Category Archives: Sex Crimes
Jury Convicts Elmhurst Man Of Sexually Abusing Preteen Girl Over A Five-Year Period
The story of this week’s case would still be horrific even if it were only an account of the allegations against the defendant. Physical acts of sexual abuse of children are traumatic enough in themselves, but there is much more to the victims’ ordeal than just the physical violence. The fear and emotional manipulation… Read More »
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Overturns Bill Cosby’s Conviction Because Prosecution Violated His Right To Due Process
Years ago, when the accusations against Bill Cosby first began to surface, people who had grown up seeing him on television in family-friendly shows were shocked. Cosby’s public persona made him the last person that people would suspect of committing sexual assault; in all his public roles, he seemed like a moral and altruistic… Read More »
Crum Lynne Man Faces Human Trafficking Charges for Confining Woman to Hotel Room and Forcing Her to Engage in Sex Work
There is a growing movement to legalize sex work, as long as the parties are consenting adults. Proponents of this reform believe that a person has the right to choose whether to trade sexual acts for money. Even those who favor decriminalizing sex work believe that sexual exploitation of others should be illegal; in… Read More »
Shippensburg Man Faces Felony Charges for Soliciting Teen on Facebook Messenger
Every tattoo has a story, but in the case of facial tattoos, the story is never short. Many tattoo artists refuse to apply ink to the faces of clients unless they already have tattoos on other parts of their body, in other words, unless they have already experienced how a person’s feelings toward a… Read More »
Titusville Gym Teacher Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Student
Sexual abuse of minors is very prevalent. By some estimates, one in four women and one in nine men were sexually abused before they reached adulthood. Given that most adults care so much about protecting children from abuse, and given that teachers and healthcare providers have a legal responsibility to report cases of suspected… Read More »
Federal Appeals Court Upholds Pennsylvania Man’s 33-Year Sentence for Sex Trafficking
The stereotype about human trafficking is that it involves bringing people into the country illegally and forcing them to work in dangerous conditions for little or no pay. One famous depiction of human trafficking in the popular media is in the 2004 movie Crash, where the character played by Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges finds a… Read More »
Cell Phones Are Often a Source of Incriminating Evidence in Sex Crimes Cases
Most cases of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment go unreported. Sometimes the abusers intimidate them into keeping the abuse a secret, and even if that does not happen, the victims sometimes fear that no one will believe them or that the people closest to them will blame them for what happened. Sometimes they do… Read More »
Pennsylvania’s Laws on HIV Exposure Leave Plenty of Room for Ambiguity
Despite that advances in treatment have made HIV infection a manageable and, in many cases, preventable condition, AIDS is still the scariest disease that many people in the United States consider a real threat. For people who were alive in the 80s, the images of the extraordinary suffering of people with AIDS were unlike… Read More »
Former Carnegie Mellon Student Convicted of Date Rape
College students are not the only people who are vulnerable to sexual assault, but sex crimes, from rape to simple sexual harassment are widespread on college campuses and among student populations. It is not hard to find opinion pieces on news sites attributing the origins of the problem to causes ranging from peer pressure… Read More »
FBI Agents Arrest Three Pennsylvania Men Attempting to Solicit Sex from Minors
It is said that the Internet brings out everyone’s worst self; it is also said that there are no secrets online. Thus, adults attempting to contact minors online for purposes of exploiting them sexually can easily be found out by law enforcement. In the online environment, where anonymity emboldens the worst sides of people’s… Read More »
