Doctors Accused of Child Sexual Abuse

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.

The father of one of the victims talks about how the encounters with Dr. Mark Blankenburg affected his son. See video clip below.



Click link for background and full coverage of this trial.

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Teacher Paid Student for Sex

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.

The mother of the 15-year-old boy heard about the relationship with the teacher and went to her house to confront her about it on July 3rd. According to court documents, Andreini admitted to the mother that she did indeed have sex, multiple times, with her son and paid him a total of about $1,500. The mother reported the incident to the police and Andreini was arrested and charged with three counts of third-degree felony unlawful sexual activity with a minor.

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."

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Linda Nef Goes to Prison

Judge Rodney Page sent 46-year-old Linda Nef to prison for three years to life, for first-degree felony attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child. Nef was originally charged with first-degree felony counts of rape of a child and sodomy on a child, which carry mandatory prison terms of 25 years to life.

For complete background details on this story check the following:

1. Boy Has Sex with 2 Teachers


2. Teachers worry about child victim


3. Linda Nef Takes Plea Deal

Before her sentencing, Linda Nef apologized for her actions:

"I am so sorry for the pain you have been through ... as a result of my completely selfish actions," 46-year-old Linda Nef told the boy, who was 13 years old at the time.

A tearful Nef, 46, not only apologized to her victim and his family but also to   "educators everywhere who have been damaged by my actions," especially the faculty at Bountiful Junior High, whom she characterized as honorable and hard-working people.

"I loved teaching with all my heart — and yet I committed a crime," she said.

Nef pleaded guilty in June to a reduced charge of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, as part of a plea bargain in the hopes of avoiding a prison sentence. Possible sentencing ranged from probation to three years to life. In fact both her lawyer and the boy's lawyer urged judge to give her the minimum sentence of probation.

Sean Druyon, Nef's attorney, said mental-health and psychosexual examinations of Nef showed that she poses very little risk to the community or to re-offend, and that she is not a pedophile. He also said Nef came to him to confess, and they approached the police — and Nef has cooperated fully since then. Druyon said all professional reports show Nef could be helped with counseling and treatment.

Druyon said Nef admitted what she had done because it was the right thing to do and was a good candidate for probation for many reasons. Among them is the fact that she has exceptional family support from her husband and extended family. When he asked Nef's family to stand, three rows of people in the courtroom rose to their feet.

Gregory Skordas, the lawyer representing the boy and his family, said they appreciated Nef's confession, and they did not seek a prison sentence. However, Skordas emphatically denied the boy was in any way responsible for what happened. There is no "balance of culpability" when an adult in a position of authority engages in sex with a 13-year-old, he said.

In lengthy remarks before he imposed the sentence, Page said he wished the responsibility to sentence her rested with someone else.

"I haven't slept well in thinking about this case and knowing that from the date the defendant entered her plea, it would be my responsibility to impose sentence," Page said.

While he said it was commendable that Nef came forward and confessed her wrongdoing with the boy, he said there were hundreds if not thousands of victims besides this particular boy who have been hurt by her actions.

"The greater victim in this might be our society as a whole," Page said. "This undermines our faith, beliefs and confidence in institutions that create the foundation of freedoms by which we live — and that is our schools."

"In our society, we esteem our teachers to be among the most honorable people, although sometimes we wouldn't think that by the way we try to pay them and other things. We entrust them with the most important commodity we have in our society and that is our children," Page said.

Page said he had no doubt Nef was a good teacher and was genuinely repentant for what she has done, but the judge sensed Nef also was motivated by the "a concern this was going to come out anyway" once Nef got word about an alleged sexual relationship between another teacher and the same boy.

The other teacher involved with the same boy, Valynne Bowers, 40, is charged with rape and forcible sodomy --- first-degree felonies --- in connection with sexual activity with the boy when he was 14. Plea negotiations for Bowers have fallen through and a preliminary hearing has been set for Aug. 28 before 2nd District Judge Michael Allphin.

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Baby-Sitter Guilty of Child Porn

Aaron Jay Lemon, 23, of Little Canada, Minn. pleaded guilty to a single count of producing child pornography before U.S. District Judge David Doty in federal court in Minneapolis. He was hired through Craig's List as a baby-sitter for a 2-year-old girl in St. Paul. In the plea, Lemon admitted he coerced the toddler to engage in sex, and he recorded the incident on a video camera. It wasn't clear how many times Lemon baby-sat for the 2-year-old victim or whether he had a history of baby-sitting other children.

