Child Molestation

A Hollywood manager who specialized in representing young actors pleaded no contest Friday to two counts of child molestation and was released from county jail that afternoon. Martin Weiss, 47, faced eight felony counts of molesting an aspiring singer and musician he once represented. He entered a no-contest plea to two counts of committing lewd acts on a child under the age of 14, according to a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Leslie Dunn sentenced Weiss to one year in county jail and five years of probation.

New York police on Thursday had someone in custody in connection with one of the city's and country's most gripping missing-child cases: that of Etan Patz , a 6-year-old boy who vanished off a Manhattan street in 1979 on his way to school. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly released a brief statement early Thursday saying: "An individual now in custody has made statements to NYPD detectives implicating himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz 33 years ago. We expect to provide further details later today.

Three decades ago, they were teen idols. Todd Bridges played Willis on the popular sitcom "Diff'rent Strokes. " Corey Feldman starred in "Gremlins,""The Goonies" and "The Lost Boys. " The two men held the same dark secret: Each had been molested in his adolescence by men with Hollywood connections, experiences that would lead to downward spirals and years of drug addiction. Today, they are making a highly public case for California legislation they hope will protect child actors from sexual predators, a problem they say continues to bedevil the entertainment industry.

I have been attending trials in Los Angeles for 20 years. I've covered torture and murder, drug smuggling and bank robberies. I covered the trial of the officers who beat Rodney G. King and the rioters who beat Reginald O. Denny. I covered the murder trial of O.J. Simpsonand the child molestation investigation of Michael Jackson. I've been put on the stand and been told to reveal my sources for some unflattering documents regarding Police Chief Willie L. Williams (I refused). But one type of hearing has remained presumptively off-limits.

In his private journal, Jason Michael Handy once described himself as a "pedophile, full blown. " Handy snapped more than 1,000 photos of girls at the elementary school across the street from his house, using a camera with a telephoto lens, according to court documents. He volunteered at a Malibu church, where he worked with 6-year-olds. And his job as a production assistant at one of the nation's most prominent producers of children's television programs, Nickelodeon, gave him access to child actors on and off the set, and allowed him to exchange email addresses and phone numbers with them.

Reporting from San Francisco -- The California Supreme Court appeared reluctant Thursday to give adult victims of child molestation the right to sue decades later those who knew of the abuse and failed to stop it. During oral argument, several members of the state high court expressed skepticism toward a lower court's finding that gave adult victims flexible legal deadlines for bringing such third-party suits. The court is considering a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Church by six brothers who were in their 40s when they said they discovered that they were suffering the effects of abuse by a priest decades earlier.

In November, former Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexually abusing eight boys over a 15-year period, and head coach Joe Paterno was fired for not doing enough to stop it. Syracuse University basketball coach Bernie Fine is now being investigated for alleged child molestation. Shouldn't somebody do something? Maybe we need more criminal laws. How about a law that makes it a crime to witness child sexual abuse and not report it to the proper authorities?

Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky said he never spoke with Joe Paterno about any suspected misconduct with minors, the New York Times reported Saturday. Sandusky has been charged with 40 counts of molesting eight boys over 15 years and is free on bail while awaiting a preliminary hearing Dec. 13. A grand jury investigating Sandusky said in a report that some of the allegations occurred in the team showers, including a 2002 allegation in which a graduate assistant coach testified he saw Sandusky assaulting a young boy. University trustees fired Paterno on Nov. 9, four days after charges were filed against Sandusky, amid mounting pressure that school leaders should have done more to prevent alleged abuse.

A convicted child molester working as a Hollywood casting director began cooperating with a Los Angeles Police Department investigation, while child protection advocates called for background checks for those with access to child actors. Jason James Murphy, who served prison time for the 1996 kidnapping and molesting of an 8-year-old boy in suburban Seattle, has spent the last decade working as a casting assistant. He helped find young actors for movies including the science fiction hit "Super 8" and the forthcoming comedy "The Three Stooges.

Graham Zug used to call this place home. Until a year ago, he was a Penn State receiver. His older brother was part of the school's Blue Band. As Zug stood behind the Nittany Lions' bench Saturday alongside countless other former players in a symbol of solidarity, he said he could sense something inside Beaver Stadium wasn't normal. There were 107,903 fans in the building, but the atmosphere was subdued. "It was different," Zug said. "You could tell. " Only three days after child sex crime allegations against a former defensive coordinator cost longtime coach Joe Paterno his job, Penn State resumed playing football.