A supervisor at a Southern California school for troubled youths has been arrested for investigation of 25 counts of child molestation.

San Diego police say 49-year-old Kettrell Berry was taken into custody Friday after a lengthy investigation.

He was being held on $1.12 million bail pending his arraignment in San Diego Superior Court on Tuesday.

Berry was supervisor at the San Diego Center for Children, in Kearny Mesa, for nine years until being fired several weeks ago.

According to the Sheriff’s Department, Berry was booked on various child molestation charges involving a female 14 or 15 years old.

Daniel Acker's date with prison to begin within 90 days after child sex abuse guilty pleas (videos)

COLUMBIANA, Alabama -- Within 90 days, retired fourth-grade teacher Daniel M. Acker Jr. will be in an Al­abama state prison after pleading guilty Thursday to eight counts of child sexual abuse.

Acker received 17-year sentences on each of six counts of sexual abuse first degree of a child less than 12 and 10-year sentences on each of two counts of sexual abuse first degree. The sen­tences will run concurrently and will include the time al­ready spent in the Shelby County Jail.

After serving the 17 years, Acker must wear an elec­tronic monitor for 10 years. He also must register as an adult sex offender.

"This is a very tough sentence," said Richard Minor, the special prosecutor for the case. "In Alabama, anyone sentenced to a life sentence may be released after 12 years. We are striving to reach truth in sentencing; in this case 17 years means 17 years."

"You are not eligible for probation or parole," Judge James Hill Jr. told Acker during the hearing. "You get no trial; you get no appeal.

"This guilty plea means you admit to being a sexually violent predator," Hill said.

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Standing under a stormy sky, Bill Stankiewicz got chills as he looked toward the old brick building that once housed the Catholic Community middle school in South Baltimore.

"It's kind of creepy," he said, rubbing goose bumps along his forearms. He hadn't been back since graduation in the 1970s, purposely avoiding the school — and the memories of what happened in it.

"Thirty-six years is a long time to bury something. It's time to exorcise the demons."

Roughly two dozen of his surviving classmates gathered at the site last weekend, all bound by a shared childhood tragedy detailed in multiple court filings: repeated sexual and mental abuse by English teacher John J. Merzbacher, now 71. They've come together in middle age to fight for his continued imprisonment, as a federal judge's court ruling threatens to release the convicted child rapist from four life terms.

The former students are posting recollections on a private Facebook page and using their renewed connections to marshal resources. They've reached out to the Archdiocese of Baltimore, along with local politicians and prosecutors, and vowed to bring fresh criminal cases — or push for the reopening of old ones — if Merzbacher is set free.

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Andrew Ward, a depraved high school teacher who downloaded and stored a vile catalogue of child abuse images on his home computer has been jailed.

Dr. Andrew Ward, a father-of-two, was found with thousands of indecent images on a laptop and computer devices. The 46-year-old science teacher was suspended from Canon Slade School in Bradshaw, Bolton, after police raided his home. He was jailed for 12 months today and disqualified from working with children. Ward was also banned from accessing the internet, from deleting any computer images and from keeping any computer storage devices. He will be on the sex offenders register for 10 years.

Locked up in April '12 , a laptop, PC and a disk were seized by police then examined by computer experts after a raid at his former home on Compton Road in Lostock, Bolton, last November.

Ward, who moved to live in Leeds, had joined an images network that was being routinely scanned to identify offenders, Bolton Crown Court was told. It was discovered that a computer registered in his name had accessed the network and downloaded a child abuse video file. That led to the authorization of a warrant to search his home. Police discovered a total of 9,802 indecent images of children.

Further images showing 'extreme' sexual activity with animals were also found, along with 'instruction material' on how to abuse children. Ward, the court heard, even used the Japanese version of the Google search engine to hunt for images, typing in specific search criteria relating to abuse.

The court was told that forensic computer experts found Ward routinely used specialist software to 'clean up' his computer and cover his tracks. Programmes about guidance on how to avoid detection by others were also discovered, the court heard.

The judge, Recorder Nicholas Clarke QC, said Ward held a position of trust as a teacher. He said: “Child pornography is not an applicable label. These are child abuse images. Each image is of a real child. It was a deliberate and intentional act of searching for this sort of material. In addition to searching, you viewed them, saved them and categorised them into sub-files and folders within your computer. You have contributed to the demand for this type of material. You identified ages of children which you were interested in, some aged as young as three.”

Brian Stern, 35, former seventh grade science teacher and swim coach at an independent New Jersey day school admitted today to making available images and videos of prepubescent children being sexually abused—sometimes violently- to others over the Internet, United States Attorney Fishman announced.

Until May 2011, when he was arrested, Stern downloaded and posted videos and images of child pornography via peer-to-peer file sharing software, through which others had access to the material on a shared drive. Stern admitted that his offerings included images of numerous children younger than 12 and depictions of sadistic and violent conduct. The images downloaded by federal investigators and found on Stern’s computer included pictures of very young children being restrained and sexually abused.

Sentencing is currently scheduled for July 24, 2012.

United States Attorney Fishman credited special agents of the FBI Newark Division’s Cyber Crime Task Force, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael B Ward; and detectives of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Cyber Crimes Unit, under the direction of Acting Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray, with the investigation leading to the guilty plea.

The FBI named Eric Justin Toth, an alleged child pornographer, to its Ten Most Wanted list.

Eric Justin Toth was 26 and a third-grade teacher in a Washington, D.C. private school in 2008 when authorities accused him of possession of kiddie porn.

Another teacher at Beauvoir, an elite school, discovered graphic photos and videos of students on a school camera issued to Toth. The school put Toth on administrative leave and contacted police. But he immediately went on the run, an FBI spokesperson told The Huffington Post. He's also wanted in Maryland where he's accused of child porn production.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to Toth's capture. He traveled across the country after warrants were issued for his arrest nearly four years ago.

First, Toth drove to Indianapolis where he visited his parents, according to the FBI. They were unaware that he was suspected of any crime.

The FBI traced his movements to the Twin Cities where in August 2008 his car was found parked at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Agents allegedly found additional pornographic images of children in the car. Evidence also suggests that he visited Wisconsin and Illinois.

A tipster claimed he saw Toth living in a Phoenix homeless shelter in 2009, but the fugitive took off again before law enforcement could catch him. That was the last reported sighting of Toth.

Toth is 6’3”, weighs about 155 pounds and has brown hair and green eyes. He's worked as a camp counselor and tutor.

Toth is "well educated, charismatic and likable," an FBI spokesperson told Huff Post. He's a computer expert and may have advertised his services as a nanny or tutor. It's possible he used his deceptive personality to trick parents and get close to children again, the spokesperson said.

Toth, who's used the alias "David Bussone," takes a spot on the notorious most wanted list that became empty after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan last May. The capture of alleged mobster James "Whitey" Bulger last June created another opening on the list that bureau officials said they would fill soon.

Beginning at age 12, the boy silently endured three years of sexual abuse at the hands of family friend Bill "Jake" Jacobs. When he finally came forward, he had to wait more than two years as Jacobs' case moved through the courts.

Now 17, he stood with eyes fixed on his tormenter one last time as two sheriff's deputies led Jacobs through a door out of the Minneapolis courtroom.

Jacobs - a former teacher, coach, lawyer and police chief who prosecutors said spent 50 years abusing dozens of young boys - was sentenced Monday, April 9, to 18 years in prison.

It was the maximum sentence he could've received after he pleaded guilty last month to three counts of criminal sexual conduct and three counts of possession of child porn.

Jacobs, 68, will be among the oldest inmates in state prison. As of Monday, only 81 of the 9,300 people in state lockups were 68 or older. He must serve at least 12 years before he's released, and he'll spend the rest of his life under court supervision as a registered sex offender.

Jacobs had lived in Deephaven but spent his last few months of freedom at his cabin on the shores of Lake Superior north of Lutsen. He had a career teaching and coaching at posh private schools, working as a police officer and later police chief, earning a law degree and then becoming an instructor at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

The end of that career started Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010, when the young man told his mother that Jacobs had been sexually abusing him since a 2007 camping trip. Jacobs, a trusted family friend, often took the boy on outings.

Five days after the youth confided to his mother, Jacobs was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual abuse.
Suspecting other victims, Hennepin County officials released a "wanted" poster with photos of Jacobs from 1965, 1980, 1995 and 2010, and asked victims or parents to call.

More than 20 people came forward to claim Jacobs had abused them. The earliest case was 1962, when he was a 19-year-old camp counselor and student at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.

Court filings show that over the years some people around Jacobs suspected him of molesting young boys but did little to stop him. YMCA camp officials and administrators of at least three private schools dealt privately with accusations against the man; none went to police.

A former Newton Teacher facing a slew of child pornography charges in two Massachusetts counties was released on his personal recognizance at Suffolk Superior Court April 3. The move allows the court to transport Ettlinger to Louisiana where he faces federal charges for participating in an online child pornography forum.

