Boston Sexual Abuse Lawyer Blog

A Rochester, New York man was arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on a sexual assault charge, as 29 year old BENJAMIN C. WILLSEA appeared before Judge Daniel Ford

WILLSEA had a not guilty plea entered on his behalf on one (1) count RAPE. Judge Ford released him on personal recognizance on the condition WILLSEA have no contact with the alleged victim.

It is alleged that WILLSEA sexually assaulted an 18 year old woman, in Stockbridge, on July 24, 2011. The investigation was conducted by members of the Stockbridge Police Department.

Boston University leading hockey scorer Corey Trivino, who was drafted by the New York Islanders in 2008, was arrested Sunday night and faces multiple charges stemming from an incident with a female student, the student newspaper BU Today reported Tuesday.

Men's hockey coach Jack Parker dismissed Trivino, a senior forward, from the team.

"He is no longer associated with the BU hockey team," Parker said, according to the newspaper.

Trivino was charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery, two counts of breaking and entering in the nighttime and one count of assault with attempt to rape for allegedly entering a woman's room and attempting to kiss and fondle her against her will.

Trivino, from Toronto, was arraigned Monday and pleaded not guilty. He either could pay $25,000 bail or surrender his Canadian passport, the newspaper reported. He was ordered to leave his BU dormitory.

Dean of students Kenneth Elmore told BU Today that Trivino can attend classes until he is suspended or expelled.

"We appreciate that the judge in this case takes the matter seriously," Elmore said, according to the newspaper. "He used his process and we will use ours as fast and as thoughtfully as we can to carefully listen to all the charges and make sure that no one is harmed."

Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Cameron Merrill told the court that witnesses claim that an intoxicated Trivino pushed his way into the woman's room and started kissing and fondling her against her will.

The woman told him to leave and he did, according to the newspaper. She then called BU police, who arrived a short time later and put Trivino under arrest.

Trivino leads Hockey East with 13 goals this season and is tied for eighth with 17 points.

A former Boston Red Sox clubhouse manager, Donald Fitzpatrick, now deceased, is again the subject of Massachusetts sex crimes allegations, this time involving two former Boston Red Sox clubhouse attendants, who claim they were sexually assaulted by him in the early 1990's.

One of the victims alleges he was sexually assaulted in 1991 in the Boston Red Sox clubhouse restroom; the other victim alleges he was assaulted by Fitzpatrick when he was employed by the team as a clubhouse attendant.

Although Fitzpatrick passed away in 2005, the victims are still seeking compensation from the Boston Red Sox organization because he was employed by the team and the alleged assaults occurred on the team's property.

It has also been reported that 8 former clubhouse attendants had previously accused Fitzpatrick of sexual abuse. The Red Sox settled a lawsuit in 2003 with 7 men who alleged that they were molested during spring training sessions in the 1970's. In that case, the Boston Red Sox settled for $3.15 million. Additionally, in 2002, Fitzpatrick reportedly pled guilty to Sex Crimes Charges.

A Pittsfield man has been arraigned in Berkshire Superior Court on sexual assault charges. 20 year old WILLIAM J. DANIELS, JR. (771 Tyler Street) appeared before Judge Daniel Ford.

DANIELS had not guilty pleas entered on his behalf on two (2) counts of RAPE and one (1) count of INDECENT ASSAULT AND BATTERY ON A PERSON OVER THE AGE OF 14. Judge Ford released him on personal recognizance on the condition DANIELS have no contact with the alleged victim.

The incidents are alleged to have occurred in Pittsfield between January 2, 2011 and April 1, 2011. The alleged victim is a 17 year old woman.

The investigation was conducted by members of the Pittsfield Police Department.

Sexual assault charges have been leveled against the New Jersey man accused of repeatedly raping a missing Massachusetts girl who was found at his home in November.

Jorge Luis Garzon, 45, of Jersey City was charged with aggravated sexual assault, child endangerment and child abuse according to Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio, as quoted by NJ.com.

Garzon, a divorced father of two, was arrested after Jersey City police and the New York City Police Department's Missing Persons Squad arrived at parent's his Winfield Avenue home to look for the missing 13-year-old girl, according to The Jersey Journal.

The girl had been missing from Wayland, Mass. since Nov. 4, when she apparently boarded a Peter Pan bus in Boston. She was last seen on New York Port Authority security tape getting off the bus in New York City around 11 p.m. that night.
Her family said they believed she ran away due to boredom with life in the small town of just over 12,000 residents about 20 miles west of Boston.

