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.