Boston Sexual Abuse Lawyer Blog

A serial rapist suspect accused in three 1991 sexual assaults, including one for which an innocent man was wrongly convicted, is scheduled to appear in Suffolk Superior Court.

Jerry Dixon, 38, is charged with multiple counts of aggravated rape for attacks on March 20, 1991, in a wooded area off Townsend Street in Roxbury; on April 24, 1991, near the Academy Homes housing development in Roxbury; and on July 13, 1991, near Amory Street in Jamaica Plain.

Anthony Powell, an innocent man, was wrongly convicted at a 1992 trial for the Townsend Street attack. DNA testing was not available at the time of his trial, and he spent 12 years in prison before Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley's office exonerated him based on subsequent advances in forensic science.

Conley's office submitted the biological evidence from Townsend Street to the FBI's Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, which contains DNA samples from known offenders ordered to provide samples and unknown offenders whose DNA has been recovered from crime scenes. The sample did not match any known offenders, but it did match a sample recovered from the Amory Street attack.

Both of those attacks were approaching the end of the 15-year statute of limitations allowing prosecutors to bring charges. Conley's office sought and obtained indictments in 2006 identifying the suspect only as "John Doe" and by his unique genetic profile. The Supreme Judicial Court would later uphold the propriety of those indictments, setting a precedent in Massachusetts law.

In 2007, Dixon was convicted of motor vehicle offenses in the Boston Municipal Court. Because of a 1991 armed robbery case that Conley himself -- then an assistant district attorney -- prosecuted to a conviction, Dixon was ordered to provide a DNA sample. That sample resulted in a "hit" linking him to the Townsend Street and Amory Street rapes, officials said.

In investigating Dixon's past, Boston police and Suffolk prosecutors learned of the Academy Homes rape, in which the assailant gave the name "Gerry Dickerson" when Boston police interrupted the attack and arrested him. The victim did not take part in the prosecution at the time and the case did not move forward, but fingerprints taken from the suspect were later found to match Dixon's.

WCVB reports that investigators also learned that Dixon lived for approximately seven years in Nashua, N.H., tolling the statute of limitations in all three rape cases. As a result, Conley's office was able to obtain an indictment against Dixon for the Academy Homes rape, as well. As a failsafe, they re-indicted the Townsend Street and Amory Street rapes again, this time under Dixon's true name.

The UPI reports that men who pay for sex are far more likely than those who do not buy sex to commit crimes related to violence against women, a U.S. researcher says.

Dr. Melissa Farley of Prostitution Research and Education, with logistical support from Demand Abolition, conducted a study of sexual attitudes of men in the Boston, MA area based on face-to-face interviews with 202 men. Those who bought sex were paired by age, education level and ethnicity to men who did not buy sex.

Men who buy sex from women self-report significantly more sexually coercive acts against women than non-buyers and they acknowledge the damage and violence of prostitution, yet remain largely indifferent, Farley says.

"Sixty-six of both sex buyers and non-sex buyers recognize that a majority of women are lured, tricked, or trafficked into prostitution," Farley said in a statement. "Although half of the study's sample does not buy sex, many of the non-sex buyers voice tolerance for men who do."

Although sex buyers note the coercive nature of prostitution, they rationalize their involvement in the sex industry in contradictory terms, declaring women in prostitution are essentially different than non-prostituted women.

Keene NH police said a woman pleaded guilty in Keene District Court to making a false report to law enforcement, and will serve one year in jail.

Police said Kerry Touzin, 38, made a false report of rape on May 27. Police said Touzin claimed that she had met a man from Massachusetts on a website called Plenty of Fish and arranged to meet him for a date. Authorities said Touzin reported that when she got into the man's vehicle, he drove her to a dead-end street in Keene where he sexually assaulted her.

Keene detectives said they developed an online persona of a middle-aged woman, made contact with the man Touzin accused of sexual assault and arranged to meet him in Walpole on June 8. Police said when the man arrived at the meeting place, he was taken into custody without incident and charged with aggravated felonious sexual assault.

