Category Archive for : ‘General’

Over the past several months, MySpace.com has been hammered by media reports, portraying it as both a safe haven for sexual predators and a dangerous place for naive teens who post personal, and potentially damaging, information for all the world to see.  In response, the Rupert Murdoch-owned company has boosted its security and public relations efforts.  

All but one of the offenders Wired News found on MySpace appear to have been convicted of engaging in some kind of sexual activity with a minor.  The other, one of the two

Sharon Linton Rutherford, a 30 year old English teacher at Coffeeville High School, has been charged with having sex with at least four students and allegedly involving one in a plot to kill her husband.  She has been charged with solicitation of murder, rape, sexual abuse and two counts of enticing a child for immoral purposes.  Two of the student were under 16 and some of the alleged encounters were on school grounds.  Her husband, James, was not harmed.

(Coffeeville, Alabama)

wtopnews.com

Ryan Jennings, a 24 year old Virginia man, has been convicted of sexually assaulting a 13 yearold girl on a cross-country flight. Jennings met the victim on December 19 before a United Airlinesred eye flight from San Diego to Dulles Airport. He sat next to the victim instead of in hisassigned seat, drank wine he had brought on the plane with him and assaulted the girl as she sleptunderneath a baby blanket. Other passengers saw what happened and notified the pilot, who calledauthorities and detained Jennings after he got off

Mark Fernandes, a 29 year old former NYPD cop who became a police officer in Clifton, New Jersey, was arrested yesterday and charged with soliciting someone he thought was a 12 year old girl for sex.  Fernandes is charged with attempted sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a minor.  He was suspended without pay.  The girl was actually an undercover detective.  Fernandes was being held yesterday in lieu of $50,000 bail.

(New Jersey)

Alan Gell, a 31 year old man who was sentenced to die, then freed after prosecutors at his murder trial were shown to have hidden exonerating evidence, was charged yesterday with having sex with a 15 year old girl who is now pregnant.  He is charged with 14 counts each of statutory rape and indecent liberties with a minor.  The girl, now 16, is pregnant and has told investigators that Gell may be the father.

(Windsor, North Carolina)

Manhattan Federal Judge Denny Chin ruled yesterday that some 4,400 convicted sex offenders should be dropped from the Megan’s law list and left free to live wherever they want without their addresses being made available to the public.  In his ruling, he said it was unfair for the state to try to change Megan’s law to keep Level 1 and 2 offenders on the list longer.  State officials said unless the ruling is stayed, 3,000 offenders would immediately be free from the public notification requirements passed under Megan’s law in