Sex Crimes

A church youth leader was sentenced to a year in jail Friday for having unlawful sex with a 14-year-old girl he met through the church. Cezar David Soriano, 24, of Tustin pleaded guilty to the unlawful liaison with the girl he met while volunteering as a youth group leader at Calvary Chapel in Santa Ana. Prosecutors said Soriano groomed the girl for two years by befriending her and her family. He then urged her to sneak out of her house at night into the backyard or a nearby park where they had sex while her parents were asleep.

Saying he hadn't "slept well in days," Los Angeles schools Supt. David L. Brewer told parents at Markham Middle School on Thursday that he is investigating "how a policy and system we have in place failed" when an administrator previously investigated for allegedly having sex with a Foshay Learning Center student was transferred to Markham.

Mohave County Atty. Matt Smith filed a motion to dismiss two of 10 sexual assault charges against polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs because an alleged victim refuses to testify. Smith said that he received a letter from the woman's attorney explaining that she doesn't want to take the stand against Jeffs, the president, or prophet, of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "She does not want to have to deal with all the family and community pressures to be involved in this case," Smith said.

A trial began Monday at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana for an Orange County animal-shelter supervisor accused of sexually assaulting six female inmates who were working at the shelter to reduce their sentences, officials said. Frank Martin Bojorquez Jr., 53, of Orange is charged with seven felony counts of sexual assault, one misdemeanor count of sexual battery and six misdemeanor counts of a detention facility employee engaging in sexual acts with confined consenting adults.

The Los Angeles Unified School District board agreed Tuesday night to consider a resolution to review its employee sexual misconduct policies. The measure calls for a review of all current student sexual abuse allegations, establishes a task force to determine if any additional policies are needed and calls on the district to begin negotiating information-sharing agreements with the Los Angeles Police Department and other law enforcement agencies....

James Brian Sliter had every legal right to run for mayor of this gritty little city. But as a registered sex offender, Sliter learned, reality is sometimes different. A week after declaring that he was running for mayor of Wilmer because he was fed up by a local government he claims is sullied by nepotism and corruption, Sliter announced Friday that he was dropping out of the race.

Texas child welfare officials said Saturday that they had removed 183 people -- including 137 children -- from an isolated polygamist compound in southwestern Texas after allegations that a 16-year-old girl there had been sexually abused.

Texas officials said Monday that they had taken more than 400 children into temporary state custody while they continued investigating allegations that girls at a remote polygamist compound were being sexually abused by men. "This is the biggest single removal in the history of this agency," Child Protective Services spokesman Darrell Azar said Monday evening. "No one can remember anything quite like it.

Israel's former president, Moshe Katsav, called off a plea bargain that would have required him to admit sexual misconduct to avoid jail time. Katsav appeared in a Jerusalem court and unexpectedly said he was rejecting the deal because he wanted to clear his name. The move was a gamble. Under the plea deal, which Katsav had previously accepted, prosecutors would have dropped the most serious charges against him and the former president would have avoided jail. Katsav, 62, stepped down in late June after four female former employees accused him of a series of sex crimes, including rape, assault and harassment.

Child welfare investigators who entered a polygamist compound in West Texas this weekend found many pregnant teenagers and underage girls who said they were forced to marry, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday. The documents detailed the evidence that Texas officials presented to a judge to justify taking temporary state custody of more than 400 children from the YFZ Ranch, near the tiny town of Eldorado, built by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.