Prosecutors said they found hundreds of images of child pornography on his computer.  He was later charged with indecent assault on a person under 14 and posing a child in the nude. Prosecutors said the victim was family friend he was babysitting.

David Ettlinger, 34, of Brighton, was scheduled to appear in court in Boston Tuesday afternoon and then to be taken to Louisiana, where he faces charges for his alleged membership in Dreamboard, an international forum that promoted sexual abuse of children.

He is scheduled to go on trial at Suffolk Superior Court on Dec. 10. He will go on trial at Middlesex Superior Court next February.

Police will this month seek to extradite a former teacher at a Melbourne Jewish orthodox school from the United States over a child sex abuse scandal that was allegedly covered up by the school.

Parents allege that Yeshivah College in East St Kilda assisted the former teacher, David Kramer, to flee Australia in 1993 after they complained he had sexually abused their children.

Kramer was the focus of a Victoria Police probe launched last year into alleged sexual abuse at Yeshivah College between 1989 and 1993, which has widened to include other alleged perpetrators.

A parent said that Yeshivah College did not go to the police in 1993 despite accusations that Kramer, who taught Jewish studies and was a chaperone at camps, had sexually abused children at the school.

''We couldn't even get them to fire the guy,'' the parent said. A meeting was called at which parents intended to give Yeshivah College an ultimatum: sack Kramer or they would go to the police.
Fifteen minutes before the meeting was due to start, the parents received a phone call telling them that there was no need to proceed. A week and a half later Kramer was ''spirited out of the country''.

''Times were different 20 years ago. It's a very closed community and there was a reticence to talk about any of those things and to try to keep them under cover.''

Meanwhile, former Yeshivah College security guard, David Samuel Cyprys, has been charged with 51 counts of gross indecency, indecent assault, false imprisonment, common law assault, attempted indecent assault and rape involving 11 alleged victims.

Cyprys' committal hearing will begin on May 7.

FBI agents arrested a Arrowview Middle School social studies teacher and former Rim High history teacher, who is accused of five federal child pornography charges. Eugene Ballantyne, 29, will not go free on bail as expected, a federal judge decided on Tuesday, even as new allegations of recent sexual abuse surfaced involving one of his students.

Ballantyne, a husband and father of three young children, will remain in federal custody rather than qualifying for a $250,000 bail, U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled in Riverside. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jerry C. Yang, who is prosecuting Ballantyne, said Tuesday he had argued against bail, claiming Ballantyne was both a flight risk and a danger to the community.

In a federal Grand Jury indictment, Ballantyne is accused of five felonies stemming from his allegedly having exchanged sexually explicit photographs with a 13-year-old New Jersey girl he’d met on the Internet.

In a sworn affidavit, an FBI special agent states that Ballantyne acknowledged to him also having received explicit images from a 15-year-old girl he met online two years ago, and having driven 180 miles to have sex with a 17-year-old girl.

“Defendant, according to the child victim number 5, was sending her text messages as she’s in his class—sitting in front of him sending her text messages,” Yang argued. “She had no idea it was the defendant here. She thought it was some teenage boy that she had met on the Internet when, in fact, it was her own teacher sitting right in front of the classroom. That, your honor, is very troubling to the government.”

Should the continuing investigation generate new criminal charges, Yang said, the case would be taken back to the Grand Jury for a new indictment.

Ballantyne faces one count of inducing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct, one of using the Internet to induce a minor into sexual activity for which she could be criminally charged, two counts of knowingly receiving a digital image of child pornography and one count of possessing a smartphone with at least one image of child pornography.

Yang said the first charge carries a sentence of 15 to 30 years in prison, while the others could result in terms of 10 years to life, five years to 20 and up to 10 years in prison, respectively. Whether to sentence convicted defendants to serve sentences consecutively or concurrently is up to the judge, he said.

The former principal of Snake River Junior High School was back in court Thursday morning. Christopher Cox, charged with three counts of sexual abuse of a minor child under 16, waived his right to a preliminary hearing Thursday.

Cox's next court appearance will be in front of District Court Judge Darren Simpson at 1 p.m. on April 2.

"I will extend the no-contact order that's been in effect in this matter until that date,” said Judge Charles Roos.

The alleged victim in the case was 14 years old at the time she told police a relationship occurred between herself and Cox.

In a detailed case file, police said the girl moved out of state. According to the report, the encounters between Cox and her occurred on school property and her home.

The pastor of a Bronx church charged with rape last January for impregnating a teen was indicted Thursday for raping another girl, prosecutors said.

Michael Clare, the 40-year-old married leader of the Harvest Worship Center in Wakefield, had sexual contact with the girl at least three times between June 22, 2009 and June 30, 2011 at the school and inside his home, prosecutors said.

Their two-year relationship began when the girl was 14, police said. The victim, now 17, reported the allegations earlier this month, cops said.

The girl was a student a Harvest Preparatory Academy, a school run out of Clare’s tiny storefront church. Records still list him as the principal there.

The new charges against Clare include rape, sexual misconduct and sexual abuse.

Clare was first arrested in June 2010 for allegedly repeatedly having sex with a different girl from his flock — starting when she was 12, prosecutors said.

The girl became pregnant, and DNA evidence implicated Clare, prosecutors said. He was indicted for raping her in Jan. 2011.

He faces 32 years in state prison if convicted of the two rape charges.

A Ramona High School teacher's aide is scheduled to appear in court Thursday on charges of child molestation.

Robert Buechner, 69, was arrested at the high school Thursday during lunch and booked into jail on multiple counts on child molest according to Chula Vista police.

The acts occurred over several months at various locations, including in Buechner’s home, police said.

The victim is a 15 year-old boy living at a facility for behavioral issues. He did not attend Ramona High, and police do not believe any other students at the school were involved. The victim met Buechner through a family member, police said.

According to Lt. Gary Wedge, a staff member reported something suspicious between Buechner and the alleged victim. "She did see some behavior that made her uncomfortable and it was reported ultimately to us," Wedge said.

Buechner's neighbor Lisa Miscione could not believe the news. "He dresses up as Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus every year. He's great with the kids. He's just a super guy," Miscione said.

The defendant worked at the high school as a special education teacher's aide for the last seven years according to Principal Tony Newman.

The Ramona Superintendent's office told us that they are not reacting to the incident since it did not involve any students. They said there were no reported incidents with him.

Buechner's bail is set at $100,000. He will be arraigned Thursday in South Bay Court.

Twin brothers whose father worked at the prestigious Delbarton School have filed a lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by two monks.

The Star-Ledger reports that Tom and Bill Crane, who are in their 40s, filed a suit in Superior Court in Morristown on Tuesday morning alleging that they were sexually assaulted and/ or abused by the Rev. Luke Travers, 55 and the Rev. Justin Capato, 63.

According to the complaint, the brothers were abused in the late 1970s and 1980. The 35-page lawsuit does not describe the abuse.

The twin’s father, Bill Crane Sr. worked at the Morris County school for 42 years, first as a teacher and then as an administrator, rising to the level of assistant headmaster. The family lived on the school campus for two years. As children, the brothers had access to both the school campus and the adjoining St. Mary’s Abbey.

The Crane brothers contend that officials at Delbarton and St. Mary’s Abbey knew or should have knows about the abuse and engaged in a cover-up.

According to the Daily Record, the brothers also claim to have been abused by the Rev. James T. Hanley while attending St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Mendham. Hanley, who was defrocked in 2002, admitted to molesting at least 12 children and claimed publicly that Bill Crane Jr. was his last victim.

Governor Chris Christie’s son, Andrew is currently a student at Delbarton.

A sixth person has come forward to accuse a former Johnston County science teacher of sexual abuse, Clayton police said Monday.

Paul Clifton Canally, 29, of Clayton, faces more than three dozen charges, including six counts of statutory rape, two counts of sex with a student, seven counts of indecent liberties and eight counts of sexual battery for offenses dating to 2008 that involve boys under age 16.

According to search warrants, the alleged victims told investigators that Canally met them through school, continued to connect with them on Facebook and asked them to start "hanging out" at his house, where he molested and took photos of them.

Canally worked as a seventh-grade science teacher and science club adviser at Archer Lodge Middle from August 2007 to July 2009, when he resigned for personal reasons, Johnston County Schools spokeswoman Terri Sessoms said.

Police said Canally also worked as a camp counselor in Pennsylvania, and they are trying to determine if there were any victims there.

Louis "Skip" ReVille became one of the Lowcountry's most prolific molesters Tuesday as his tally of alleged victims rose to 22 amid a sweeping round of indictments that could land him in prison for more than 100 years.

Ninth Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson announced that a grand jury had indicted the former coach and teacher on 22 counts of molesting and/or showing pornographic material to 15 young boys in Charleston County.

Additional indictments against ReVille are expected in the next month in connection with six more victims in Dorchester County and another molested boy in Berkeley County, Wilson said.

Some of the Dorchester victims are former students of Pinewood Preparatory School, where ReVille taught from 2002 to 2006, she said.

