Mark Berndt: The Elementary Teacher From Hell

     People without sexual perversions are normal in generally the same way. Sexual perverts, on the other hand, are deviant in disturbingly diverse ways. Adults who use innocent children to satisfy their perverse sexual compulsions are not mentally ill in the sense they are detached from reality. To other adults, even to people they work with every day, they can seem normal. Sexually perverse elementary teachers are hard to detect because they victimize kids who are under their control. Sometimes the children don't even know they are being victimized. Teachers like this can get away with sexually abusive behavior for decades. Most of them probably die before they are caught. Short of launching McCarthy-like witch hunts, how can these sexual predators be identified and stopped?

     Mark Berndt, a 61-year-old third grade teacher at the Miramonte Elementary School in Florence Firestone, an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, began teaching at the school in 1979. Miramonte, situated in a hispanic neighborhood is in the Los Angeles Unified School District comprised of hundreds of campuses and 650,000 students. During his tenure at Miramonte, Mr. Berndt, according to his personnel file, performed up to school standards without a single disciplinary action taken against him. Moreover, he had never been arrested for anything more serious than a traffic violation.

     In October 2010 a technician at a CVS drugstore in the South Bay area of Los Angeles came across a set of disturbing photographs of grade school boys and girls depicted in situations suggesting a bizarre form of sexual bondage. The film processor, as mandated by state law, notified the Redondo Beach Police Department. On December 2, 2010 the Redondo police turned the 40 photographs over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.

     In some of the photographs Mark Berndt either had his arm around a third grade boy or girl or his hand covering their mouths. Some photographs showed children with live bugs crawling on their faces. Other kids were either blindfolded or had their mouths covered with clear tape. Some of the girls were depicted holding spoons up to their mouths containing a white liquid. Children were also pictured about to eat cookies topped with a substance later identified as the the teacher's semen. (In Berndt's classroom trash can police recovered a blue plastic spoon containing traces of his semen.)

     Detectives with the sheriff's office's Special Victims Unit started identifying the students in the photographs for interview. On January 3, 2011 a detective showed up at the Miramonte school to question Berndt. The teacher refused to speak to the investigator without first consulting with an attorney.

     A former fourth grade student of Berndt's, a woman who was now 30, told detectives that in 1990 she and two other girls spoke to a school counselor about their teacher's odd inappropriate behavior. They had seen him, seated at his desk at the front of the room, playing with himself. The counselor accused the girls of making up the story. As a result, nothing came of their complaint. (In 1993 police investigators looked into similar complaints against Berndt. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, on grounds the police had not gathered sufficient evidence against the teacher, decided not to pursue the case. Presumably, school officials knew of the investigation.)

     Shortly after Mark Berndt refused to be interviewed by the police, school administrators removed him from the classroom. A month later, in February 201l, they fired him. (Actually, he wasn't fired. School officials induced him to retire by offering him $40,000 which he accepted. Firing a public school teacher is no small feat.) While the parents of the children depicted in the photographs were told of the investigation the police kept the general public in the dark. (Placed under police surveillance, Berndt, between the time of his discharge and arrest, was not in contact with children.)

     On January 30, 2012, following a 13 month investigation, the Berndt case went public with his arrest at his home in Torrance, California. A search of his dwelling resulted in the discovery of 400 photographs similar to the ones seen by the CVS employee. (A normal person, knowing that he was under police investigation, would have destroyed these photographs. The fact that Brendt didn't revealed how  important these photos were to him. It was recommended that children depicted in the photographs be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.) Charged with 23 counts of lewd acts against minors, Mr. Brendt was hauled off to jail where he was held on $23 million bond. The criminal charges against him pertained to his contact with children ages 6 to 10 from 2008 to 2010.

     On February 3, 2012 police officers arrested a second Miramonte teacher on charges unrelated to the Berndt case. Martin B. Springer, 49, was charged with three counts of committing lewd acts in connection with the alleged fondling an 8-year-old girl in one of his classes. He was fired and held on $300,000 bail. From Alhambra, Mr. Springer had taught at the school since 1986. The judge who set his bail decreed that if Mr. Springer made his bond he was to wear an ankle monitoring device and to stay 250 feet away from schools and parks. On February 7, 2012 one of the two girls who accused Martin Springer of fondling recanted her story.

     A lawyer representing "Jane Doe 1," one of Mark Berndt's victims who ate a sugar cookie laced with the teacher's semen, announced plans to sue the Los Angeles Unified School District. The plaintiff claimed the school district did not take adequate steps to prevent Berndt from repeatedly abusing his students after numerous complaints had been filed against him. (Following Berndt's arrest seven more students came forward with allegations of abuse.)

     On February 6, 2012, perhaps in response to allegations of an institutional cover-up, the 88 teachers and 40 staff employees at Miramonte were suspended with pay. They were replaced by a substitute crew of teachers and clerks.

     The Miramonte situation continued to worsen on February 7, 2012 when the mother of a former fourth grader told the Los Angeles Times that in 2009 a 50-year-old female teacher's aide wrote three love letters to her then 11-year-old son. One of the letters read, "...when you get close to me, even if you give me the chills, I like that. Don't tell nobody (sic) about this!"

     In November 2013 Mark Berndt pleaded no contest to 23 counts of lewd acts on children. The judge sentenced the 62-year-old former elementary teacher to 25 years in prison. According to his defense attorney he was "remorseful and apologetic." The lawyer said that Berndt had entered a plea to spare his victims the ordeal of a trial. (Berndt spared himself the ordeal of a trial and made the deal to get a lighter prison sentence.) 

     On November 21, 2014, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Unified School District announced that it had agreed to pay nearly $170 million in court settlements related to the Berndt pedophilia case. The settlement involved more than a hundred students.

Passing The Trash

     In 2000, 37-year-old Wilbert Cortez, an elementary school teacher at PS 184 in Brooklyn, New York, was accused of inappropriately touching two of his male students. One of the boys reported the abuse to another teacher--three times. The teacher wrote a letter detailing the accusations and put the letter in Cortez's personnel file. Shortly after the students made their complaints school administrators decided to transfer Mr. Cortez to PS 174 in Queens. Instead of dealing with the problem, and if appropriate firing this teacher, they "passed the trash."

     On February 16, 2012 Queens District Attorney Richard Brown charged Wilbert Cortez, now 49, with the sexual abuse of two male elementary students in his computer lab class. The next day, after posting his $50,000 bail, Mr. Cortez walked out of the Queen's County Criminal Court building.

     The accused child molester, on May 29, 2012, was arraigned on additional charges that he repeatedly molested three male students at PS 174 in Queens between 2007 and 2011. Mr. Cortez faced up to seven years in prison on each count.

     When word got out that Wilbert Cortez had been accused of sexual molestation back in 2000 at PS 184 in Brooklyn, parents of children who had attended both schools were outraged that education administrators had swept the problem under the rug by sending him to Queens.

     Feeling the heat, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, on May 30, 2012, called an emergency meeting with these angry parents. More than 100 people attended the meeting held at PS 174. These concerned parents wanted to know why this teacher hadn't been investigated in 2000. Attendees also expressed concern that the school system's hiring procedures did not screen out pedophiles. Chancellor Walcott told those assembled that his staff would be digging through personnel files looking for old sexual complaints that had been ignored, and "take appropriate action where necessary."

     Chancellor Walcott's response, the promise to fix a problem that shouldn't have existed in the first place, didn't satisfy too many people at the meeting. Elementary schools in New York City and around the country were crawling with sex offenders because government laws and regulations limited what employers can legally ask job candidates about their past. As a result, pedophiles get into our schools. And once they are in, because of teacher's unions they are hard to remove. Administrators know this, and for that reason find it easier to pass the trash. Public education is more about protecting teachers than protecting students from sexual predators. 

     On February 25, 2015 Wilbert Cortez pleaded guilty to inappropriately touching one student and endangering three others at PS 174 in Queens. Following his guilty plea Chancellor Walcott stripped him of his New York State teaching certificate.

     Because he had been allowed to plead down to relatively minor offenses the judge sentenced Wilbert Cortez to ten years of probation. The child molester was also required to register as a sex offender and undergo counseling. Like so many ex-public school teachers like him, he got off light. 

Robert H. Richards IV: The Case of the Rich Pedophile

     In 2005 38-year-old Robert H. Richards IV resided with his wife Tracy and their three-year-old daughter and 19-month-old son. Mr. Richards, the heir to a pair of family fortunes, lived in a 5,800-square-foot mansion in Greenville, Delaware. He was a member of the du Pont family, the people who built a worldwide chemical empire, and was the son of a prominent Delaware attorney. Richards also owned a luxury home in the exclusive North Shores neighborhood near Rehoboth Beach.

     In October 2007, Mr. Richards' six-year-old daughter told her grandmother, Donna Burg, that her father had sexually assaulted her several times in 2005. According to the girl, her father penetrated her with his finger at night in her bedroom. He told his daughter to keep what he had done to her a secret. The grandmother passed this information on to the victim's mother, Tracy Richards. The mother took her daughter to a pediatrician who confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted.

     In December 2007, a grand jury sitting in New Castle County indicted Robert Richards on two counts of second-degree rape. If convicted of the felonies he faced a mandatory prison sentence. Following his arrest he retained the services of a high-powered Delaware defense attorney named Eugene J. Maurer Jr.

