Boston Sexual Abuse Lawyer Blog

The rape suspect from Massachusetts who was apprehended at a New Jersey home earlier this week was once arrested for attempted murder in Massachusetts, authorities have confirmed, as reported by the Lawrenceville NJ patch.com website.

Byron Garcia, a 30-year-old North Andover, Mass., resident who recently fled Massachusetts amid accusations he had raped a young girl, was arrested Feb. 22 by U.S. Marshals at a home where relatives live in Lawrence Township, NJ. The girl allegedly raped by Garcia is just 4 years old, according to Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael Schroeder.

Garcia was arrested in 2009 for armed assault with intent to murder and illegal discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a building, among other related charges, after police alleged he fired multiple shots at a car in Lawrence, Mass. No one was injured in that incident.

That case against Garcia was eventually dismissed, however. There had been speculation that the incident was gang-related, as gang violence had spiked during that time. And the alleged victim and witnesses in the case failed to show up to court multiple times, according to Carrie Kimball-Monahan, spokesperson for Essex County (Mass.) District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett.

Garcia remains in custody at the Mercer County Correction Center in New Jersey, awaiting extradition to Massachusetts.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Schroeder said police in North Andover, Mass., launched their investigation earlier this month into the alleged sexual assault of the 4-year-old victim and on Feb. 13 issued an arrest warrant for Garcia on charges of rape and indecent exposure involving a child under the age of 14. North Andover police feared Garcia would return to his native country of Guatamala.

Massachusetts State Police contacted the New Jersey State Police with the information that Garcia might be hiding out in Lawrence Township, and the job of going after him was passed Wednesday morning to the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, Schroeder said.

Created in 2002, the task force is made up of personnel from the U.S. Marshals Service, Mercer County Sheriff's Office, New Jersey State Police and about 100 other law enforcement agencies.

Task force members immediately went to the house on Eldridge Avenue in Lawrence Township where, according to Schroeder, several of Garcia's relatives - including his father and stepbrother - live. He said Garcia was found hiding in a bedroom closet.

A bounce at a Norton sports bar has been released on $5,000 bail after pleading not guilty to raping a Wheaton College student at the establishment. Paul Panaikas of Taunton is accused of raping the student at the Sportsway Café on Feb. 2.

Prosecutors said at his arraignment Wednesday that he pushed the woman into a closet and sexually assaulted her. Authorities say the woman's friends banged on the closet door.

The 38-year-old Panaikas' lawyer says his client is not guilty. The attorney says the Wheaton student "stalked'' his client, and willingly followed him into the closet. The defense lawyer also questioned why the alleged victim did not undergo tests for rape at the hospital and why it took her a week to report the case to police.

A judge overseeing a lawsuit brought by the family of a California boy molested by his troop leader in 2007 has ordered the Boy Scouts of America to hand over confidential files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by Scout leaders around the nation.

The Associated Press reports on an LA TImes story that the Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge ruled that the Scouts must turn over the last 20 years' worth of records by Feb. 24, with victims' names removed. The files will not be made public.

Known as "ineligible volunteer files," the documents have been maintained since the 1920s and are intended to keep suspected molesters and others accused of misconduct out of Scouting. Scouts officials have resisted releasing them and won't discuss their contents, citing the privacy rights of victims and the fact that many files are based on unproven allegations. Other lawyers in other cases have occasionally succeeded in persuading court to order the Scouts to produce the files. I have personally been involved in litigation against the Scouts where the "ineligible volunteer files" were a contentious issue, and we were able to obtain some Massachusetts-related files from a confidential source.

Scouts officials generally deny that the files have been used to conceal sexual abuse.
"These files exist solely to keep out individuals whose actions are inconsistent with the standards of Scouting, and Scouts are safer because of them," Deron Smith, public relations director of Boy Scouts of America, told the Los Angeles Times.

The Santa Barbara case is considered significant because it seeks to unlock files that have never been turned over by the Scouts, including all since 2005. It also alleges wrongdoing that took place relatively recently, even as the Scouts have stepped up protective efforts.

The trial is scheduled for April, nearly five years after the boy, then 13, was molested by volunteer troop leader Al Stein at a Boy Scouts Christmas tree sale in Goleta. Stein pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment in 2009. He was sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled early and is living in a Salinas motel with other sex offenders, his attorney Steven Balash told the newspaper.

The victim's name has not been released. His mother claims that David Tate, then the Los Padres Council Scout executive, asked her not to call police after she reported her son's claim of abuse.
"He said that wasn't necessary, because the Scouts do their own internal investigation," said the woman, whose name the LA Times withheld to protect her son's identity. "I thought that was really weird... I thought it was really important to call the sheriff right away."

The lawsuit contends the Scouts knew or should have known that Stein had put the boy at risk and cites Tate's reluctance to call police as evidence of an effort to conceal widespread sexual abuse.

Tate, now a top Scouts official in New York, declined to comment to the LA Times.

The boy's lawyers contend the files will expose the Scouts' "culture of hidden sexual abuse" and its failure to warn boys, their parents and others about pedophiles in the ranks of one of the nation's oldest youth organizations. "They have created these ticking time bombs who are walking through society, and nobody knows their identities except the Scouts," said Timothy Hale.

Some of the estimated 5,000 files have surfaced in recent years as a result of lawsuits by former Scouts accusing the organization of failing to exclude known pedophiles, detect abuses and report offenders to police, and allowing predators to remain at large.

The founder of a western Massachusetts theater has been convicted of raping a teenage girl who took acting lessons from him.

David Fried Oppenheim, founder of the defunct Pioneer Arts Center in Easthampton, was convicted in early February of child rape and abuse of a child. The Hampshire Superior Court jury in Northampton deliberated over two days. The alleged victim testified the sexual abuse began in 2007 when she was 14 and continued until 2009.

