Guardian Brevard

News

Despite rejecting plea offers at the last-minute, two Titusville child molesters are on their way to prison.  Raymond Robles (48),  and Leon Booker III (49), received lengthy jail sentences by order of Judge John Griesbaum, April 14th and 15th.

Booker was first to be dispatched,  pleading “Guilty” on Monday April 14 to Attempted Sexual Battery on a Child, and Lewd Molestation of a Child. He was on the dock for abusing an eight year-old girl in 2005.  Exploiting an intimate relationship he enjoyed with the child’s mother, Booker would assault the girl at night when her mother was asleep.

Booker’s case was set for trial after he rejected the plea deal arranged by his Public Defender. His request for a new lawyer was refused by the court and Booker was faced with the prospect of going before a jury.  A guilty verdict could have sent him away for two lifetimes.

The evidence against Booker included a videotaped admission during a police interrogation, as well as two telephone conversations between Booker and his victim. Prosecutors said he incriminated himself in the conversations which were secretly recorded by Titusville Police.  The State Attorney agreed to reduce the charges in order to arrive at a sentence of twenty-five years in prison followed by probation for life.

On passing sentence, Judge Griesbaum asked Booker to describe the sexual assaults.  Known for his refusal to approve a negotiated plea unless the defendant admits his guilt, Griesbaum threatened to call a jury for trial unless Booker clearly described his actions.

Booker said he has found religion since he fondled the child and rubbed his genitals against hers. He told the court that he was under the influence of ecstacy and cocaine during the assaults.  He will be 74 years old when he is released from prison.

There was no need for Raymond Robles to say much. At his sentencing the next morning, two members of his victim’s family told the judge how the crimes had devastated their family. Sobbing, the girl’s father said Robles was a trusted friend, and that he was treated as a member of the family. They said the girl required extensive counseling.

Robles was arrested in December 2011 on twenty-five counts of sexual abuse on an eight year-old child.  The activity came to light when a family member walked in on Robles and the child, lying on a bed, in an inappropriate position. Questioned by her parents, the girl disclosed a variety of offenses.  She said Robles fondled her genitals and masturbated in her presence.  He forced the child to view pornographic videos downloaded to his cell phone. Robles allegedly told the girl he wanted to marry her and move to their own home so they could have sex without interference.

According to the investigative report, a similar complaint was filed against Robles in Orange County in 2005.  The Department of Children and Families investigated Robles for sexually abusing the seven year-old daughter of his former girlfriend.  However, no charges were filed in the case.

Like Booker, Robles refused to approve the plea offer set for disposition the previous day.  He balked at the length of the probation term to be served after his release from prison.  The original charges against Robles included eight counts that carry life sentences for each conviction. Robles finally agreed to be sentenced on the three charges which remained.  He will serve six years in prison followed by twenty years of probation.

Members of Protect Our Children’s Court Monitor Team attended both days of the hearings at the Titusville Historic Courthouse.

“Boot Hill Cemetary”, near the site of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, is believed to hold the remains of murdered children. A former student inspects the graves in Marianna.

Guardian Brevard

News

Attorney General Pam Bondi has asked the Fourteenth District Court to allow a medical examiner to exhume bodies from a grave site, near a notorious reform school in Florida’s panhandle.

Former inmates of The Dozier School for Boys, claim the bodies of boys neglected and abused at the facility, are buried at the site.

Calling themselves “The White House Boys,” the group began to push for an investigation of the institution in 2009.  The “White House” was the name of the cell block where boys selected for punishment were reportedly brutalized. The men say some boys never returned from the tiny block structure where a metal-studded belt was used to beat them.  Some former inmates described systematic sexual abuse.  A class action law suit filed by the group was dropped in 2010.

Last year, a team from the University of South Florida located remains buried in shallow, unmarked graves.  The group used ground-penetrating radar to locate multiple graves whose existence is not recorded. But the identity and cause of death of the individuals interred there, can not be determined until the bodies are removed and examined.

Noting that the families of the missing, young men deserved closure, Bondi’s petition asks for one year to conduct the examinations.  The school was located about sixty miles North of Tallahassee, and operated from 1900 until 1952.