     Having denied his daughter's accusations, Robert Richards agreed to take a polygraph test. When advised by the lie detection examiner that he had failed the test he confessed to sexually assaulting his daughter. He said he was mentally ill and in need of psychiatric treatment.

     In June 2008, attorney Maurer and New Castle County prosecutor Renee Hrivnak agreed on a plea arrangement. According to the deal, Mr. Richards would plead guilty to one count of fourth-degree rape. This was not an offense that called for an automatic stretch in prison.

     Superior Court Judge Jan Jurden, in January 2009, sentenced Robert Richards to Level 2 probation. Under the terms of his sentence he would visit a case officer once a month. He also paid a $4,395 fine to the Delaware Violent Crimes Compensation Board.

     Judge Jurden, in justifying the probated sentence, wrote that prison life would be especially difficult for Mr. Richards, and that he would not fare well behind bars. In her mind prison was for drug dealers, robbers and murderers, not for child molesters in need of psychiatric treatment.

     In March 2014, Robert Richards' ex-wife Tracy filed a lawsuit against him on behalf of their children. The plaintiff sought compensatory and punitive damages for assault, negligence and the intentional infliction of emotional stress on his daughter and her younger brother.

     According to the affidavit in support of the lawsuit, Mr. Richards, in anticipation of a second polygraph test in April 2010, expressed concern about something he had done to his son in December 2005. He was worried that he sexually assaulted the then 19-month-old boy. Richards promised that whatever he had done to that child it would not happen again.

     Richards' incriminating remarks, sparked by the lie detector test he took in 2010 following his probated sentence for sexually assaulting his daughter were not make public until Tracy Richards filed her lawsuit. The new information inflamed a public already angry over what seemed to be Richards' preferential treatment by the prosecutor and Judge Jurden.

    On June 28, 2014, Robert Richards' attorney negotiated a settlement agreement with his client's former wife. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed. No charges were filed against Richards in connection with the possible molestation of his son.

Football Coach Philip Foglietta and the Poly Prep Country Day School Cover-Up

     The Poly Prep Country Day School is an elite nursery to 12th grade private boy's academy located on two campuses in Brooklyn, New York. Poly Prep's middle and high school buildings are located in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn while the lower grades are on the Park Slope campus. As is often the case in schools where the sports program plays an important if not vital role in the institution, faculty member and renowned football coach Philip Foglietta enjoyed icon status during the years 1966 to 1991.

     In 1966, Coach Foglietta's first year at Poly Prep, a male student accused him of sexual molestation. A school administrator informed the boy's parents that an internal investigation revealed the accusation to be false. Moreover, if this student continued to make slanderous claims of this nature the boy would face "severe consequences." The administration's handling of this case not only silenced the accuser, it became the school's modus operandi in such matters.

     After 25 years as Poly Prep's most successful football coach, Philip Foglietta unexpectedly retired in 1991. In honor of his legendary coaching career and important contributions to the institution, the school hosted a gala celebration held at the Manhattan Athletic Club. Members of the Poly Prep community and the public at large were not told of the real reason behind the coach's "retirement." He had been forced to quit as a result of accusations of "sexual misconduct."

     Following Coach Foglietta's death in 1998, Poly Prep established a memorial fund and solicited donations in his name. Four years later, in a letter to all alumni, the Poly Prep administration revealed that for years Coach Foglietta was suspected of sexually abusing his students. According to this 2002 letter, administrators had "recently received credible allegations that sexual abuse occurred at Poly Prep more than 20 years ago by a faculty member/coach who is now deceased." Everyone familiar with the school knew that coach was Philip Foglietta. The author of this revealing letter promised a thorough internal investigation of the accusations. (If the school actually conducted such an inquiry, no report of it surfaced. Moreover there was no indication that these "credible" accusations were ever passed on to the police.)

     In 2004, a Poly Prep alumnus named John Paggioli, alleging that as a student he had been sexually molested by Coach Foglietta, filed a lawsuit against the school. A year later a judge, citing New York State's statute of limitations on such claims, dismissed the action. (In New York a sexual abuse claimant must file suit within five years of his or her eighteenth birthday.)

     On October 26, 2009, twelve Poly Prep alumni, claiming sexual abuse by Coach Philip Foglietta, filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit against the school in the Brooklyn District Federal Court. The plaintiffs alleged a 40-year criminal conspiracy to quash and cover-up student complains of sexual abuse allegedly committed by Poly Prep's greatest football coach.

     According to court documents, current and former Poly Prep headmasters knew that Coach Foglietta had sexually abused "dozens if not hundreds of boys." The plaintiffs alleged "Poly Prep administrators had...knowledge of Foglietta's sexual abuse of numerous boys at or near the school, but condoned and facilitated Foglietta's criminal behavior because he was a highly successful football coach and instrumental in raising substantial revenue for the school."

     In filing a RICO action, a technique the FBI used to cripple the Mafia, the Poly Prep plaintiffs were using this federal law as a way around the statute of limitations. These lawyers were asking the court to consider a sexual abuse defendant's repeated misrepresentations and deceitful conduct as a legal justification to override the application of the statute of limitations. These attorneys were attempting to create a legal exception to the doctrine that bars legal relief in older cases.  

     On August 28, 2012, in a 40-page decision, Judge Frederic Block of the Brooklyn District Federal Court allowed two of the twelve plaintiffs to go forward with their RICO claims against current and former Poly Prep administrators. If these plaintiffs prevailed under the RICO statute, other institutions like universities and churches could be faced with a flood of sexual abuse lawsuits previously blocked by statutes of limitations. For this reason future sexual abuse plaintiffs and their potential defendants were closely following the the Poly Prep RICO suit.

     On December 26, 2012 the school settled the landmark lawsuit out of court. As a result, there would be no legal precedent for other victims in old cases. In February 2014 the school issued a formal apology to all of the students sexually abused by the iconic coach and serial child molester.

Protecting Classroom Pedophiles in California

     On January 30, 2012, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies arrested 61-year-old elementary teacher Mark Berndt on 23 counts of lewd acts against minors. The third grade teacher at the Miramonte Elementary School in Florence Firestone, an unincorporated community in Los Angeles County, stood accused of photographing 6 to 10-year olds in bondage positions, some with live bugs crawling on their faces. A few of the girls were shown holding spoons containing a white liquid up to their mouths. Children were also pictured about to eat cookies allegedly topped with the teacher's semen.

     Because of the influence of the California Teachers Association (CTA) and other education unions in the state, school administrators couldn't fire anyone, including teachers like Mark Berndt. In the Miramonte school, because parents were so outraged and held protests, school administrators managed to get Berndt out of the classroom by paying him $40,000 to retire. That's how bad it was in the Golden State where it was truly golden for pedophiles working in the state's education system. (You can see why in California the firing of a merely incompetent teacher is impossible. The unions simply won't allow it. Rotten teachers who lose their jobs in other states can find a teaching position in California. The pay is outstanding, benefits are out of this world and it doesn't matter if teachers are any good. Moreover, for pedophiles California classrooms are heavens on earth.)

     In 2012, in the wake of the Miramonte school scandal (Berndt wasn't the only pedophile working there), a group called Democrats for Educational Reform introduced legislation in the state senate (S.B. 1530) that made it easier to dismiss teachers accused of sex, violence, or drug offenses against children. That bill, with vast public support passed the Senate on a 33-4 bipartisan vote.

     In the California Assembly, when the Senate-passed legislation came before the Assembly Education Committee, committee members, by refusing to vote on the bill, killed the proposed law in committee. (These politicians didn't have the courage to vote "no"which meant the bill did not reach the Assembly floor for a vote. If it had it would have passed by a wide majority.)

     The committee members who killed this child protection legislation had bowed to the state's powerful teachers' unions, including the CTA. All of the state politicians who killed the bill through their abstentions had been beneficiaries of large CTA political contributions. The fact that the CTA could stop legislation favored by a vast majority of California voters showed who was really running the show in the state. Democracy be damned. Moreover, the undermining of this needed legislation revealed what most citizens of the state already knew--that in California it was unions first, teachers second and students, parents and education third--and a bad third at that. It was no wonder the state had one of the worst public education systems in the country. 

     In California the CTA, backed by an army of 325,000 teachers and plenty of money to bribe and control state politicians was in reality the fourth branch of government. As the biggest political spender in the state its influence dwarfed other special interest groups. From 2000 through 2009 the CTA alone shelled out more than $211 million in political contributions and lobbying expenses. That was twice the amount given to politicians by the second largest bribery machine, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Since 2009 the CTA pumped another $50 million into the state's political community. 

     The fact that teacher's unions in California and other states were destroying the quality of public education in the country was bad enough. Even worse, they were enabling and protecting classroom child abusers. As long as school administrators couldn't protect students from the likes of Mark Berndt classrooms were not safe for children. 

      As for Mark Berndt himself, he pleaded no contest in November 2013 to 23 counts of lewd acts on children. The judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison. A year later the Los Angeles United School District agreed to pay out $170 million in court settlements related to the Berndt pedophilia case. The settlement involved more than a hundred students.          

A Middle School Pedophile and The Teachers Who Supported Him

     In the spring of 2013, Neal Erickson, an eighth grade science and computer education teacher at the Rose City Middle School in northern Michigan, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal conduct with a male student. Back in 2006 Mr. Erickson had ten sexual encounters with the eighth grader at the teacher's house. (The authorities learned of these sex offenses several years later when an anonymous tipster sent the police an old photograph of the student that in some fashion incriminated the teacher. The victim, at the time of the guilty plea, was attending college. Mr. Erickson had left teaching.)

