Boston Sexual Abuse Lawyer Blog

A climbing coach at Earth Treks in Columbia, Maryland has pleaded guilty to having sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl, and another instructor at the facility is expected to enter a plea next week in a similar case.

Michael J. Lyons, a 31-year-old from Rockville who was the head coach of Earth Treks' competitive climbing team, pleaded guilty Wednesday, Nov. 30, in Howard County Circuit Court to one count of sexual abuse of a minor, as reported by the Baltimore Sun. The charge comes because he had temporary care, responsibility or supervision over the girl due to his role as her coach.

Prosecutors recommended Lyons be sentenced to 15 years in prison with all but eight years of that sentence suspended. Upon his release, he would be on probation for five years, could not have any contact with the victim, would have to register as a sex offender and would not be allowed to have any unsupervised contact with minors.

Meanwhile, Daniel Lloyd Montague, a 20-year-old from Fulton who was also a climbing coach at Earth Treks, has entered a plea agreement and is expected to appear in court on Dec. 6.

Lyons and Montague had gone through criminal background checks before being hired at the Earth Treks climbing gyms, according to owner Chris Warner. But within a two-week period this summer, each was arrested for allegedly having sexual contact with a girl on the company's competitive climbing team.

The victim in both cases is the same girl, who has since turned 15, according to court documents. The Columbia Flier does not identify victims of sex crimes.

Lyons was arrested in June at the company's Timonium location. He had also been charged with three counts of third-degree sex offenses and one count of sexual solicitation of a minor. He is being held at the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup.

Lyons was accused of having sexual contact between April and June 2011 with the girl, including having sexual intercourse with her in a closet at the Columbia gym during a team sleepover. Prosecutors said Wednesday he also had intercourse with the girl on a team trip to Massachusetts. Lyons admitted to having sex with her when police had the girl call him and say she was pregnant, even though she was not, according to prosecutors.

Lyons, who was also a coach for the U.S. national climbing team, had trained other coaches on proper relationships between coaches and athletes, Warner said.

Montague was arrested in July. He is facing four counts of committing an unnatural or perverted practice and four counts of fourth-degree sex offenses. He is out on bail.

A Massachusetts judge on Friday awarded a total of $3 million to two child sex abuse victims of a former Franciscan priest who served prison time for child molestation in a separate case.

Superior Court Judge Janet Sanders entered the judgment against John Dority, awarding one victim $2 million and the other $1 million. Both were abused in Boston between 1965 and 1971, starting when they were ages 10 and 13.
Their attorney, Carmen Durso, said Sanders said that no amount of money could compensate either victim for their suffering.
Dority, 70, was convicted of child molestation in Rhode Island in 2005 and released from prison in 2007.

In interview in March, Dority told The Associated Press that he never answered the lawsuit because he couldn't afford an attorney and because the allegations are true.
"What I did was completely wrong. I admit that," Dority said. "I'm very sorry for the trouble I caused, the harm I caused."
Durso said he doesn't think Dority has the money to pay the judgments, but such cases aren't about money for most victims.
"They want someone to place a value on their life and what they've lost," he said.

The state Appeals Court has overturned the conviction of a Lowell woman found guilty along with her husband in 1997 of drugging and raping their four sons because she may have been incompetent to stand trial.

The court in its decision last week said a Superior Court judge erred in 2002 when he denied Nancy Adkinson's motion for a new trial. The judge said even though Adkinson suffered from abuse at the hands of her husband, a competency hearing was not required.

The Appeals Court said in its decision that the Superior Court judge's definition of competency was "too narrow" and there was "substantial evidence" that Adkinson was incompetent.

Prosecutors told The Sun of Lowell that they are reviewing the ruling.

Adkinson was sentenced to 35 to 40 years in prison.

A Western, MA man has pled guilty to child pornography charges, specifically to child exploitation. The story can be found here.

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 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.

George H. Lunt, 27, of Plymouth, Mass, has been sentenced to 8 years in prison, to be followed by five years of supervised release for his transportation and possession of child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz for the District of Massachusetts and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Field Office.

Lunt was sentenced by United States District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr in Boston.

On March 15, 2011, Lunt pleaded guilty to two counts of transportation of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. In pleading guilty, Lunt admitted to possessing thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse, including depictions of prepubescent children and toddlers and sadistic conduct. Lunt admitted to distributing graphic depictions of child sexual abuse through online peer-to-peer file-sharing software.

The case arose from an FBI investigation of individuals sharing and trading child pornography over the Internet. This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, see www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Douglas L. Wright, 41, of North Chelmsford, Mass ., was sentenced to five years in prison to be followed by 10 years of supervised release for transportation and possession of child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer, United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Carmen M. Ortiz, and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Field Office.

