Articles Posted in Sex Crimes

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Authorities in Hudson, Massachusetts have charged John Resendes with breaking and entering, rape, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, intimidation of a witness, assault with intent murder, domestic assault and battery, kidnapping and resisting arrest. According to reports at 4:30 in the morning Resendes broke into a woman’s, entered her bedroom and assaulted her. The woman was someone with whom Resendes had a relationship. The possible cause of the incident stems from Resendes seeing her with another man earlier in the day. As the woman tried to escape the attack the defendant threw her to the ground and sexually assaulted her. She was able to call 911. The prosecution further claims that Resendes threatened the victim with a knife by holding it against her throat and suggesting that he would kill her. All charges are now pending in the Marlborough District Court. Resendes is being held without bail. The victim refused medical treatment.

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Massachusetts Man Charged With Sexual Assault, Kidnapping

In the context of this case all of these charges are serious. The rape charge itself carries a potential life sentence. Factually however this charge is not supported by this article. To be convicted of rape the district attorney must show that the defendant (Resendes) engaged in sexual intercourse, either natural or unnatural with the complainant; and that the sexual intercourse was accomplished by compelling the complainant to submit by force or threat of bodily injury and against her will. Natural intercourse consists of inserting the penis into the female sex organ. Unnatural sexual intercourse includes oral and anal intercourse, including fellatio and cunnilingus, and other intrusions of a part of a person’s body or other object into the genital or anal opening of another’s body. Either natural or unnatural sexual intercourse is complete on penetration, no matter how slight, of a person’s genital or anal opening. In addition to the vagina, the female genital opening includes the anterior parts known as the vulva and labia. Penetration into the vagina itself is not required. The article makes no mention of what acts Resendes committed to satisfy the elements of the crime of rape.

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Last Saturday John Murphy, a twenty two year man from Marblehead, Massachusetts was arrested and charged with rape of a child with force and drugging a person for sexual intercourse. He is now being held on a fifty thousand dollar bail that was set in the Lynn District Court. According to reports the victim is a fourteen year old girl. She was at a local playground two weeks ago and met with the defendant. Shortly thereafter police were called to the playground where they found the girl passed out. She was taken to a local hospital and then Boston’s Children’s Hospital where she underwent a sexual assault screen and full toxicology examination. Alcohol and prescription drugs were found at the scene. From the article it is unclear how the police linked Murphy to the assault and just what if anything Murphy did to the girl.

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Massachusetts Man Held On High Bail After Serious Sexual Assault Allegations

The sexual assault charges Murphy faces are extremely serious. Drugging a person for sexual intercourse is a felony in Massachusetts in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 272 Section 3. The law states that anyone who causes someone to take drugs with the intent to overcome that person’s will so that he or she can have sexual intercourse with the person is guilty of this crime. The punishment is not less than ten years in state prison and up to life in prison. The crime of rape is also punishable by as much as life. Facts that defense lawyers would like to know about this case are as follows: What does the victim remember? Is there physical evidence such as semen or DNA from Murphy that links him to the girl? Were there any other witnesses to the alleged acts? What was in the girl’s system? What evidence at the scene can be linked to the defendant?

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Around 10:00 p.m. on Tuesday night a woman was leaving a Route 1 restaurant in Danvers, Massachusetts. She had just finished having dinner with a friend and went to get her car parked at the rear of Friday’s Restaurant. She was approached by a man who dragged her into the woods next the Route 1 Costco’s store where she was raped and sexually assaulted. The victim was taken to a local hospital around 3:30 a.m. for treatment. The assailant fled the crime scene to the area of Route 114 near Peabody, Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Woman Dragged From Car, Raped

According to the Massachusetts Law Enforcement Agency Uniform Crime Reports rapes in Massachusetts have risen from approximately 250 in 1960 to over 1,600 in 2007. Between 1990 and 1993 reported rape cases in Massachusetts peaked at around 2,000 per year. On a national level, the crime of rape in Massachusetts has declined over the past three years. In 2005 Massachusetts ranked 37th nationally, 38th in 2006 and 39th in 2007.