     In anticipation of the former teacher's sentencing, six Rose City educators and two of their retired colleagues wrote letters to the judge on Neal Erickson's behalf asking for leniency. Amy Huber Eagan wrote: "I am asking that Neal be given the absolute minimum sentence, considering all of the circumstances surrounding the case."

     Rose City teacher Sally Campbell in her letter to the judge wrote: "Neal made a mistake. (Losing your wallet is a mistake. Stealing someone's wallet is not.) He allowed a mutual friendship to develop into much more. He realized his mistake [again the mistake] and ended it years before someone sent something to the authorities which began the legal process."

     Middle school teacher Harriett Coe wrote this on Mr. Erickson's behalf: "Neal has plead (sic) guilty to his one criminal offense but he's not a predator. (One could argue that any time a teacher has sex with a student the teacher by definition is a predator.) He understands the severity of his action and is sincere in his desire to make amends."

     On July 15, 2013, Neal Erickson's sentencing day, Judge Michael Baumgartner looked out over his courtroom and noticed that the defendant's teaching supporters were sitting with members of his family. Speaking directly to Mr. Erickson, Judge Baumgartner said, "I'm appalled and ashamed that the community would rally around you. What you did was a jab in the eye with a sharp stick to every parent who trusts a teacher."

     Judge Baumgartner sentenced Neal Erickson to fifteen years to thirty years in prison. The former teacher's courtroom cheerleaders reacted with shock and disgust.

     Following the sentencing, one of Erickson's supporters told a reporter with The Detroit News that Judge Baumgartner had socked it to the teacher because he was a man who molested a boy. Had the defendant in this case been a woman she may have gotten off light. (This may be true but it didn't mitigate Erickson's crime.)

     Not long after Judge Baumgartner handed down the sentence someone burned down the garage owned by the victim's parents, John and Lori Janczewski. An unknown person also spray-painted a threatening message on their house.

     Overall, citizens of this rural community agreed with Judge Baumgartner's hardline approach to pedophilia in the local school. Many asked the school superintendent to fire Erickson's teacher friends. Several parents said that if these sex offense cheerleaders were not sacked they would take their children out of the school system.

     As could be expected the embattled supporters of Mr. Erickson responded to the public's outrage by making threats of their own. If the school superintendent tried to fire them they would fight back by suing the cash-strapped school district. These pedophile supporting educators would not go down without a fight. Moreover, taxpayers and parents had a lot of nerve trying to interfere with public education.

     None of the teachers who supported and defended Neal Erickson lost their jobs over this case. Following the scandal parents pulled 87 students out of the school.

Pedophile Martin A. Petersime

     In 1992, 39-year-old Martin Alan Petersime, the owner of a successful music store in the northeastern Ohio town of Warren, was a prominent member of the local arts and music community. He had been president of the Warren Symphony Society and a member in good standing of the Fine Arts Council of Trumbull County. Over the years he gave lessons to hundreds of children at his store, Warren Music Center. Many of his students were pre-teen boys.

     Martin Alan Petersime, a married man, prominent citizen and pillar of the community was a serial sexual predator who had been victimizing boys who came unsuspecting to his place of business for music lessons. He committed most of his assaults in the basement of the Warren Music Center and had gotten away with it for years. Then, in April 1992 he was exposed and his life as a serial sex offender came to an end.

     On April 28, 1992, a partially clad 15-year-old boy ran from the basement of the Warren Music Center directly to the Warren Police Department. The distraught kid brought with him a videotape that showed him dancing nude to Van Halen's "Running With The Devil." Martin Petersime was also in the video stripping off his clothes to the music.

     Warren police officers used the videotape to acquire a search warrant for Petersime's music store which led to enough evidence to support a 20-count indictment charging the music teacher with the sexual abuse of seven boys. According to the indictment two of the victims,  an 11 and 12-year-old, had been raped.

     In December 1992, following Martin Petersime's guilty plea to the above charges, the Trumbull County judge sentenced him to ten to 25 years for the two rapes, and two to 15 years for the sexual crimes against the other boys. The sentences were to run one after the other. That meant if Mr. Petersime served out his full term he would not get out of prison until 2032 when he was 78.

     In 2009, while serving his time at the Ohio North Central Correctional Institute, Petersime filed his first motion for early release. The parole board denied his request.

     Two years later, while taking advantage of a prison outreach program that involved taking an online college course at Ashland University, prison authorities discovered child pornography on Petersime's computer.

     The incarcerated pedophile, in 2014, tried again for parole and was again denied being released before serving his full term.

     In August 2019, Martin Petersime, for the third time, filed a motion for parole in anticipation of the board's meeting the following month. The district attorney of Trumbull County who had handled Petersime's case wrote a letter to the Ohio Parole Board recommending that the convicted pedophile remain behind bars.

     In the letter to the parole board prosecutor Dennis Watkins wrote that Petersime "is wired differently and does not learn from his past mistakes." (Mistakes?) Watkins added that Petersime "has no shame." Watkins also pointed out that prison records revealed that Petersime had yet to complete the prison's comprehensive sex program.

     On a Youngstown television program, Prosecutor Watkins called Martin Petersime "a pervert's pervert."

     The parole board, in September 2019, denied Petersime's quest for early release. In April 2024 he was again denied parole and would not be able to apply until May 2027.

Kansas v. Hendricks: Institutionalizing Sexual Predators

     While no one knows exactly how many pedophiles roam our streets and inhabit our institutions, anyone who is paying attention knows there are too many. Not only that, each pedophile is a serial offender with dozens of victims. They are serial offenders because pedophiles cannot be rehabilitated. For them there is no cure, no treatment.

     So what can be done to protect potential victims against these sexual predators? Just catching them and sending them to prison isn't enough because they eventually get out and go right back to seducing and sexually violating children. Laws requiring convicted pedophiles to register as sex offenders and restricting where they can live doesn't deal with the problem either. These measures are legislative window dressing to make us think our political leaders are dealing with the problem.

     In 1994 lawmakers in Kansas concerned about children passed a controversial law called the Sexually Violent Predator Act that allowed the state, following a pedophile's release from prison, to involuntarily commit violent sex offenders to mental institutions through a process known as civil commitment.

     The procedure for committing pedophiles and other violent sex offenders under the Kansas law required notifying the local prosecutor handling the case 60 days before the prisoner's release. The prosecutor, upon such notice, had 45 days to file a petition with a state court requesting the involuntary commitment of the offender. Under this law the prosecutor had the burden of proving that the person in question suffered from a "mental abnormality" that made him or her a "sexually violent predator." If a psychological professional found sufficient evidence to support civil commitment on these grounds, a trial would follow.

     If the defendant was found, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be a sexually violent predator, the trial judge would order his commitment to a mental institution. Following the commitment the law required the court to conduct annual reviews to determine if the committed person should remain in custody for another year.

Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 347, (1997)

     In 1995, convicted pedophiles Leroy Hendricks and Tim Quinn were scheduled for prison release. Both men had extensive histories of sexually molesting children. As a result a Kansas prosecutor filed a petition under the Sexually Violent Predator Act to involuntarily commit Hendricks and Quinn to a state mental institution.

     At the Hendricks/Quinn commitment trial the defendants took the stand and agreed with the state psychiatrist's diagnosis that they were pedophiles who continued to experience uncontrollable sexual desires for children. Based on this testimony the jury found that Hendricks and Quinn qualified as sexually violent predators. The civil trial judge ordered both men committed to the state mental facility.

     Leroy Hendrick's attorneys asserted that the involuntary commitment of a man who had served his time in prison violated the ex post facto and double jeopardy clauses of the United States constitution. The circuit court judges ruling on the appeal did not address those specific issues but found the Kansas law unconstitutional on grounds the "mental abnormality" requirement was too vague to satisfy the constitution's due process clause.

     Attorneys representing the state of Kansas appealed the circuit court's ruling to the United States Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision, the high court justices reversed the appellate court ruling, finding that the Kansas Violent Sexual Predator Act did not violate the U.S. constitution's ex post facto, double jeopardy or due process clauses.

     Because only a few states have violent sexual predator laws, and prosecutors in states that do don't have the time or will to go through the civil commitment process, only a few prison released pedophiles remain isolated from society. Moreover, even if there were more laws like this and prosecutors who cared enough to go through the process, there are fewer and fewer institutions where these predators can be confined. As a result, Kansas v. Hendricks was a hollow victory that has not solved the problem of what to do about our pedophiles. Children are still at risk.

     If our political leaders where serious about protecting children, convicted pedophiles would be subjected to mandatory life sentences.

Teacher William James Vahey: The Life and Crimes of an International Pedophile

     In 1970, 20-year-old William James Vahey pleaded guilty in California to child molestation. Notwithstanding the sex crime conviction he graduated from college in 1972 with a degree in education. Facing arrest for not registering as a sex offender, the pedophile fled to Tehran, Iran where he landed a job teaching eighth grade history at a private school attended by American and European children.

     From 1973 to 1975 William Vahey taught at the American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon. A year later he was in Madrid, Spain teaching at another private American school. After working one year in Spain he returned to Iran, this time teaching at the Passararod School in the city of Ahwal.

     In 1978, the itinerate pedophile taught eighth grade students at the American Community School in Athens, Greece. Two years later he turned up in Saudi Arabia at the Saudi Aramco School in Dhahran. After teaching in Saudi Arabia Mr. Vahey moved to Jakarta, Indonesia where he taught at the Jakarta International School for ten years. After a decade in Indonesia he ended up in Caracas, Venzeluela working at the Escuela Campo School.