Ryan M. Holland, 22, is back in jail for soliciting a child via the internet. He was one of fifty men arrested in “Operation Cardea”.

See Holland’s arrest reports below article

Guardian-Brevard

News, Melbourne

A Melbourne man dodged a bullet back in November 2010.  The nine sex charges against him could have sent him away for many years.  He would have been registered as a sex offender for life.  But Brevard prosecutors agreed to drop the sex charges in return for his “guilty” plea on a felony battery charge.

On January 10, 2012,  Ryan Holland was arrested again for soliciting sex from a minor on the internet.  One of fifty people hooked up in Operation Cardea, an F.D.L.E. internet sting based in Seminole County, Holland allegedly violated his probation and scored new charges for solicitation of a child and resisting arrest.       Holland thought he was having a sex chat with a fourteen year-old girl. But he was talking to a cop – a member of a multi-agency team posing as children on the net, in order to draw out predators living in our neighborhoods.

Brevard County Sheriffs arrested Holland in September 2010 on four counts of Lewd Battery and five counts of Lewd Molestation.  He admitted to having intercourse with a thirteen year-old girl who consented to the activity. Holland was age eighteen at the time.

According to the complaint, the sex took place in Holland’s bedroom, in the presence of another thirteen year-old girl and a seventeen year-old boy.  “He had been involved with a group of teens that he knew from school.” says Assistant State Attorney Julia Lynch, “His relationship with the victim stemmed directly from that group of friends.”

Holland’s youth and his lack of a criminal record factored heavily in the decision to  drop the 2010 sex charges.  The victim reportedly referred to Holland as her “boyfriend”.

Lynch defended the decision in a statement to The Guardian January 24th: “Due to the issues of consent, alcohol consumption, and admitted lies told to parents, the case was resolved with a felony disposition.”

Lynch is Chief of the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Division in Brevard County.  “The decision was made with the concurrence of the case agent and the victim’s parent,” she said. Holland was sentenced to serve three years on probation and to pay a $1,000 dollar fine.

He is being held without bond in the Brevard County Jail on one count of Computer Solicitation of a Child, and Violation of State Probation.     Police collared him at his Melbourne home without incident, after FDLE agents identified Holland through his IP address.  Since he was in violation of his probation, it was not necessary to have him travel to Seminole County in order to make an arrest.

According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Holland asked the imaginary teen to answer the door in the nude.  The arrest report says he asked the decoy to perform oral sex and have intercourse with him.  The communications took place in a chat room called “Teen-Chat.org”

Holland’s 2010 Arrest Report      Holl_2010

Holland’s 2012 Arrest Report      Holland Affidavit (2)

Justin McCloy will serve 63 years in prison for sexually assaulting a local boy, 13.

Guardian-Brevard

News, Viera – January 2, 2013

Justin Michael McCloy, 23,  was given credit for serving In Iraq as an Army Reservist.  His cooperation with police in admitting to abusing a thirteen year-old boy, was noted by the court.  The abusive childhood he described on the witness stand, including his claim that he was sexually molested by multiple perpetrators since the age of six, was carefully weighed by Judge David Dugan, prior to sentencing him to the minimum penalty.

He will be 85 years old when he is released from prison.

The former National Guard member has been held in the Brevard County Jail since his arrest in July 2011. He accepted a plea deal in June 2012, dropping 43 of the 52 counts against him.  Despite the deal, McCloy could have received a 135 year sentence for the remaining charges.

The Jessica Lunsford Law, enacted in 2005, requires minimum mandatory sentences for sex crimes committed against children.  Florida law also prohibits early release or “Gain Time” for Felony sex offenders.

Rockledge Police found McCloy with the boy in the predawn hours of July 25, 2011,  after pulling him over for driving without headlights.  They found marijuana and condoms in the vehicle. His victim told police that McCloy would provide him transportation and give him money for drugs in exchange for sex.

McCloy had been close to the victim and his family since the boy was about nine. The sexual abuse began shortly after McCloy’s deployment ended and he returned to Rocklege in December 2010.

