Friday, September 5, 2008

Mass. man says he molested girl

Nashua Telegraph
Mass. man says he molested girl
By ANDREW WOLFE Staff Writer awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com
NASHUA – A Massachusetts man opted to admit to molesting a Hollis girl rather than face a third trial, which both he and the victim were eager to avoid, the prosecutor said Thursday.Christopher Blanchette, 34, of Tyngsborough, Mass., admitted to a single count of aggravated felonious sexual assault and was sentenced to 3-1/2 to seven years in prison, to remain deferred and then suspended so long as he stays out of trouble, Assistant Hillsborough County Attorney Kent Smith said.Blanchette previously was sentenced to 10-20 years in prison after he was convicted at his second trial in Hillsborough County Superior Court last year. His first trial ended with the jury deadlocked, evenly split between conviction and acquittal.A judge reversed Blanchette's conviction, however, after investigators with the state Division of Children Youth and Families turned up additional information about the victim's alleged sexual activities around the time she first disclosed the alleged assaults. Judge William Groff found that the new information was relevant and could potentially sway jurors, because Blanchette's defense revolved largely around the girl's credibility.Blanchette was one of two men convicted of sexually abusing the same girl in otherwise unrelated cases. The other man pleaded guilty to a reduced charge in 2006.The girl recently started her first year at the University of New Hampshire and was reluctant to go through a third trial and testify against Blanchette yet again, Smith said. The young woman overcame challenges, including the sexual assaults and a drug-abusing parent, and made it into college but "really didn't want to do another trial," Smith said. Blanchette had also testified in his two previous trials and denied molesting the girl. On Thursday, he admitted that he had, in fact, done so. As part of the plea bargain, Smith said he agreed that he wouldn't prosecute Blanchette for perjury."If he was willing to admit it, I was willing to forgive and forget," Smith said.Blanchette previously served nine months in prison before his conviction was overturned, Smith said. He will be required to register with police as a sex offender and undergo treatment and counseling as part of the plea bargain, Smith said.Blanchette was accused of molesting the girl about five nights a week for more than a year in 2000 and 2001, when she was around 10 and 11 years old and living with relatives in Hollis because of her mother's drug addiction, prosecutors have said previously. The girl testified Blanchette repeatedly came into the room and molested her after she'd gone to bed, and police found semen on the carpet beside the girl's bed, which DNA tests matched to Blanchette.Blanchette and his lawyer argued the girl made up the allegations because she hoped to get out of the house and move back in with her mother, however. The girl had first disclosed the alleged abuse when she was 13, while police were investigating alleged assaults by the other man.
Andrew Wolfe can be reached at 594-6410 or awolfe@nashuatelegraph.com
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080905/NEWS01/309059908/-1/news

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Billerica police charge man, 61 with rape of a child

Lowell Sun
Billerica police charge man, 61, with rape of a child
The Lowell Sun

09/01/2008

Sun staff report
BILLERICA -- Police have charged a 61-year-old homeless man with five counts of rape of a child after a concerned citizen reported suspicious activity off Governor Doherty Road on Sunday night.
Dennis Collins was also charged with payment of sex for a fee, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and assault of a child with intent to rape.
According to police, a citizen called police to report seeing an older man in a car with a young boy Sunday about 10:50 p.m., near the power lines along Governor Doherty Road.
When the caller approached the car, the man drove off abruptly. The caller, fearing that the boy's safety was in jeopardy, followed the car out of the power lines and into the surrounding neighborhood.
The caller then contacted Billerica police and told them where the man's car was. Before police could catch up with the car, it drove into Burlington, where it was stopped by Burlington police.
Billerica police detectives also responded to the stop in Burlington, where they began an investigation and arrested Collins.
Police did not release the age of the boy.
Collins was being held without bail until his arraignment this morning in Lowell District Court.
Governor Doherty Road is in the Salem Road area of East Billerica.