The missing girl met Garzon over the Internet, according to a NJ.com source close to the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the case.

The investigation, headed by Sgt. Jamie Berger and Det. Ruth Backman of the Wayland Police Department, led the duo to travel to New York City after receiving a tip that the girl may have ran away to Brooklyn since her father once lived there.

According to published reports, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office has not provided any details about how long the girl was in New Jersey or what led police to Garzon's home.

AMHERST, Mass. - Everywoman's Center ( EWC ) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has been awarded a three-year, $112,000 grant to provide outreach, counseling and sexual assault prevention education in the rural communities of Hampshire County. EWC is partnering with the state Department of Public Health, which was awarded more than $1 million by the federal Office on Violence Against Women ( OVW ) to support sexual and domestic violence prevention and intervention services in rural western Massachusetts communities.

Survivors of sexual and domestic violence in rural Hampshire communities face unique barriers when seeking support and intervention, according to Becky Lockwood, associate director for rape crisis and violence prevention services at EWC. Those barriers include geographic isolation, municipal police departments without full-time staff, lack of public transportation to larger communities where most medical and mental health services are provided, and fear of discussing abuse issues in small communities because "everyone knows everyone else's business."

With the funding, said Lockwood, EWC will reach out to survivors of sexual assault who live in rural communities and offer free peer counseling and support groups. A new focus of the project includes meeting with health care providers to develop screening and referral policies for teens and adults who have experienced sexual assault. EWC will also collaborate with area schools, social service agencies and youth groups to provide educational workshops on preventing sexual violence, including preventing the perpetration of child sexual abuse, she said.

The federally designated "rural" communities in Hampshire County to be served by the grant include Amherst, Belchertown, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Granby, Middlefield, Plainfield, Southampton, Westhampton, Williamsburg and Worthington. Other community organizations that are partnered with the Department of Public Health for the grant include NELCWIT in Franklin County and the Elizabeth Freeman Center in Berkshire County.

The Everywoman's Center Rape Crisis and Violence Prevention Programs provide rape crisis services for survivors of sexual violence including a 24-hour hotline, crisis intervention and counseling, help with the medical and legal systems and support. Rape crisis services and violence prevention programs are available at no cost to the Five College and Hampshire County communities at 888/337-0800 or 413/577-0940 ( TTY ).

The Boston Globe reports that a woman who claims she was sexually abused by a janitor at Camp Good News has filed a lawsuit in Barnstable Superior Court. This is the same camp at which Senator Scott Brown has disclosed that he was sexually abused as a child camper.

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.

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.

The Metrowest Daily News reports that a Framingham man accused of sexual assaulting a woman at the Red Roof Inn on Sunday skipped his Framingham District Court arraignment this week.

Judge Robert Greco issued a warrant for Richard Freeman's arrest when he failed to appear in court.

Framingham Police arrested Freeman, 54, on Sunday at 5:40 p.m. after a woman reported she was assaulted in a room at the motel, 650 Cochituate Road, according to a police report filed in Framingham District Court by Officer Steven Patriarca.

The woman said she was sitting outside her room when Freeman started talking to her. She said he made her feel uncomfortable.

"He said, 'I am not a rapist and I don't hit women,"' Patriarca said, and the woman told police that she found the statement strange, according to the newspaper.

After a while, the woman decided to go back to her room, but Freeman stuck his foot in the door and asked her to go out for a beer. She declined. She went into the bathroom, and when she came out Freeman was sitting on her bed, drinking a beer. The woman said Freeman had locked the door, Patriarca said.

Freeman stuck his hand up the leg of the woman's shorts, under her panties and attempted to touch her, the woman told police.

The woman pulled away and grabbed a knife.

"She said, 'Get out or I will cut off your (expletive),"' Patriarca said.

Freeman said, "Whoa, whoa," and left, the officer wrote in his report.

When police found Freeman later, he denied being in the woman's room. He said they had driven together to buy beer, but he never touched her.

Police arrested Freeman and charged him with indecent assault and battery on a person older than 14 and disorderly conduct.

Freeman, who listed the motel as his address, was released without bail after being booked at the station and was ordered to appear in court yesterday at 9 a.m. He did not show.

Read more: Judge issues warrant for Framingham sex assault suspect - Framingham, Massachusetts - The Framingham Tab http://www.wickedlocal.com/framingham/news/x242758750/Judge-issues-warrant-for-Framingham-sex-assault-suspect#ixzz1MCLzIMnm

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.