Psycologist, Dr William Reibesame testified for the defense, stating that McCloy suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well as Pedophilia.  He said the PTSD might stem from McCloy’s own abuse as a child or his experiences in Iraq. The portrayal of McCloy as a victim faded somewhat, when Dr. Reibesame admitted that McCloy might reoffend if released into the community.

“I always felt guilty when it happened”, McCloy said. He took the stand and testified wearing a jail jump suit and shackles.  McCloy said his innitial statements to police were inaccurate, when he estimated he had sexual contact with the boy fifty times in a six month period.

McCloy’s attempts to minimize his sentence and elicit sympathy from the court, were blunted when his testimony revealed more details about his crimes.  He admitted to making a video which police found on his computer, showing McCloy performing oral sex on the boy. Police retrieved numerous emails between McCloy and the victim in which he graphically discussed sexual acts.  McCloy also admitted that he digitally penetrated the child.  Prosecutors said his activities were part of a deliberate process of grooming the victim, in order to satisfy his sexual desires.

He will be on probation for life after his prison term is complete. Court Monitors from Protect Our Children were on hand for the hearing at the Moore Justice Center in Viera.

Neil Marsh wants Feds to stop issuing visas to sex offenders

Guardian-Brevard   Feature

A Merritt Island man has appealed to the First Lady for help in his fight to keep foreign sex offenders out of the United States.  Furious that the Feds are granting visas to  foreign nationals who have been registered as sex offenders in their homelands, Neil Marsh is asking Michelle Obama to mobilize a potent national resource – the mothers of America.

“You have the ear of American mothers,” he writes, “Please let them know just how dangerous this situation is.” His letter, mailed to the White House September 24, cites Pete Townshend’s current U.S. tour as an example of how people placed on  overseas sex registries have free reign to travel about this country.

Marsh says he is compelled to speak out because he regrets his silence after he was assaulted at the age of thirteen.  His abuser was Mark Dean Schwab, who went on to rape a boy in Merritt Island and murder eleven year-old Junny Rios-Martinez of Cocoa.”I know what can happen when predators are allowed to shed their criminal history and move invisibly.”

Protect Our Children joined other child advocacy groups protesting Townshend’s 2010 performance at the SuperBowl in Miami.  Townshend was placed on the British registry in 2003, for a period of five years, after accessing a Texas website that offered child pornography.  Records showed the legendary leader of the WHO used his credit card to enter the “Landslide” site, which had been taken over by the FBI.  Townshend is scheduled to perform at Orlando’s Amway Center, November 3rd.

In 2012, Protect Our Children objected to the planned visit of British punk rocker Jimmy Pursey,  frontman for the group “Sham69″.  He  received a “Caution” in 2002, from police in Weybridge, U.K., for committing an Indecent Assault on a teenage girl. The terms of the caution call for enrollment on the British registry.

Pursey cancelled his U.S. tour three weeks prior to his first venue in Brooklyn N.Y., in May 2012.  Months before, Protect Our Children publicized his sex offender background on their website and filed complaints with immigration officials. The Florida activists also notified law enforcement agencies in New York  and  Nevada - locations where he was due to perform. Pursey cited his father’s failing health as the reason for scrapping his US tour.

While U.S. Immigration laws address criminal convictions in screening visa applicants, they do not recognize sex offender registration as a reason to deny a visa.  This creates a blind spot in cases where British citizens have received a “Caution”, a procedure in which the offender can be placed on the national list without being sentenced in a criminal court.

“We only know about these two people because they are celebrities and their deeds have been covered in the media…” says child advocate Shelly Coyne, “…You have to wonder how many people are among us who have sex offenses in their past and visas in their pockets.”

The problem is compounded by significant differences in the way the two countries treat the information.  In the United Kingdom, the names of those listed are not made available to the public as they are in the United States.  Typically, registration for Americans is for life, while registration in the U.K. is for a specific period of time.

Coyne is a volunteer with  Protect Our Children’s Court Monitor Program. She says the Brevard County group asked U.S.  legislators to provide information about foreign visitors who have been listed as sex offenders. Letters were sent to Representative Elton Gallegly and Senator Chuck Schumer in May 2012, but neither lawmaker has responded.

