Category Archive for : ‘APPELLATE COURT’

Newsday/Alfonso A. Castillo

Clay Bennett was found guilty in a 2005 nonjury trial of raping his ex-girlfriend’sdaughter, 7 at the time of the alleged crime.  He was sentenced to 20 years, but a stateappellate court last week dismissed his indictment, finding that prosecutors had not proved hisguilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  The mother of the girl said yesterday that she is scared ofwhat might happen once Bennett is released after serving nearly three years in prison for the rapeof her daughter.  Unless prosecutors successfully appeal the decision, Bennett cannot face

Governor Pataki went to war with Assemblyman Sheldon Silver yesterday after lawmakers failed to pass a proposal by the governor to keep the state’s most dangerous sex offenders locked up in psychiatric centers after their release from prison.  If a recently freed rapist strikes again, Pataki wants to make one thing clear: It’s going to be Sheldon Silver’s fault.

(Albany, New York)

As state leaders argued over legislation yesterday that would eliminate the statute of limitations for serious sex crimes, angry charges flew.  Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver shot back after Governor Pataki blasted him in yesterday’s Post for pushing legislation that not only removes the statute of limitations on criminal prosecutions of serious sex crimes, but also removes the time frame to bring a civil lawsuit in major sex cases.  Pataki wants the civil provision removed from the legislation.

(New York)

The Post has learned that more than 300 sex criminals linked to DNA evidence are free on the streets because the statute of limitations on the cases has expired.  State criminal-justice figures show that the 332 suspects could not be prosecuted because too much time had elapsed under the law before the DNA samples tied them to their crimes.

Governor George Pataki ripped Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his Democratic colleagues for blocking legislation the governor has pushed since 2001 seeking to do away with the statute of limitation on

Actress Alison Arngrim, TV’s original mean girl, Nellie Oleson, is taking on an unlikely foe: power-wielding pol Shelly Silver, whom she accuses of blocking a vote that would prevent incestuous rapists from getting slap-on-the-wrist sentences.  Basically, New York law right now says that is you rape your neighbor’s child, you’re looking at as many as 25 years in jail.  But if you rape your own child, it’s a lesser felony and you get off with virtually no time, Arngrim, who was raped as a schoolgirl by a relative, said.  She

Kathleen Ham, now 59, was raped and shamed into silence 30 years ago.  She traveled to Albany this week with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau for a press conference that would announce Sheldon Silver’s support for ending the statute of limitations in rape cases but Silver, without Morgenthau’s knowledge, slipped a poison pill into the bill, which makes it impossible to pass.  He added a proposal to the criminal bill that also removes the statue of limitations on civil suits in cases of rape.  Ham is nail-spittingly furious at Silver,