Sex Crimes

A Van Nuys jury Wednesday ordered the death penalty for a handyman convicted of sexually assaulting three women, including a grandmother whom he killed and whose body he dumped in a desolate area of Palm Springs. The decision comes less than a week after Paul Wesley Baker, 47, disrupted the death penalty portion of his trial when he smeared his feces over his face and had to be temporarily removed from the courtroom, authorities said. Deputy Dist. Atty.

Authorities searching a remote polygamist compound for a 16-year-old girl who had claimed she was sexually abused discovered a bed inside a towering limestone temple and were told by a "confidential informant" that men used it to have sex with underage girls, according to a court document unsealed Wednesday.

A former supervisor at the Orange County animal shelter has been convicted of sexually assaulting six female jail inmates who were working at the shelter to fulfill their sentences. Frank Martin Bojorquez Jr., 55, of Orange had the women assigned to duties in isolated areas of the shelter where he assaulted them in 2004 and 2005, prosecutors said. The women, all nonviolent offenders who didn't know one another, testified at the trial that they said nothing at the time of the assaults because they feared how Bojorquez could influence their jail time, prosecutors said.

The state social services agency Wednesday was moving to shut down nine homes used for child day care and foster care after an audit found registered sex offenders in them in violation of state law. The revelation came after state auditors compared the addresses of 75,000 licensed facilities, including foster family homes and in-home day-care centers, with the state's database of registered sex offenders.

Los Angeles County officials said Thursday that they would begin their own checks of child-care facilities and foster homes after a state audit found 49 instances in which convicted sex offenders appeared to have lived at the same address as such facilities. The audit found that although child-care operators and employees must submit to criminal background checks, no such requirement currently applies to people who live in the same house or apartment where the facilities are located.

A judge ruled Friday evening that 416 children seized by authorities during a raid on a polygamous sect's compound are at risk of sexual abuse if they stay with the group and must remain in state care. Texas District Judge Barbara L.

Stephen T. Rooney was looking for a promotion. He had been a teacher and dean at Foshay Learning Center for more than five years and was ready to rise in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Among his recommendations was a glowing letter from Foshay's principal, Veronique D. Wills, who said he "is highly capable of making significant contributions to the educational community."

Attorney Donna Broom had no idea what to expect when she threw her bags in her green Chevy Tahoe on Wednesday and set off on an eight-hour drive from Houston to San Angelo. She would miss her sons' baseball games that evening to represent a child seized from a polygamist compound. She did not know whether her client was a boy or a girl, a teenager or a baby.

The state medical board Thursday revoked the license of a Huntington Beach physician, seven weeks after an administrative law judge found he had sexually exploited two female patients. Dr. John Edwin Bohm, who specialized in anesthesiology and pain medicine, pleaded no contest in December 2005 in Los Angeles County Superior Court to sexual misconduct with one of the patients.

By his own confession, Austrian police say, Josef Fritzl held his daughter inside a hidden, windowless cellar for nearly a quarter of a century, raping her repeatedly and forcing her to give birth to seven of his children. When two of the children were freed this week, authorities said they were seeing sunlight for the first time.