“Their lack of response speaks volumes.” says Coyne, “When it comes to visiting sex offenders, there is no tracking of their movements and no accounting of their numbers.”

Gallegly and Schumer chair the Immigration Subcommittees in the House and Senate.

Driven by memories of his own abuse,  Neil Marsh is not about to be put off:  “The day I heard Mark Dean Schwab’s name on the five o’clock news, my life took a turn.  They were looking for this man, and a little boy was missing.  Something terrible had happened and I felt my silence made me complicit…”

Mark Dean Schwab

Released early from jail, Schwab was able to gain the trust of the Rios-Martinez family by posing as a reporter with a surfing magazine.  He claimed to be organizing a world surfing tour and was considering their son Junny for the team.  With no registration laws on the books at the time, the family was unaware of Schwab’s record.  As a result, he was able to get the child alone and take his life. Schwab was put to death in 2008 – seventeen years after the murder.

“Anyone who has been on a registry in another country should be denied entry to the U.S.” says Marsh  “We have the Jessica Lunsford Law in Florida. It’s named after a little girl who was murdered by a child molester who slipped out from under the registry.  Now, the  police are required to track them and inform local residents of their presence.  It turns a passive list into an active program of protection.   None of these state laws can be enforced when immigration authorities apply different rules to offenders from other lands… granting visas and waivers, and thwarting our efforts to protect our citizens.”

“Here in Brevard County…” says Coyne, “… a sex offender can’t live within 1,200 feet of a school.  A person with a visa who has committed the same offense in the U.K. can coach soccer at that school!”

Lunsford was abducted and murdered in 2005, by John Couey, a man who had been listed on the state registry for an assault on a Kissimmee teen.  Eventually, he absconded from the residence where he told police he was living, and drifted to the rural town of Homosassa.  There, Couey was able to blend in with locals who were unaware of his background. Jessie Lunsford was nine years old when she was buried alive, only yards from her home.

Frustrated by the inaction of federal authorities, Neil Marsh is enlisting the support of American moms in his fight to close what he views as a loophole in U.S. immigration law. Marsh sums it up in his letter to Mrs Obama.  “To me…” he writes, “…the current visa process is like having an unlocked door in the house where our children live.”

It has been one month since he mailed his letter.  He still awaits a response.

 BACKSTORY - TOWNSHEND

 BACKSTORY - PURSEY

“Punker’s Planned Performance Prompts Protest” Guardian-Brevard, March 2012

http://uspoc.org/2012/news/punkers-planned-performance-prompts-protest/

Nearly thirty years after she reported him to the police, a victim returns to finish the job. She is throwing a copy of the Guardian-Brevard on the lawn of the man who abused her when she was a child. Inside the Guardian is his photo and a history of his sex offenses.

Guardian-Brevard,  Feature

On a steamy, Saturday morning in early September, a  group of people rendezvous in a parking lot on the edge of a small, residential neighborhood.

They shake hands and hug. Standing between two cars they pass white plastic bundles from one vehicle to another.  Each bundle contains 100 copies of the Guardian newspaper, rolled and banded and ready to toss on lawns.

A white-haired man touches the hand of  a woman in a pink tee shirt:  “Are you nervous?”

“A little…” she answers, giving his hand a quick squeeze, and setting back to the work with the bundles.

Soon, two cars head into the little community, a cul-de-sac rectangle with a mix of mobile homes and wood frame houses.  They turn down a street located near the middle of the enclave, and park in front of a neat, plainly-appointed unit.

“…This is it.” The lady gets out from behind the wheel and someone hands her a Guardian. “Just cock it back behind your ear like a catcher throwing to second. I’ll get the shot O.K.”

She rears back, launches the paper and it cartwheels through the wet air, coming to rest just short of the front steps.

“Cool, that’s it…let’s do the toss.”

The woman turns slowly, her body moving before her eyes break their gaze upon the front door.  She looks at the others standing silently behind her.  Tears inch their way down her cheeks.

“I feel like I’m finishing something…” she says.

