New York Postn
7/29/08
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New Jersey Assemblyman Neil Cohen resigned yesterday amid reports he’s under investigationnfor child pornography. Colleagues who use the same legislative district office as then57-year-old Democratic lawmaker said last week that images of child porn were found on hisncomputer.
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(Mount Laurel, New Jersey)
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Philip Giordano, 42, the three-term mayor of Waterbury and GOP nominee for Senate in 2000, was convicted March 25, 2003 – his 40 birthday – of violating the rights of two preteen girls by sexually abusing them while in office. He was on trial on federal civil-rights charges, one count of conspiracy and 11 counts of using a telephone to entice or solicit children for sex. He is charged with using an interstate facility to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity and conspiracy to commit that offense. He
Russell Harding, a 38 year old former city official, faces up to 20 years in prison on child pornography charges. His psychiatrist says he was drawn to the seedy underworld of Internet sex chat rooms because he was too embarrassed to tell his family and political friends he was gay. Harding was appointed president of the Housing Development Corp. in June 1998 by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He told his pals he was gay only after press reports were printed over the past year detailing some of his alleged crimes. He
Alfred Muller, a 58-year-old suburban mayor, pleaded guilty Friday to sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in Washington’s National Cathedral. Muller is a longtime mayor of Friendship Heights, Maryland and a volunteer usher at the cathedral for 35 years. He encountered the teen in a bathroom on January 28th and reached over and touched him as they stood at adjacent urinals. The boy identified Muller from a photo in People Magazine, which carried a story about Friendship Heights’ smoking ban. The boy was at the cathedral on a field trip. According
Nicholas Puner, a 58 former New Castle planning board chairman, was sentenced yesterday to 60 days in jail and five years’ probation for sodomizing two teenage boys he met on the Internet. He apologized for what he did and for the anguish he caused his family. He pleaded guilty inJune to third degree sodomy. Supreme Court Justice John Perone said he believed Puner was remoreseful, but ruled he was a Level 3 sexual offender, the highest level under the state’s Megan’s Law, and ordered him to pay a portion of
James Surdoval, 42, has pleaded guilty to sodomizing a 15 year old Westchester County boy who he met through the Internet, also to charges of possessing pornographic images of children. Surdoval was chief of staff to Terence M. Zaleski, the former Yonkers Mayor. Judge Kenneth H. Lange of Westchester County Court said he intended to sentence Surdoval to five years’ probation with special conditions for sex offenders even though the sodomy count alone carried a maximum sentence of four years in prison. The judge did not explain how he arrived