I think that a separate, flourishing community for pedophiles could attract people who have never committed a crime, but have come to realize that they are pedophiles. They might voluntarily enter the community to stop themselves from harming children. The only thing I disagree with is using Santa Rosa Island; I'm sure another location can be found.
California gubernatorial candidate Douglas Hughes has made quite a name for himself in recent weeks -- not so much by surging ahead in the polls, but rather by promising, if elected, to create a "Pedophile Island" for convicted sex offenders...
Hughes, a 73-year-old Republican and retired business owner, has been a resident of California since 1955. According to his political profile, he believes his biggest assets as a candidate are his relationship with God and his "practice of moral principles." His top priorities are children, jobs and border control.
If elected governor, Hughes says, he will give all convicted pedophiles a choice: remain in prison for life, leave California permanently or live on Pedophile Island -- a self-supporting, downright Utopian community he has envisioned.
California gubernatorial candidate Douglas Hughes believes Santa Rosa Island, in Channel Islands National Park off the coast of southern California, would be a good spot to maroon convicted sex offenders.
"On the island, they can live their life out there, farming and ranching," Hughes said. "They can be their own entity, and it won't cost the taxpayers a dime."...
The fact that these cases keep popping up around the country, with outrageous false accusations that no normal person would take seriously, is an indication of how dysfunctional our justice system is. How do police manage to ignore the warning signs of a child custody suit gone wrong, and witnesses who admit they're lying?
“I want to make people aware that this can happen any time, anywhere, to anyone,” she said. “The children that are part of false accusations are just as devastated as those who are truly molested.”
Former Ringgold teacher Tonya Craft appeared live on NBC’s “Today” show this morning, a day after being acquitted on charges she molested three young girls...
"Today" host Meredith Vieira interviewed Craft, her husband and her lawyer. Craft told Vieira that she had been worried about the verdict after researching other cases involving false accusations.
“I almost couldn’t let myself think there was going to be a not guilty,” she said. “I never thought I could be arrested for something I didn’t do, so I absolutely had to expect the worst.”
Craft also talked about her daughter — one of the alleged victims — testifying for the prosecution, and how the children truly believed something happened to them.
“That was the absolute hardest thing I’ve ever experienced,” she said. “There was no anger towards her. It absolutely broke my heart.”
There have been death threats made against Craft since the verdict, the interview revealed.
But Craft’s focus now is on regaining custody of her children, and educating others on the effects of false accusations...
Ex-kindergarten teacher Tonya Craft was found not guilty today of 22 counts of child molestation. The Tonya Craft verdict was announced at about 5:30 today.
The jury read the not guilty verdict to all 22 accounts, including molestation, sexual battery, and aggravated molestation.
The Tonya Craft verdict may have gotten Craft out of going to prison, but Craft's life will never be the same. Since she was arrested for molestation, Craft has lost her job and her house...
This case sounds an awful lot like the Dale Akiki and Jim Wade cases here in San Diego. I must say this about our District Attorney, Bonnie Dumanis: as much as I am appalled by the abuses of her Public Integrity Unit (now defunct), at least she never did anything this insane.
The timing of these accusations was extremely convenient for the ex-husband of the accused, who who waging a child-custody battle against the accused.
"As the trial continued, many conflicting details emerged. One of the alleged victims admitted to lying in a previously taped interview, and another said she was promised a toy for talking to police. Other times, witnesses said they could not remember pertinent details of the case."
Supporters of Tonya Craft are speaking out as both sides anxiously await a verdict today in the five-week trial of the former northwest Georgia elementary school teacher accused of molesting three young girls. Craft's supporters called the entire ordeal a "sham" that should never have been allowed to occur.
"It's divided the community between those who are intelligent and can think for themselves and those who are blindly led," local resident Harmony Lefler told AOL News. "It's horrible to say that, but it is the truth."
Keri Mann, a resident of nearby Chattanooga, Tenn., and a member of the Facebook group Truth for Tonya, agrees.
Tonya Craft arrives at court on May 6, 2010, in Ringgold, Ga. Billy Weeks, AP Tonya Craft arrives at her trial in Ringgold, Ga., on Thursday. She was charged with child molestation in June 2008. "I have not met one person who believes she is guilty," Mann said after closing arguments Monday in Ringgold, Ga. "There are several teachers and former teachers in my family who were all stunned by this case. ... As a future teacher, I am scared to even work in this community because of these allegations."
Craft, a mother of two, was arrested in June 2008, after she was accused of molesting three girls, age 5 and 6. Prosecutors say the incidents occurred at her former residence on Sycamore Drive.
The five-week trial began in Catoosa County Superior Court on April 12. Jurors heard tearful testimony from the three young accusers, who are now 8 and 9 years old, and their parents. One of the alleged victims said Craft molested her "in kindergarten and first grade."
As the trial continued, many conflicting details emerged. One of the alleged victims admitted to lying in a previously taped interview, and another said she was promised a toy for talking to police. Other times, witnesses said they could not remember pertinent details of the case.
A nurse and doctor testified that the three girls in question showed signs "suspicious of sexual abuse," but Dr. Nancy Fajman, a professor of pediatric medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, said she saw nothing suspicious in her review of the forensic photos of the exam.
"I find nothing suspicious about it, and I would report it as a normal examination," Fajman said.
The defense also presented several teachers from Chickamauga Elementary School who said they had no reason to believe Craft had acted inappropriately with any of her students and spoke highly of her as a teacher.
Craft's attorneys argued she was the victim of revenge, following an April 2008 investigation she had initiated when she began to suspect her own children were being abused after her divorce. That investigation, which was later closed, occurred one month before the allegations against Craft surfaced...
An Illinois man is suing the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI for allegedly covering up sexual abuse by a priest at a Catholic school in Wisconsin.
The lawsuit demands the Vatican release the names of thousands of Catholic priests that the suit says have "credible allegations of sexual misconduct" against them...
Sometimes guilty people can be the most vehement in making accusations of innocent people to cover up their own wrongdoing. I saw the mother of the 16-year-old in the story below on TV. The woman seemed to be out-of-bounds in her anger. Some parents just won't believe their kids might be lying, but this jury unanimously agreed that the accuser was covering up his own guilt in this matter. The teacher only needed one juror on her side to avoid conviction; she had all twelve on her side.
It looks like Bonnie Dumanis screwed up again on this prosecution. Was she just doing what district lawyers wanted to gain political support?
IMPERIAL BEACH — The school district that placed a South County teacher on paid leave pending her trial on molestation charges said yesterday that it would know more next week on whether Carmina Erica Lopez, who was acquitted Monday, would get her job back.
Jurors on Monday found Lopez, 33, not guilty of all charges in the two-week molestation trial involving a former student, who also is her godson, after beginning deliberations late Friday in Chula Vista Superior Court.
South Bay Union School District Superintendent Carol Parish said the district was awaiting word from the state about whether Lopez’s credentials would be reinstated.
In a statement released yesterday, Parish said Lopez’s compulsory leave of absence would end no later than 10 days after Monday’s judgment. She said the district could make no decision until then.
Lopez denied molesting the boy, who is not being identified by The San Diego Union-Tribune because the newspaper does not name minors involved in sex-crime cases. She testified that she was repeatedly raped and threatened by the boy, now 16, to keep quiet.
Lopez most recently taught fifth grade at Sunnyslope Elementary School in Palm City. She began teaching at the district’s Oneonta Elementary School in Imperial Beach in 2004, and later that year transferred to Nestor Elementary. She moved to Sunnyslope in 2005.
Bob Boyce, Lopez’s attorney, said yesterday that his client was taking things “day by day.”