Twenty-nine years ago she started something.  She was twelve when she told police her stepfather had been sexually abusing her and her sister, for nearly five years. He admitted to the crimes and received a lengthy probation sentence.  A few years later, he went to jail for abusing yet another young girl.

The woman in the pink shirt sighs as she slides behind the wheel of the aging S.U.V.  Her husband is in the passenger’s seat, her teenaged son sits in back.  One of the white packages is broken open beside him, and rolled papers are spilling out onto the seat.

Volunteers from Protect Our Children watch them move away.  Black and white tubes fly from the rear window, landing on lawns cluttered with bicycles.  The papers skid along driveways, over which battered basketball hoops preside.  Two little girls stare wide-eyed, pressing their hands against the screen of an aluminum porch.

The three will work the streets to the south, volunteers will toss the homes to the north. In all, about 250 residents will be notified.  They need to know, since their sex-offender neighbor is not on the state registry. Due to the age of his convictions, he is exempt from the requirement to report his address, and the police are not compelled to warn parents nearby.  His home is located less than 300 yards from an elementary school.

Three days later, Protect Our Children received an anonymous letter in the mail.  It was from the offender - the subject of our community alert.  In angry tones, the hand-written note called down God Almighty on the little band of volunteers.  He never mentions his victim who, by tossing a special newspaper on to his front lawn,  began the finish of a mighty work.

____________________________________________________________________________

See the note below:

When the very young are being hurt in subtle and hidden ways, Patience and Courage wait nervously together, for Justice to arrive.

Guardian-Brevard Feature

“ Daddy puts crayons in my poo-poo…”

Pauline (not her real name) looked down at her three year-old son, shivering in his towel.  “…and he puts crayons in baby’s poo-poo.”

The boy was speaking about his biological father and baby brother – age two.

Months later, Pauline saw another troubling thing at bath time.  The two boys naked and giggling, touched the tips of their genitals together yelling “Connect…connect!”

Pauline asked where they had learned that game.  Both boys answered “Daddy”

She made arrangements for the boys to visit a child psychologist.  After interviewing them both, the therapist filed a report with the Department of Children and Families.  He asserted that the children were being sexually abused by their father.

The children began to report occasional touching. Tickling sessions would include a touch to the child’s genitals, seemingly innocent father-son wrestling matches would find the children held in such a way that dad’s privates would rub against their buttocks.

More than two years after the first suspicions arose, police advised Pauline to remove the children from the house.  They warned her that she could be arrested for failing to protect the kids.

The father volunteered to take a lie-detector test.  The results showed that he was deceptive when he denied touching his children sexually.  The examiner said the test showed “deep failure.”

“I couldn’t believe nothing was happening,” she explained, “I thought the cops would come and take him away!”

Police made a video interview with the older boy to use as evidence for a criminal case.  But, the child, barely three,  only cried.

Pauline scowls and shakes her head:   “He just couldn’t say it the way he did with the therapist.”

The battle for custody had begun in court.  The judge ordered a restricted form of visitation for the father.  An adult supervisor had to be present  whenever he visited his children. But the judge allowed the father to take the boys to church on Sundays without a chaperone.

The children reported being touched in the father’s vehicle while parked in the church lot prior to the mass.  They also reported being touched in the crotch and buttocks during the church services.

The mother nods her head as she speaks:

“He distracts them with some activity like following along in the song book while singing a hymn.  Then, using the book to cover his hand he makes his move. He makes the touch. Each child gets it during the service.  He plans it meticulously.”

Pauline enrolled in a training program for families experiencing incest.

“We learned about grooming and the kind of touching my kids were reporting.”

“Pedophiles will touch children repeatedly in their private areas in order to desensitize them.”

says Donna Davis of Protect Our Children,

“They are trying to condition the child to accept this kind of contact…preparing them for the day when the full blown abuse begins.”

Pauline contacted the children’s charity shortly after her husband failed his polygraph test.  She enrolled in a program called: “Parenting the Victimized Child.”

“It’s a kind of informal coaching,” Pauline explains, “They help me make decisions based upon sixteen years of experience with cases like this.”

She is now in her third year of participation with the group.  The unsupervised church visits have stopped, but the supervised visits continue.