     Vahey's wife Jean (pedophiles are often married), the former superintendent of the Esceula Campo School, was in 2009 the executive director of the European Council of International Studies. This may explain why her husband had been able to land so many private school teaching jobs around the world.

     After a year in Venezuela William Vahey was in London, England teaching at the Southbank International School. He taught English boys ages eleven to sixteen, most of whom were offspring of foreign business executives and diplomats. During his three year tenure at Southbank Mr. Vahey took students on numerous overnight field trips.

     In August 2013, administrators at the American Nicaraguan School in Managua hired Vahey to teach ninth grade history. Two months later he accused his house maid of theft and fired her. In February 2014 the maid went to the principal of the American Nicaraguan School with a thumb drive she had taken from Vahey's computer. The memory stick contained at least 90 images of boys between the ages 12 to 14 who were either asleep or unconscious.

     William Vahey, when confronted by school authorities in possession of this evidence, confessed to drugging and sexually assaulting male students. Fired on the spot, the traveling teacher fled the country to avoid being arrested by Nicaraguan police.

     A federal judge in Houston, Texas, on March 11, 2014, ruled that FBI agents could lawfully search Vahey's thumb drive. Two days later in a Luverne, Minnesota hotel room the 64-year-old pedophile committed suicide. During his tenure as a middle school teacher Mr. Vahey had taught at ten private schools in nine countries. He also coached boy's basketball and took students on hundreds of overnight field trips.

     At the time of William Vahey's death he owned a home in London, England and a house in Hilton Head, South Carolina. 

     On April 23, 2014 a FBI spokesperson issued a statement that read: "This is one of the most prolific and heinous sexual predator cases we have seen. It appears Vahey was able to perfect his crimes in such a way that his victims were unable to report them. He has been teaching overseas the entire time. We strongly believe there are more victims."

    Most of the dead pedophile's former employers were not eager to acknowledge Vehey's commission of sex crimes under their noses. As is so often the case, when suspicions of this nature arose, education administrators simply "passed the trash." They fired the suspected pedophile without alerting his new employers about why he had been terminated. Teacher William James Vahey, with a resume full of employment recommendations from former employers, was passed around the world.

Eric Toth: Pedophile On The Run

     Born in 1982, Eric Toth grew up near Indianapolis, Indiana. He earned good grades in high school where he was considered self-centered and eccentric, and when he wanted to be, charming and manipulating. Abused as a child, he suffered bouts of depression and engaged in compulsive lying.

     The lanky young man enrolled at Cornell University in New York State. A year later he transferred to Purdue University at Calumet (Indiana) where he graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in elementary education. During his college years he told several people he was an agent with the CIA.

     Upon his graduation in 2002, Eric Toth volunteered at an elementary school in Indianapolis. There he worked as a teacher's aide. His intense interest in boys between the ages 8 and 11 led to parental complaints and concerns. The principal, suspecting that Mr. Toth was a pedophile, terminated his association with the school. A lot of parents were glad to see him go.

     In 2003, Eric Toth drifted around the midwest, always inserting himself into environments that put him in proximity to young boys. In 2004 and part of 2005 he worked as a counselor at a boy's camp in Madison, Wisconsin. It was at this camp he made videotapes of himself engaging in various sexual activities with several boys. When his behavior began to raise suspicion he moved on. Moving on is what pedophiles do when too many people get suspicious.

     In the fall of 2005 administrators at the Beauvior Elementary School attached to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. hired Eric Toth to teach third grade. Many of the students in this small prestigious Catholic School came from families of wealth and political power.

     Toth's enthusiasm for his job included tutoring children for free and babysitting them at their homes. His gung-ho work attitude made him a popular teacher at the school. But his excessive familiarity with his male students, including having boys sit on his lap, raised eyebrows and suspicions.

     In 2008, a fellow Beauvior employee found disturbing photographs on a school camera assigned to Toth. The pornographic pictures featured the teacher and several boys. The school's principal confronted Toth, then fired him on the spot. After a security officer escorted him out of the building and off the campus, the principal called the police. The delay gave Toth the head start he needed to get out of town and disappear.

     Based upon the photographs recovered from Toth's camera, a federal prosecutor charged him with producing and possessing child pornography. This made him a fugitive from the law.

     A month after the Beauvior principal kicked Eric Toth out of Beauvior Elementary, a car that had been rented under the name Jay Kellor turned up at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport.  Inside the Honda, FBI agents found child pornography linked to Toth's tenure as a boy's camp counselor in Wisconsin.

     In the rented vehicle agents also discovered a suicide note signed by Toth. According to the handwritten document, the authorities would find his body on the bottom of a nearby lake. A search of that lake failed to turn up Toth's remains. The FBI considered the suicide note a fake, a ploy to throw agents off his trail.

     Toth, going by the name David Bussone, showed up in January 2009 at the Lodestar Day Rescue Center in Phoenix, Arizona. He volunteered to help homeless men complete their 12-step alcohol and drug addiction treatments. He told his colleagues at the rescue center that he had been an educator at an elite east coast school and that the experience had turned him against wealth and the materialistic lifestyle. He said he had taken a five-year oath of poverty and had re-dedicated his life to helping the downtrodden.

     In the meantime, FBI agents across the country were still searching for him. The federal manhunt received a boost when the Toth case appeared on the television show "America's Most Wanted." One of the homeless men at Lodestar saw the segment and recognized David Bussone as Eric Toth. The next day, realizing that he had been identified, the fugitive pedophile disappeared again.

     In July 2009, under a pseudonym supported by stolen identification documents, Eric Toth turned up at a hippie commune in Austin, Texas. One of the members of the community found him a job at an Austin computer repair shop called P.C. Guru. Toth worked at the store two and a half years during which time he tutored grade school boys for free. He also gave the mother of two of his students financial aid.

     The FBI, on April 10, 2012, replaced Osama bin Laden on the Bureau's Top Ten Most Wanted List with Eric Toth. In October of that year Toth used a fake passport under the name Robert Shaw Walker to flee to Nicaragua. He took up residence in a house in Esteli, a town 90 miles north of the capital, Managua. Toth told people he met there that he had come to Nicaragua to write a book.

     On April 18, 2013, while attending a social function, Toth ran into an American tourist who recognized him. Two days later Nicaraguan police officers surrounded his house in Esteli. Following the arrest officers found 1,100 images of child pornography Toth had downloaded from the Internet onto his personal computer.

     Four days after his capture in Nicaragua, Eric Toth was back in Washington, D.C. sitting in jail awaiting his trial.

     On December 13, 2013 Toth pleaded guilty before a federal judge to three counts of child pornography and two counts of identify theft. He faced up to 30 years in prison.

     On March 11, 2014 the judge sentenced the 32-year-old pedophile to 25 years in federal prison. At his sentencing Toth said, "I don't pretend that anything I could say here today would ever make up for what I did. Everything the prosecutor said about me is true."

The Father Michael Kelly Repressed Memory Sexual Molestation Suit

     In 2008 a 31-year-old major in the U. S. Air Force Reserves brought a sexual molestation suit against Father Michael Kelly, the 58-year-old pastor of St. Joachim's Catholic Church in Lockeford, California. The plaintiff, referred to as John TZ Doe pursuant to a court order not to reveal his identify, didn't remember being molested by Father Kelly until 2006. Although the statute of limitations ruled out criminal charges a civil suit could be brought against the priest and the church.

     In the lawsuit John Doe accused Father Kelly of molesting him in the 1980s when he was a 10-year-old altar boy at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Stockton, California. In September 2007, following the recovery of his "repressed memory," John Doe had filed a complaint with Bishop Stephen Blaine of the Stockton Diocese. Father Kelly, placed on administrative leave, denied the allegations. Following an internal investigation by diocesan officials, Father Kelly, in March 2008 was re-instated at St. Joachim's Catholic Church.

     The civil trial got underway on February 29, 2012 in the San Joaquin County Superior Court. Judge Bob McNatt ruled that the jury could not be told that Father Kelly was the subject of a pending sexual molestation investigation being conducted by the Calaveras County Sheriff's Office. According to the criminal complaint Father Kelly molested a boy during the period 2000-2002 while he was pastor of St. Andrew's Parish in San Andreas, California. (In 2004 Father Kelly was transferred to St. Joachim's in Stockton. Prior to his tenure in San Andreas Father Kelly had been pastor at churches in Sonora, Tracy, Modesto and Ceres, California.)

     Plaintiff's attorney John Manly put on several witnesses who as boys in the defendant's churches had been repeatedly tickled by the priest who also wrestled with them. According to this testimony Father Kelly sexually touched and fondled them during these bouts of roughhousing.

     John Doe took the stand and spoke of being molested by the defendant on a walking trail outside of Stockton, in a motel room and in the priest's living quarters. In the motel room, the plaintiff said he had fallen asleep and when he awoke he and the priest were in bed naked. At the defendant's living quarters Father Kelly had removed the witness' clothing. John Doe said he then fell asleep and when he awoke he was fully dressed. (From this testimony the plaintiff was asking jurors to infer that he had been drugged.) Pointing at Father Kelly the witness yelled, "You raped me, I was just a kid!"