In Massachusetts rape in punishable by life in prison. If a firearm is used during the commission of the rape there is a minimum mandatory ten year state prison sentence.

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Police have reported that Paul Mwaura, 27 of Brockton, Massachusetts is now charged with indecent assault and battery in the Quincy District Court. It is alleged that Mwaura groped two women at the Crane Library in Quincy. One woman told authorities that the defendant asked her to engage in sex for a fee in a library bathroom. When she declined he grabbed her after which she fled. The second woman reported that Mwaura was leaving the library while she was entering at which time he groped her and left the building.

2 Women Sexually Assaulted At Massachusetts Library

Indecent assault and battery is a sex crime and a felony in Massachusetts. It is punishable by up to five years in state prison. The statute prohibiting this act is Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265 Section 13H. To prove someone guilty of this crime the district attorney must prove beyond a reasonable doubt 1) that victim was at least fourteen years of age at the time of the alleged offense; 2) that the defendant committed an assault and battery on the alleged victim. Assault and battery is essentially the intentional touching of another person, without legal justification or excuse; 3) the assault and battery was “indecent” as that word is commonly understood, measured by common understanding and practices. An indecent act is one that is fundamentally offensive to contemporary standards of decency. An assault and battery is “indecent” if it involves touching portions of the anatomy commonly thought private, such as a person’s genital area or buttocks, or the breasts of a female; 4) that the alleged victim did not consent.

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Over the weekend and undercover female police officer placed an advertisement on Craigslist offering sex in exchange for cash at a Worcester, Massachusetts hotel. The operation resulted in fifty arrests total, most from Massachusetts. The target of the prostitution sting was people who advertise sex for fee on Craigslist and the people who respond to those ads. The operation was conducted over a three day period at a Worcester hotel. Three such operations have been conducted since the fall. The names of all defendants have been published. The information obtained from the investigation was shared with Boston police.

Massachusetts Residents Arrested When Trying To Get Sex From Craigslist

Engaging in sexual conduct for a fee in Massachusetts is a crime pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 272 Section 53. The law states that anyone who agrees to engage in sex for a fee or offers to pay for sexual favors shall be punished for up to one year in jail or by a fine of up to five hundred dollars. The sex does not have to occur for a person to be convicted of this offense. Typically people accused of this crime for the first time get their cases continued without a finding. However, it is becoming increasingly more common for law enforcement to publish the names of the offenders. This is designed to deter people from committing this crime.

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Last year a thirty two year old woman was sexually assaulted three times by the same man. On one occasion the man grabbed her while she was walking in Wollaston. On two occasions the man rubbed up against her in an inappropriate and lewd manner while riding on an MBTA train. Just yesterday the woman saw the man at a T station in Quincy, Massachusetts. She immediately contacted the police who arrested the man, later identified as twenty five year old Jose Valasquez of East Boston. Valasquez has been charged with criminal harassment and indecent assault and battery in the Quincy District Court.

Read Article: Woman identifies man who sexually assaulted her one year ago

Indecent assault and battery is a felony in Massachusetts. The law defining this offense is Massachusetts General Law Chapter 265 Section 13H. The law states that anyone found guilty of this offense faces a potential five year state prison sentence. To prove this crime the district attorney must show that the defendant engaged in conduct fundamentally offensive to contemporary moral values. The article makes no to the acts that Valasquez purportedly committed.

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Remember Joseph Houston? He is the former Brewster, Massachusetts police officer who got kicked out of a Metallica concert for peeing on concertgoers and then tried to get back in the concert by flashing his badge. His case is now over and it worked out great for him. He can thank a great criminal defense lawyer, a compassionate district attorney and a judge who simply “gets it”. According to reports, Houston will have to pay restitution in the amount of $2,632 to his victims and undergo alcohol counseling. If he does so and stays out of trouble for the next eighteen months his charges of assault and battery, trespassing and open and gross lewdness will be dismissed. The disposition or resolution of the case was accomplished by continuing the case without a finding.