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A Shelby County grand jury has indicted retired Alabaster teacher Daniel M. Acker, Jr., on eight counts of sexual abuse. Included are charges by two new victims, and police say its investigation is ongoing. Deputy Police Chief Curtis Rigney said that the investigation will remain ongoing until they are satisfied that everyone who wants to come forward has that opportunity to do so. Then, a judge will set a date for Acker to be arraigned.

Acker has been in the Shelby County jail since Jan. 4, when he was arrested after a 12-yr-old girl accused him of touching her inappropriately while she was in his fourth-grade class, in 2009. Police say that when he was brought in for questioning two months ago, he confessed to abusing more than 20 girls during his career as a teacher.

Acker is a member of a prominent Shelby County family. He taught in the Shelby County school system from 1985 until 2009. During the last 15 yrs. of his teaching career, he also drove a school bus. Upon his retirement as a teacher, he continued to work for the county school system as a substitute bus driver.

Steffon Rodney Christian, 48, was a kindergarten aide, coach and library secretary at Baldwin Elementary School in Manassas, where he worked between August 1981 and September 1999. On Tuesday, Christian was indicted on 63 counts of sexual abuse involving 10 victims, according to prosecutors.

The indictment significantly expands the allegations against Christian, who had been charged in November with four counts of forcible sodomy. The victim in that case, authorities have said, was abused as a child between 1993 and 1997. Two of the new charges, however, are connected with incidents in 2011, a law enforcement source said, and others predate 1993.

Authorities say Christian was charismatic and found ways to gain the trust of young boys. He would take students — especially those experiencing family trouble — on golf outings, host them at his home and give them gifts, authorities have said.

Police continue to investigate and are considering additional charges, law enforcement sources said.

Christian’s case comes on the heels of another abuse scandal in Manassas schools. Kevin Ricks, a former English teacher, was convicted last year of abusing boys he met as a camp counselor, teacher and foreign exchange host.

A former Waco kindergarten teacher is set to go on trial Monday, charged with multiple counts of sexual misconduct in connection with abuse of students.

Fernando Campos, 41, is a former teacher at Alta Vista Montessori Magnet School kindergarten and has been held since his arrest on March 22, 2010 in the McLennan County Jail in lieu of $900,000 bond and on an immigration hold.

In an affidavit filed August 5, 2010, a female victim says Campos touched her inappropriately, both over and under her clothes, on four different occasions when she was a student in his class.

According to court records this victim was his fourth.

On June 16, 2010, Campos was named in an indictment charging continuous sexual abuse of a child and four counts of indecency with a child by contact in incidents involving two of his young students in 2009.

A case involving another student was still pending at the time the indictment was handed down by the grand jury, prosecutors said.

In April, he was charged with indecency with a child in an incident involving yet another student at the school, where he worked as a bilingual pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teacher.

A school aide in Queens was arrested Thursday on charges of sexually abusing six 9- and 10-year-old girls at the school, becoming the fifth city school worker charged in the last few weeks with sexual crimes against children.

The aide, Brett Picou, 30, of Public School 52 in Springfield Gardens, is awaiting arraignment on seven felony counts of sexual abuse, one felony count of repeated sexual abuse of a child and seven misdemeanor counts of forcible touching, the Queens district attorney’s office said.

Mr. Picou has been a full-time paraprofessional at the school since January 2010, the Education Department said. Paraprofessionals are aides assigned to individual students, often special-needs students or students in crisis. Mr. Picou has no disciplinary record and has been suspended since the allegation was made on Feb. 15, the department said.

The recent string of charges against school employees, several of them with histories of sexual contact with children buried in their personnel records, prompted the schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, to order a review last week of all substantiated cases of misconduct since 2000; he pledged to fire any teachers who had engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior.

The arrests began Feb. 6, when a teacher’s aide in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, was charged with making videos of his sexual acts with children.

Then a teacher’s aide on the Upper West Side was arrested on sexual abuse charges after a male student told investigators that the man had him strip in the school’s lavatory and, at another point, offered money to fondle the boy.

On Feb. 16, a computer teacher in Queens with a history of inappropriately touching children was arrested on charges of inappropriately touching an 8-year-old boy and a 9-year-old boy.

And on Wednesday, word came that a substitute high school teacher in the Bronx had been arrested on charges that he twisted a 16-year-old male student’s nipples on Feb. 10.

A man who sexually abused a young boy and hoarded almost 3,500 child pornography images has been jailed for ten years.

Dennis Eldridge, 47, was caught when the victim, who became physically sick with stress, told his parents of the abuse. The child reported that Eldridge abused him over the course of several years when Eldridge visited his home. He was also abused when his family visited Eldridge’s home. He was less than ten years old at the time of the crimes.

Police raided Eldridge’s Pembroke home when the allegations surfaced and found thousands of photographs and videos of child pornography on his computers. They included images of bestiality and children as young as five years old being raped and forced into sex acts by adults.

Eldridge, who was employed in the field of computers and technology, also worked as a guitar teacher for the Bermuda School of Music.

Prosecutor Cindy Clarke explained that 3,375 pornographic pictures and 92 video files were found on Eldridge’s home computers. She explained that in law, such images are categorized on a scale of one to five, with five being the most serious.

More than 3,000 of the images were level one. However, 176 of them were level four and one movie clip, involving a young girl and images of bestiality, was a category five.

A former teacher at Telfair Elementary School was in court Wednesday amid child sex abuse accusations. Paul William Chapel, who taught third grade at the Pacoima school, appeared briefly in a San Fernando courthouse for a preliminary hearing.

Chapel is the fourth of what has now become five suspects all within the Los Angeles Unified School District to be charged with child sex abuse.

Most parents at Telfair Elementary School learned about the sex abuse charges facing Chapel on Friday. However, the investigation started last April and Chapel was arrested in October.

Many parents are furious at the principal and the district, saying they hid the allegations from them. As a result, two parents showed up for Chapel's hearing Wednesday because they say they don't trust the school to provide them with information anymore.

Chapel has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of lewd acts on a child involving four victims - three girls and one boy. In one case, he's accused of picking up one of his students by the legs during class and kissing her on the neck and stomach.

Former private school PE director Paul Mira, charged with sexual abuse of two students including a 12-year-old girl, has accepted a plea deal that makes him a sex offender for life, bans him from teaching, but keeps him from prison. The parents of the girls accepted the deal to keep their kids from having to testify.

Mira, 29, worked at Archimedean Middle-Conservatory – Archimedean Upper Conservatory in Miami. While teaching there in 2011, prosecutors say he had sex with a 17 year-old student and a 12-year-old student. He was arrested and charged with 7 different counts.

Mira was given 10 years probation in that case, and adjudication was withheld in the case involving the 12-year-old, but while he avoided a prison cell, he must surrender his teaching certificate, can never again be in charge of children or have unsupervised contact with children, must accept a curfew, must wear a GPS monitor, and faces up to 40 years in prison if he violates his probation. He will also be listed with the state as a registered sex offender, and can never have the charges erased from his record.

Parents of the two girls said both have been forced to change schools and seek counseling because of the relationship with Mira.

Former teacher and youth soccer coach, David Rinke II, 40, warned by northwestern Pennsylvania school officials about taking pictures of students' groin areas during athletic events will spend nearly 20 years in prison for collecting and trading more than 57,000 images of child pornography.

Rinke taught 10th-grade science at the Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, a magnet school in the Erie School District, before he was arrested in February 2011.

Rinke was arrested by the FBI after an undercover agent in Arizona found images from a computer account traced to Rinke.

Public Defender Patton argued that Rinke deserved some credit for his work in the community, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Christian Trabold argued that Rinke grossly abused his trust as a teacher and did the other community work merely to put him in closer proximity to children.

"When a teacher, who should be nurturing and protecting children, entertains himself with child rape movies, it strikes at the very heart of the educational system," Trabold wrote. "A man who amused himself by watching defenseless kids be raped and humiliated and then traded that filth with others, surely was not trying to make Erie a better place to live."

A teacher at a private school in Montgomery County has been charged with sexually abusing a student, age 16, who alleged the two had a sexual relationship for more than a year.

Ashley Jean Campbell, 27, who taught at Montrose Christian School in Rockville, was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and two counts of committing a fourth-degree sex offense.

Ken Fentress, chancellor of the school, said administrators immediately contacted police after they were alerted to the inappropriate relationship last week.

Police said school officials received an anonymous email on Feb. 3 alleging a sexual relationship between Campbell and a male student.

Detectives spoke with the student, and police said he told them that he had been involved in a sexual relationship with Campbell since the fall of 2010. He was 16 years old when the sex started, police said. The relationship ended last month, police said.

A school spokesman said Campbell was fired this week and no longer teaches at Montrose Christian, a school of 200 students in grades K-12.

A Missouri elementary school teacher has been accused of sexual abuse by four more victims, and now faces eight felony charges, police say.

