Category Archive for : ‘STATE BY STATE CALIFORNIA’

By SCOTT SCHWEBKE

Jonathan Wright’s chest heaved and he began to sob uncontrollably Thursday, June 9, while clutching a tiny white T-shirt emblazoned with the name of the MacLaren Children’s Center, a notorious and now closed foster care facility in El Monte at the center of a new lawsuit alleging decades of horrific child abuse by staff members.

Wright, 39, stood in the shadow of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse flanked by well-known civil rights attorney Ben Crump and co-counsel Adam P. Slater, and began to describe the abuse he suffered at MacLaren.

Author: Natalie Swaby

SEATTLE — The effort to end the rape kit backlog has been a focus for Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, whose office runs the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

Eight years ago, Washington had more than 10,000 untested rape kits.

“We had a number of kits sitting on shelves for a number of reasons,” state Representative Tina Orwall said in March.

Lawmakers like Orwall pushed for change, and progress has been made with thousands of kits tested, but there is still plenty of work to do.

“There is another problem that’s related, which

January 22, 2020
Joe Nelson
Redlands Daily Facts

Three victims of a former middle school teacher serving a 74-year prison term for sexual abuse sued him and the Redlands Unified School District on Tuesday under a new state law that extends the statute of limitations for certain sex crimes.
The victims, all former Clement Middle School students ranging in age from 11 to 14 when they were sexually abused by former English teacher Sean Ramiro Lopez, allege the school district was aware of Lopez’s conduct, and even investigated him, but did not remove him

Newsday/Cathy Young 9/1/14

As college students arrive on campuses, legislative efforts to combat sexual violence in thenation’s schools are escalating.  The California legislature passed a groundbreaking bill thatrequires the state’s colleges to use an affirmative consent standard in evaluating sexual assaultcomplaints so that consent cannot be inferred from the absence of a no.  Meanwhile,bipartisan legislation was introduced in the US Senate, with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) asone of its authors, to address campus sexual assault, which the sponsors say affects 1 in 5 collegewomen.  The California bill would protect intoxicated victims

Researchers estimate that one in five girls and one in 10 boys will be sexually victimized in some way before they reach adulthood.  Yet only one in three will tell anybody about it.  Most convicted sex offenders are not in prison; they are in our communities.  We know that of the nation’s 563,000 registered sex offenders, at least 100,000 are unaccounted for.  A comprehensive system for sex-offender registration that includes better sharing of information between states and increased penalties for failure to register is needed.  A stronger enforcement of these

Newsday

Lawrence Lovell, a defrocked priest, was awaiting trial on charges of molesting four altar boysbetween 1980 and 1984, when at 2:26 a.m. Friday, he left the Los Angeles County jail after lessthan a week behind bars. He was one of the first out. Twelve hours later, Michael Wempe, anotherformer priest, left his jail cell with a smile on his face. His bail had been set two weeks ago at$2 million, he has been charged with molesting five boys 20 years ago. They both denied the chargesagainst them. At hearings this