Ordinarily parents would have no hesitation in taking their child to see a pediatrician. However, in the case of Dr. Mark Blankenburg, 53, prosecutors have raised serious doubts as to whether he was practicing medicine or was using his medical license to practice pedophilia.
Dr. Mark Blankenburg of Hamilton, Ohio has been charged with 54 offenses, ranging from gross sexual imposition to bribery to drug trafficking and various other offenses. His bail was set at $1 million. He is accused of abusing four young boys all between the ages of 8 and 15. Most of the offenses occurred in his office while conducting medical examinations.
Dr. Mark Blankenburg's twin brother, Scott - who is also a pediatrician - with whom he shares a house, was also charged with a total of 22 counts,including multiple counts of child abuse. His bail was set at $500,00. Both brothers are charged with possession of child pornography also found inside their home.
Prosecutors allege that the brothers engaged in a long term pattern of sexual abuse of young boys stretching back as far of 1990. The victims would be offered money and drugs to keep the abuse quiet. They each face separate trials. The trial of Dr. Mark Blankenburg is ongoing. His brother Scott's trial is scheduled for April of next year.
One patient says Blankenburg, who was also his Little League coach, began molesting him when he was 13 and gave him $200.
Another patient was 14 or 15 when Blankenburg molested him and stuck $200 in his hand as he left an examining room. A third was about 14 when he was assaulted and also given money, he said.
A fourth has said he was around 8 years old when Blankenburg first fondled him.
Melissa Huckaby, 28, accused in the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, will likely face the death penalty. She was indicted in July on charges of murdering her daughter's playmate and drugging two other people.
Deputy District Attorney Thomas Testa said he will seek the death penalty. He is seeking a speedy trial because younger witnesses he may call to testify will have a harder time remembering specifics about what happened.
Huckaby is charged with kidnapping and murdering Sandra, according to the indictment, along with lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 and rape by instrument.
A gag order has been placed on all parties involved in the case by Superior Court Judge Linda L. Lofthus, who has also sealed documents in the case, including the autopsy and toxicology reports and documents relating to a defense motion to exhume Sandra's body.
In addition to the murder of Sandra Cantu, Melissa Huckaby faces charges that she attempted to poison two other people: a 7-year-old girl, identified only as "Jane M. Doe" and a Daniel Plowman. She is also charged with child abuse related to the 7-year-old-girl who was "in her care and custody." She is scheduled to appear again in court of Sept. 25.
It is not unusual to hear in the news about victims of brutal attacks. This story however shows the depths of depravity and inhumanity that some people are capable of perpetrating on others. The various acts of torture, abuse and forced sexual activity are in themselves cause to recoil; but the realization that neither the victims nor the attackers had even reached puberty should make each and every one of us pause and say --- WTF!!?!
Two brothers in Britain aged 10 and 12, from the town of Edlington, near Doncaster, pleaded guilty to luring two young boys, aged 9 and 10, into a secluded area of woodland and ravines to see some animals — and then torturing them in an attack so violent it left one of the victims pleading to be left alone to die.
The two young boys were robbed, beaten with sticks and stones, stabbed, burned with cigarettes, forced to eat nettles, had their genitals stomped on, forced to have sex with each other and told to commit suicide as part of their grotesque torture.
Prosecutors charged the two aggressors with attempted murder but, so as to spare the two young victims the further trauma of having to testify in court, accepted lesser charges of robbery, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
This was not the first time the brothers had been in trouble. They in fact both had a history of violence. The 12-year-old had already appeared in court four times for acts of violence. His younger brother had been reprimanded for a variety of crimes, including assault.
The names of all the boys involved have been withheld due to their ages. However, in my opinion, the crimes that the two brothers committed were so horrible and adult-like that their names and addresses should be made public and published so that the world can be wary of two monsters that walk among us.
Below is a copy the news report widely distributed in the media.
9/3/2009, 9:20 p.m. EDT
RAPHAEL G. SATTER
The Associated Press
(AP) — LONDON - A pair of British brothers pleaded guilty Thursday to luring two young boys into a clearing to see some animals-and then torturing them in an attack so violent it left one of the victims pleading to be left alone to die.
The attackers, aged 10 and 11 at the time, robbed, beat, and stabbed their victims with sticks and bricks. One child, aged 10, had a sink thrown on to his head, while his nephew, aged 9, was forced to eat nettles. At one point the young tormentors tried to force the victims to have sex with each another.
None of the children can be named for legal reasons.
So violent was the attack that prosecutors charged the aggressors with attempted murder-making them some of the youngest ever accused of such a crime in Britain. Media here compared the case to the shocking death of James Bulger, a 2-year-old abducted from a shopping center near Liverpool in 1993 by two 10-year-olds who punched him, beat him with bricks and hit him with an iron bar before leaving his body on a railroad track.
Britain's prime minister weighed in, calling the case "disturbing."
The pair denied attempted murder, but admitted lesser charges of robbery, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm and causing a child to engage in sexual activity. Prosecutors at Sheffield Crown Court, in northern England, said they would accept the pleas, in part to spare the young victims the ordeal of a trial.
The April 4 assault came to light when a group of girls in the former English mining town of Edlington found the 9-year-old stumbling around, spattered in blood, with a cut on his arm which went down to the bone. His uncle was later found unconscious, naked from the waist down, with a large cut to the head and bruising around his neck.
Prosecutor Graham Measures told an earlier hearing that the younger boy said he and his uncle went to a secluded area of woodland and ravines with the brothers, who said they wanted to show them some toads and foxes.