Matthew H. Nelson, 33, taught second and third grade for 10 years at Prairie Branch Elementary School in Grain Valley before being accused of sexual abuse last month. He had been charged for four incidents dating back to Aug. 1, 2010; however, new accusations made Wednesday predate that time, stemming from alleged incidents in 2009. Nelson pleaded not guilty to the original charges Jan. 25.

Nelson faces five felony counts of first-degree child molestation. Court documents say the victims were all boys ages 7 to 9. Allegations of inappropriate touching involving a girl are also on record, but no charges have yet been filed.

Croton kung fu instructor Frank DeMaria, 68, of Ossining was convicted Tuesday of sexually abusing four young girls.

According to the DA, adults initially reported to Croton Police that they saw the defendant take the young students into a corner and watches as the defendant’s gyrated his hips.

Female victims then told investigators that the defendant instructed them, on more than one occasion, to grab his penis and to squeeze and pull it repeatedly.

According to the DA, the defendant is an internationally-known grand master instructor who owned and operated a kung fu studio in Croton-on-Hudson. The victims were students and the incidents took place between Nov. 1,2009 and Jan. 6, 2011 at the studio, the DA said.

DeMaria was arrested by Croton Police on Jan. 14, 2011. The defendant, who was remanded after the verdict, faces a maximum of seven years in state prison on each of the top counts when he is sentenced on May 8.

A Stanislaus County Superior Court judge on Tuesday ruled there's enough evidence for a former rural school district administrator to stand trial on charges of sexually abusing two children.

Thomas Kevin Hart, 59, is accused of two counts of the continuous sexual abuse of a child younger than 14.

Hart was the Valley Home Joint School District Superintendent Principal when he was arrested July 6. The Valley Home school board placed Hart, who also is known as Kevin Hart, on unpaid compulsory leave in August.

The alleged victims in this case are children who did not attend Valley Home schools. The school board has since hired a new superintendent-principal.

The criminal complaint alleges that the abuse took place from Aug. 1, 2009, to June 17, 2011. Testimony in Hart's preliminary hearing on Tuesday indicated that the acts were alleged to have occurred at Hart's Oakdale home as he was bathing the children, a girl and a boy, in a laundry room sink.

Deputy DA Beth O’Hara Owen argued that a nurse, who is trained to conduct forensic exams of alleged sexual assault victims, found cuts and bruises on the children’s bodies that indicate sexual abuse had occurred. She said Hart told an investigator he penetrated the children with a fingertip to clean them.

Hart is scheduled to return to court Feb. 21 for an arraignment hearing. The defendant remains free on $250,000 bail as he awaits his trial.

Miramonte Elementary School will be closed for two days in the wake of sex crime allegations involving two teachers.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy announced Monday night that 88 teachers and 40 staff members will be replaced when classes resume Thursday. He told parents that faculty and staff will be reassigned to a site that does not host students, and that many or all may return when the investigation is completed.

In the interim, each classroom will be staffed with a rigorously screened teacher, as well as a psychiatric social worker. The teachers’ union, United Teachers Los Angeles, says it supports the district’s decision.

Deasy says the district plans to interview every student who has attended the school and every adult who has worked there. The investigation, he says, will be overseen by an independent commission chaired by a former California Supreme Court associate justice.

Mark Berndt, 61, was arrested Jan. 30 and charged with 23 counts of lewd acts on a child. He was removed from the classroom one year prior.

Fellow Miramonte teacher Martin Springer, 49, was arrested Friday after two of his former students told police they were fondled in his classroom. Springer, who is being held on $2 million bail, is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

A longtime teacher at Hamilton High School’s music magnet program has been accused of sexually molesting at least four students in the mid-1990s through 2010 and is being sued by one former student, according to court documents and a police report.

Vance Miller, 59, was a well-known and respected teacher at Hamilton Music Academy Magnet for 17 years and has taught in the district for more than 35 years since his start as a substitute teacher in 1975. He taught at Loyola Performance Arts Magnet for 15 years prior to Hamilton, according to district records.

In 2010, Miller was selected as Southern California’s Outstanding Music Educator of the Year. Later that year, on Sept. 13, Miller was pulled out of his class and reassigned to the local district offices but not placed on administrative leave, according to L.A. Unified documents. Parents weren’t told why the head of the orchestra was gone and a substitute was in his place. And yet, Miller is still currently listed on the school’s website as teaching five courses.

The alleged victim in the lawsuit is identified as John Doe, now 31 years old. The then 13-year-old boy engaged in a roughly four-year sexual relationship that included “kissing, fondling of genitals, masturbation, oral sex and anal sex,” the complaint states.

The complaint also alleges Miller regularly kissed other students on the lips in class, rubbed up against them, took students individually with him to a local gym and showered naked with them.

Because of the statute of limitations, criminal charges were not filed against Miller, according to the police report and attorney Anthony De Marco, who represents the alleged victims. He said the civil suit goes to trial in August. There is no amount yet stated for damages sought.

De Marco said two other students have come forward and that he expects there may be more. He said Miller’s behavior showed a “pattern” of abuse and that a “culture of permissiveness” allowed these actions to continue.

“There are multiple kids who don’t know each other, who have no connection to each other, who are coming forward,” De Marco said.

More students are coming forward to claim that they have been victimized by former teacher Mark Berndt after his arrest on Monday, reports the Los Angeles Times. Their willingness to come forward so quickly after the news broke casts an even darker shadow on the Los Angeles School District's decision to keep school parents out of the loop when Berndt was dismissed in January 2011.

Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy is now investigating students’ claims as more school officials wonder how Berndt could have carried on undetected for all those years.

On Monday, Berndt was arrested on allegations that he bound and gagged students at Miramonte Elementary School, placed live cockroaches on their faces and fed them his own semen on spoons and in cookies.

His habit of photographing what the children described as a "game" is what aroused the suspicions of a photo technician at a Redondo Beach CVS, who turned the pictures over to Redondo Beach police in the fall of 2010. By December, the case was being investigated by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, and by January 2011, Mark Berndt was out of the classroom.

Deasy insists that he barred Berndt from the classroom as soon as he heard of the investigation against him. But for the parents at Miramonte Elementary school, it simply wasn't enough. A forum between parents, school administrators and investigators erupted into anger when Deasy said that the district handled Berndt's case according to police procedure.

Paul Kerr, 33, a former lead teacher at KinderCare, located at 5472 S. Federal Circle in Littleton, was arrested on April 14, 2011. He was charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and sexual assault on a child.

Paul James Kerr, 33, pleaded guilty on Dec. 2 to a felony charge of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and two misdemeanor counts of sexual contact/peeping Tom, according to court records. On the sexual assault guilty plea, Kerr faces a potential sentence range of four years to life in prison. He could also be sentenced to intensive-supervised sex offender probation.

Court documents indicated that school officials became aware of a possible assault at KinderCare after a 9-year-old girl told her parents, who notified the school.

After Kerr was arrested and read his Miranda rights, records show, he agreed to a police interview in which he admitted to touching a 9-year-old girl while she was undressed. Kerr stated he did it to check the girl for marks of abuse, according to an arrest affidavit, but then later admitted he did it for sexual gratification.

During that same interview, Kerr said he would place a 5-year-old girl on his lap during nap time and would tickle her to become aroused, the affidavit said.

Kerr admitted that on three occasions, he walked into the bathroom when a 10-year-old student was changing out of her school uniform into her regular clothes so he could become sexually aroused, the affidavit said.

During the investigation by the Littleton Police Department, police said four other parents reported similar concerns about Kerr.

Bond was set at $23 million Wednesday for a Los Angeles elementary school teacher, Mark Berndt, 61, who allegedly took bondage photos of more than two dozen students in his classroom -- $1 million for each of the 23 counts he faces of lewd acts on a child.

The 400 photographs collected by investigators include some showing suspected semen-filled spoons at the children's mouths, a sheriff's investigator said.

The probe started when a film processor gave investigators "over 40 photographs depicting children in a school classroom, with their eyes blindfolded and mouths covered with tape," a Los Angeles County Sheriff's statement said.

"Investigators learned that some of the photos depicted suspect Mark Berndt with his arm around the children, or with his hand over their mouths," it said. Other photos showed "children with large live Madagascar-type cockroaches on their faces and mouths."

Investigators, who interviewed more than 80 current and former students and school employees, identified 23 boys and girls then between the ages of 7 and 10 years old as alleged victims in crimes that are believed to have been committed between 2005 and 2010, the statement said.

About 10 children seen in the more than 400 images have not yet been identified, they said. The investigation began more than a year ago, officials said. "Early in the investigation, Special Victims Bureau detectives recovered a blue plastic spoon and an empty container from the trash within the suspect's classroom," the sheriff's statement said. "The recovered items tested positive for semen." The arrest came soon after lab testing matched Berndt's DNA with semen found on the spoon, Scott said.

Berndt was a teaching assistant in the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1976 and 1977, and he began teaching at Miramonte Elementary School in 1979.

