Author Archive

Tito Guzman, 22, of Brooklyn and James Pope, 18, of Manhattan, were charged with promoting prostitution, endangering the welfare of a child and harassment.  They were arrested yesterday on charges of forcing a 12-year-old girl at knifepoint to prostitute herself in the vicinity of Queens Plaza in Long Island City.  Pope held a knife on the girl and told her to earn a minimum of $200 for him before she could stop working.  He was allegedly introduced to the girl through Guzman, known as the girl’s Daddy Pimp.  

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Richard Pagan, a 50 year old acting dean at a Bronx high school, forced a ninth grader into an empty classroom at Theodore Roosevelt High School on May 24 and fondled her breasts and buttocks.  He is charged with sexually abusing the 15 year old female student.  He was charged with first degree sexual abuse and has been fired from his $31,910 job.  He has had three arrests, dating to 1974 on charges of assault, disorderly conduct and drug possession – he was not convicted in those cases.   

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Charles Bodenburg, 20, molested, beat and smothered 3 year old Kayla Zachman to death while baby-sitting her and her infant brother.  Bodenburg was the boyfriend of Kayla’s mother.  Kayla’s grandmother said she could track Kayla’s fear of Bodenburg back around Memorial Day weekend, when he started baby-sitting regularly since the mother had started working.  The mother said, She cried.  She didn’t want me to leave her with him.

Bodenburg’s initial story was that his girlfriend’s young daughter died from drinking too much amaretto.  The version of events he gave later

A Manhattan federal appeals court overturned an award of $900,000 to Steven Arnold, a convicted rapist who said correction officers at the Nassau County jail failed to protect him from a severe beating by other inmates.  The 1999 award was overturned by a three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit of Appeals.  A new trial was ordered on the grounds that the US District Court judge hearing the case, Frederic Block, had improperly allowed the jury to determine the meaning of the working of state law on jail staffing rather

Marc F. Gunning, 38, who was indicted on 28 counts of sex crimes, including 21 counts of sodomy, committed suicide in the Riverhead jail in May 2000.  Gunning has easily gained the trust and adoration of his neighbors in Coram soon after he rented a room from a family in February 1999.  He was trusted to babysit children and served as a big brother to local youths.   None of their parents know that, in 1995, he was convicted of third degree sexual abuse or that he would strike again.  He

Valley of the Kings Church patriarch David Earl King, 66, and Nathan Paul King, 32, believed to be King’s adopted son, were indicted in April on charges of sexual battery, conspiracy to commit sexual battery and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.  The group’s self-appointed pastor was arrested in March, accused of molesting a 14 year old boy.  The boy’s parents claim the Kings sexually abused their son and threatened to castrate him if he spoke of it.  The indictment includes a second possible victim, identified as an 11