Child Injury Lawyer Blog
By Benjamin A. Klopman, Attorney and David Wolf, Attorney
Published by Child Injury Lawyer Network
In Maryland, Steven Kruger, age 63, pled guilty to distributing child poronography. Mr. Kruger thought he was sending text / e mails to a 13 year old girl. In reality, he was communicating with an undercover police officer. A meeting was arranged with the “13 year old” undercover police officer and Mr. Kruger was arrested. Kruger will be sentenced in March 2009 and faces up to 20 years in prison for his actions. The Maryland United States Attorney’s Office was involved in this investigation. After the arrest, investigators obtained a search warrant for Kruger’s computer where investigators found e mails, photos, and other evidence of documenting chid sexual abuse. You can read more about this story at the Baltimore Sun – Windsor Mill Maryland Man Admits to Sending Child Poronography.
Anthony Stanci, age 18, has been arrested for blackmailing teenage boys for sex and having sex with minors in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. According to news reports, Stanci set up an account on Facebook, a popular social networking website, and posted as a teenage girl. “Emily” convinced many teenage boys to send naked photographs of themselves to “Emily”. Once “Emily” received the photographs, “Emily” then threatened to e mail and send the naked photographs to family and friends if the teenage victim would not have sex with Anthony Stanci. These horribly deceptive and heinous acts resulted in Stanci having sex with teenage boys as young as 15 years old. So far, 31 boys sent Stanci naked photographs of themselves have been identified. Stanci faces many felony counts on this matter. His attorney stated that Stanci may be interested in a plea agreement. Of course, Stanci is entitled to a lawyer and is innocent until proven guilty; however, there appears to be a mountain of evidence in the form of Facebook, e mails, text messages, and witness testimony against Stanci. If there is a conviction or plea deal, Stanci needs to serve a prison sentence and get registered as as sex offender / sex predator.
The parents of a teenage girl filed a wrongful death lawsuit following the death of their 18 year old daughter. The girl was shot and killed by Huntington Beach police officers when they responded to a 911 call about a woman walking with a knife in a park. The girl had been partying the previous night and after getting into a fight with her mother, who she attacked with a knife and cut, left the house with the knife. The teenager was later seen at the park with the knife. When told by police to give up the knife, the girl refused and told that police that she was on drugs and to kill her. The girl began running toward the police with the knife and was shot 15 times by policy when she came within eight feet of the officers.
Lindwood Jones, Jr. and Shawntay D. Jones have been arrested and charged with their daughter’s death in Suffolk, Virgina. WAVY-TV 10 reported that the parents were charged for first degree murder. Zanya K. Jones died on December 1. Zanya was less than a year old. The medical examiner conducted an autopsy and determined that Zanya died from dehydration and malnutrition. Other children were removed from the home which was unsanitary.
In another sad example of how the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare has failed to protect the most vulnerable children of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a 29-year–old mother of five has now been charged with Child Neglect Causing Death, more than two years after she allegedly allowed her 7-month-old daughter to starve to death. Citing “issues in completing and acquiring medical examiner’s and other doctors’ reports,” the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has charged the mother, however, the father has not been charged. According to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin criminal complaint, local police found no baby food in the house other than an empty can of infant formula, but the parents spent as much as $500 per month on gambling. The parents allegedly spent the day after the child’s death at a local casino. The mother received state assistance, food stamps and SSI benefits. Although a 9-year-old sibling was being monitored under a court order, and child welfare caseworkers and a therapist made visits to the family’s alleged “filthy, roach-infested home” to check on the older child, it does not appear as though they were aware of the issues and services which were to be provided to the younger child. The deceased child, Layunnia Lewis, was born 14 weeks premature and suffering from herpes, weighing 4 3/4 pounds, and weighed only 5 1/2 pounds when she died at 7 months of age. An independent review panel report noted that “for some portion of time that the safety services case was open [for the younger child], neither the ongoing worker [for the older child] nor the safety service worker knew of their co-worker’s involvement with the family.”