MOLEST RETRIAL NIXED

Jerrold Schwartz, a 46 year old accused pedophile scoutmaster of Manhattan's Troop 666, was attacking boys more than 20 years ago and the Boys Scouts did nothing to stop him, an adult ex-Scout charged in July 2002. The ex-Scout claims Schwartz fondled him in a tent when he was 8. He said, The Boy Scouts let him get away with it. Schwartz was indicted for allegedly repeatedly having sex with an adolescent Scout under his charge in 1996 and 1997. Abuse complaints by at least a half dozen other people, including the fondling victim, are being investigated. A lawyer for two of the alleged victims said most of those allegations concern abuses that happened more than five years ago, too long ago to be prosecuted by law. A stern Manhattan judge gave the alleged boy-sodomizer this choice in December: Either take your chances with a jury or plead guilty with a guarantee of state-prison time. Schwartz, whose request for a no-jail deal fell flat, had until his next court date, January 22, to decide. If he went for the jury trial, he risked getting convicted of a total 36 sodomies against a teen boy in his troop, from which he's since been fired. He would, theoretically, get up to four years in prison for each act. If he pleaded guilty to only a single sodomy, he can expect to serve between two and eight years in prison, the judge told him. Schwartz rejected his last chance for a plea deal in January, meaning his alleged victim will have to testify against him at trial later this year. This shows Jerrold Schwartz is continuing to refuse to take responsibility for his actions, the mother of the victim - age 13 when the alleged abuses started - said after the brief Manhattan Supreme Court hearing. He's going to further victimize him by forcing him to recite in public all that has happened to him, she said - asking her name not be used to protect her son's identity. Schwartz did 'fess up in court on August 23, 2002, but was given a summer vacation from prison, to the anger of his victim's family. Under the surprise deal, Schwartz pleaded guilty to four instances of sodomizing the scout.  Schwartz was sentenced by a Manhattan judge to 2 2/3 to 8 years in prison on May 9, 2006, for his evil acts.

In a decision made public on May 3, 2005, Supreme Court Justice Alice Schlesinger, a Manhattan judge, ruled that Schwartz should get a second chance at freedom from the parole board.  She found the board had not given him a fair hearing when it denied him release last year and cited the pervert's remorse for his conduct.  Three months before he told the board how sorry he was, he recanted his admisstion of guilt in a deposition for his victim's civil suit.  He also has been trying to overturn his conviction in federal court on the grounds that he's not guilty.  

Now, the Boy Scouts of America has come up with a sick way of protecting the organization from pedophile scoutmasters.  The Scouts blame the victim for getting raped.  Faced with a lawusit from the angry family of the young man, who at 24 is in and out of mental hospitals, the Scouts demanded the suit be dismissed.  The reason?  The boy wanted it!  In a copy of the 24-page motion, written by Scouts lawyer S. Paul Battaglia of Syracuse, from the start, he asserts the boy consented to rape, even though he was just a child.

Schwartz, who was challenging his conviction had his bid for a new trial nixed by a Manhattan federal judge this month.

(New York)