Florida man gets 3 life sentences, plus 495 years
for toddler rape
Emma Kennedy, ekennedy@pnj.com
An Escambia County man has been sentenced to three consecutive life sentences — followed by 495 years in prison — after a jury found him guilty of repeatedly raping a 3-year-old boy and sharing images of the abuse.
Charles Hoyt McConnell III, 22, faced 36 counts of child sex-related charges, including capital sexual battery and obscene material possession.
A jury on Tuesday found him guilty on all counts, and Circuit Judge John Miller handed down the sentence.
McConnell filmed and photographed the sexual abuse of a 3-year-old in his care for about two months around December 2016 before his wife found the child pornography on his phone in January and went to police.
McConnell's wife testified during the one-day trial Tuesday, crying as she described to the jury how she recognized the boy and her husband in the photos and video screenshots.
There were no faces in any of the images, but she said she recognized certain body parts, as well as items belonging to the boy, like a nightlight and pajamas.
She said she found the images at about 2 a.m. Jan. 9 when McConnell's phone was lighting up with notifications. She thought it might be the boss at his new restaurant job trying to get help closing the shop. When she checked the phone, she found communication about the images.
McConnell's wife said she picked up the boy and left in the middle of the night to go to her mother's house and call police. McConnell was arrested that same morning.
Good Mom!
Two other men — Danny Ray Murphy and Jonah Authement — are serving prison sentences for communicating with McConnell via a social media application about the photos and videos of the boy.
In an interview with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office that was played during the trial, McConnell immediately admitted to having raped the child multiple times.
He offhandedly answered investigators' questions about how and why he abused the child, and moments after describing some of the acts, he asked investigators unrelated questions such as when he could use the bathroom or get access to personal items.
When asked why he assaulted the boy, McConnell referenced his own "personal experiences" in the past, but didn't elaborate on that statement. He said it was "like a switch," and told investigators that he would go back and forth between thinking about sexually abusing the child and then not thinking about that for an extended period of time.
During the period when McConnell was assaulting the boy, he had also downloaded child porn images and videos of other children and communicated about them through the social media app Kik.
He said he didn't know those other children, and the 3-year-old was the only child he had ever sexually abused.
Murphy is serving a 40-year federal prison sentence, and Authement was sentenced to eight years in state prison last week.
McConnell was sentenced immediately after the jury convicted him because a capital felony carries a mandatory life sentence.
Escambia Co., Florida
Salem, Ore. sex offender arrested on
child pornography charges
A convicted sex offender was arrested Friday for allegedly luring a girl into making a sexually explicit recording and sharing child pornography.
Matthew Douglas Smith, 38, is facing charges of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, attempting to use a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct and three counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse.
Smith was convicted of two counts of second-degree sexual abuse and two counts of third-degree sodomy in 2004. He was sentenced 18 months in prison and five years probation. Smith was also ordered to register as a sex offender upon his release.
Following his arrest Friday, Smith was taken to Marion County jail.
He is accused of convincing a girl to engage in conduct that he recorded between Jan. 1 and Dec. 14. During the same time period, Smith bought and bartered for visual recordings involving child sex abuse at least three times, according to court records.
He allegedly tried to get the same girl to participate in the making of child pornography on Dec. 15.
Salem police spokesman Lt. Dave Okada confirmed that police investigated Smith, but declined to comment further because the accusations involved a minor.
During Smith's arraignment Monday, Marion County Judge Daniel Wren set his bail at $200,000 and ordered him to have no contact with his victim.
His next hearing is scheduled for Dec. 28 at 8:30 a.m.
Another Salem man arrested on rape,
assault, weapon charges
A Salem man is being held on $100,000 bail after he was arrested on first-degree rape, unlawful use of a weapon, menacing, domestic violence assault and strangulation charges Monday.
Leonel Cardoza-Monterrubio, 21, is accused of threatening a woman with a knife, forcing her to have sex, assaulting and strangling her in front of her young child and preventing her from calling 911.
Following an investigation by Salem police, a grand jury indicted Cardoza-Monterrubio on six rape, assault and menacing charges. A warrant was issued for his arrest in July, but he remained at large until early Monday morning.
Salem police spokesman Lt. Dave Okada said the investigation remains ongoing and declined to release further information.
Cardoza-Monterrubio appeared for arraignment on Monday. His next court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 29.
First-degree rape is a Measure 11 offense and requires a mandatory minimum prison sentence of eight years and four months in prison. Fourth-degree assault and strangulation are typically misdemeanor charges but become felonies if they are committed in front of a minor child or if the victim is pregnant.
Iowa man receives probation, suspended sentence for sexual contact with child
COURTNEY FIORINI courtney.fiorini@globegazette.com
MASON CITY | A Mason City man received probation and a suspended prison sentence Monday for felony lascivious acts with a child in 2011.