While the man was in custody, police said he cooperated with detectives and an investigation revealed that he did not engage in any illegal acts. Police said further evidence revealed that Touzin made a false report to police and she was arrested on June 16.

After pleading guilty in court , Touzin was sentenced to 360 days in the Cheshire County House of Corrections.

The Boston Globe reports that a Lowell police officer has pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped two prostitutes and solicited prostitution from others while he was on duty.

Prosecutors allege that 31-year-old Aravanh Lakmany of Dracut would approach the women, ask them to get into his cruiser or personal vehicle and drive them to an isolated area where they would engage in sexual conduct.

Prosecutors say in one instance Lakmany offered not to arrest a woman wanted on outstanding warrants in exchange for sexual favors.

Lakmany was arraigned Tuesday on charges of extortion, three counts of rape and three counts of solicitation of prostitutes.

A Middlesex Superior Court Clerk Magistrate released him on personal recognizance, the Globe reported.

A New Scotland (NY) man is being held in the Albany County Jail on attempted murder and rape charges. 23-year-old Adam Croote allegedly raped and tried to kill a 10-year-old girl in Berne.

Croote was a longtime family friend of the victim, and was a person the young girls' parents trusted to watch their child.

In 2005 Croote was designated a Level 2 Sex Offender in Massachusetts after being convicted of a sex offense against a 25-year-old female.

At 17 in Wendell, Mass., he sexually assaulted a woman who worked at a residential school for sexually abusive youths while she was driving him to school from a doctor's appointment, according to a Worcester Telegram & Gazette report from 2005. He then grabbed the wheel of the van and turned it toward a stone wall, causing a crash, and ran away until a police dog found him.

He has been arrested in New York for failing to register as a sex offender in the past.

In addition to the rape and attempted murder charges, Croote is also charged with 6 felonies, and 2 misdemeanors, including strangulation, forcible touching and criminal obstruction of breathing,

Croote is being held in the Albany County Jail without bail.

A retired Episcopal priest from Marblehead is facing felonious sexual assault charges involving two incidents in New Hampshire with a child under age 13, according to the Associated Press.

Police in Bedford, N.H., have charged 78-year-old Franklin Huntress after a two-month investigation into incidents in the 1980s. Police say Huntress was arrested June 30 and extradited to New Hampshire, where he was arraigned Wednesday in Hillsborough County Superior Court. He was released later on $25,000 cash bail.

At the time of the incidents, Huntress did not live in New Hampshire, but was invited back for a community function. Police said Huntress served at Grace Church in Manchester from 1971 to 1975.

Police declined to elaborate to the AP on the crimes or victims.

Bishop Thomas Shaw removed him from the priesthood on Feb. 11 after a church investigation into allegations of child abuse. Huntress had voluntarily resigned rather than face a church trial conducted by officials of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.

He had been associated with St. Michael's in Marblehead and Church of the Holy Name in Swampscott in his retirement, occasionally serving at the altar but not on staff. Parishioners were notified of the allegations back in February.

Continue reading "Retired Mass. Priest Charged in NH Sex Assaults" »

WCVB reports that at the request of Assistant District Attorney Cameron Merrill, the open bail of Joseph Lee "Vocals" Brown, 22, of Cambridge, was revoked by Judge David T. Donnelly and a new bail of $50,000 was set after Brown allegedly sexually assaulted a 19-year-old female near Soldier's Field Road.

Brown, who was on open bail due to a separate assault and larceny case, was arraigned Tuesday in Brighton District Court facing allegations he raped a female acquaintance.
According to a investigation by Massachusetts State Police, Brown knew the victim and met up with her in Harvard Square before walking to the Charles River to see the fireworks. Police said the victim reported that Brown made many sexual advances, all of which were refused.

Brown then pushed the victim to the ground and began raping her, police said. The victim fled on foot and called a friend who contacted police, according to the victim's statements. The victim was then taken to Cambridge Hospital where she received treatment for a minor head wound and a rape kit was administered.