     On March 20, 2012, San Francisco psychiatrist Anlee Kuo testified that in evaluating the reliability of John Doe's recovered memories of events that occurred when he was 10-years-old, she administered several tests that measured the validity of his accounts. The results of these tests convinced Dr. Kuo that his memories were accurate. Dr. Kuo pointed out that the repressed memory phenomenon was recognized by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. Moreover, she said that repressed memory was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. According to the psychiatrist, Father Kelly's sexual molestation has caused the plaintiff, as a 35-year-old adult, to suffer from depression and alcohol abuse.

     The next day defense attorney Thomas Beatty put Father Kelly on the stand. The priest told the jury that he had not sexually molested the plaintiff. On cross-examination, John Manly, the plaintiff's attorney, asked Father Kelly this: "At any time did you get under a blanket with [the plaintiff]?"

     "Of course not," came the reply.

     "Did you ever take him into the bathroom to disrobe?"

     "I absolutely deny it."

     "Did you ever take the [plaintiff] on a hike?"

     "I did not," answered the priest.

     Dr. J. Alexander Bodkin of Harvard University took the stand for the defense. Dr. Bodkin told the jury that repressed memories--also known as dissociative memory--is not a scientifically proven phenomenon. "Peoples' memories don't get better with time," he said. "They get worse. The plaintiff's story is difficult to believe."

     Following the lunch break on Friday, April 6, 2012 the case went to the jury of 10 women and 2 men. Because this was a civil trial only 9 votes were required for the jury to reach a verdict. Moreover, the standard of proof in a civil trial is less rigorous than in a criminal proceeding that requires guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil trial a plaintiff merely has to establish his case by a "preponderance of the evidence." That is the plaintiff's allegations against the defendant are more likely to be true than not.

     After deliberating for a day the jury found Father Michael Kelly liable for three of the sexual molestation allegations. The second phase of the trial, with the same jury, would focus on the dioceses' handling of child abuse allegations against Father Kelly and other priests. One of the other priests was Father Oliver O'Grady who had been convicted of child molestation and possession of child pornography. The O'Grady case had cost the Diocese of Stockton millions of dollars in civil case settlements in more than 20 lawsuits. The jury also had the task of determining how much money to award John Doe.

     Immediately after the verdict the Bishop removed Father Kelly from the ministry Three hours later, speaking to 100 of his parishioners at St. Joachim's Church in Lockeford, the ex-priest said, "The charges against me are untrue." When Michael Kelly reminded his supporters that he had passed two polygraph tests, they cheered. Because polygraph test results were not admissible in court the jury did not know this. The jurors also didn't know about the ongoing sexual molestation investigation involving Michael Kelly in Calaveras County. Under the laws of evidence, jurors, in making their decisions, are kept in the dark about a lot of things.

     Michael Kelly, on April 15, 2015 flew to his native Ireland for what he described as needed medical treatment. He was under subpoena to testify the next day in the second phase of the lawsuit in Stockton. John Manly, the plaintiff's attorney, said that he believed the ex-priest received help in leaving the country. Kelly's attorney, Tom Beatty, said that he was "saddened by Father Kelly's illness and his devastation brought on by the finding of the repressed memory claim of abuse. I believe it is important for Father Kelly to be present during the damages phase of the case but he feels he has lost everything already. I hope to talk to him shortly." John Manly said that whoever helped Kelly to escape out of the country could be arrested for aiding and abetting. (Nothing came of this threat.)

     In August 2015, the Stockton Diocese settled the lawsuit for $3.75 million.

Adam Lee Brown: The Pedophile Who Tried to Infect Children

     When 27-year-old Adam Lee Brown was discharged from the Marine Corps in 1990 he was HIV positive. The married military computer technician, while serving in southern California, had picked-up the virus after having affairs with homosexual men. Furious that he had contracted the disease, Mr. Brown told his estranged wife that he would somehow get revenge. He didn't say how or who would be the target of his fury.

     In 1992 Mr. Brown was living in the logging town of Roseburg, Oregon. The son of a pastor, Adam Brown became the lay preacher at the Fair Oaks Community Church in nearby Sutherlin. That year, over a six-month period, he sexually molested and tried to infect dozens of 5 to 10-year-old boys he met through friends and a women he knew who babysat in his neighborhood. Once he had lured a boy to his home he would either drug the child or force him to drink alcohol. He also showed his victims pornographic videos, and after raping them, promised to stab them with knives and scissors if they told anyone. He also assured the boys that if they informed their parents what he had done to them they would burn in hell. One of the boys, a 5-year-old, told his parents and the police that Brown had smeared semen into a scratch on the victim's arm. (The boy obviously didn't use the term semen.)

     In the fall of 1993 Douglas County District Attorney William Marshall charged Adam Brown with 49 counts of rape and attempted murder. This was the first case in the country involving a pedophile who had tried to kill his victims by infecting them with HIV.

     For some reason District Attorney Marshall allowed Adam Brown to plead no contest to only four of the 49 counts. After Brown pleaded no contest to 3 counts of sodomy and one count of child endangerment the judge, in December 1993, sentenced him to 16 years in prison.

     On October 5, 2004, after serving 11 years of his prison sentence, Oregon's corrections authorities released Adam Brown on parole. The freed pedophile was ordered to register as a sex offender and was barred from frequenting places where children regularly congregate. His parole would expire in 2020.

     At two in the afternoon of Sunday, July 1, 2012, Adam Brown, now 49 and still a pedophile, was loitering around the entrance to the men's room at a Wendy's in Portland, Oregon. When an unaccompanied 10-year-old boy approached the restroom Brown grabbed the child, pulled him inside and locked the door. As the abductor stabbed the struggling boy the victim's father heard his screams and ran to help. But the frantic parent couldn't save his boy because Brown had locked the door. When a Wendy's  supervisor unlocked the men's room Brown pushed the wounded boy out of the restroom and locked himself inside. A group of employees held the door closed so he couldn't escape until the police arrived.

     As paramedics rushed the badly injured boy to a nearby hospital patrol officers with the Portland Police Department spoke to Brown through the men's room door. The pedophile refused to come out and claimed he possessed a gun. A hostage negotiator, following a two-hour standoff, coaxed Brown out of the restaurant. When taken into custody he had a knife, but no firearm.

     The district attorney in Multnomah County charged Adam Lee Brown with attempted murder, sexual abuse, kidnapping and assault. The subject was held in the Multnomah County Jail on $2 million bond. The injured child underwent emergency surgery and recovered.

     Adam Lee Brown pleaded guilty in October 2012 to sexual abuse and kidnapping. Judge Julie Frantz, before sentencing the 49-year-old to 33 years in prison said, "The crimes you committed are horrific and absolutely unspeakable."

     It's hard to understand why a pedophile who had raped and tried to infect his victims with the HIV virus was allowed, in 1992, to plead no contest to such a small number of reduced charges. Prosecutors are put in office to protect the public, not to go soft on sexual predators. Offenders like Adam Brown should be imprisoned for life. The notion that pedophiles will not re-offend, or be prevented from victimizing vulnerable children through legal restrictions on where they can live or go is stupid and irresponsible. Under the terms of Brown's parole he was allowed to patronize fast-food restaurants popular with children.

     The Adam Brown case reveals why the only place for a pedophile is in prison and why the public has lost faith in our criminal justice system.     

The Andrew Nisbet Murder-For-Hire Case

     In 2006 24-year-old Andrew Michael Nisbet began working as a golf instructor at the Las Positas Country Club in Livermore, California, a suburban community 45 miles east of San Francisco. He quickly became a popular and well-known golf coach. Within a few years Mr. Nisbet was promoted to Director of Instruction. During this period he taught pre-teen and teenage golfers from the bay area as well as from Michigan, North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama.

     On December 7, 2013, the day before Mr. Nisbet was to receive the PGA's Northern California Section 2013 Junior Golf Leader Award, police officers showed up at the country club and took him into custody. An Alameda County prosecutor had charged Andrew Nisbet with 65 counts of child molestation that included lewd acts and oral sex with three of his former golf students during the period 2009 to 2012. The boys were between the ages twelve and sixteen.

     The alleged sex offenses took place in Nisbet's parked car at the country club, at his home and on out-of-town golfing trips. According to the criminal complaints the coach bought his victims expensive golf equipment, took them to restaurants and showed them pornography on his computer. Whenever one of the boys rebuffed his advances the gifts and other perks would stop.

     Following his arrest, Andrew Nisbet reportedly confessed to the commission of lewd acts. He was booked into the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California. The judge denied him bond.

     In late February 2014, from his jail cell the golf coach began exchanging letters with a man Nisbet hoped would murder his three accusers. In the correspondence Nisbet and the potential hit man discussed how much it would cost to kill the three murder-for-hire targets. He said he wanted them "taken care of."

     The solicited trigger man took Nisbet's letters to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. Shortly thereafter an undercover officer posing as a hit man visited Nisbet at the Santa Rita Jail. During these tape recorded conversations Mr. Nisbet provided the undercover cop with personal information about the targets of his homicidal wrath. The phony hit man told Nisbet he would make the murders look like robberies gone wrong.

     In April 2014 the Alameda District Attorney's Office charged the 32-year-old golf coach with three counts of solicitation of murder.

     In September 2014 Andrew Nisbet pleaded guilty to three counts of solicitation of murder. A month later an Alameda County judge sentenced him to 27 years in prison.

     Parents of the victims expressed dismay and disgust at the leniency of Nisbet's sentence. "This is a sick man who should never be released," wrote one of the parents.

