Sex Crimes

She was a popular teacher, known for working past midnight on school projects and being a compassionate ally to her students. He was one of the special ones: a sixth-grader with whom she had recognized a kindred spirit when he entered her class, talented and intense.

A Contra Costa County sex crimes prosecutor accused of raping a colleague during their lunch hour will not be recharged with the crime, a spokeswoman for Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris said Tuesday. A judge in October dismissed sexual assault charges against Contra Costa Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Gressett after determining that county and state prosecutors failed to inform a grand jury of potentially exculpatory evidence. The spokeswoman declined to comment on the decision. A junior prosecutor who worked with Gressett said he raped her in May 2008 in an assault that involved an ice pick, ice and handcuffs.

Southern Californians who were sexually abused by priests left in ministry by Bishop Michael P. Driscoll want him to resign or be fired. But in Idaho, where Driscoll now serves as bishop of Boise, Roman Catholic opinion appears far more divided after the release last week of internal church documents that detailed his past handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations in Orange County.

The sex crimes prosecutor was on his way to work when a police officer handcuffed him and told him he was under arrest — on suspicion of rape. A junior prosecutor told police that Contra Costa County Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Gressett, 54, had raped her during their lunch hour while he was awaiting a jury verdict in a molestation case he had tried. She said she had wanted sex but not the kind he had in mind. The two had had sexual contact at least once before, and she had described him to a friend as "pretty kinky," according to court records.

Seeking to narrow a loophole that allows sex offenders who are parents access to California schools, the Orange County Board of Education on Thursday directed its staff to look into drafting legislation that would increase notification and monitoring requirements. The move was prompted by several parents' discovery that the father of elementary school students in Huntington Beach had been convicted of lewd behavior with a person under age 14.

Singer Rick James, the Grammy-winning King of Funk of the 1980s, was arrested with his 21-year-old girlfriend Friday for allegedly imprisoning and torturing a 24-year-old woman with a hot cocaine pipe over three days at James' Hollywood Hills home, police said.

Prompting cries of injustice from one victim's mother, a prominent Burbank developer was given a plea bargain Tuesday in which he will receive a five-year prison term for paying four teen-age girls for sex since 1991. The man's 82-year-old father, charged with paying one teen-age girl for sex, also struck a deal in which he will be given three years probation when the two are sentenced next month. Michael A.

After Eileen Franklin-Lipsker witnessed the murder of her best friend, she wondered why no one, including police investigators, thought to question her because she was only 8 years old. Now, at 29, she will finally testify, and what she will say, she promises, is that the man she saw commit the crime was her own father. Franklin-Lipsker, who came forward with her accusation for the first time last month, is the key witness against George Thomas Franklin Sr., 50, a former San Mateo firefighter.

As many as 125 investigators had worked on the case, checking over 1,700 leads but coming up empty in their frustrating search for the man whose abductions and sexual assaults on young schoolgirls terrified several South Bay communities two years ago. On Thursday, law enforcement officials announced that they believe they have found their man--in a cell in Men's Central Jail.

In an effort to reduce California's 70,000 births to teenage mothers every year, the state Health and Welfare Agency on Wednesday unveiled a $3-million advertising campaign to deter young men from having sex with adolescent girls. Separate Spanish- and English-language ads will target men aged 18 to 24, warning that statutory rape is a serious crime. The ads also encourage young men to take responsibility for the children they have already fathered.

A Laguna Beach rug store owner accused of sexually assaulting a female customer in April 2010 and raping an employee a month later was arrested last week - nearly a year and a half after the incidents were reported and during which time he allegedly harassed a minor and attacked another woman. Saeid B. Maralan, 53, of Laguna Niguel, who is a registered sex offender, was taken into custody Thursday in connection with sex crimes involving four victims. Orange County prosecutors said Tuesday that he is charged with rape, attempted forcible rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object and distributing pornography to a minor.

