Boston.com reported that a 29 year old Abington School teacher has been charged in the Brockton Court with statutory rape for having had intercourse with a 13 year old boy over three hundred times in the past eighteen months. Read article, Boston.com, January 9, 2009. The first act of rape occurred on February 7, 2006. This was followed up by continuous acts occurring almost every other day. According to reports the teacher, Christine McCallum gave the boy a cell phone and wrote him letters suggestive of a her being obsessed with the victim. Prosecutors have charged McCallum with seven counts of statutory rape. The defendant was released however she has been ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device. Related charges are also pending in the Hingham District Court. During the arraignment and bail hearing defense counsel argued that the prosecution lacked evidence of the crime and offered that the McCallum had become “like a surrogate mother” to the victim. The allegations of statutory rape were denied. The victim is now sixteen years old.
Statutory rape is a crime in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265 Section 23. The law states that anyone having sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse with someone under the age of sixteen shall be punished. There is a maximum sentence of life in prison upon a conviction for this offense.
This crime is not uncommon. Just a few weeks ago something similar happened in Walpole, Massachusetts when the football coach and athletic director, former New England Patriot Danny Villa was charged with the statutory rape of a 15 year old student. School Teacher News reports 480 incidents of inappropriate sexual conduct between students and teachers just this year alone. See www.schoolteachernews.com scandal page or click on the following link: http://www.schoolteachernews.com/scandal2008.html.
Statutory rape cases pose difficult problems for criminal defense lawyers. No matter what the truth is, once a child gets up on the witness stand and testifies that an adult engaged in a sexual act with him or her you have an uphill battle. This is why hiring an experienced sex crimes defense lawyer is critical. Contact Attorney Stephen Neyman online now if you have been charged with a sex crime.
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