Child Pornography Restitution Now Before the Supreme Court
Two years ago, the Marsh Law Firm filed the first-ever request for federal criminal restitution against a convicted child pornography collector. Since then, we have filed over 700 requests for restitution in every federal district court in the country.
Despite a few decisive victories, a child pornography victim's right to restitution is being curtailed in circuit after circuit. Recent federal Circuit Court decisions have effectively barred restitution in the Second and Ninth Circuit and the District of Columbia Circuit. Only in the Fifth Circuit—encompassing the ...
Pedophiles Lobby for Acceptance
Two recent articles expose a political effort by pedophiles to gain acceptance and legitimacy. Last week FoxNews reported that a group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the guideline of standards on mental health that's put together by the American Psychiatric Association. According to FoxNews:
The organization, which calls itself B4U-Act says its mission is to help pedophiles before they create a crisis, and to do so by offering a less critical view of the ...
New York Times Reports on Marsh Law Firm’s Restitution Efforts
In a follow-up to a February 2010 profile of the Marsh Law Firm's groundbreaking work pursuing federal criminal restitution for victims of child pornography, the New York Times released this story today about a decision in the Second Circuit.
A victim of child pornography seeking restitution should not receive court-ordered payments from those who possessed the images but had no hand in creating them, a federal appeals panel ruled Thursday. The young woman, referred to in court papers as Amy, was known as “Misty” in pornographic images created by her uncle. ...
No Neglect by Mother who Mistakingly Left Child Home Alone
Last month the New Jersey Supreme Court in Dept of Children & Families, Div. of Youth & Family Servs. v. T.B. held that a finding of neglect was improperly entered against a mother who left her four-year-old child unsupervised for two hours under the mistaken belief that his grandmother was in the home.
Susan and her then four-year-old-son, John, were living with Susan’s mother, Mary, and step-father, Jim, who assisted in caring for John on a regular basis. Although Susan and John lived downstairs, the entire house was accessible to John and he moved freely to the ...
Teen Facebook Hacker Convicted of Felony Identity Theft
Last month a California state Court of Appeal ruled in In re Rolando S. that a teenage boy committed felony identity theft when he accessed a girl's account, altered her profile and posted obscene messages and comments.
The boy was one of several recipients of an unsolicited text message providing the password to the victim’s email account. He used the victim’s email and password to gain access to her Facebook account where he posted, in her name, the following messages:
On a male classmate’s wall: “I want to stick your dick in my mouth and then ...
Echos of the Masha Allen case play out in a New York courtroom
I first wrote about the disturbing case of adoptive parent Judith Leekin back in 2008. Now new details of that case are emerging which share shocking similarities to Masha Allen's second adoption. According to the New York Times:
More than 30 years ago, a Queens foster mother was investigated and cited for scalding a boy in her care. But despite that finding, the city did nothing in the decades that followed to prevent the woman, Judith Leekin, from carrying out one of the most brazen and disturbing child welfare schemes in recent memory.
The failure of child welfare ...
Legal marijuana possession = child abuse?
Today's New York Times contains an article about state child welfare investigations of parents who legally possess marijuana:
The police found about 10 grams of marijuana, or about a third of an ounce, when they searched Penelope Harris’s apartment in the Bronx last year. The amount was below the legal threshold for even a misdemeanor, and prosecutors declined to charge her. But Ms. Harris, a mother whose son and niece were home when she was briefly in custody, could hardly rest easy.
The police had reported her arrest to the state’s child welfare hot line, ...