England's Pakistani Men Child Sex Scandal

     In Rotherham, a city of 250,000 in northern England, five men from the Pakistani community were convicted in 2010 of grooming teenage girls for rape. The victims were trafficked across northern England by crews made up of Asian men. The high-profile trials brought to light other child sex exploitation rings run by Pakistani men in the cities of Rochdale, Derby and Oxford.

     English authorities, responding to public pressure in the wake of the trials and accusations, asked Alexis Jay, the former chief social worker for the Scottish government, to investigate the scandal and publish a report on the depth and scope of the criminal operation. She released her report on August 25, 2014.

     Ms. Jay and her investigators determined that from 1997 to 2013, 1,400 girls, some as young as eleven, were sexually assaulted in the massive criminal enterprise. They were gang-raped, beaten and threatened. The author of the report wrote: "There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told someone."

     How could so many girls be exploited by so many men for so long? According to Alexis Jay, "Police regarded these child victims with contempt." Moreover, a good number of these children were known to child protection agencies. Police chiefs, detectives and council members chose to believe the sex was either consensual or the allegations of rape were false. These crime were, according to the report, "effectively suppressed."

     In some instances, parents who tried to rescue their children from the exploitation operators were themselves arrested. (Police bribery was rampant.) In the report, Alexis Jay wrote: "The collective failures of political and police leadership were blatant. From the beginning, there was growing evidence that child sexual abuse exploitation was a serious problem in Rotherham."

     Following the publication of Ms. Jay's shocking report, Roger Stone, the head of the Rotherham City Council resigned. Outraged parents and others called for the Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire to step down as well. The commissioner told reporters he had no intention of resigning. No one else in the public sector took responsibility for the scandal, and not one law enforcement official was disciplined. 

     In May 2017, BBC One aired a three-part drama called "Three Girls" that featured three girls from the town of Rochdale who were repeatedly abused by nine Pakistani men who were tried and convicted on rape and related offenses. Their sentences ranged from 16 to 19 years in prison. Later in 2017, "Three Girls" was followed by a BBC documentary on the Rochdale case called "The Betrayed Girls."

     In January 2025 one of the Pakistani sex ring leaders was released from prison before serving his full sentence. 

The Female Pedophile: The Tabatha Partsch Case

     In the 1980s criminologists believed that 80 percent of molested boys were victimized by men and that 95 percent of sexually assaulted girls were victims of adult males. More current research suggested these figures did not reflect the true number of female pedophiles.

     Female pedophiles can be placed into three general categories: women who target children under six; those who molest adolescents; and women who assault children with a male partner. Female pedophiles who were themselves victimized tend to target their own children. So-called self-made female offenders tend to prey upon victims outside the home. These pedophiles acquire access to children as trusted daycare workers, relatives, school teachers and coaches.

      The female pedophiles who are most likely to grab headlines are the school teachers who have sex with adolescent males. According to criminologists who study these women, they lack self-esteem, are co-dependent and are afraid of rejection. They tend to romanticize their victims as ideal partners who truly understand them. There seems to be an epidemic of this type of female pedophilia. For some reason many of these offenders teach English.

     Many female pedophiles avoid prison because prosecutors believe they are more difficult to convict than their male counterparts. Convicted women receive lighter sentences than males who commit the same crimes. Journalists, when referring to women so accused, use words like "had sex with," or "affair," instead of "rape" or "molestation."

The Tabatha Partsch Case

     Tabatha Partsch, a 39-year-old middle school teacher, lived in Claysburg, a town of 1,500 in central Pennsylvania about 35 miles south of Altoona. In September 2011 a 14-year-old boy who had been to Partsch's house told a police officer he'd seen Partsch take a girl his age into her bedroom and lock the door.

     The Greenfield Township police acquired, in March 2012, a day-long exchange of text messages between Partsch and a 12-year-old boy. Partsch instructed the kid to skip school and come to her house, noting that if his parents found out she'd hide him. Partsch also suggested they exchange nude photographs of each other.

     Detectives learned that Partsch had been involved in several sexually explicit conversations with other boys she was possibly grooming. In one of her texts she wrote, "We can do stuff, maybe touch each other."

     Shortly after midnight on March 29, 2012 police officers from several local jurisdictions arrived at Partsch's house with a search warrant. Among other items they seized nine cellphones, two computers and a Playstation 3 video game console. Officers found nude photographs of children on several of the recovered cellphones.

     Over the next few weeks detectives questioned several children who spent time at Tabatha Partsch's dwelling. According to these children the suspect showed them Internet pornography, supplied them with cigarettes and alcohol and sexually molested them. According to an 11-year-old boy she forced him to sexually assault a 5-year-old girl.

     On July 13, 2012 a detective accompanied by a Blair County social worker questioned the suspect at her home. Partach said she hadn't placed the sexually explicit photographs on her cellphones and denied sexually molesting anyone. All of the children were making things up and lying, she said.

     Ten days following the interview police officers took Tabatha Partsch into custody. Charged with 18 felonies related to child sexual abuse she was placed into the Blair County Jail on $150,000 bond. Richard Consiglio, the Blair County District Attorney, charged Partsch with child rape, statutory indecent assault, disseminating explicit material to minors and corrupting minors. Questioned by a local reporter, Mr. Consiglio noted that convictions in trials involving young prosecution witnesses were not sure things. At least in this case not much time has passed since the alleged crimes took place.

    In November 2012, following her guilty plea, a Blair County judge sentenced Tabatha Partch to fifteen to thirty years in prison. (In November 2013 her 34-year-old husband Patrick was sentenced to 8 to 28 years for his involvement in the child molestations.)

     In late 2014 Judge Daniel J. Milliron ordered a review of the case by the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board. The board, on July 5, 2015, found that Tabatha Partsch, under the terms of Megan's Law met the criteria to be declared a sexually violent predator. That meant that she would be required, once out of prison, to register annually with the local police for the rest of her life. Moreover, once she was released from the State Correctional Institution at Muncy, Pennsylvania, Partsch would undergo monthly counseling for the duration of her 15 years on probation. 

Ray Gricar: The Missing District Attorney

The Ray Gricar Missing Person Investigation

     In Bellefonte, Pennsylvania at 11:30 in the morning of Friday, April 15, 2005, Ray Gricar, the 59-year-old district attorney of Centre County, the home of Penn State University, called his live-in girlfriend to inform her he was on a pleasure drive through an area in the region called Penns Valley. Twelve hours later his girlfriend, Patty Fornicola, called 911 and reported him missing.

     The next day Mr. Gricar's red Mini Cooper was found parked near an antique mall in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania 55 miles east of Bellefonte. The interior of the vehicle reeked of cigarettes. Gricar, who didn't smoke, didn't like that smell. The car had been locked and Gricar's cellphone was inside. According to a Lewisburg shop owner whose antique store Gricar had patronized in the past, the district attorney, on the day he left Bellefonte was walking around the mall with a tall, dark-haired woman in her late 30s or early 40s. Investigators made no effort to identify and question this woman. Because this information wasn't published until 13 months after the district attorney's disappearance the police received no help from the public in identifying this possible witness. By the time the story came out the case had grown cold.

     In July 2005, three months after Ray Gricar drove off in his Mini Cooper and didn't return, his county-issued laptop was found in the Susquehanna River not far from the abandoned car. Three months after that the hard drive turned up in the same area of the river. Water had damaged it to the point that no data could be retrieved.

     Following the recoveries from the river the investigation of Gricar's disappearance, conducted by the Bellefonte Police Department (the Pennsylvania State Police didn't want the case and the FBI wasn't involved) ground to a halt. In the summer of 2008, with Ray Gricar still missing and no clues as to what happened to him or where he was, two of his colleagues, Bob Buehne Jr., the district attorney of Montour County and prosecutor Ted McKnight of Clinton County, held a press conference in Lewisburg where Gricar's vehicle had been found. Both men were highly critical of the Gricar missing person's investigation. The neighboring prosecutors said they couldn't understand why the information about Gricar and the mystery woman at the mall hadn't been made public until May 2006.

     On April 14, 2009, four years after Ray Gricar's disappearance, investigators discovered that someone using the missing man's home computer had, shortly before he went missing, searched the Internet on "how to fry a hard drive," and "water damage to a notebook computer." Assuming Mr. Gricar had made these inquiries, one of the more innocent explanations behind the Internet search was that Gricar, in contemplation of his retirement in nine months, wanted to clear his computer before handing it back to the county. This didn't explain, however, why the computer and hard drive ended up in the river. A more ominous motive was that before killing himself Mr. Gricar wanted to destroy data he didn't want anyone to see.

     On July 25, 2011 at the request of Ray Gricar's daughter, a Centre County judge declared him legally deceased.

Theories of Ray Gricar's Disappearance

     There are three schools of thought regarding what happened to Ray Gricar. He could have been murdered, committed suicide or walked off to start a new life under a different identity. The two most popular murder theories featured a mistress who lured him to the Susquehanna River where he was murdered by the woman's husband. The second murder scenario involved a criminal murdering the district attorney out of revenge. Since prosecutors are rarely murdered by people they have prosecuted or planned to put behind bars, the latter theory was the most improbable.

     Suicide seemed more likely than murder in this case. Ray Gricar's brother, Roy J. Gricar, committed suicide in May 1996 by jumping off a bridge over the Great Miami River near West Chester, Ohio. If Ray Gricar had jumped from a bridge across the Susquehanna River, what were the chances his body would have been found? Some believed the odds were great that his body would have been recovered. Others disagreed. To have an opinion on this question, one would have to know the ins and outs of the Susquehanna River.