It was then that the brothers turned on their victims, stealing a small amount of cash and a cell phone. They then began beating them with sticks and bricks, at one point stabbing the younger child in the arm and then jamming cigarettes into the gaping wound. His genitals were stamped on, and his eyelids were burned with cigarettes. He was forced to smoke, eat nettles and then ordered to commit suicide.
He said he then picked up a stick and put it into his mouth to convince his attackers he was harming himself.
The uncle received even harsher treatment, having a broken sink smashed against his head and a noose rung around his neck. The younger brother told police that his uncle pleaded with the attackers, saying: "Leave me, I can't see. Leave me to die."
The 9-year-old said the attack only ended when the brothers said they had to go to meet their stepfather-although one brother warned his sibling that they should not leave before killing their victims.
The brothers had a history of violence. The 11-year-old, now 12, had already appeared in court four times for acts of violence. His younger brother had been reprimanded for a variety of crimes, including assault.
They lived with five other male siblings and their 36-year-old mother in a run-down home on a different part of town before being moved to a foster home in Edlington about a month before the attack.
40-year-old Valynne Asay Bowers, accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy, who was a student at the same high school where she taught math - Bountiful Junior High - will go to trial. She faces 8 felony charges:five counts of rape and three counts of forcible sodomy. The charges carry a possible life sentence if she is found guilty.
Bowers is the second teacher to face charges of having sex with the same boy. Linda Richins Nef has already pleaded guilty to having sex with the boy when he was 13 years old. She has been sentenced to 3 years to life in prison.
For complete background details on this story check the following:
Bowers was ordered to stand trial by Second District Judge Jon M. Memmott after a preliminary hearing determined that there was enough evidence to warrant one.
During the preliminary hearing, a police officer read aloud a confession and letter of apology that Bowers wrote with detectives. Investigators had apparently encouraged her to write the letter, telling her that it might help her case.
"He came to me as a responsible adult," Bowers allegedly wrote in the letter. "I violated so much trust."
"He was dealing with more than an adult can handle," she wrote. "I just tried to be a listening ear and a shoulder to cry on."
Bowers said she "tried to be a strong shoulder he could lean on."
Bowers lamented, however, "I began to lean on him. I didn't realize how lonely and depressed I was . . . "
She added: "I had no right to treat him as an adult. I'm sorry for all the damage I caused."
The boy also gave testimony at the hearing. He said he was the one who initiated sexual contact with his teacher. He went to her classroom after school, even though Bowers no longer was his teacher, and rummaged through her desk. He also sent her text messages and taught her guitar lessons at her home.
Yes, he said, he looked at pornography. Yes, members of his music band — some 17 or 18 years old — talked with him about sex. Yes, his family, in particular his stepfather, talked openly about intercourse because "he just likes to joke about it," the boy said. And yes, before he and Bowers had sex for the first time, he told her that he thought she was a "pushover."
Prosecutors, however, argued that as a teacher, Bowers was in a position of special trust and should never have engaged in sexual behavior with the child. That position of trust is why she was charged with first-degree felonies as opposed to lesser charges.
"A teacher doesn't stop being a teacher when the bell rings," prosecutor Richard Larsen said. "She was a teacher in his school. By nature of that position, they have authority over you."
Bowers' defense attorney, Rich Gallegos, noting that no sexual conduct occurred at school, and that Bowers was not the boy's teacher at the time of the alleged crimes, argued there was no teacher/student (special trust) relationship.
"The law's not clear. There's no appellate guidance. So, this will be an issue of first impression. But, as the court indicated, it's a factual issue that will ultimately be determined by a jury," he said.
"The question is whether she used her position as a teacher to exploit this kid and I don't think the facts support that," Gallegos said. "He was not her direct student. He went to her classroom to obtain personal information so he could pursue her after hours."
According to testimony from police and the boy, the boy initiated contact with Bowers in December 2008 by showing up at her after-school math study sessions. He got her cell phone number by using her phone to send himself a message, then began texting and talking to her about his troubled past - including being sexually molested as a younger child - and other personal problems.
Later, the communications became joking and teasing, then sexual.
They first had phone sex, according to testimony. Then, on Jan. 2, they had sexual intercourse. The boy said they had sex twice that first time; Bowers said it was three times.
A week or two later the boy began giving Bowers 30-minute guitar lessons at her home, where they had sex every Friday night until Feb. 27. Bowers told police she tried to end the relationship, but the boy threatened to harm himself.
The relationship finally ended in early March when Linda Nef, 46, another Bountiful Junior High teacher who had a sexual relationship with the same boy when he was 13 years old, went to police and told them about herself and Bowers. She received a 3-year-to-life sentence.
Melissa Ann Andreini, 28, a special education teacher who taught at the Helper Junior High School in Helper, Utah resigned her position on August 3, 2009 after being charged with three counts of third-degree felony unlawful sexual activity with a minor.
She is accused of having sexual relations with a 15-year-old male student, a ninth grader, who attends the same school but was not in her any of her classes. Not only is Andreini accused of having sex with the teen but also of paying him, on at least three different occasions, $500 after having sex. Court documents did not specify whether the money was payment for having sex or payment to ensure the teen's silence.
Andreini was booked into the Carbon County jail and released after posting $10,000 bail. Her first court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 28th before Judge Douglas Thomas Price. If convicted, Andreini faces up to five years in prison on each count.
Robert Cox, special programs director for the Carbon County School District said that Andreini was hired as a special education teacher in the fall of 2006. She submitted a letter of resignation to the district on Aug. 3.
"We take very seriously the safety of our students," Cox said. "We want our students to feel safe and feel comfortable in school. We regret that this would happen in our district or in any other district."
;)
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 5:49AM 