Other former students and theater workers testified he either had sex with them or acted inappropriately toward them when they were between ages 16 and 19. He wasn't charged over those allegations.

The 38-year-old Fried Oppenheim also testified and denied the charges.

Bail was set at $5,000 and sentencing set for March 8. Sentencing guidelines are in the 3-to-5-year range. The maximum is life.

A Queens, NY judge has rejected Bob Oliva's motion to dismiss the $20 million lawsuit filed by a man who was sexually abused by the former Christ the King Regional High School basketball coach.

The decision by Queens Supreme Court Judge Roger N. Rosengarten means the case will go to trial later this year unless Oliva's attorney, Henry Weil, files an appeal or Oliva reaches a settlement with the plaintiff, Jimmy Carlino.

"The trial will continue to expose Bob Oliva for the sexual predator that he is," Carlino's Boston-based attorney, Mitchell Garabedian, told the New York Daily News.

The Daily News reported that Oliva admitted in a Boston courtroom last year that he had sexually abused Carlino during a trip to Massachusetts in 1976, when Carlino was 14. Oliva was sentenced to probation for five years and required to register as a sex offender.

Weil had argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it was barred by the statute of limitations and Oliva had not been charged or convicted of abusing Carlino in New York.

Rosengarten wrote in his decision that under New York law, the clock on the statute of limitation is reset after a defendant is convicted of a crime -- and that it doesn't matter where the crime occurred or where the defendant was charged.

The lawsuit, filed on April 1, 2011, three days before Oliva pleaded guilty to two sex-abuse charges, says the disgraced former coach abused Carlino more than 100 times between 1974 and 1978. Most of the abuse took place in New York, the suit says, but Oliva also molested Carlino during out-of-state trips.

Another man told the Boston grand jury that indicted Oliva that the legendary coach had sexually abused him also.

The lawyer for a Plymouth (MA) priest placed on leave by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston pending an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse dating to the early 1980s says his client has been wrongly accused.

The Rev. James Braley, pastor of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha parish, was placed on leave earlier in February. William Sullivan, the lawyer who represents Braley, told the Patriot Ledger that the charge is "unsupported, inaccurate and untruthful.''

Sullivan says Braley was shocked to learn of the allegation and wants to clear his name.

While on leave, the 62-year-old Braley is not allowed to present himself as a priest or perform any of the duties of a priest. He is also not allowed to live at the rectory.

The Boston Globe reports that a Burlington woman has filed a civil lawsuit against her uncle, alleging that he raped her repeatedly as a child and subjected her to sexual abuse from 10 other men, before her family coerced her into signing an agreement absolving him from responsibility.

Rosanne Sliney, 48, filed a civil complaint in Middlesex Superior Court accusing Domenic A. Previte Jr., 70, of Waltham, of abuse and stating that he confessed to it years later in a signed letter to his niece. The Globe (and this blog) does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse but the Globe used Sliney's name because she has chosen to go public with her allegations and she included her own name in the complaint.

"You were like a flower in springtime,'' Previte wrote in the letter, according to a copy included in Sliney's complaint. "I admired and respected you and loved you as my own daughter. . . . Somehow things got twisted. . . . I had confused my love for you with sex.''

The abuse at the hands of Previte occurred at locations including his home in Waltham, his car wash business in Cambridge, and a movie theater in Woburn, the complaint states.

Sliney contends the abuse began when she was 5 and lasted until she was about 14. Her family pressured her to sign an agreement in 1991 releasing Previte from any responsibility in exchange for a payment from him of $26,500, according to the complaint.

She alleges in the complaint that she did not understand the nature of the agreement that she signed in her late 20s, because of her damaged mental state after the abuse.

Though Sliney was told that Previte would take care of her for the rest of her life, the complaint states, her uncle has refused to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills related to mental health problems stemming from the abuse.

Sliney also asserts that she has begun during the last year to recall Previte forcing her to engage in sex acts with 10 other men, who are listed as codefendants in the lawsuit, but who are not identified by name.

The state corporations database lists Previte as the president of Previte Real Estate and Investments Inc. in Waltham, a business specializing in car wash purchases and sales.

A Suffolk Superior Court judge will decide whether to dismiss a lawsuit against Children's Hospital Boston, after hearing arguments this week on the suit filed on behalf of 11 people who say they were abused by pediatrician Melvin Levine, when he worked in North Carolina.

Levine, who has been accused of sexually abusing dozens of children during medical treatments, had been an esteemed doctor at Children's and later became a professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School in Chapel Hill. He committed suicide last February. A class action suit had been filed against him at the time, but Levine had never faced criminal charges stemming from the allegations.

The Boston lawsuit contends that Children's Hospital could have prevented the abuses alleged in North Carolina if it had reported earlier complaints made about the doctor.

The Boston Globe reports that attorneys for Children's Hospital argued in Court that the hospital had no duty to report complaints to institutions that employed Levine after he left Boston.

"There is simply no duty under Massachusetts law between Children's Hospital and these North Carolina plaintiffs," said Gail Ryan, an attorney for the hospital.

The lawsuit, she continued, could set a bad precedent.

"We're talking about fundamental notions of the meaning of negligence," the Globe quoted Ryan as saying. "[The lawsuit] would open up this court to any out-of-state litigant who wanted to come back in here and file a suit against any former employer for potential acts of their former employees years down the road."

But Mark Itzkowitz, an attorney for the North Carolina plaintiffs, told the Globe that the hospital had received complaints about the doctor as early as 1967, and should have suspected that potential abuses could occur at other hospitals.

"The public is reliant on the medical community to police its own physicians," Itzkowitz said.

Judge Merita Hopkins did not specify when she will make a decision on whether the suit can go forward.