     The so-called "walkaway" theory, that Mr. Gricar walked-off to start a new life under a new identity, while quite intriguing, didn't make much sense. For one thing he didn't clean out his bank account and drove off without tying up a lot of loose-ends. Following his disappearance there were more than 300 false sightings of him. Those who subscribed to the walkaway theory pointed out that Mr. Gricar had been fascinated by the 1985 disappearance of an Ohio police chief. Inside the chief's car, parked near Lake Erie, searchers found his wallet and his badge. They never found the chief's body. Some of those who believed that Mr. Gricar was still alive believed he could be hiding out in the federal government's witness protection program. (This possibility is out of the question because prosecutors are not eligible for the program.)          

Ray Gricar, The Man

     Ray Frank Gricar was born on October 9, 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio. He attended Gilmour, a prestigious Catholic high school in Gates Mills, Ohio. In 1966 while attending the University of Dayton he met his future wife, Barbara Gray. They were married in 1969. After graduating from Case Western Law School in Cleveland Mr. Gricar started his career as a prosecutor in northwest Ohio's Cuyahoga, County.

     In 1980 the couple and their daughter Lara moved to Bellefonte, Pennsylvania when Barbara landed a job at Penn State University in nearby State College. Shortly after that David Grine, the district attorney of Centre County, hired Ray as an assistant prosecutor. Five years later Mr. Gricar ran for the office of district attorney and won.

     Barbara and Ray divorced in 1991, and five years later Ray married his second wife, Emma. Following a tumultuous marriage he and Emma divorced in 2001. Two years later Ray Gricar moved in with Patty Fornicola, an employee of the Centre County District Attorney's Office who lived in a section of Bellefonte called Halfmoon Hill. By April 2005, having served several terms as district attorney, Ray Gricar was planning to retire in nine months.

     Although a private, somewhat distant person, District Attorney Gricar's colleagues considered him an outstanding career prosecutor with high ethical standards. Because he never had political ambitions beyond the district attorney's office he was not, according to his legal colleagues, subject to political pressure or influence. On a personal level he was known as a bit of a ladies' man.

Ray Gricar and the Jerry Sandusky Pedophilia Case

     In May 1998 when Jerry Sandusky was still an assistant football coach under Joe Paterno at Penn State University and active in his organization for troubled youth called The Second Mile, two 11-year-old boys told their parents that coach Sandusky had fondled them in the Penn State locker room showers. The mother of one of the accusers contacted Detective Ronald Schreffler with the University Police Department. Shortly after receiving the complaint, Mr. Schreffler, on a pretext, got Mr. Sandusky to meet the mother at her house where she confronted him about his being nude in the shower with her son. With the detective in the next room recording the conversation the boy's mother asked Jerry Sandusky if he had been sexually aroused by his physical contact with her son, and if his "private parts" had touched the boy. Sandusky did not deny showering with her son. Regarding the arousal question, he said, "I don't think so--maybe. I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won't get it from you. I wish I were dead."

     A child psychologist who interviewed the boy concluded that his account, and coach Sandusky's response to the mother's interrogation indicated to him that he was "likely a pedophile." A second psychologist, Dr. John Seasock, after analyzing the same information came to a different conclusion.

     On June 2, 1998 District Attorney Ray Gricar decided not to prosecute the Penn State football coach. Four years later, the boy, referred to as victim # 6, took the stand at Sandusky's sexual abuse trial and described how the coach had lathered him up with soap then said, "I'm going to squeeze your guts out." Ronald Schreffler, later with the Department of Homeland Security, testified in June 2012 that he had wanted Ray Gricar to prosecute Sandusky in 1998 but was overruled.

     Had Ray Gricar prosecuted Jerry Sandusky for indecent assault, corruption of a minor and child endangerment, more victims, ones Mr. Sandusky had raped, might have come forward. Even if they hadn't, the district attorney would have exposed a pedophile within the Penn State system.

     In 1999 Jerry Sandusky retired from Penn State. He was awarded the title professor emeritus and given an office in the football building. He had full access to all of the sports facilities and used this access and his youth organization to attract and molest young boys.

     If Ray Gricar was not murdered or was still alive, he must have killed himself. The question was, did his decision not to prosecute Jerry Sandusky weigh on his conscience and play a role in his suicide? Between the time the prosecutor closed the case on Sandusky and his disappearance, Mr. Gricar must have been aware that accusations against the coach were still being made. Did he have regrets? Was he second-guessing himself?

     On June 23, 2012 a jury in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania found 68-year-old Jerry Sandusky guilty of sexually assaulting ten boys over a period of fifteen years. The judge sentenced him to 30 to 60 years in prison.

     People who have had access to Ray Gricar's papers say there was no reference in them to Jerry Sandusky. If this were true, whether or not Jerry Sandusky's pedophilia and Ray Gricar's disappearance were in any way connected will remain a mystery.

     On April 13, 2018, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania State Police Troop G announced that a new investigator, Trooper Dana Martini, had been assigned to track down leads in the 13-year-old Gricar disappearance. 

     As of August 2022, Ray Gricar remains missing and is presumed dead.

Pastor Joaquin Garcia: The Sex Offending Megachurch Leader

     In 2019, 50-year-old Joaquin Garcia headed up a Mexican based megachurch with branches in the United States and 56 other countries. The La Lux del Mundo (The Light of the World) christian fundamentalist church claimed on its website to have 5 million followers worldwide. Before becoming leader of La Luz del Mundo, Joaquin Garcia had been a minister in Los Angeles and other places in southern California. Members of the megachurch who followed its teachings were promised eternal salvation.

     Over a period of several years Pastor Garcia and members of the church were accused of child sexual abuse and rape. None of the allegations, however, led to serious investigations or criminal prosecution.

     In June 2019 a California Attorney General's Office prosecutor charged Joaquin Garcia and four of his female followers with the production of child pornography, rape of a minor and human trafficking. The 29 felony counts involved three girls and an adult female, and covered the period 2015 to 2018. The alleged offenses took place in Los Angeles County.

     The megachurch leader, among other crimes, stood accused of coercing girls into having sex with him by telling his victims if they refused they would offend God and go to hell.

     On June 4, 2019  Mr. Garcia and 24-year-old Susana Medina Oaxaca were taken into custody after deplaning at the Los Angeles International Airport. At his arraignment the religious leader pleaded not guilty to all of the charges. The magistrate set his bail at $25 million.

     The day after officers booked Joaquin Garcia into the Los Angeles County Jail 1,000 of his followers gathered at La Luz del Mundo headquarters in Guadalajara, Mexico to pray for his release.

     A spokesperson for the church proclaimed Pastor Garcia innocent and described the criminal charges against him as false.

     On April 7, 2020 a California appeals court ordered the dismissal of all the charges against the church leader. The dismissal, based upon a procedural issue, pertained to the state's failure to hold a preliminary hearing on the case in a timely manner.

     Pursuant to the procedural laws of every state and federal government, the prosecution must, within a stated period of time following the defendant's arrest, present sufficient evidence of the defendant's guilt to convince a judge to allow the case to move forward to a trial. The state's evidence does not have to be strong enough to convict, but enough to establish a prima facie case. This requirement is one of the underpinnings of American due process. In American jurisprudence a criminal suspect cannot be locked up and forgotten.

     In the Garcia prosecution the defendant's preliminary hearing had been postponed several times because the state had failed to turn over evidence to the defense.

     Joaquin Garcia's attorney, Alan Jackson, said the following to reporters at a press conference: "In their zeal to secure a conviction at any cost, the attorney general sought to strip Mr. Garcia of his freedom without due process by locking him up on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations by unnamed accusers, and by denying him his day in court."

     While the appeals court justices did not dismiss the charges against Garcia's four co-defendants, the charges against them were dropped. 

     The investigation into the pastor's sex crimes continued, and in June 2022 Pastor Joaquin Garcia pleaded guilty to abusing several young girls. The judge sentenced him to 16 years in a Los Angeles prison. Following his sentencing a large group of his religious followers gathered at the church's main temple in Guadalajra, Mexico to pray for their absent leader and to express their dying loyalty.

     In October 2023 a federal grand jury sitting in Los Angeles indicted Pastor Garcia on two child pornography charges. 

The Mind of a Pedophile

     A jury in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania on Friday, June 22, 2012, found Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State football coach under Joe Paterno, guilty of 45 counts of child sexual abuse. When escorted out of the Centre County Court House in handcuffs, Sandusky, instead of feeling guilt and shame, felt misunderstood, under-appreciated and persecuted. The day before the verdict, one of Sandusky six adopted children, 33-year-old Matt Sandusky, came forward with accusations that he too had been sexually molested by this man. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about pedophilia. This revelation also begged the question of how the coach's wife had lived with this serial sex offender all those years without having a clue.

     Two things were certain in the Sandusky case. This pedophile will die behind bars and he will never admit what he is and what harm he has caused. As a textbook pedophile, Sandusky was a compulsive sex offending machine who on the surface looked and acted like a normal person. This disturbing reality makes pedophiles so dangerous. It's an ugly truth that a high number of pedophiles end up as coaches, teachers, counselors and men of the cloth who impersonate do-gooders who say they simply want to help children. They are not about helping children, they are about helping themselves to children.

     Because pedophiles are not mentally ill they cannot be fixed. They are human monsters for life who feel no shame, have no remorse and possess no awareness of the consequences of their perverted behavior.

