Author Archive

abcnews.com/Ray Sanchez

Stephanie Ragusa, a 31 year old Florida teacher, was convicted of having sex with two of herstudents and was called a sexual predator today by a judge who sentenced her to 10 years inprison.  The judge also imposed five years of sexual offender probation on Ragusa.  Theformer math teacher at Davidsen Middle School in Tampa, pleaded guilty in April to three counts oflewd and lascivious battery involving a 14 year old boy, and two counts of having unlawful sex witha minor involving a 16 year old student.  The

Legalnewsline.com/Keith Loria

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced on Thursday that he has started a newinitiative to help social networking sites keep child pornography off of the Internet.  Theinitiative uses a database containing hash values, considered to be digital fingerprints in theInternet world, that will be made available to social networking sites.  Over 8,000 childpornography images hash tags have been collected by Cuomo’s office.  Both Facebook and MySpacehave already signed up to use the database to help stop child porn and Cuomo has urged other major sites to come

ABCnews.com/Sarah Netter

Expanding on his efforts to crack down on child pornography, New York’s attorney general,Andrew Cuomo, announced today that his office has partnered with Facebook, MySpace and other socialnetworking sites to track and remove illegal images using Internet hash values.  According toLaura Ahearn, executive director for Parents for Megan’s Law, said today that the child pornographyindustry generates $300 billion a year, with hundreds if images uploaded every day.  Eachimage, she said, is a perpetual record of the sexual victimization of a child.  Ahearnnoted that three-quarters of the people arrested

Newsday.com/Ben Wieder

Convicted sex offenders can legally work as tutors, coaches and in other positions wherethey are close to children, according to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Sunday he said he wouldpropose legislation to change that. Schumer’s legislation would make it illegal for registered sex offenders to work orvolunteer in positions that put them in direct and substantial contact with children. It would also require business owners to confirm that employees or volunteers in these typesof positions are not registered sex offenders. Businesses not in compliance would be fined, Schumersaid,

The Associated Press/Michael Gormley

NEW YORK — State laws nationwide prohibit sex offenders from working as school teachers andcoaches. But most laws don’t cover karate instructors, youth coaches, carnival workers, clowns,magicians, or dance instructors in the private sector when public funds aren’t involved. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York wants to change that. He’s proposing a national measurethat would ban sex offenders from these and other jobs even when their employer gets no publicfunds, which has provided the jurisdiction for some laws restricting sex offenders. Additional jobs that could come

Hooksett Banner/Dan O’Brien

Mason Stewart, a 38 year old convicted sex offender of 202 Pembroke
Street, Apartment B, Pembroke, was arraigned Monday, June 7, for
allegedly molesting and taking inappropriate photos of a 4 year old boy
at a home and in a Burger King bathroom.  He was arrested and charged
with felonious sexual assault and ordered held on $50,000 cash bail.
(Pembroke, New Hampshire)