Berndt’s next court appearance was set for February 21. He could face life in prison if convicted.

A former coach at La Jolla Country Day School faces sexual abuse charges after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a teenage student.

Prosecutors charged Vijay Prasad, 50, with 13 felony counts, including a lewd act on a child 14 or 15 years of age. If convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 11 years in prison, said a spokesman for the D.A.’s office.

According to a local news station, La Jolla Country Day officials said Prasad was not an employee, but operated an after-school fencing club program on the school grounds.

An Edmonton-area man has pleaded guilty to more than a decade of sexual abuse of minors, including his son and daughter.

The 41-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, entered guilty pleas to 27 of the 40 charges against him, including charges of sexual touching, child pornography, unlawful confinement, incest and bestiality.

The man’s victims included his son, his daughter, the daughter of a girlfriend and two daughters of a fiancee. Four of five victims were minors at the time of the abuse. The crimes stretched from 1999 until 2010, according to an agreed statement of facts heard by the court.

The man’s daughter told police of sexual abuse that started when she was six years old, though she didn’t recognize it as abuse until she was 11. When she was 11, her father ordered her and her 10- year-old brother to have sex. Her father had intercourse with her. There were numerous instances of abuse in the following years.

The siblings were afraid to tell anyone of their fathers’ crimes and both attempted suicide as a direct result of the abuse.

He is scheduled to face trial on March 12.

Closing arguments were given today in the civil trial against a Miami day care center where the alleged sex abuse of a 5-year-old girl happened in 2008.

The family of the alleged victim is seeking $25 million claiming Discover Day Care Inc. was negligent in not having adults supervise children at the center at all times.

"If someone says to you, that's too much money for one person, you say that's too much pain for a 5-year old," said attorney Jeff Herman.

"She's being raped and she doesn't even know what sex is," Herman added.

During the trial, the alleged victim testified that the teacher told her class that a 13-year-old boy, her son, was in charge during nap time while she went out to lunch. During that time she said the boy sexually abused her.

The defense says the incident never happened, and the alleged abuser, now a 17-year-old, flatly denied doing anything inappropriate with the girl.

"Did anyone at the school ever see her traumatized, crying, complaining, acting out? No," said defense lawyer Don Hardeman.

The boy pleaded no-contest to the sexual abuse charges in the criminal case and was sentenced to counseling, but the jury was not told that information.

Three of the boy’s therapist did testify that he admitted to his behavior as part of his counseling. “He admits to touching her vagina,” said one of his therapists.

At one point in the trial the teacher testified that that she had written a note claiming the girl had told her she had asked boy to touch her private parts. But attorneys for victim produced attendance records showing that the girl was absent on the day that the teacher alleges that conversation took place.

“You did not speak to (the victim) on June 20 did you?” the lawyer asked.

“I don’t remember,” the teacher said.

The trial of a former deputy head teacher who faced historical child abuse charges, ground to a halt today as the jury could not agree on a verdict.

David Griffiths, 50, of Thistlecroft Gardens in Stanmore, has been on trial at Wood Green Crown Court for eight counts of indecency with a child and one count of serious sexual assault. He has denied the charges throughout.

Today the jury could not agree on a verdict, and so the case has come to a standstill. The case has been adjourned until January 20. Griffiths also faced an additional charge of indecency with a child, but was found not guilty by the jury of this allegation at a hearing on Friday January 6.

Griffiths worked at several schools during his career which began in September 1987, including Broadfields Primary School in Barnet, Edgware Junior School, Frith Manor Primary School, also in Barnet, and Weald Junior School in Harrow.

The offences were alleged to have happened between 1991 and 1993 in more than one location, including a school, which cannot be named, and the Welsh Harp Boating Lake.

Griffiths, who is married, was a long running volunteer for Greater London and Middlesex West Scouts, having been rewarded for more than 30 years service including a role as a district commissioner.

He also had a voluntary role in child protection at a local church, as well as assisting with a range of other projects at the church.

Marcos Cantu, a former math teacher and high school wrestling coach, has been charged with one count of sexual abuse and one count of attempted child molestation. He is to go to trial this month.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office accuses the 39-year-old teacher in Surprise of molesting a young girl. Sheriff’s deputies arrested Cantu last January. Cantu worked for four years at Valley Vista High School.

A news release from the Sheriff’s Office said Cantu fondled the victim while he was driving her home from her school.

Cantu previously worked as a teacher at Peoria and Sunrise Mountain high schools, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

An Alabama school teacher was jailed on charges of sexually abusing a fourth-grade female student, and police said Thursday the man told them he molested more than 20 other girls over his 25-year career.

Alabaster police said Daniel Montague Acker Jr., 49, was charged with three counts of sexual abuse, and additional charges were possible. "This is not a one-time event," said Deputy Chief Curtis Rigney. "This happened over a period of 25 years."

Acker taught fourth grade at three schools and drove buses in the Shelby County school system from 1985 until he retired in 2009. He was investigated on similar allegations in 1992, but grand jurors did not return an indictment, said Rigney.

A girl who is now 12 or 13 came forward within the last week claiming Acker molested her around 2009, when he was a teacher at Thompson Intermediate School, Rigney said. He wouldn't say what drove the girl to go to police.

At least one instance of alleged abuse occurred in a classroom in front of other students, Rigney said, but it wasn't clear whether the children saw anything or realized what had happened.

Acker remained on the school payroll as a substitute bus driver until this week, Rigney said. Acker's father, Dan M. Acker, is a longtime commissioner in Shelby County, just south of Birmingham, but Rigney said there was no indication his father's position helped the teacher avoid charges earlier.

Shelby County schools spokeswoman Cindy Warner said Acker was placed on leave while child abuse allegations were investigated in October 1992, and the county school board voted against firing him in February 1993 after grand jurors did not indict him. She said Acker was reinstated as a fourth-grade teacher at Creek View Elementary, where he worked before moving to Thompson Intermediate.

In a statement, Superintendent Randy Fuller said the district was cooperating with police and would no longer use Acker as a substitute bus driver or in any other capacity.

Confronted by police, Acker admitted molesting the girl who went to officers. He also told investigators he had abused more than 20 other girls but did not name any alleged victims, Rigney said. Acker is no longer cooperating with investigators, he said.

Investigators believe most if not all of the girls were in Acker's classes, Rigney said. But police are trying to see if some of the girls were students in other teachers' classrooms.

Acker's arrest stunned residents in the Birmingham suburb of 28,000, where he was well-known for his long teaching career.

The Waterville teacher accused of sexually abusing a girl under the age of 11 during the course of several years is now headed to trial for the accused crimes. David Lemery was in Oneida County Court in Utica on Thursday and his attorney said they do not plan on accepting a guilty plea in this case. At Lemery's previous court appearance, it was stated that Lemery and his attorney would return December 22 to decide whether or not to pursue a psychiatric defense. However, nothing of that was mentioned at the December 22 appearance. Lemery is a Physical Education teacher at Waterville Central School and has been on paid administrative leave since first being charged.

Lemery has been charged with two counts of first-degree sexual conduct against a child, and two counts of the same charge in the second degree. The charge states that the offense had to have happened twice over the duration of 3 months. In December, Lemery's attorney waived a hearing to suppress certain statements Lemery made to authorities, but reserve the right to discuss their relevance or whether they might be prejudiced. Over the summer, the Oneida County District Attorney's office extended a plea offer to Lemery, but he rejected it. The details of that offer have not been disclosed at this time. Lemery remains out of custody on $15,000 cash bail or bond, and the judge set a trial date of March 5.

Convicted pedophile Ian Appleton, a retired accountant and school teacher, has won his appeal against a five-year jail sentence for sexually abusing an eight-year-old boy three years ago.

A full bench of the Western Cape High Court set aside the sentence on Tuesday, and ordered that he instead be sentenced to correctional supervision involving a short period of imprisonment, and that he then be released into house arrest.

Judges Daniel Dlodlo and Vincent Saldanha referred the case back to the Paarl Regional Court, for magistrate Norma Smile to decide the period of imprisonment, and the duration of Appleton's house arrest.

The sentence is likely to outrage anti-child-abuse pressure groups who attended Appleton's trial and appeal proceedings.

Appleton, 74, who performed oral sex on the boy in 2008, was convicted last month of rape under the new Children's Act.

At his trial, it emerged that Appleton had developed a long-standing close friendship with the boy's parents, which gave him unlimited access to the boy.

The judges said the magistrate had considered correctional supervision inappropriate, due to the seriousness of the offence.

They said Appleton was currently receiving rehabilitative therapy for pedophilia, and had undertaken to continue with the treatment at his own expense.

This would ensure Appleton was properly managed, monitored and rehabilitated, to enable him to assume accountability and responsibility for his condition, the judges said.

They said State advocate Mornay Julius, in opposing the appeal, had referred to the scourge of sexual abuse of children, and the impunity with which it happens “almost on a daily basis”.

