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Articles Tagged with child sexual abuse

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NYC_DOE_LogoA Brooklyn public school teacher has been arrested after a 16-year-old student reported that he sexually abused her inside a Coney Island school. According to police, Steven Schnee, 48, was taken into custody at the school Wednesday afternoon and charged with forcible touching, endangering the welfare of a child, and sexual abuse.

The student told investigators that the teacher allegedly inappropriately touched her leg and made her feel uncomfortable. Authorities have not yet publicly identified the school or disclosed when the alleged incident occurred. Schnee, who earned approximately $140,000 last year working for the New York City Department of Education, was awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court.

While the criminal case will determine whether the accused teacher faces penalties under New York law, incidents like this also raise important questions about civil liability and the responsibility of schools to protect students from abuse.

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KIPP scholl where the sexual abused occurredA teacher at KIPP NYC who allegedly groomed and sexually abused a female student for years was recently arrested and the school’s principal was fired for not proprely handling the matter.

39 year old Cesar Sanchez, a science teacher at KIPP Washington Heights Middle School, started to make lewd and sexually suggestive comments to the victim when she was in fourth grade and became more and more aggressive in his behavior. By the time the girl was in seventh grade, he was groping her.  The abuse stopped when the class was remote during the covid19 lockdown and started again when students started to attend school in person again. According to the complaint, Sanchez touched the student’s breast and pushed his crotch against her. The abuse was discovered after another female student complained to her parents that Sanchez blurred student-teacher boundaries by asking her to be friends on Instagram which made her uncomfortable. The parents reached out to school officials and during a conversation with them the girl told them that she had heard Sanchez had been behaving inappropriately with another girl.

Sanchez was considered an excellent teacher and was the recipient of the 2018 New York Family “Blackboard Award”. He is married to another KIPP school principal and has two children.  He was arrested and arraigned on December 23rd and charged with sexual conduct against a child and endangering child welfare.

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Professor Daniel PollackFrom sexual abuse to physical or emotional abuse as well as maltreatment and neglect, child abuse can have various forms. It occurs when a parent or a caregiver causes injury or death to a child because of his or her action or failing to act.

Very often child abuse is discovered and reported by people surrounding the child. Each State has laws requiring “Mandated Reporters” to report concerns of child abuse. In New York, some professionals such as doctors, nurses, social workers, emergency healthcare workers, dentists, medical examiners coroners and other medical professionals are mandated to report any suspicion of child abuse.  Therapists and mental health counselors  as well as anyone working in the education system as well as police officers and district attorneys and some people working with them such as investigators are mandated to report any suspicion of child abuse.

Sometimes however, mandated reporters hesitate to report suspicion of child abuse. In a recent article, Dr. Michaela A. Medved, MA, TSSLD, CCC-SLP, ClinScD, a Clinical Assistant Professor at Yeshiva University’s Katz School of Science and Health in New York City and Daniel Pollack, MSW, Esq., a professor at Yeshiva University’s School of Social Work in New York City  explains why some mandated reporters hesitate in reporting their suspicions. They found in a previous study that reporters are more reluctant to report their concerns when the abuse is mild or less apparent or experienced by children with disabilities.

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A nyc school teacher was arrested for having sex with an underaged victim. 31 year old Zeshaan Naqvi is a teacher at The Young Women’s Leadership School in Jamaica, Queens, a girl only NYC public school serving more than 500 girls in Grades 6 through 12.

The teacher knew that the victim was underage

The sexual predator who lives in Queens Village in NYC met his victim, a teenage girl, online and knew she was underage. They chatted online for 3 months after which the teacher booked a flight ticket to Tampa and a hotel room on Falkenburg Road in Tampa, FL.

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Theodore_Cardinal_McCarrickAn in-depth Vatican report about Cardinal McCarrick’s sexual misconduct with children and young adults indicates that when pope John Paul II appointed him to Washington in 2000 and created him cardinal in early 2001, he was aware of the following child sexual abuse allegations against McCarrick:

  • A priest complaint that McCarrick tried to engage in sexual activity with him in the summer of 1987 when McCarrick was Archbishop of Newark . The same priest who at that time was part of the Diocese of Metuchen also alleged that he saw McCarrick engaging in sexual activity with another priest in June 1987
  • Anonymous letters accusing McCarrick of pedophilia with his nephews were sent to multiple cardinals in the US and to the the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Apostolic Nuncio
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John Russel, a New Yorker who has been accused several times of sexually abusing underage girls was arrested last July after an underage Asian-American victim came forward and alleged that the 59 year old man had engaged in oral sex and intercourse with her and a criminal complaint charges him with two felony counts of sexual conduct against a child after he asked the victim to take pictures and record videos of him engaging with another underage girl.