It should come as no surprise that crimes like rape and sexual assault affect more than physical well-being - they take a toll on victims' mental health as well. A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. quantifies this, finding that women who experience gender-based violence are more than twice as likely as their peers to have some kind of mental disorder. The results are based on a nationwide survey of 4,451 Australian women conducted in 2007. Among them, 27% said they had been the victim of at least one instance of gender-based violence . More specifically, 14.7% of women had been sexually assaulted; 10% had been victims of stalking; 8.1% were raped and 7.8% had been badly beaten by a spouse or romantic partner.

A Los Angeles police officer convicted of sexually assaulting one young woman and soliciting sex from another while on duty has been sentenced to 8 1/2 years in state prison. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry also ordered 10-year-veteran Russell Mecano to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. Before sentencing Mecano on Thursday, Perry heard about the pain and anguish Mecano inflicted on a woman who was 18 at the time she was assaulted. She told the judge she had been the victim of a "senseless and heartless" crime that would affect her the rest of her life.

After nine days in jail, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was granted bail Thursday in a politically charged case concerning alleged sex crimes in Sweden. A high-court judge in London upheld an earlier decision to allow Assange to remain free while he fights extradition to Sweden, where authorities want to question him over allegations of molestation, unlawful coercion and rape stemming from encounters he had with two women in August. Assange, 39, can now swap what his lawyer calls the "Dickensian conditions" of a south London jail for the tony comforts of a country mansion owned by a friend, where the high-court judge agreed that he could stay while out on bail.

Julian Assange, the founder of the controversial WikiLeaks website, was arrested here Tuesday and ordered to remain in custody until a hearing next week on his possible extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women. The jailing of Assange came as governments and businesses around the world continued their efforts to halt the ability of WikiLeaks to function. A Visa Europe spokesman said Tuesday that the firm was suspending its business with WikiLeaks, following in the footsteps of Amazon.

For a third year, Murrieta police have mailed letters to child sex offenders suggesting that they leave their porch light off on Halloween and post a sign stating that they are not giving out candy. "To avoid any unnecessary allegations of impropriety with minors, I strongly suggest you protect yourself by voluntarily refraining from interacting with the children during the trick-or-treat holiday," says the letter from Police Chief Mark Wright. It was sent to the 43 registered offenders living in the city who have been convicted of sex crimes against children, said Lt. Bob Davenport.

Singer Billy Preston, who wrote the hit ballad "You Are So Beautiful" and played keyboards with the Beatles, was arrested Sunday on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy at his home in Malibu, authorities said. Preston, 45, was arrested for investigation of sexual battery, showing pornographic material to a minor, possessing cocaine and being under the influence of a controlled substance, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Rafael Estrada.

Can diamonds be a guy's best friend? Just days after being charged with sexually assaulting a hotel employee in Colorado, Kobe Bryant gave a purple diamond ring worth a reported $4 million to his wife, Vanessa. The Laker star commissioned the 8-carat ring from Rafinity, a Santa Monica jeweler on the Third Street Promenade that caters to a celebrity clientele. The couple picked up the ring earlier this week.

One by one, Border Patrol agents took the witness stand in the federal courthouse here last week to testify against a fellow officer, their faces creased with anguish. By their accounts, Agent Jesus Enrique Diaz Jr., a husband and father with seven years on the job, tortured a 16-year-old drug smuggler two years ago by wrenching his handcuffed arms upward as he pressed a knee into his back. In an effort to make the boy reveal where he had hidden marijuana bundles near the Rio Grande, Diaz also kicked him and dropped him face-first on the ground, agents testified.

Pope Benedict XVI has rejected the resignations of two Irish bishops who came under heavy pressure to step down in the wake of a damning report on clerical sex abuse in Dublin, Irish media reports said Wednesday. Auxiliary bishops Raymond Field and Eamonn Walsh tendered their resignations in December after a government-backed investigation found evidence of widespread cover-ups involving cases of priestly abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese from the 1970s through the 1990s. The report caused an uproar in Ireland and deepened public disillusionment with the once-dominant Roman Catholic Church.