The judges said correctional supervision should not be regarded as a “light sentence”, as it served the specific purpose of rehabilitation.

If the offender failed to strictly comply with the restrictive conditions applicable to correctional supervision, the offender would be brought back to court to be sentenced afresh.

An Indiana teacher is facing six felony charges after allegedly having relationships with three female students, two of which were enrolled in special education classes.

Samuel Fies, 33, was arrested Tuesday and charged with multiple counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, child molestation, criminal confinement, child solicitation and attempted child seduction, the Associated Press reports. Fies allegedly developed a relationship with a female student at Highland High School, where he was most recently employed as a teacher, in 2009, when the girl was in seventh grade and under age 14.

According to the affidavit, Fies made the girl sit at the front of his seventh-grade social studies classroom and often found excuses to rub up against her, the Indiana Post-Tribune reports. Fies is accused of molesting her on at least two occasions, one of which occurred while she was locked in an athletic office. Fies served as a coach of the track and cross country team before he was fired in late November on the grounds of misconduct.

Fies reportedly contacted a second student, 13, through a MySpace account and text messages, asking her to do sexually explicit things and send him photos, the Northwest Indiana Times reports. The student told police after a phone conversation that the man she met online sounded like her social studies teacher.

The third alleged victim, a 17-year-old student at Highland High School with emotional and learning disabilities, reported that she met a man on a dating site who asked her sexually-charged questions under a screen name police traced to Fies, according to the Times.

Fies faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence, the Post-Tribune reports. He is awaiting trial in Lake County Jail.

A Glen Burnie High School teacher, Jeffrey Robert Sears, Jr., is under arrest in Anne Arundel County, Md. after having been charged with multiple counts of child sexual abuse involving three 15 and 16-year-old student victims. B

ackground: On November 1, 2011, the Anne Arundel County Board of Education contacted the Department of Social Services regarding an allegation of a possible sexual relationship between a teacher and a student at Glen Burnie High School. The Anne Arundel County Board of Education immediately removed Sears from his assignment, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Detectives from the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division began investigating the allegation. During the course of the investigation, which included collecting and analyzing evidence, conducting numerous witness and victim interviews and executing search warrants of residences, a total of three female victims were identified.

It was determined that all three victims had sexual relations with the teacher while they were attending Glen Burnie High School. The incidents took place both on and off of campus and during regular school hours and off hours. The victims were between the ages of 15 and 16 years old at the time of the offenses, which occurred from November of 2009 through October of 2011.

The Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Anne Arundel County Department of Social Services, the Anne Arundel County Board of Education, and the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office worked closely together to conduct a thorough investigation into this matter.

Jeffrey Robert Sears Jr., 29, of 408 Luther Road in Glen Burnie, Md. was taken into custody at the Eastern District police station in Pasadena this morning (Dec. 8, 2011), at approximately 8:15 am.

After consultation with the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office, Sears was charged with:

- multiple counts of Sexual Abuse of a Minor,
- multiple counts of Fourth Degree Sex Offense,
- Third Degree Sex Offense,
- multiple counts of Perverted Practice,
- Sexual Solicitation of a Minor,
- First Degree Assault, and multiple counts of Second Degree   Assault.

Any additional victims or witnesses are urged to contact Detective Erin Brandt of the Criminal Investigation Division at 410-222-3482.

Police in Louisiana arrested a 28-year-old woman who they say had sex with a young teenage boy on multiple occasions after meeting at a summer Bible camp.

Heather Daughdrill, of Westlake, is accused of initiating the relationship while acting as a teacher and aide at a June religious retreat. She allegedly continued seeing the 13-year-old boy until her arrest in October, according to a press release from the Calcasieu Parish Sheriff's Department.

"The investigation revealed Daughdrill would engage in inappropriate sexual contact with the boy after picking him up from school without the parents' knowledge," the press release explains.

Authorities also say that they discovered "explicit text messages" between Daughdrill and the boy, whose identity remains anonymous.

Following her Nov. 28 arrest, Daughdrill now faces 17 criminal charges including sexual battery, carnal knowledge of a juvenile, kidnapping, indecent behavior with a juvenile and contributing to delinquency. Her bond in Calcasiue Parish is set at $47,000.

On the heels of two well-publicized national cases of child sexual abuse by coaches, some local men who say they were victims of alleged abuse by a coach are speaking out.

The men told NewsChannel 9 the abuse started while they were at Ooltewah Middle School in the 1980's. They're grown now and speaking out, hoping their story will help others find the courage to come forward as well.

"It's something that we dealt with in 6, 7, and 8 grade. Again, it's something that's come out with Syracuse and Penn State," Andy Ellington, who says he was molested, told us.

In fact, Ellington denied the abuse at first too. "I didn't want people to know. I definitely didn't want anyone to know at Ooltewah. I didn't want my mother to know. My mother was a single mom. My father died when I was 7. So this was something I did not want her to have to deal with," he said.

He says he was just 11 years old the first time anything happened and says he lost count of how many times he was allegedly molested by Stan Evans, a former teacher and coach at Ooltewah Middle School. Evans was close with many of his athletes and Ellington says he and others frequently spent the night at his home.

"The majority of the time, the real, if you were to call it fondling and things like that, was always off school premises. But I can't even imagine how many conduct unbecoming on school premises there were," Ellington said, recalling those difficult memories.

Michael Mercer says he's one of Evan's victims, too. He didn't want to speak on camera but explained to WGOW today, how the abuse started with Evans rubbing his shoulders.

"So then it goes from rubbing the shoulders, to a kiss on the forehead. Then it goes from a kiss on the forehead, to lets see how fast you can get undressed. Then lets pop your naked bottom," Mercer said.

Mercer and Ellington, along with two other men, filed a lawsuit against Evans in 1999 claiming they were molested on multiple occasions. However, the statute of limitations was up and Evans abruptly resigned from OMS and moved to Florida. Since then, they've been trying to heal and both hope their story can spare other kids the same experience.

"I do hope that the Hamilton County Board of Education will have an opportunity to have some kind of a standard operation procedure in place, to where if they do have these issues, it'll be taken care of without being swept under the rug. I can assure you in '98 it was," Ellington said. Ellington says he feels like he's healed from this mostly thanks to family and his church.

But he says, even with that, he still doesn't have closure with Coach Evans and he hopes hearing his story will help someone who's been through a similar situation. We tried to contact Evans to get his side of the story, but were unable to find any contact information for him.

A former Omaha middle school teacher, Shad Knutson, 35, will stand trial on seven felony counts in connection with allegations that he had inappropriate relations with five former students.

He is accused of inappropriate sexual contacts, by phone or text messaging, with two teenage girls, including requesting photos of one of the girls breasts. One of the girls said that she and Knutson often “made out” in his classroom after school, that he fondled her and made her touch him.

In addition to the two latest victims, Knutson was charged with lewd behavior with three other underage girls.

A trial date has not been set.

A head teacher at a school where a member of staff sexually abused a series of young children has been sacked.

Hillside First School teacher Nigel Leat was jailed indefinitely earlier this year after it was discovered the 52-year-old had filmed himself sexually assaulting pupils as young as six in the classroom.

Chris Hood, the head teacher at the school in Worle when Leat was committing his horrific crimes, was suspended in January pending a disciplinary inquiry into the leadership and management of the school and this week North Somerset Council confirmed he had been dismissed from his post.

The council stressed Mr Hood had not been accused of any criminal involvement, and that his dismissal did not indicate that he was party to Leat's activities. During the court case, the prosecution said that Leat was devious, manipulative and acted alone.

Parents received a short letter this week, telling them Mr Hood had "left the employment" of the Church Road school. A serious case review being carried out independently into school procedures is expected to end shortly and there will be a briefing for parents ahead of the publication of the results.

After Leat was sentenced, Avon and Somerset Police revealed that more victims had come forward.

It is thought that over his 15 years as a teacher at Hillside, Leat may have assaulted up to 40 victims.

Bristol Crown Court heard earlier this year that the father-of-two, from Brislington, had been abusing pupils as long ago as 1998, with the officer who led the investigation describing Leat's offences as "some of the worst and most sickening we have ever seen".

Leat – who pleaded guilty to 36 charges – was given an indeterminate sentence for public protection on the basis he posed a significant risk of causing serious physical or psychological harm to other young girls. He admitted a total of 32 offences against five girls at the school between September 2006 and July 2010.

The crimes were one count of attempted rape, eight sexual assaults by penetration and 23 further sexual assaults.

Leat also admitted charges of voyeurism; causing or inciting a child aged under 13 to engage in a sexual act; possessing more than 30,000 indecent photographs and movies of children, and possessing extreme pornography.

A San Diego man who taught at a Chula Vista elementary school was arrested Friday on suspicion of possessing child pornography. Gary Delaney Phillips, 54, who teaches at Clear View Elementary School, was taken into custody at his home about 8:30 a.m., according to the FBI.