Police soon after arrested Brown and brought him to the state barracks, because the area where the alleged attack took place is state property. Brown acknowledged he had sex with the victim but offered conflicting reports of the details, according to the Suffolk District Attorney's Office.

Brown was ordered to not have any contact with the victim and will appear in court on July 21.

Investigators do not believe Brown is in any way connected with the series of unsolved attacks along the Esplanade in the summers of 2007 and 2009.

A man listed as a registered sex offender in San Bernardino County, California, has been arrested in the Boston area after a standoff with police.

Charles Diorio, 49, was convicted of rape and other sex crimes in 1988. He spent time at the men's prison in Chino.

Police in Braintree, Mass. have arrested Diorio after authorities said he forced his way into the apartment of a woman he knew and made threats with a gun.

Diorio is said to have an outstanding parole violation in California.

The MetroWest Daily News reports that a school psychologist at Silver Lake Regional High School has been placed on leave after school officials learned he had been named in a civil suit that accused him of abusing minors decades ago while a priest.

School Superintendent John Tuffy said that officials placed Robert F. Daly on paid leave on Wednesday, the same day they learned from a newspaper article that Daly had been accused in a law suit of abusing children in the 1970s and '80s.

Tuffy said school officials were unaware of any accusations against Daly, who was hired by the school district in 2001, and that there have been no complaints about him during his time working for the district, which includes Kingston, Plympton and Halifax.
But he said officials decided to place Daly, who was planning to retire at the end of the year, on leave until he officially retires at the end of the school year on Monday.
"Given what was in the paper and the allegations made, we thought it was best that he just go home," Tuffy said, adding that the news "came as a shock" to the faculty.

Daly was ordained in 1967 but hasn't been allowed to work as a priest since 1984 when he took a leave of absence. During his time as a priest, he worked at St. Jerome's in North Weymouth, St. Patrick's in Brockton and parishes in Charlestown and Readville, according to official church records posted on the website of the watchdog group Bishop Accountability.org.

In 2005, he was named in a lawsuit along with 16 other priests, three lay employees of the archdioceses and high-ranking church officials filed by 25 people who said they had been sexually abused.

Carmen Durso, a Boston attorney who represented the plaintiffs, told the Daily News the Plaintiffs had all settled their claims through the archdiocese's arbitration process. Records from those proceeding are not public.

It wasn't until the archdiocese announced on Tuesday that Daly, at his own request, had been defrocked that school officials learned about Daly's past, Tuffy said.
Tuffy said much of Daly's job involved doing assessments of whether students required special education support and developing specialized education plans for the ones that did.

"I do believe that if people had had concerns about something it would have surfaced by now," Tuffy said. "Over the last many years, parents, students and staff have all come to be more vigilant and more concerned about anything that doesn't look right or feel right."

The Idaho Mountain Express reports that Leo Robert Schofield Sr., 69, was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty earlier to sexually abusing a child family member.

Schofield Sr. will be required to spend four years in prison before parole eligibility. He was given credit for eight months spent in jail following his arrest in November 2010.

In a type of plea agreement referred to as an "Alford plea," Schofield pleaded guilty in April to sexual abuse of a child under 16, a crime punishable in Idaho by up to 25 years in prison. He was originally charged with a more serious crime of lewd conduct with a minor child, an offense punishable by up to life prison.
Under the Alford plea, Schofield did not admit to committing a crime, but acknowledged that there was likely sufficient evidence for a conviction. The plea agreement further specified that if Elgee did not follow the joint sentencing recommendation, the guilty plea could be withdrawn.

Schofield was charged with committing the sex crime against the child sometime between 2006 and 2009. Court records identify the girl as a family member.

At sentencing, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Matt Fredback said Schofield deserves to go to prison because he has a "high risk to re-offend" and a "long history of denial."
Fredback noted that Schofield has a 1987 felony conviction in Rhode Island for sex acts against a 9-year-old child and is currently wanted in Massachusetts on a warrant charging him with a sex crime there.

Apparently, the state of Massachusetts has not yet attempted to have Schofield extradited.