Wright was sentenced this week by United States District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro in Boston. On February 17, 2011, Wright pleaded guilty to one count of transportation of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. In pleading guilty, Wright admitted to using an online, peer-to-peer file sharing program to transmit computer files containing visual depictions of prepubescent minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Wright, a former middle school teacher, also admitted to being interested in child pornography for several years.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

A former Jesuit priest and teacher at Boston College High School was released from prison in late March after serving time for a 2005 conviction on sexual abuse charges, according to the state correction department.

James Talbot, now 73, left the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater after completing his sentence, according to Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman from the Department of Correction.

Suffolk County prosecutors tried Talbot in 2002 on sexual abuse charges. In 2005, he was sentenced after pleading guilty to raping and sexually assaulting two of his students between 1977 and 1979 and was sentenced to five to seven years.

Prosecutors said Talbot, who coached the school's wrestling team, encouraged male students on the team to wrestle with him in the locker room wearing little or no clothing. He would then molest or rape his victim, charges said.

The Society of Jesus of New England is in the process of removing Talbot from the clergy.

An eastern Kanawha County (West Virginia) man who allegedly used his interest in vampires to meet underage girls has pleaded guilty to a single count of sexual abuse, as reported by the Associated Press.

Bryan Confere, 21, of Diamond pleaded Thursday to a single count of first-degree sexual abuse as the result of a plea agreement.

Assistant Prosecutor Jennifer Meadows said the incident actually occurred in 2006 when Confere, who was 17 at the time, assaulted a 10-year-old girl while in the Belle area. He initially was charged as a minor but the case was transferred to adult status in 2007. Confere was indicted on the charge in April 2009.

He was then free on $70,000 bond when he traveled to Boston, Mass. in September 2009 and attempted to take a 12-year-old girl from her South Boston area home. Confere's car broke down a few houses down from the girl's home and he continued on foot, leaving a 16-year-old Pennsylvania girl in the vehicle, TV news station NECN-Boston reported after the incident.

The teen in the vehicle caught the attention of neighbors who let her call 911. Police caught up to Confere before he got to the 12-year-old's home. The news station reported Confere met the 12-year-old girl on GothCityChat.com, an online chat room, in July.

He also had a profile on vampirefreaks.com, which has since been suspended.

Meadows told AP that Confere was placed on pre-trial probation but the case in Massachussetts "fell apart" and he was sent back to West Virginia and booked into South Central Regional Jail on Oct. 25, 2010.

Kanawha Circuit Judge Paul Zakaib sentenced Confere to serve six months to two years at the Anthony Center in Greenbrier County. Upon release he will be under supervision for a period of time.

He will be listed as a registered sex offender for the rest of his life, Meadows told AP.

The Berkshire Eagle reports that Gary Mercure, the Catholic priest, could spend the rest of his life in prison for raping two altar boys in the Berkshires.
It took less than two hours for a Berkshire Superior Court jury to convict the 62-year-old on three counts of forcible child rape and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child younger than 14.
The charges stem from separate crimes committed by Mercure in 1986 and 1989, when he raped altar boys from his former Catholic church in Queensbury during day trips to the Berkshires.

Judge John A. Agostini ordered the Troy, N.Y., clergyman to be held without bail at the Berkshire County Jail & House of Correction until he is sentenced Wednesday at 2 p.m.
Mercure smiled at his crying sister as he was led away in handcuffs.
Mercure, who was permanently removed from ministry in New York in 2008 but technically remains a priest, plans to challenge the conviction.

Several of the priest's victims were present when Thursday's guilty verdicts were handed down. Afterward, one victim wiped tears from his eyes while making a call on his cell phone, while others embraced Berkshire First Assistant District Attorney Paul J. Caccaviello and Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey, the prosecutors who tried the case.
The victims were escorted from the Pittsfield courthouse by plainclothes Massachusetts State Police troopers and court officers, who prevented members of the media from approaching them.
Caccaviello said the victims didn't wish to speak with the reporters who crowded the courthouse hallway with television cameras and microphones.
"They're still processing this," he said.
Caccaviello said Mercure's conviction should bring some closure to the victims, who remained mum about the abuse for more than 20 years.
"We're very gratified for that verdict," he said, calling the victims "heroes" for coming forward.
Asked how the victims were faring, Caccaviello replied, "Right now, there's a whole range of emotions."
The Berkshire District Attorney's Office hasn't yet formulated its sentencing recommendation, but Mercure could spend the rest of his life behind bars. "He's been convicted of life felonies," Caccaviello said.
So much of the trial's testimony focused on individuals and events from New York, with only a fraction of the testimony pertaining to the Berkshire County assaults.
"It presented difficult challenges," Caccaviello admitted.
However, the jury ultimately believed the testimony of the five altar boys who accused Mercure of long-term sexual abuse in New York during the 1980s.
Two of those men also testified that Mercure raped them during car trips to the Berkshires, including a 1986 outing to a hiking area bordering Great Barrington and Monterey and a 1989 trip to the former Brodie Mountain Ski Area in New Ashford.
"I think that the jury could tell that our two victims were credible," Caccaviello said.
All of the former altar boys hail from New York and are now in their 30s, including one who's the father of an infant child.