Judge DeDra Schroeder sentenced Antonio Ochoa Sandoval, 21, to five years of probation, two consecutive prison sentences not to exceed five years and a $1,500 fine. The prison sentences and fine were suspended.
Sandoval was accused of having sexual contact with a 9-year-old girl he was babysitting in October 2011, according to court documents.
He was arrested in May and charged with felony second-degree sexual abuse and three counts of felony lascivious acts with a child.
Sandoval pleaded guilty to two counts of lascivious acts with a child in a plea agreement Sept. 21. The sexual abuse charge and a third count of lascivious acts with a child was dismissed Tuesday as part of the agreement.
Sandoval must register as a sex offender and pay $851 in victim restitution.
Special sentence
Schroeder also ordered a special sentence for Sandoval, committing him to to the custody of the Department of Corrections for 10 years, with eligibility for parole. The board of parole determines whether people under these sentences should be released on parole or placed in a work release program, according to state law.
The case was initially being prosecuted by Assistant Cerro Gordo County Attorney Gina Jorgensen. Cerro Gordo County Attorney Carlyle Dalen took over the case June 27, according to court records.
New York man who kept child porn, sexually
abused girls, gets 30 years in prison
Anthony Borrelli, aborrelli@pressconnects.com
Described by prosecutors as a manipulative predator, Endicott resident Richard Squires was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in federal prison for child porn and sexual exploitation charges.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Miroslav Lovric, in court documents, said Squires, 58, committed abuses against at least five children — four are developmentally disabled — who were chosen because he knew they would be easy targets.
The FBI also found Squires with some 50,000 graphic child porn images and videos.
"The sexual abuse of any child is horrific and inhuman," Lovric said in court documents. "But the sexual abuse of a developmentally disabled child is beyond comprehension and speaks loudly to the inhumanity that rests in Richard Squires' soul."
But the defense, attempting to bring context to Squires' crimes, said he became the victim of "ritualized sexual abuse" himself during late childhood and early teen years.
According to the defense, Squires fell in with the practices of the "Children of God" cult that advocated sexual relations between adults and children.
Acquaintances had invited him to join the activities associated with the "Children of God" hippie Christian cult that was founded in 1968, then abolished in 1978, according to the defense. The cult had up to 130 communes worldwide during the early 1970s.
In court documents, Assistant Federal Public Defender Courtenay McKeon said these experiences could shed light on why, as a grown man, her client committed sex crimes.
"As a child, Mr. Squires did not understand that these activities were abuse," McKeon said in court documents. "He is just now beginning to connect his own childhood abuse with his actions as an adult and hopes to address them in counseling during his incarceration."
The sentence, handed down Tuesday by Judge Thomas McAvoy in Binghamton's federal courthouse, followed Squires' guilty pleas in August felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child, receipt of child pornography, and possessing child pornography.
Endicott police arrested Squires in mid-April after a teenage girl told authorities she remembered "possibly inappropriate activities" during a "truth or dare" game at a sleepover four years earlier, according to court records.
Squires also set up cameras in his home to produce images and videos showing minors engaging in sex acts, according to prosecutors. He also told a victim to make it sound like these activities were just between her friends, if anyone asked her about it.
Florida man arrested for the sexual abuse
of two 15-year-old girls
FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. (FOX 35 WOFL) - The Flager County Sheriff's Office says that a man was arrested for the sexual battery of two minors.
The Flagler County Sheriff's Special Investigations Unit say that they began investigating claims of a sex offense after a 15-year-old girl reported being sexually molested while at a sleepover in June of 2016.
The investigation reportedly revealed that two 15-year-olds had been sexually molested or battered by the same defendant. One reported being a victim of the defendant for almost seven years.
The sheriff's office says that one of their detectives worked on the cases of the two minors for over a year. The detective conducted multiple interviews and sent a DNA analysis of the defendant and evidence collected at the scene to the FDLE lab. The DNA results came back over one year later matching the evidence to the defendant.
It took more than a year to get DNA evidence processed in a rape case? Are you kidding me?
The detective says that the defendant was charged with the sexual offenses and Flagler County Judge Melissa Moore-Stens signed two warrants for his arrest with nationwide pick up.
The sheriff's office says that the defendant, identified as 46-year-old Michael Craig Bowling, was arrested on the Flagler County warrants in Kentucky on December 8th and is being held at the Campbell County Detention with no bond. He will be extradited to the Flagler County Detention Facility this week.
Deputies say that Bowling faces charges of three counts of sexual battery, three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct, lewd and lascivious battery on a child, lewd and lascivious exhibition in the presence of a child, and battery on a child.
"This type of behavior is sickening but I'm proud of the victims for coming forward and telling the truth before he could hurt others," Sheriff Rick Staly said. "Our detectives did a great job on this case to ensure this child predator was taken into custody. I hope he goes to prison for the rest of his life."
Flagler County, Fla
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