Phillips became a focus of investigations after an FBI agent discovered email messages in which the suspect "expressed a sexual interest in children and indicated that he possessed images of child pornography," according to the bureau. A search of Phillips' residence allegedly turned up images depicting minors engaging in sexual activities, officials said.

Phillips was been booked into the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego. He was expected to appear before a federal judge early next week. Phillips has taught in the Chula Vista Elementary School District for more than 20 years. Phillips has been placed on paid administrative leave.

Robert Benson Adams, 60, the owner and principal of the Creative Frontiers School in Citrus Heights, a middle-class suburb about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento, was arrested Wednesday on charges that he fondled at least seven girls over the past 15 years, months after he was accused of touching female students under their clothes. It was shut down in mid-July after a complaint was filed by the California Department of Social Services.

Adams now faces six felony counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts on children under 14 and one misdemeanor charge of annoying or molesting a child under 18, according to a criminal complaint filed in Sacramento County Superior Court.

The girls, who were between 4 and 7, told investigators that Adams, known as "Mr. Bob" to his students, often called them into his office, where he would pull them onto his lap and fondled them, according to the complaint. Citrus Heights Police Chief Christopher Boyd said more witnesses have come forward since July and that the most recent crime occurred this June. "We took the time that was necessary to find the facts and the truth that has resulted in these charges being filed today," Boyd said.

Two teachers separately told investigators they walked in on Adams touching young girls. A teacher at the school, said she saw Adams put his hand under the skirt of a young girl who was sitting on his lap in his office in 2007, according to the complaint. It did not say whether she reported the incident then.

A preschool teacher, who was listed as a staff member on the school's website before it was closed, told investigators she came back from her lunch break one day in June to find Adams lying on a mat next to a 4-year-old during nap time. The child's shirt had been pulled up and Adams was rubbing her stomach, according to the complaint. The girl's parents told Thompson the next day that their daughter said Adams had touched her inappropriately.

Adams could face up to eight years in a state prison for each of the six felony counts if he is convicted. He could also face a fine of up to $5,000 and at least a year in a county jail if convicted on the misdemeanor charge. He returns to court on October 7.

A crime tip line in Sacramento has been flooded with calls about a case in which police are investigating allegations that a principal sexually abused students for the past 15 years, authorities said today. Robert Adams is being investigated for alleged incidents involving at least 10 current and former students at the now-shuttered Creative Frontiers School that he owns, according to the police department. In addition to people calling with information (based on a press release), a facility volunteer at the school said she walked in on Adams one time “laying on a mat on the floor with a girl about 7 or 8 years old... massaging her (in different areas)...”. Detectives are reviewing evidence, no arrests have been made yet, and Adams denies the allegations.

Updates will follow.

Thomas Henry Ceglarek, 58, a former San Diego elementary school Counselor was sentenced Monday to three years and 10 months in federal prison in a child pornography case. The judge also sentenced him to 15 years of supervised release and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine and register as a sex offender.

Ceglarek admitted that he possessed two computers that had images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He also admitted that he falsely claimed that he was unemployed in Oct. 2010 in order to obtain a court-appointed attorney. In fact, he was being paid about $70,000 a year by the school district, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.

Ceglarek, who now lives in Mercer, Wis., had been a counselor at Foster Elementary School in the Allied Gardens area.

Escondido police arrested a Valley High School Teacher Friday morning, about two weeks after a young woman came forward and accused him of having inappropriate sexual contact with her while she had been his student. Mark Humerez, 35, of San Marcos, was arrested at a Starbucks, as he headed to a meeting he believed would be with the victim, said Escondido police Lt. Chris Wynn. The girl was 16 when they met, while she was a student in Humerez’s class. Police started their investigation after the woman, now 19 and living out of state, came forward in late May and told police about the relationship, which reportedly started in September 2007 and ran about 16 months.

Humerez is accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with the victim twice, both incidents occurred in his classroom, Wynn said. Wynn said police do not believe there were any other victims, but anyone with information can contact Det. Julie Barnes at 760-839-4758.

Australian police have carried out a world-first bust on a sophisticated online child abuse network, arresting 11 men in four states and rescuing two abused children. Covert police operatives spent four months infiltrating the network, secretly taking the place of those they arrested to allow them to delve deeper into the group of men aged between 26 and 67 who were sharing images and videos of the sexual abuse of children as young as four. The organization, which used complex "peer-to-peer" software rather than a traditional central server to make it harder for law enforcement agencies to uncover the material, is the first of its kind closed down by the multinational Virtual Global Task force, chaired by the Australian Federal Police.

The men, many of whom had direct access to children on a daily basis, included a teacher, IT specialist, security worker and a convicted sex offender, as well as a farmer. Two young children were removed from the custody of a 26-year-old NSW man, whose identity was suppressed, and he was charged with having sexual intercourse with a child under 10. Parents and students at the exclusive King's School were in shock after it was revealed long-term preparatory school teacher Gregory John Coupland, 40, from Forestville in Sydney's northern beaches, was among the men. Coupland, who had taught at the school for 12 years and was master in charge of snow sports, taking groups of primary-aged children on regular multi-day skiing trips, was also running a scout troop until he was charged last month with using a carriage service to access child pornography, using a carriage service to transmit child pornography and possessing child abuse material.

King's Preparatory School head Keith Dallywater said that the news had come "as a significant shock" but confirmed that no students had been harmed in any way. Six of the men were from NSW, three from Victoria, and one each from Queensland and South Australia. AFP manager of hi-tech investigations Commander Grant Edwards said, while Operation Danton had been a success, police were aware of other child abuse networks using the same file sharing service and forensic searches were ongoing.

"The images accessed are of real children being abused and it's a shocking thing," Commander Edwards said.

Sentencing was postponed Wednesday for a karate instructor who carried on a months-long sexual relationship with one of his teenage students. Eric Protas, 38, pleaded guilty in February to 29 felony charges, including committing lewd acts on a child. Protas, of La Mesa, CA, faces a maximum of 48 years in state prison. The victim now 14, testified last October that he had oral and anal sex about 300 times between August 2009 and May 2010 with Protas, the owner-operator of the Allied Gardens School of Martial Arts on Waring Road.

Three priests–Edward Avery, Charles Engelhardt, and a Catholic school teacher, James Brennan, have been charged with raping and assaulting two young boys over the course of several years. A fifth man, Monsignor William Lynn, has been charged with child endangerment for allegedly allowing the abuse to continue. Monsignor Lynn was one of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua’s top aides. The indictments were made by a grand jury, and it is believed to be the first time a high ranking Catholic official has been accused of being criminally accountable for covering up priest abuse. Advocates for abuse victims celebrated the indictments. “This news means that finally one of the hundreds of complicit Catholic officials who have hidden or are hiding clergy sex crimes might be brought to justice”, said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

A 14-year-old girl testified on Tuesday in the trial of a local music teacher accused of molesting the girl and her two sisters. The girls, who are now 12 to 14 years old, are sisters and related to Kinney through marriage. The 14-year old said the molestation happened when she was about 9 years old. Kinney was a music teacher and taught part-time at the Ramona Music Center. Investigator said they also found more than 150 images of child porn on his computer. The younger sisters are expected to testify. Kinney has been out on bail since his arrest in 2009.

Eric Protas, 38, the owner of a popular martial arts school in Allied Gardens, is accused of molesting one of his students. He pleaded not guilty to felony charges. He is accused of engaging in "strong sexual conduct" with a 13-yr-old boy, from July 2009 to May 2010. The boy came forward with information about the molestations, the prosecutor said. More than 60 of his supporters filled the courtroom and some say he has been a "wonderful role model for my children" and a "pillar of the community". He is being held on $1 million bail.

A teacher who taught at some of New York City’s most elite preparatory schools was accused of possessing an astounding amount of child pornography on his computer and sharing images with others, according to the Daily News. John E. Thomas, 28, was charged in federal court with possessing child porn and released on $50,000 bail. Thomas previously taught at Horace Mann Nursery School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Friend’s Seminary, and was expected to begin teaching fifth grade students this fall. He had also served as a camp counselor for one of the city’s Y locations.

Melissa Huckaby, a former Sunday School Teacher, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. She plead guilty to kidnapping and murdering 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, who lived nearby. Sandra Cantu disappeared in March 2009. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase and left in a lake. It appeared that she had been sexually molested, beaten with a rolling pin, and strangled, however a gag order was recently removed, so more details may be released to the public soon.

Adrienne Feistel, 36, a former teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary School, who pleaded guilty to committing sexual acts with a 12-year-old boy who was her student, was sentenced to three years in prison, the maximum sentence sought by prosecutors. She was tried last year on 17 charges related to child molestation, but the jury was deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.

Raymond Firth, 39, former teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary School, is scheduled to be sentenced, on April 26, to three years, eight months in prison for sexual battery and false imprisonment involving three girls in his third-grade classrooms in 2006-07 and 2007-08.