Continue reading "Mercure Convicted of Child Rape" »

The Boston Globe reports that a former Chelsea District Court clerk magistrate has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for coercing two women into having sex with him at the courthouse.

"He took my dignity,'' one of the victims told the judge just before James M. Burke, 43, of Chelsea, was sentenced. "He took advantage of me when I was in a vulnerable state in my life.''

Burke, who was fired from his $84,000-a-year job after his arrest last year, was convicted by a federal jury in October of two counts of depriving the women of their civil rights.

One of the women testified at the trial that Burke pulled her from the courthouse lockup after her arrest on a prostitution charge in 2005 and brought her to an empty courtroom, where she performed sex on him in exchange for his promise to get her case dismissed. The case still went forward. The other woman said Burke threatened to lock her up last year unless she had sex with him at the courthouse.

US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. said Burke used his position to prey on vulnerable women, adding, "It is worse when the abuse of power occurs in the judicial branch.''

The judge ordered Burke to report to prison Jan. 14.

Burke declined to comment during the hearing, but his lawyer, Robert Sheketoff, said Burke would "roam the streets'' seeking prostitutes for sexual satisfaction and "in some ways the courthouse became a safe haven to do what he did.''

He added that Burke was not responsible for the long tradition of prostitution and that the victims "bear some responsibility, too. They bear some responsibility for their lives.''

But Assistant US Attorney Brian T. Kelly said it was "ludicrous'' to blame the victims. He said, "They are in court trying to clear up a case and he ends up sexually assaulting them. All of the blame should be placed on the defendant.''

A man who was convicted of raping two women in Somerville four decades ago now faces a potential lifetime commitment under the state's Sexually Dangerous Person laws, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and the Somerville Journal.

On Friday, a Suffolk Superior Court Judge sent John J. Kelleher, 59, to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater for a period of one day to life after an assistant district attorney proved he was "likely to engage in further sexual offenses if not confined to a secure facility," according to the DA's office.

The decision came after Assistant District Attorney Barbara Young introduced his history of sexual offenses at a five-day jury-waived trial last month. That history includes the 1971 knifepoint rape of two young women in Somerville and the attempted rape of a young woman on Thomson Island in 1987, in which he stabbed the victim in the face with a fork.

Kelleher attacked each of the women, who were strangers to him, in their homes while they were sleeping, according to the District Attorney's office.

Young also introduced testimony from an expert witness who opined that Kelleher was likely to commit additional sexual offenses based on his "history of substance abuse, his extensive and diverse history of violent crime, his selection of strangers as victims, and apparent inability to control his sexual impulses," according to the District Attorney's office.

Kelleher had most recently been convicted of a third count of drunken driving in 2009, and upon his release from jail was held on temporary order of commitment pending these proceedings.

A Suffolk Superior Court jury on Friday convicted Torrey Browne, 34, of raping a woman on his boat at the Dorchester Yacht Club after she told him she didn't want a romantic relationship with him, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reported to the Dorchester Reporter.

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan ordered Browne, a South Boston computer consultant out on bail during the trial, taken into custody immediately, pending his sentencing on Nov. 17. He faces up to 20 years in state prison.

According to Assistant District Attorney Michelle Kalowski, Browne asked the woman, whom he knew through work, if he'd like to see the boat he'd just bought. She agreed. The two met one night at the yacht club on Sept. 30, 2008.

After giving her a tour of the yacht club, he told her he had romantic feelings for her, but she replied she only wanted to be friends, Kalowski told the jury.

Because it was late, he managed to convince her to spend the night on the boat - and then he left, Kalowski said. But she woke the next morning with him lying on top of her, Kalowski said. When she asked what he was doing, he hushed her, then held her down, the assistant DA said. The woman began to struggle, even bit him in the arm, but he would not let her go and then he raped her, she said.

The woman left, and called her roommate for help. They drove to a local hospital to undergo a post-rape exam and test. The DNA evidence helped convict Browne.