Russell who had a brief career as an actor back in the 80ies and landed parts in Law & Order and a few movies had been a City College of New York researcher. He obviously lost his job however one might question why this man was ever hired to work around teenagers as his history of sexually abusing children goes back to July 1999.

At this time, Russel had moved to a house in Bethel, Vermont, with his wife and two kids.  While they were looking for a baby-sitter, Russel brought a 14 year old girl to his house so she supposedly would get familiar with the place. When she was there Russel undressed her and had sex with her. After they finished he told the girl that if she mentioned what happen between them to anyone he would deny it all and that he would never go to jail because he had children.

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Jerry Harris, one of the stars of the Netflix show “Cheer” has been arrested after he was charged with producing child pornography.  The 21 year old man admitted to the FBI that he had been interacting with several minors on Snapchat asking them to send him pictures and videos of their genitals.

Jerry Harris is also the subject of a lawsuit which was filed 3 days ago on behalf of two twin boys. According to the complaint, Jerry sent them sexually explicit pictures of himself and tried to corner one of them in a bathroom and  asked him to perform oral sex on him.

Jerry Harris became a TV star after the show Netflix “Cheer” started to follow his cheerleading team from Navarro College in Texas in its attempt to win the national title.

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A catholic priest from New York City has been arrested after sharing pornographic material with a 15-year-old boy. Rev Francis Hughes was arrested yesterday morning by the FBI after he allegedly shared sexually explicit text messages and pictures with a teenager from Westchester. The FBI found half a dozen pictures that the priest and the boy exchanged since last February. The FBI also indicated that they connected several times on “Grindr”, a dating app for gay, bi and trans people. The priest asked the teen “How would you like to be spoiled by your grandpa?” and suggested to make the relationship “a regular thing”.

The 65 year old priest told the FBI that he knew that the boy was underage. He also admitted that he previously met a teen boy on school ground in Queens and had sex with him. He also tried multiple times to have sexual relationships with other boys.

Father Francis Hughes was removed from his post of pastor at the St. Pancras Roman Catholic Church in Glendale, Queens.

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LoryProfessorDanielPollackPeer on peer child sexual abuse occurs when a child sexually abuses another child. In the US, States and even regions have different views and legislation when it comes to defining “peers” and if a sexual act between teenagers is consensual and legal or punishable.  In a recent article in Youth Today, Daniel Pollack M.S.S.A. (M.S.W.), Esq., a professor at the School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, New York City and Lori S. Kornblum, Esq. an adjunct faculty member at Marquette University Law School and an instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College (Paralegal Department) explain why the law and terminology should be standardized when if comes to  sexual activities among teenagers.

While it is quite common for teenagers to have a sexual relationship with each other, their relationship can be legal or illegal depending in which state it occurs.  In many states teens under a certain age are unable to consent and sexual activity under that age is criminalized as “statutory rape”. The age of consent often varies between 16 and 18 year old. However because many teenagers below the age of consent are having sexual relationships, many States have adopted “Romeo and Juliet” laws that decriminalize sex between two teens as long as it stays between a specific age-gap, The age-gap however differs from one State to the other and can go from 2 years to 6 years. The age-gap laws only apply if the sex was consensual between both teens and no violence is involved.

According to the authors of the article the age-gap laws tend to make more uniform the manner how similar aged teens having a sexual relationship are prosecuted or not and put in place general community standards in regards to this particular behavior. The age-gap laws tend to standardize punishment but don’t address larger issues and questions such as whether  older teens should have sex with pre-teens.

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helpWell before the passage of the Child Victims Act, the child sexual abuse attorneys at Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf have been fighting for justice on behalf of victims of sexual abuse.  Our top results speak to our commitment to ensuring survivors of sexual abuse receive justice.

It is for these reasons that we support the recent extension of time to January 14, 2021, for survivors of child sexual abuse to file a claim for monetary damages against their abusers and the institutions that allowed the abuse to happen.

In 2019, the New York State legislature enacted the Child Victims Act (“CVA”).  Before the CVA was passed, survivors of child sexual abuse had a very limited period of time (known as a statute of limitation) in which to bring a civil lawsuit against their abusers.  The CVA did two important things: (1) extended the statute of limitations for civil claims, allowing survivors to file a claim until they are 55 years old; and (2) opened up a one year “look-back” window that allowed victims whose sexual abuse claims were previously barred by the old statute of limitations, to file suit.  This one year “look back” which was supposed to expire on August 14, 2020 has been extended by Governor Andrew Cuomo from August 14, 2020 until January 14, 2021.  Our New York sexual abuse attorneys are eager to continue to fight on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse and help them secure compensation that will ensure they are protected for life.

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