GPS no substitue for jail time

GPS no substitute for jail time

By Maureen Boyle
GateHouse News Service
Posted Sep 01, 2008

Philip Silva of Middleboro was sent home to await trial in Wareham District Court on assault and battery charges, an electronic monitoring device on his ankle to make sure he stayed here.
He was still wearing it when police raided his Middleboro home last year to arrest him on drug charges.
Paul McKay of North Attleboro was still wearing the GPS monitoring unit he was ordered to wear by a Superior Court judge after his arrest on child molestation charges when he was accused of assaulting a second child in Norton days later.
They are two of the estimated 1,500 offenders statewide each day either out on bail or on probation monitored by either a radio frequency device alerting authorities if they leave home or a Global Positioning System device tracking where they go.
Most, authorities say, follow the rules and stay out of trouble.
A handful do not.
“A lot of judges will put people on GPS instead of putting people in prison,” said Laurie A. Myers, president of Community Voices, a group working to tighten sex offender laws. “Obviously it is a good tool but it can’t replace keeping these guys locked up.”
The key, several said, is to make sure the right people are wearing the devices and knowing the limitations of the program.
“What is monitored is compliance,” said Jean-Ellen Ouellette-Kenney, chief probation officer at Brockton District Court.
The radio frequency devices are used when a person is on home confinement as part of a bail condition, sentence or probation. It sends a signal when the person leaves the house, alerting someone who is monitoring the device through the state probation office.
“It is used to check to see if the person is where they are supposed to be and where they are supposed to be is at home,” Ouellette-Kenney said.
GPS devices — used in cases where the person doesn’t have to stay at home — can track where a suspect or probationer is but not what they’re doing.
Authorities can program areas where the person can’t be — such as a school or day care center in the case of a sex offender or a victim in another case.
“They can monitor someone’s route when they driving, but you don’t know who could be in the vehicle with the person,” Ouellette-Kenney said. “The person can be in their home, but you can set up a (drug) drive-through window in your driveway. You can batter the person with whom you live .... “I couldn’t tell you that someone on a bracelet isn’t sitting on their porch, stroking a puppy, saying ‘Little girl, come over here.’”
That is why only about two dozen people with cases in Brockton District Court are on electronic monitoring devices. There are 14 people on GPS devices and a dozen on the radio frequency monitoring devices used for home confinement.
“In Brockton, the judges have been very choosy,” Ouellette-Kenney said. “We don’t have anywhere near the number of people on bracelets that the other courts do.”
Electronic monitoring has advantages, when used with the right defendant or probationer.
It allows the offender to keep working — saving the cost of housing him or her in jail or prison — and can free space for other, more dangerous offenders, according to a study by the U.S. Department of Justice.
One study in a major city found even those who try to walk away from the monitoring devices are caught with 24 hours and other studies found authorities respond within 20 minutes, according to the Justice Department.
But the monitoring devices aren’t fool proof. In Argentina, a man put on an electronic monitoring device last year reportedly found a way to circumvent the device and is now accused of killing a family.
In Massachusetts, those on GPS system pay $10 a day to lease the equipment needed.
Ouellette-Kenney said those on the devices are also checked on by probation officers in surprise visits. Some of the monitoring equipment have Breathalyzer-type devices built in to check, randomly, for alcohol.
All of the devices can be a plus in monitoring people but it can’t be used alone.
“It is a tool. It can either be a sharp-edged tool or a dull tool,” Ouellette-Kenney said. “It is how it is maintained and how it is applied.”
Maureen Boyle can be reached at mboyle@enterprisenews.com.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Sex offender restrictions inconsistent

Boston Globe
Sex offender restrictions inconsistent

By James O'Brien
Globe Correspondent / August 3, 2008
Advocates of tougher restrictions on convicted sex offenders in several northwest communities are pushing for ordinances to ban released convicts from schools, libraries, and playgrounds, and to place posters of offenders' names and faces around town.
American Civil Liberties Union officials warn that restriction zones and posters could violate the civil rights of not only sex offenders who have served prison sentences but also innocent people who live in these communities.
The issue has come to the fore in Methuen, where the City Council last month approved, in the first of two votes, a $300 fine for Level 3 sex offenders traveling within 1,000 feet of schools, libraries, daycare centers, and playgrounds. It also approved the use of townwide posters.
The second and final vote is scheduled for tomorrow in Methuen on the restriction, the $300 fine, and the posters.
City Councilor at Large Kenneth R. Willette Jr., who initiated the proposal, said he wants Methuen to have more say about sex offenders. "Give police the power of arrest and add criminal penalties to arrests. The state has to give cities and towns greater powers to enforce restrictions."
Michael J. Hayden, School Committee member at Greater Lowell Technical High School, said pictures of area Level 3 sex offenders would now appear on central school bulletin boards. Like Willette, Hayden wants broader measures.
"I would like to see City Council posting them on city bulletin boards," Hayden said. "You go into a park, and here are all the people you should be wary of."
But to Christopher Ott, communications director at the ACLU of Massachusetts, the new ordinances are problematic. "A 12-year-old is going to accurately remember what a photocopied image looked like while walking along the street?" Ott said. "There are so many possibilities for things to go wrong."
Beyond mistaken identification and the possibility of residents harassing the actual pictured offenders, Ott said, papering the town with mug shots compromises the concept of serving a finite prison sentence. "These measures are essentially trying to punish people for life," Ott said.
Hayden said the posters are not supposed to fuel confrontation. "That's not my intention," Hayden said. "If I have to sacrifice one sex offender for one student, . . . when you reach the level of a Level 3 sex offender, that's a lifelong tag that you elected to put on yourself."
The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board defines Level 3 sex offenders as people who are dangerous to the public and pose the highest risk of repeating their crimes. The board actively disseminates information about such offenders, most of whom have been convicted of sexually violent offenses against adults or children, or sex-related crimes against minors.
In Derry, N.H., Town Councilor at Large Kevin Coyle wanted to ban Level 3 offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of schools and day-care centers. The council dropped the proposal in April.
Objectors thought ordinances would drive offenders underground, Coyle said. "I didn't buy that, especially in New Hampshire. You might be able to drive someone underground in Boston or New York, but not New Hampshire."
The Nashua Board of Aldermen did pass such a residency ban, creating a 1,000-foot zone around schools and playgrounds, but Mayor Bernard Streeter vetoed the ordinance during his final days in office last January.
Alderman Steven A. Bolton, who proposed the residency restriction, was on vacation and unavailable for comment.
Barbara Keshen, staff attorney for the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union, said Streeter's veto left aldermen with the option of restarting the process. But, she said, residency restrictions are increasingly unpopular.
"They're ebbing throughout the country, not just New Hampshire," Keshen said. "People who are in positions of power are becoming more educated to the real impact of these ordinances. They're not promoting them, they're not advancing them."
Evidence, according to Keshen, continues to appear. A state appeals court in New Jersey, for example, struck down sex-offender residency restrictions in dozens of Garden State towns last month.
In north-central Massachusetts, proposals for restriction zones reveal a shortcoming of the state, said Laurie Myers of Chelmsford, president of sex-offender legislation group Community Voices. Each new proposal, she said, represents a community struggling not to become "the next sex-offender town" as ordinances are passed, driving out neighboring offenders.
"The only reason why selectmen come up with residency restrictions is out of frustration that legislators aren't doing anything," Myers said. "The laws that are supposed to protect us are not working. Residency restrictions are the only thing a town can do."
Myers said she was encouraged by Governor Deval Patrick's recent signing of House Bill 4811, setting minimum mandatory sentences of 10 to 20 years for certain sex offenses. "I think people will now see sex offenders getting time for crimes," she said.
In Derry, Coyle said the Town Council is awaiting a trial stemming from Dover's 2,500-foot restriction zone. The New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union challenged the zone as unconstitutional in May. If either party appeals the pending Superior Court ruling, the state Supreme Court will decide the matter. If the high court upholds the zone, Coyle said, he plans to revive his proposal for specific limits in Derry.
Willette in Methuen said Coyle's caution in New Hampshire informs his strategy. "That's the best we can do at this stage. I don't want to open a can of worms with a residency restriction that would be challenged in court on the basis of constitutionality."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