Six months ago, police were called by a teacher at the boys’ elementary school.  He saw drawings  in the child’s notebook which seemed to depict abuse.  Police made a second, recorded interview.  To date, no arrest has been made.

Police must make a case involving  the most serious crime short of murder.  Their job is to  paint a clear picture of abuse rendered through the perceptions of children: the oldest of whom wants to be a fireman when he grows up, the youngest…a fire truck.

If law-enforcement can accomplish this, they will hand the picture to prosecutors.  Attorneys for the state now have the task of hanging one of the largest paintings in the gallery on these two, tiny nails.

The boys are now five and seven years of age. Protect Our Children continues to support the mother in her quest to make them safe.

“She got the abduction lecture,” Says Davis, a long-time Director with the group:

“No one ever admits they plan to run with the kids.  But, what protective parent would not consider such a thing?   We tell them the perpetrator would likely wind up with full custody.”

In court, the legal storm rages.  She is on her second attorney, he is on his third.  Multiple judges have presided over the case. The father has  filed for divorce and the issue of custody remains pending.

The man who is now Pauline’s ex-husband continues to deny the sexual touching. His attorneys have  painted her as a vindictive and ruthless ex-spouse, prompting the children to make false allegations.

She has been characterized by case workers as “hypervigilant” and “overprotective”.  At one point, she was asked to sign a “contract”, promising to relax her protective grip.

The children often balk at the prospect of spending time with their father, refusing to go along when he arrives to take them for his biweekly visits. Pauline makes video recordings of them, crying and whining at these moments.

This local mother has learned to document and record.  She is determined to give her sons a voice even in the vernacular of children.  Pauline reaches out to professionals, and keeps close, the friends and family who stand with her.

She fights

Justin Michael McCloy

 Viera, June 12, 2012

A Rockledge man could spend the rest of his life in prison despite accepting a plea deal offered today, by prosecutors, in Brevard.

 
Charged with 52 counts of molesting a thirteen year-old boy,  Justin McCloy, 23, nodded silently when Judge Lawrence Johnston warned him that the reduced charges could still carry a hefty sentence.

McCloy was returned to court for the plea hearing in Viera, one day after his jury trial was set to begin. He has been held in the Brevard County Jail since his arrest nearly one year ago.

Rockledge Police stopped McCloy for driving without headlights, during the pre-dawn hours of July 25, 2011 .  The child was riding as a passenger in the vehicle, which was searched by police.  Officers found marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and a condom package.  Investigators said McCloy had been providing drugs to the boy in exchange for sex.

At the hearing, prosecutors told the judge that McCloy did not use the drugs himself.  As a member of the National Guard, he was subject to periodic drug testing.

Judge Johnston set sentencing for July 19th, at the Moore Justice Center in Viera. The reduced charges, twelve counts of Lewd or Lascivious Battery on a Minor, carry a maximum sentence of fifteen years each.

Volunteer Court Monitors with Protect Our Children, were on hand for the hearing.

"Manager of the Year" Commander Doug Waller

The Space Coast Council of the National Management Association has selected Sheriff’s Commander Doug Waller as their “Manager of the Year.”  The prestigious annual honor is bestowed upon the top local manager in the business, industry, government or non-profit sectors.

In his twenty-five year service with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office,  Waller has risen to the upper echelons of command.   He has gained a reputation for making innovative and creative techniques work within the framework of the modern law enforcement organization. Currently he leads sB.C.S.O’s Criminal Investigations Division.

Cdr. Waller was instrumental in putting together Brevard’s Sex Offender Registration Tracking Unit, (SORT). The elite crew began using cutting-edge techniques like internet stinging and rapid response, sex offender notifications to protect Brevard’s children from predators.  The unit, now in its eighth year of operation, is considered a national model of efficiency and effectiveness.

” Driven is the best word I can use to describe him.” said Sheriff Jack Parker, “He has an absolute passion to get the worst of the worst out of our communities and get justice for victims.  No one is more deserving of this prestigious award than Doug Waller.”

Commander Waller received his award June 6th, in Viera, at the Tradewinds Resaurant.