     The only way to protect children from pedophiles is to put them away for life. Otherwise, they will re-offend. Treating them as mental patients or like drug addicts is a waste of time and money. And simply registering known sex offenders, and not allowing them to live near playgrounds and schools does not prevent them from molesting children. Such prohibitions are nothing more than feel-good measures. Compulsive sexual predators are consumed by their desire for children and will do whatever it takes to satisfy their insatiable appetites. They are cruel, cunning and manipulative. To a deviant sexual sociopath fixated on children, everything in life is secondary to having regular sex with kids. These violent sexual deviates do not become teachers, coaches, ministers and priests primarily to teach, coach and preach; they go into these professions to have easy access to children. To ignore this reality is a disservice to young people.

     Most pedophiles are never brought to justice. And the ones who are, like Jerry Sandusky, are caught after they have raped hundreds of boys. In Sandusky's case, he sexually molested one of his victims more than 100 times. Pedophiles are also known to rape members of their families simply because of proximity and opportunity. Because victims of pedophilia are young, vulnerable, easily manipulated and ashamed and embarrassed about what is happening to them, they tend not to report their attackers. And when they do it's often as damaged adults. No one knows how many pedophiles have been spared prison sentences by statutes of limitations.

     When school teachers are accused in a timely fashion they are often transferred to another school where they can prey upon a fresh batch of victims. This is called "passing the trash." Countless numbers of priests have been protected by the Catholic Church which has, over the years, paid hundreds of millions in court settlements. One of the costs of living under a criminal justice system oriented toward individual rights and the presumption of innocence is paid by the victims of pedophilia. Sexual predators know how to use and abuse the system, and if accused often threaten to sue the accuser.

     While the Jerry Sandusky case and the massive Catholic Church scandal put a spotlight on the pedophile problem, sex offenders, impervious to deterrence and shame, will continue to prey upon the nation's children.  

Writer Gabriel Matzneff: France's Proud Pedophile

     For the past fifty years or so Gabriel Matzneff, now 86, was one of France's most celebrated, renowned and admired writers. He won several prestigious literary awards and state honors for his novels, essays, and nonfiction books. Presidents of France praised Matzneff for his deep, original thought and highly creative writing style. Literary critics in France and throughout Europe agreed.

     What is unusual, indeed shocking, about Matzneff's status as a literary icon is how, in his books and essays, and on his official web site, he flaunts and writes about his adventures as a predatory pedophile. For example, in Matzneff's infamous 1974 essay, Les Moins deSieze Ans (Those Under 16), Matzneff describes in great detail his seduction of pre-adolescent boys and 14-year-old girls. He also chronicles his regular trips to the Philippines to pick up young boys for sex.

     In Matzneff's diaries, published in 1985, he writes: "Sometimes, I'll have as many as four boys--from 8 to 14--in my bed.

     The Paris police, in 1986, launched a half-hearted investigation into anonymous tips that the 50-year-old literary giant was living with a 14-year-old girl named Vanessa Springora. To avoid being questioned about his relationship with the girl, Matzneff and Springora moved into another apartment, a hideout provided by the fashion designer, Yves Saint Laurent.

     In accordance with the French acceptance of pedophilia, and the desire to protect the country's most valuable literary treasure, the authorities quickly closed the Matzneff investigation. Everyone knew Matzneff was a pedophile, yet no one cared or had the courage to bring this famous and powerful man to justice.

     Gabriel Matzneff's charmed life of privilege and exemption from criminal prosecution suddenly collapsed in January 2020 with the publication of Vanessa Springora's memoir, Le Consentement (The Consent). The memoir tells the story of her life with the famous pedophile.

     On a French television program featuring her memoir, Springora, a Paris publishing house director, said, "My goal was to lock him [Matzneff] up because that's what he has done to me and that's what he did with many young girls."

     Following the publication of her tell-all memoir, Springora met with a prosecutor in Paris named Remy Heitz who informed her he was interested in prosecuting the famous writer for his crimes against children.

     On February 11, 2020, prosecutor Heitz announced the commencement of an investigation into the alleged sexual crimes of Gabriel Matzneff. Perhaps this meant that in France, law enforcement authorities had finally decided to prosecute pedophiles. However, in the case of an eighty-three-year-old self described sex offender, this new enforcement policy was more than a little late.

     The Paris prosecutor's office, on February 11, issued a summons ordering Mr. Matzneff to appear the following day in court. The great writer, hiding out somewhere in the Italian Riviera, ignored the summons.

     In March 2020, after decades of sexual crimes allegedly involving hundreds of victims, Gabriel Matzneff was charged with sexually abusing an unidentified youth. The prosecutor, in an Europe 1 Radio interview, said, "We will seek to identify other possible victims who could have suffered violations of the same nature, on national territory or abroad."

     In the wake of Vanessa Springora's memoir the French government stripped Matzneff of his state literary awards that included The Order of National Merit, and Officer of Arts and Letters. His publisher of 30 years, Gallimard, after profiting decades on the works of a proud pedophile, stopped selling his books.

     Matzneff, not accustomed to being treated like a sex offender, agreed to an interview with a reporter with The New York Times. In the March 2020 Times piece the French literary great lamented that his former supporters had not come forward on his behalf. He said he felt "like the living dead, a dead man walking." Regarding his former literary colleagues and admirers, Matzneff said, "They're showing their cowardice. We can say caution, but it's more than caution from people I considered friends." 

     The Gabriel Matzneff pedophilia trial was scheduled for September 2020.

     As of this writing, Mr. Matzneff, who is not in custody, has not been tried for the sexual abuse of minors. 

Pedophile Donald James Smith And The Murder Of Cherish Perriwinkle

     On Friday night, June 21, 2013, eight-year-old Cherish Perriwinkle and her mother Rayne were shopping at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida. At seven that night, 56-year-old Donald James Smith, a registered sex offender with an extensive criminal record, struck up a conversation with Rayne who informed him that she had fallen on hard times. She said she wanted to buy a dress for Charish in anticipation of a visit from the girl's father. Unfortunately, she couldn't afford the purchase. Donald Smith, a total stranger, said he wanted to help. He said he had a Walmart gift card they could use to buy food and clothing.

     Donald Smith, following a conviction in 1993 for attempted kidnapping and selling obscene materials, served five years in prison. The Jacksonville man also became a registered sex offender. In 2009, Smith was charged with felony child abuse after making obscene calls to a 10-year-old girl. In that case he threatened to harm the victim while impersonating a social worker with the Florida Department of Children and Families. Smith eventually pleaded guilty to the felony charge and in return received a light sentence. On May 31, 2013, after serving 438 days behind bars, Smith walked out of the Jackson County Jail a free man.

     From the Dollar General store Mr. Smith drove Cherish and Rayne Perriwinkle to a nearby Walmart. While Rayne looked at dresses, Smith, telling Cherish that he was going to buy her a meal at the in-house McDonalds, snuck off with the girl. Instead of going to McDonalds Donald Smith put Cherish in his white-colored van and drove off.

     At eleven o'clock that night, when Rayne Perriwinkle realized that her daughter had left Walmart with Smith she called 911 and reported her missing. The terrified mother described Donald Smith and his van. At six the next morning, Donald Smith, his vehicle and the missing girl were subjects of an Amber Alert.

     Just before nine that Saturday morning a police officer investigating a traffic accident on I-95 spotted Smith's van as it passed by in the southbound lane. A few minutes later a Jacksonville County Deputy Sheriff pulled Smith over and took him into custody. Cherish Perriwinkle was not in the van and Smith was not talking.

     About an hour after Smith's arrest the police received information regarding a white van that had been parked the previous night in the woods near a church four miles from the Walmart where the victim had been abducted. That tip led to the discovery, in the woods near the church, of the missing girl's corpse.

     On Sunday, June 23, 2013, Donald James Smith pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, sexual battery and first-degree murder. The arraignment magistrate denied the registered sex offender bail.

     In May 2014, Duval County Circuit Judge Mallory Cooper set Smith's trial for October of that year. The prosecutor's office had announced its intention to seek the death penalty in the case. Smith's attorney, public defender Mark Shirk, asserted that his client was not mentally competent to stand trial, particularly in a capital case.

     In September 2014, with the mental competency issue still unresolved, the judge postponed the Smith trial to early 2015.

     Public defender Shirk, in February 2015, asked the court to remove him from the Smith case due to a conflict of interest that pertained to his representation of a man who had knowledge of Donald Smith's involvement in the Perriwinkle murder. The following month, Judge Cooper appointed Julie Schlax as Smith's new attorney. This meant another case postponement.

     In January 2016, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Florida's death-penalty procedure of allowing a judge to decide if a person convicted of capital murder lives or dies violated a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury. A few months after the ruling the governor signed state legislation that required at least 10 of 12 jurors to support an execution over life without parole.

     Defense attorney Schlax, prior to her client's scheduled April 2016 trial, filed a motion for an indefinite delay. Schlax argued that her client could not be legally sentenced to death because Florida's unconstitutional procedure was in effect when he was charged with first-degree murder. Judge Mallory Cooper granted the defense motion. That meant the Donald James Smith murder trial was on hold until a judge resolved this legal issue.

     In November 2017 a judge denied Smith's motion to take the death penalty off the table. The judge set Smith's trial date for February 2018.

     In May 2018, after being found guilty of first-degree murder and rape, Judge Mallory Cooper, with the support of the jury, sentenced Donald J. Smith to death.