Amy Victoria Beck, a former middle school teacher, stunned police with her unsolicited confession that she had an affair with a 14-yearold student. She has pleaded no contest to charges of unlawful sex with a minor. She is expected to receive 2 years in state prison.

Ronald Bartlett, an art teacher in the Victor Central School District in New York, was found guilty on misdemeanor counts of forcibly touching and endangering the welfare of a 17-year-old student. He was fired from his teaching job and his certification to teach will be revoked.

Carmina Lopez, 34, an elementary school teacher at South Bay Union School District, was acquitted last month of molesting a former student, and she is back at work after her teaching credentials were reinstated. However, she is not working as a teacher.

Carmina Erica Lopez, a 33-yr.-old South Bay teacher, was accused of molesting her former student and Godson, now 16, over a 4-yr. period. She accused him of lying and said that he was the one who raped her, and that if she went to the police, he would say she molested him, and she feared losing her career and her 5-year-old child. She was acquitted of all charges by a jury who didn’t believe what the boy said.

Ashley Jo Beach, 38, a middle school teacher, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her relationship with a 13-year old boy, a former student. Prosecutors said Beach had targeted the boy from their first contact in April when he was only 12. "She began grooming him (buying him shoes and clothes, etc.) when he was in 6th grade and she was his teacher", said the prosecutor. Beach has admitted the relationship lasted over the summer and that they even had sex in her classroom with the door locked.

A judge determined yesterday that there had been jury misconduct in the case involving Adrienne E. Feistel, 36, who faces several charges related to child molestation. Feistel is accused of several felonies, including lewd acts with a child under 14 and sexual activity with a child under 18. She remains out of jail on $50,000 bail. She worked as a teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary School in San Diego, but resigned in 2006. School officials have declined to give the reason for her resignation.

Mark Kinney, 47, was arrested after an extensive investigation by the Sheriff's Child Abuse Unit with the assistance of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the San Diego D.A's office. He is charged with lewd acts with a child, manufacturing child pornography, and possession of child pornography. Kinney is a musician and a private music instructor. Sheriff's investigators are concerned because many of his students are children. Therefore, there is the possibility of unreported victims. He maintained a music studio in Ramona. However, he taught private lessons throughout San Diego County. Anyone who believes they may have been victimized is urged to call Sheriff's Detective Chris Davis at 858-974-2310.

Corey Hogue, 37, a physical education teacher at Oceanside High School was arrested yesterday on allegations that he had a two-year sexual relationship with a student, beginning when she was 15 years old. The female student reported the relationship to the police in late October, telling detectives that the sexual encounters took place at Hogue's house in Oceanside, where he lives with his wife and children, including a daughter who is a freshman at the same school. Hogue was hired in 2006 to teach physical education and health, as well as coach boys varsity basketball at Oceanside High. He also co-founded Kings Court Basketball and Training, which offers individualized coaching.

Raymond Lewis Firth, 38, a former teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary School in Carlsbad, CA, pleaded not guilty to charges that he molested three third-grade students during the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years. Trial is set for Jan. 12. If found guilty on all counts, Firth faces up to 18 years in state prison.

A former Winchester middle school teacher's aide has pleaded guilty to charges he used the Internet to lure girls into pornography and sex, and raped one 14-year-old. Prosecutors said 29-year-old Christopher French, who was a special education aide at McCall Middle School, groomed girls though online chats by sending and receiving naked photographs. In one case, prosecutors said he raped a 14-year old girl at her house. Authorities said French committed crimes against six underaged female victims. He was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of 2 ½ years at the Billerica House of Corrections.

John Spring, 57, a former Lutheran school teacher, has been charged with possessing dozens of images of child pornography on his home computer. Spring was a science teacher at Trinity Lutheran School in Hicksville from 1974 to 2007. Investigations began in August 2007 when Spring was observed starting at boys at the Eisenhower Park Aquatic Center and following them into the locker room.

Robert Melvin Goode Jr, 60, has pleaded guilty to one count of continues sexual abuse of a minor and one count of forcible lewd acts upon a child. Goode Jr, a North county school administrator was given 12 years in prison after pleading guilty. Goode Jr, began abusing the girl when she was 8 and continued until she was 14. Goode Jr, worked at Classical Academy High School in Escondido.

Carmina Erica Lopez, 33, is charged with eight counts of committing a lewd act on a child. She was arrested in Jan. 2008 when allegations of her alleged four-year sexual relationship with the victim came to light. Lopez is also accused of having sexual intercourse with the alleged victim in her home. The molestation began when the boy was 11 and Lopez was a sixth-grade teacher at Nester Elementary school in Chula Vista. The boy now 15, has told CPS that Lopez had repeatedly forced him to have sex with her starting in 2004 and continuing until last June. The boy is Lopez’s godson and was her student.

The City school system fired three people over the hiring of a Teacher who now faces child sex abuse charges in Nashville and Chattanooga. Officials said procedures were not followed in reviewing the application of Ronald Boykin as he moved from a support job to a teaching post.

Adrienne Elizabeth Feistel, 35, was a fifth grade Teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary school in City Heights. Feistel is being accused of committing lewd acts on a child under 14. Feistel, if convicted, faces a significant amount of time in prison. The fifth grade teacher started having sex with the boy when he was in the seventh grade. She  moved in with the family and would sneak into the boys room after the family was asleep.

Stephanie Jo Walters, 27, has been accused of engaging in sexual acts with a 14-year-old student. Walters has been a teacher at Musselman Middle School for five years. Walters had approached a student and led him to a janitor's closet where they kissed. Walters had the boy touch her while she rubbed him inappropriately.

Melissa Lavender, 32, a former culinary arts teacher, has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted aggravated stalking, as a plea agreement. Lavender was originally accused of engaging in sex acts with two students under the age of 18.

Robert Douglas Johnston, 61, has pleaded guilty on charges of sexual abuse. Johnston was a band director at Mt. Hebron High school since 1969. He was involved with one of his students for two years. After investigating, police believe Johnston had been sexually abusing the girl inside the school since she was 15. A grand jury indicted Johnston on counts of sexual abuse of a minor, third and fourth degree sex offense, and obscene telephone misuse, according to court documents.

Gary Wilcox, 43, is accused of having sex with a sixteen-year-old student. Wilcox is a geography teacher and girls soccer coach. Wilcox has taught at Helix High since 1995. Wilcox is being charged for having sex with a minor, among several other charges. Wilcox was later found guilty and was sentenced to one year in jail and three years probation.

Edgardo Carlos Vilas, 42, was sentenced to three years in federal prison for possessing child pornography. Vilas taught at Rancho Del Campo, which is a ranch facility where students are juvenile offenders. Vilas' computer contained over 600 images of minors who were involved in sexual acts with an adult.

John Kyujoon Lee, 40, has pleaded guilty to statutory rape and three other sex-related charges. Lee was a teacher at the San Diego school of Creative and Performing Arts in Paradise Hills. Lee had started a relationship with a girl who at that time was 15. Lee continued to be involved with her till she was 18. Lee is also facing 10 felony and misdemeanor crimes, which could give him an additional eight years in prison.

Angela Renee Comer, 28, had pleaded guilty of third-degree sodomy. Comer was having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student and had taken him to Mexico to escape authorities.

Rachel Holt, 35, had pleaded guilty to second-degree rape. Holt was initially charged with 28 counts of first-degree rape. Holt a sixth-grade science teacher was having sex with a 13-year-old student and will now spend 10 years in prison.

Dennis Michael McKeown, 42, has pleaded guilty to three counts of committing lewd acts on a child under the age of 14. McKeown had been molesting his nephew at his home in La Mesa, CA. while babysitting him.

Mark Vail, 27, who was a teacher and coach at a church school has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Vail was convicted for having sex with a 12-year-old student.

A former South Bay schools assistant principal was arrested on child pornography charges after he was pulled out of a meeting at a yacht club. He was among thousands of people identified nationwide through credit card transactions used for membership in child pornography web sites, according to court documents. Because there are so many possible suspects, authorities said they prioritize investigations of people in positions of trust.

Kari Lynne St. Onge, 30, is a teacher at Le Grand Elementary. St Onge faces up to eight years in prison and fines up to $10,000. St Onge engaged in a sex act with a boy who was her student in Dec. 2002.

Jason Abhyan Kar, 28, has been found guilty of nine counts of molestation. Abhyan an elementary school teacher was charged with molesting boys, ages 9 to 11. Abhyan was the fourth grade teacher at Village View Elementary school in Huntington Beach and Portola Hills elementary school in Trabucco Canyon.

Shawn Austin Owen,29, a substitute teacher worked as an assistant coach for the Mira Mesa High boys basketball, football and baseball teams. He also coached girls softball. Owen had been involved in illegal sexual acts with minors for the past four years, before being caught. Owen faces charges that could include multiple counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and other illegal sex acts.

Matthew Louis Haar, 32, a physical education teacher at La Mesa Middle school has been charged and sentenced to six months in jail for having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl.