Boston Sexual Abuse Lawyer Blog

A grand jury did not find enough evidence to indict Kevin Treseler of Millis, the 21-year-old Stonehill College student who - according to what an 8 year old girl told police - had put his hands down her pants while he was working as a tutor in a classroom at her Brockton elementary school.

When the grand jury declined to indict Treseler, prosecutors moved immediately this week to dismiss all charges against him, as reported by the Milford Daily News.

"We will make sure this young victim has access to the services she needs," said Bridget Norton Middleton, a spokesman for Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz. "But without further information, the investigation is closed."

Given the medical evidence of injuries to the girl's body, it is clear the child was abused, but it's not clear by whom, said Jetta Bernier, executive director of the Massachusetts Citizens for Children, a children's advocacy organization.

"Children very rarely lie about sexual abuse," said Bernier. "On the other hand, you can imagine a scenario of a child who has, in fact, been raped, but not by this person."

Treseler's lawyer, Michael P. Doolin, told the media the district attorney's move not to prosecute his client was welcomed by Treseler and his family.

"He's a beautiful kid, he really is, and I'm happy for him and his family," said Doolin.

A Boston doctor avoided going to trial by admitting to a judge yesterday that he traveled to Alaska in 2009 with the intention of having sex with a 6-year-old boy. The Associated Press reports that John Mark Felton, a 47-year-old research physician, was to be tried Monday in US District Court in Anchorage. He decided instead to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement.

Felton had pled guilty to traveling to Anchorage on Nov. 16, 2009, to engage in illicit sexual conduct. At sentencing on Sept. 13, he is expected to receive between 20 and 30 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Felton was in a child-sex chat room on Feb. 28, 2008, when he began conversing with a man who he believed was offering his young grandson for sex. He told the man, who was actually an undercover agent with the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that he would travel to Alaska to have sex with the boy.

When Felton was arrested at the Anchorage airport, he had a Spiderman child's costume.

The AP reports that Felton -- who at the time lived in a luxury condominium in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood and was vice president of clinical operations at a vaccine development company in Cambridge, Mass. -- waited nearly a year and a half before reaching out to the man again. The trip was planned in e-mails over the next few weeks.

Felton, who at times trembled in his chair while seated next to his lawyer, was asked during the change-of-plea hearing if the facts of the government's case against him were true.

"Ah, yes,'' he told US District Court Judge Ralph Beistline.

Felton, a British national who moved to Boston in 2008, will have to register as a sex offender and will be deported when he is released from prison.

A Brockton man held in a county jail since a traffic stop Sunday was found to have 10 active arrest warrants, including one in a rape in 2001 in Saugus. Lorenzo Echevacia, 39, was arrested by a state trooper on Interstate 95 Sunday in Wakefield on charges of driving without a license and providing false motor vehicle documents. The trooper suspected that he provided her with a false identity, and State Police were able to identify him, even though they said Echevacia had deliberately altered his fingerprints. The FBI later told State Police about the warrants and said that Echevacia had reentered the United States illegally after being deported in 2004. The FBI also said he had used a dozen aliases. Echevacia was arraigned on the motor vehicle charges in Malden District Court and was then taken to Middlesex Superior Court to answer the warrants, including several for drug charges.

A Brockton man held in a county jail since a traffic stop Sunday was found to have 10 active arrest warrants, including one in a rape in 2001 in Saugus. Lorenzo Echevacia, 39, was arrested by a state trooper on Interstate 95 Sunday in Wakefield on charges of driving without a license and providing false motor vehicle documents. The trooper suspected that he provided her with a false identity, and State Police were able to identify him, even though they said Echevacia had deliberately altered his fingerprints. The FBI later told State Police about the warrants and said that Echevacia had reentered the United States illegally after being deported in 2004. The FBI also said he had used a dozen aliases. Echevacia was arraigned on the motor vehicle charges in Malden District Court and was then taken to Middlesex Superior Court to answer the warrants, including several for drug charges.

The Boston Globe reports that the number of people alleging they were sexually assaulted at Camp Good News in Sandwich climbed as 13 alleged victims have now detailed widespread abuse at the camp, spanning three decades and involving up to four employees.

It is unclear whether any of the former campers were sexually assaulted by the counselor who allegedly fondled US Senator Scott Brown. The senator, in his autobiography, has said he was abused at an unnamed Cape Cod religious camp when he was 10 years old.

Officials at the camp, founded in 1935 by Wyeth and Grace Willard and still operated by their family, announced Friday night that it will be closed this summer and issued an apology to campers who may have been harmed there. Officials said they need to review every aspect of camp operations before reopening.

The American Camp Association stripped the camp of its accreditation last week, but it remains licensed by the town of Sandwich.

A longtime camp employee, Charles "Chuck'' Devita, 43, shot himself to death in a car outside the camp last Wednesday after learning he was under investigation for alleged sexual abuse at the site, authorities said.

The New York Daily News reports that disgraced former Christ the King hoops coach Bob Oliva will plead guilty April 4 to sexual abuse, after spending several years trying to fend off sex-abuse allegations by claiming he is the target of a conspiracy to destroy his reputation.

Oliva pleaded not guilty to rape of a child, a charge with a maximum sentence of life in prison, when he appeared in a Boston courtroom last spring after he was indicted by a grand jury in March 2010. But when Oliva appears in court in Boston on April 4, he apparently will plead guilty and acknowledge that he sexually abused a boy during a trip to Massachusetts when the kid was 14.

The Daily News reports that the plea agreement with Oliva may keep the former coach out of prison. Oliva will have to acknowledge in court that he sexually abused the boy during a trip to Massachusetts. He will also probably have to register as a sex offender, report to a probation officer, attend counseling, give up coaching youth sports and stay away from children in exchange for avoiding prison.

The Brockton Enterprise reports that school committee members are questioning how the alleged repeated sexual assault of an 8-year-old girl could happen in a city classroom, during school hours and where a teacher may have been present.

Stonehill College junior Kevin Treseler, 21, of Millis, faces charges of child rape and indecent assault on a child under 14. The victim told police the incidents happened numerous times in a classroom at the Angelo School during school hours.

Treseler has pleaded not guilty. The Enterprise reports that he told police he did not touch the girl inappropriately and "suggested that the victim was angry with him for not having picked her for group," according to a Brockton police report.