Accused child molester wearing GPS arrested again

Accused child molester wearing GPS device arrested again for same crime in Norton

ANKLE BRACELET DOESN’T DETER ATTACK BY BAILED MAN, NORTON POLICE SAY

Paul McKay was still wearing a court-ordered a GPS monitoring device when he was arrested again Wednesday — accused of molesting another teenage girl in town.

By Maureen Boyle
ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
Aug 22, 2008

NORTON —
When Paul McKay was in court last week, accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl, the judge released the 44-year-old man on the condition he post $20,000 in bail and wear a GPS monitoring device.
McKay was still wearing that ankle bracelet when he was arrested again Wednesday — accused of molesting another teenaged girl in town.
“I can’t remember anything like this before,” said Norton Sgt. Todd M. Jackson.
McKay, 44, of 30 Juniper Road, North Attleboro, was arraigned Thursday on a charge of indecent assault and battery in connection with an Aug. 19 incident near cranberry bogs off Bay Road in town.
His bail on the earlier charge was revoked and McKay was ordered held without bail on the new charge.
In the latest case, he is accused of picking up a 17-year-old Taunton girl at her home Aug. 19 then driving to the bog area and molesting her.
McKay was a friend of the girl’s family, police said.
He was arrested Wednesday at his home by Detective Todd Bramwell following an investigation into the allegations of the Aug. 19 incident.
Detective Sgt. Thomas Petersen and Norton Officer. Brian Greco assisted in the case along with North Attleboro police Detectives Michael Elliott and Daniel Arrighi.
The case mirrors McKay’s arrest days earlier.
Jackson said the suspect was arrested Aug. 11 on charges of indecent assault and battery involving a 14-year-old girl.
In that case, McKay — who was described again as a family friend — was accused of molesting the teenaged girl Aug. 1.
After he was arrested Aug. 11 following an investigation, he was arraigned in Attleboro District court where bail was set at $20,000 cash.
In addition to the bail, he was ordered to stay away from the girl and wear the monitoring device.
McKay is not in the state sex offender data base, Charles McDonald, spokesman for the state sex offender registry.
To be in the state data base, a person must be convicted of a sex offense, registered as a sex offender or registered with the registry and awaiting classification.
Experts say sex offenders registries are a good tool for a community but many sex offenders aren’t on the registry because they haven’t been caught.
Studies also show that in many cases, the offenders know the victims.
The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in 90 percent of the rape cases involving children under age 12, the child knew the offender. In cases where the victim was 18 to 29, two third of the victims knew the rapist, the bureau found.
Maureen Boyle can be reached at mboyle@enterprisenews.com.

http://www.enterprisenews.com/homepage/x1657300593/Accused-child-molester-wearing-GPS-device-arrested-again-in-a-separate-molestation-case-in-Norton