J., appeared to be having a seizure, Nieves told The Appeal. He called 911. The paramedics arrived, administered oxygen, and D.J. regained consciousness. They took him to St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the same hospital where D.J. had been born prematurely, at just 25 weeks gestation, according to a brief filed by Nieves’s attorneys with the Office of the Public Defender. (The Appeal is using the child’s nickname to protect his privacy.)

Despite D.J.’s well-documented medical conditions—he’d spent the first seven months of his life hospitalized and had already undergone two cardiac surgeries—a child abuse pediatrician at the hospital diagnosed him with abusive head trauma, or AHT, “as occurs with a shaking event with or without impact.” This diagnosis is often known as Shaken Baby Syndrome. 

Nieves was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and child endangerment. He was released after about four days in jail but was not allowed to have any contact with his son, he said. It would be more than four years until he could see D.J. again. 

“I was thinking the government fails everyone, especially Black African Americans, so I felt it was going to fail me,” Nieves told The Appeal.

Prosecutors offered him probation if he pleaded guilty, according to Danica Rue, a member of Nieves’s legal team at the public defender’s office. Nieves turned it down. 

The then-26-year-old father appeared to be on the same catastrophic path that has sent many parents and other caregivers to prison based solely on a doctor’s “shaken baby” diagnosis. 

“Detectives were saying the doctor has proof; the doctors are never wrong,” Nieves said. “That’s what they were saying to me. Basically trying to scare me into admitting something I didn’t do.”

But then something happened that changed the course of Nieves’s case and future Shaken Baby Syndrome prosecutions in New Jersey. 

On January 7, 2022, after years of delays, a trial judge sided with Nieves’s defense and ruled that prosecutors could not introduce testimony on Shaken Baby Syndrome in the case. The judge declared the controversial theory “akin to junk science” and, a few weeks later, dismissed the indictment against Nieves.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the Superior Court of New Jersey. In a decision last month, the superior court affirmed the trial judge’s ruling. 

“The very basis of the theory has never been proven,” Judge Greta Gooden Brown wrote in the court’s opinion. “The State has not demonstrated general acceptance of the SBS/AHT hypothesis to justify its admission in a criminal trial.”

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The predators’ playground

Clara didn’t think much of it when the social science teacher gave her his phone number.

She’d met Alex Rai in her fifth-period journalism class. He was friends with the journalism teacher, Eric Burgess, and often stopped by Room 16 during his prep period to kill time. Burgess introduced Rai to Clara, telling her that Rai had been his student a decade before. Burgess thought they’d get along.

In the weeks that followed, Rai would perch on Clara’s desk, leaning over as he asked about her day and who she hung out with after school. He’s only a few years older than my sister, Clara thought when Rai texted her one day after volleyball practice. It was a hot Southern California afternoon in 2008, the kind where dry heat radiates off the asphalt. She was bored. Why not pass the time by chatting with the cool teacher?

Soon, Rai was texting her regularly. At first, the messages were flirtatious. Before long, he was calling Clara late at night. She recalled him asking whether she’d had sex yet with any boys her age. Halfway through her senior year, Clara dropped her humanities class so she could become his teacher’s aide.

She loved her humanities class. But Rai had encouraged her to make the switch. They could spend more time together, she recalled him telling her, and he could make her truancies from ditching other classes disappear.

Clara remembers her sister warning her not to get too close. She’d heard stories about Rai from girls who’d attended Rosemead with him, when he was a wrestler on a team known as much for its aggressive pursuit of teenage girls as its state champions. But Clara brushed the concerns aside. She didn’t show her sister the texts Rai sent, teasing her — “you wish you were sleeping next to me” — and asking if she missed him.

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An inside look at the ‘Satanic, neo-Nazi’ pedophile cult that ensnared NYC man arrested on gun charges

A Satanic pedophile cult uncovered by the FBI after the arrest of a Queens man two years ago is an offshoot of a much older neo-Nazi organization that wants to destroy Western civilization, according to an overseas nonprofit that’s been tracking the hate group.

Federal authorities stumbled upon the newer group – which is named “764” but goes by a number of aliases – while investigating Angel Almeida, a 23-year-old convicted felon from Queens who was busted with a gun in November 2021.

The loosely organized commune of creeps appears to be intensely interested in targeting kids on the internet, then threatening, intimidating or blackmailing them into recording acts of self-mutilation, animal abuse, sex acts and even their own suicides, according to an FBI warning issued earlier this month.

But sources told The Guardian that 764 is an outgrowth of an older, larger organization known as the Order of Nine Angles — which the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) called a “decentralized, Satanic, neo-Nazi organization” bent on the overthrow of Western governments.

The group — commonly referred to as O9A — believes the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage “corrupts modern society,” according to the ISD, an independent, non-profit human rights organization based in London.

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