Read Article: Charges Against Cop Who Urinated On Concert Fans To Be Dismissed

So what exactly is a continuance without a finding? In Massachusetts cases are often resolved in a manner whereby the defendant will have to adhere to certain conditions of probation however once he successfully completes those obligations the case will be dismissed on a designated date. In essence, the defendant is punished for the crime but he will not have a criminal record to show for it. The statute governing this rule is Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 278 Section 18. For years it was believed that this statute applied only to cases prosecuted in the District Courts. As recently as March of 2009 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that continuances without a finding (CWOF’s) could be entered by judges in the Superior Court.

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David Dunbar is a level three sex offender according to the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board. He was convicted in 2000 of indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of fourteen. He has recently been living in a homeless shelter in Quincy. Just the other day however Dunbar removed the screen on a woman’s apartment entered the apartment and purportedly committed some additional serious crimes. He is now facing charges in the Quincy District Court for assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, malicious destruction to property and home invasion. He is being held on $350,000 bail.

Read Article, Boston Herald, April 7, 2009

The home invasion charge is the most serious crime that Dunbar is accused of committing. It is a violent crime proscribed by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265 Section 18C. To be convicted of this crime the district attorney must prove that the defendant broke into someone’s home, knowing or having reason to know that they were home, while armed with a dangerous weapon and having used force or threats on the home’s occupant. A conviction of home invasion carries a twenty year minimum state prison sentence. The article stated that Dunbar was carrying a box cutter when he entered the home. That is sufficient to satisfy the element of “dangerous weapon”.

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On January 18, 2009, while at a Metallica concert Brewster, Massachusetts police officer Joseph Houston was throw out of the Boston Garden after urinating on another concertgoer. Houston then tried to get back into the concert by flashing his police badge. According to earlier reports Houston was told that if he did not leave the concert he would be charged with trespassing. Houston again tried to use his badge to regain entry to the Garden. Failing to heed the second warning Houston tried to again to go back into the concert. He was arrested. Later, the parents of the person on whom he urinated reported that incident to the Boston police and charges ultimately issued. Now, Houston in charged with assault and battery and open and gross lewdness.

Read Articles: Cape Cod Police Officer Suspended After Concert Incident

Brewster Police Officer Charged With Felony Stemming From Actions At Concert

The most serious charge Houston faces is the open and gross lewdness. In Massachusetts this is a felony in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 272 Section 16. There is a maximum three year state prison sentence that can be imposed if the case is prosecuted in the Superior Court. This case will most likely be handled in the Boston Municipal Court where Houston can be sentenced to no more than two years in the house of correction.

To convict someone of this crime the district attorney must prove five elements beyond a reasonable doubt. 1) that the defendant exposed his genitals to one or more persons, 2) that this was intentional, 3) that he intended public exposure, 4) that the act was done in a way to produce shock and 5) that someone was in fact shocked by the act.

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Brian Sewall is 58 years old and in 1992 he was convicted of sexually assaulting two boys. He was living on Main Street in Peabody, Massachusetts in September. Peabody and Salem police learned of his whereabouts in September and began looking for him after hearing that he was frequently observed in the company of a fifteen year old boy. Authorities found him on leaning into a car in what reports suggest was some sort of drug related activity. He was arrested for illegal possession of narcotics. When police learned that he had not registered as a sex offender he was charged with that crime too. The defendant was sentenced to six months in the house of correction for the sex offender violation. He has an outstanding warrant in New Hampshire for the same offense. Sewall has been charged with this crime at least four other times in Massachusetts. Other criminal convictions for the defendant include larceny, fraud, DUI and more.

Read Article: Peabody Sex Offender Sentenced In Salem Superior Court

The crime of failing to register as a sex offender in Massachusetts is governed by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 6 Section 178H. The law states that anyone who fails to register after having been convicted of particular designated sex offenses is guilty of a crime. For a first offense the law requires a minimum six month jail sentence. For second and subsequent offenders the punishment is a minimum five years in prison.

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