Lemon was charged Aug. 5 with Production, Distribution and Possession of Child Pornography in connection with the incident, which occurred in August 2007 in St. Paul. He was released in August on a $25,000 bond. Lemon faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. A federal judge will determine Lemon’s sentence at a future date.

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This is a case in which Lemon should never have had the opportunity for access to a 2-year-old without supervision. What interests me, personally, with this case is:

What kind of parents would hire an unknown person, with no references, from a service like Craig's List, to take care of their child (of any age) and have the confidence to leave this individual alone in their home with their child? To me it is no different than grabbing a stranger off the street and saying: "Here is my child and the keys to my house. I have somewhere to go. I will return later."

As it turns out, Aaron Lemon is the worst kind of pedophile. He wasn't just a collector of child pornography. He produced it. He starred in it. He distributed it.

Last year (2007) the FBI was investigating an unrelated case involving a man in San Francisco. They found evidence that someone in the Twin Cities may have been exchanging child porn with him. They turned this evidence over to The Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force which investigated the matter. It led them to Lemon. They got a search warrant for his Little Canada home and found evidence that "led them to believe he wasn't just a collector of pornography, he was manufacturing it".

They discovered, by checking his e-mail account and IP address, that Lemon had been in contact with the suspect in San Francisco as early as 2006. When authorities came to the apartment, which he shares with his mother, to interviewed him, Lemon admitted to exchanging and possessing child pornography. He was subsequently charged.

Lemon was also charged with distributing child pornography across state lines, according to the original indictment against him. He was forced to hand over a laptop computer and a pocket-sized digital camera when those charges were brought. Police found over 100 pictures of children on the computer, ranging from 6 months to 5 years old.

Because of the large number of images found on his computer, the ICAC task force plans to present the case to the Ramsey County Attorney's Office to consider additional charges against Aaron Lemon. According to the Justice Department:

• 1 in 33 children receives an unwanted sexual solicitation online each year.


• 1 in 4 children experiences unwanted exposure to sexually explicit material on the Internet each year.


• more than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the Internet every week.

Recent research by the Federal Bureau of Prisons indicates a strong correlation between possessing or distributing child pornography and committing sexual crimes against children, a news release from the U.S. attorney's office said.

Erin Hammill, owner of Apple Valley-based Above and Beyond Nannies, consults 10 character references, five employer references, state, county and national background checks and a credit check on her potential employees. Individuals searching for a sitter should do something comparable, she said.

"There is no way that you can tell a sex offender. You don't just trust. You don't say, 'Oh, they seem like they're safe and sane,' " Hammill said. "But if you checked four references, you would have a sense of who they're dealing with ... And pull a criminal background check that's as thorough as possible."

Father Rapes His Infant Daughter

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Reginald Davis, 18, of Forrest City, AR, has been accused of raping his 8-day-old baby daughter. Police also charged him with second-degree battery, because the baby also suffered a fractured skull in the attack, which occurred on Labor Day, Sept. 1, 2008. He was sent to St. Francis County Jail. At his first court appearance, the following Wednesday, the judge, citing the severity of the crime, raised his bail from $50,000 to $100,000.

According to police Davis was visiting with the 15-year-old mother of his daughter. The mother went into the bathroom to take a shower before going to bed. When she came out she found blood on her newborn baby. The girl and her family, accompanied by Davis, took the baby to Forrest City Medical Center where she was treated for rape and a fractured skull. The hospital also notified the police. It turned out that the little girl's injuries were so bad she was transferred to the Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. The police arrested Davis.

Investigators say that at the time of the attack, there were other people in the house. The case is still under investigation and it is unknown if any other arrests will be made. Reginald Davis, according to the police, has had no criminal record since turning 18. They could not comment on whether he had a juvenile record because that information could not be released under Arkansas state law.

Reginald Davis' mother said in a telephone interview that "he suffers from mental health issues." According to Dr. Allen Battle, a psychologist with the UT Medical group:

"Seeking a baby is extremely rare." He says "so many of the patience have been exposed to this behavior themselves. When they were kids in their formative stages."

According to the Children's Advocacy Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, recent reports of child sexual abuse is staggering:

• 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 5 boys have been abused, with the average age being 3-years-old


• 96% of the abusers are someone the child knows, loves and trusts
  


• 75 cases were reported in 2000, 471 cases were reported in 2007

Davis is being held on a $100,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in circuit court on September 17.