In his second turn at ruling whether a teenage murder suspect would be tried as an adult or a juvenile, Lawrence County President Judge Domenick Motto found that most of the defense’s claims went uncontested.

In a ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, Motto determined that Jordan Brown, a former New Beaver resident, will be tried as a juvenile. Brown, who turns 14 on Tuesday, is accused in the Feb. 20, 2009, murder of 26-year-old Kenzie Houk.

When the killing occurred Brown was 11, and Houk was engaged to his father, Christopher. Houk was pregnant with a child who would have been Jordan Brown’s half-brother. The unborn boy also died. Jordan Brown was charged with the murder on Feb. 21, 2009, and has been in custody ever since.

Under state law, Brown was presumed to be an adult pending a legal action known as decertification. Motto’s ruling to uphold the decertification petition moves the case to juvenile court, which means Brown can’t be imprisoned beyond August 2018, when he turns 21, if he is found guilty.

Had Brown been convicted as an adult, he would almost certainly have been sentenced to life in prison with no possibility for parole.

“We’re relieved and thankful,” said defense attorney David Acker. “I know this is a difficult decision for the court and difficult case for the court. Judge Motto did the right thing.”

The state attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the case, did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests seeking comment, and a phone message left with Kenzie Houk’s family went unreturned.

Motto’s decision ends the public phase of Brown’s prosecution, because juvenile legal actions are sealed in Pennsylvania.

State law calls for a detention hearing within 72 hours of the ruling to determine whether Brown will remain incarcerated, but Acker said the defense would waive that hearing and that Brown will remain at the Edmund Thomas center in Erie County, where he has been held since March of 2009.

At some point in the near future, Brown will face a dispositional hearing, the long-delayed trial to determine his innocence or guilt. There are time limits for dispositional hearings as well, but Acker said the defense would waive those provisions as well because of the case’s complexity.

Tuesday’s ruling ended a decertification process that took nearly two years to complete. In January and February of 2010, Motto heard testimony from defense and prosecution witnesses on whether Brown should be prosecuted in juvenile or adult court.

Child and youth psychologist Kirk Heilbrun, the defense expert, testified that he examined Brown and found the boy to be a strong candidate for rehabilitation and a low risk for committing crimes if he were released.

Psychologist John O’Brien, testifying for the prosecution, said Brown displayed an unwillingness to accept responsibility for his actions — as demonstrated by his assertions of innocence in Houk’s murder — and that Heilbrun’s assessment that Brown was a low risk for criminal acts came from an assumption that Brown was not the killer.

Under cross-examination by Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek, the prosecuting attorney, Heilbrun admitted that Brown’s risk of offending upon his release would increase if he were guilty.

Based largely on O’Brien’s testimony, Motto ruled in March of 2010 that Brown’s prosecution would remain in adult court. But the defense team of Acker and Dennis Elisco appealed the decision to Pennsylvania Superior Court.

In a 2-1 vote, with former Pittsburgh police chief and Allegheny County District Attorney Judge Robert Colville dissenting, a three-judge Superior Court panel ruled that Motto’s decision violated Brown’s Fifth Amendment constitutional right against self-incrimination.

The ruling also all but invalidated O’Brien’s testimony, which established that Brown’s unwillingness to admit guilt made him a less than ideal candidate for rehabilitation.

In a hearing earlier this month before Motto, the defense team resubmitted the testimony of Heilbrun and staff at the Thomas center from January of 2010, while Krastek withdrew O’Brien’s testimony and relied on the assertion that the burden of proof in a decertification is on the defense and that Acker and Elisco failed to meet the evidentiary standard.

Instead, Acker said the absence of O’Brien’s testimony left Heilbrun’s assertions, along with statements from Thomas center staffers that Brown is responding well to treatment, unchallenged and ruled to place Brown’s prosecution in juvenile court.

Elisco, who spoke Wednesday with Christopher Brown, said he was relieved by the outcome, although Acker said that relief is laced with sorrow.

“The man has been under horrific strain since this happened,” Acker said of Jordan Brown’s father. “People forget how much this man has lost.”

I’m sure the Brown family and their supporters are wearing themselves out patting each other on the back over Judge Dominic Motto’s decision to reverse himself and rule that Jordan Brown should be tried as a juvenile for the murder of Kenzie Houk and her unborn baby.

So now, no matter what happens at Brown’s trial, the worst that can happen to him is he’s held at a juvenile facility until he’s 21 years old, after which he will be released to the world with a spotless record.

To be honest, Judge Motto had little choice in the matter. When the Court Of Appeals ruled he couldn’t take the fact that Jordan refused to admit his guilt as a sign that he was a poor candidate for rehabilitation into his decision, it took the teeth out of prosecution’s argument. Couple that with Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek’s decision not to challenge youth psychologist Kirk Heilbrun’s opinion that Brown is a good candidate for rehabilitation, and you can see that Judge Motto could only rule on the testimony he had in front of him.

I’ll tell you one thing though, my friends, there are people out there talking like this ruling somehow magically makes Jordan Brown less guilty of murdering Kenzie Houk with his little toy shotgun. I read one comment which stated something along the lines of feeling sorry for the Houk family because they watching Brown’s guilt “melt away”.

Now I assume one has to be quite lost in self delusion to really believe that nonsense. How does a ruling that Jordan Brown is a juvenile offender change the evidence against him? Does it make the things Kenzie’s then 7-year-old daughter saw and heard that morning suddenly go away? Does it take back the threats that Brown made against Kenzie, proving this was a premeditated murder? How about the wild goose chase he sent the State Police on, or his attempt to hide the spent shotgun shell – do these action not matter because “he’s just a kid”?

I’ve gotten my ass handed to me for saying this, but that has never stopped me from speaking my mind. I honestly believe Jordan Brown is a psychopath. His denial and complete lack of remorse – it all fits. But I wonder how much of who he has become is his fault – According to his biological mother, Mildred Krause, Jordan’s father Chris has a history of domestic violence and “stalking, controlling behavior”. She said he:

“threatened to break my neck (and) showed me his gun and permit and told me if I ever break up with him, he would kill me.”

“When I told him i was going back to Florida, he tore up my brother’s room. … He also tried running me off the road when I had the baby with me. … He told me if I ever broke up with him, he would kill me.”

Now if this is true, the question becomes, why would Krause leave Jordan in Chris Brown’s custody? Apparently prosecutors know the answer to that and will reveal it during trial.

I’m going to say this as clearly as I can – Jordan Brown is as guilty as homemade sin. He walked up to Kenzie Houk as she slept, pointed his 20 gage youth-sized shotgun at the back of her head, and executed her and the unborn, nearly full term child she was carrying. There is no question in my mind about this.

Meanwhile, as you can see in the second video, the Houks are victimized once again. There have been a small, persistent minority of Jordan Brown supporters who have not only forgotten about the suffering of Kenzie’s family, but have done immeasurable harm by demonizing them for wanting what every victim’s family wants. Justice.

But the worst things they have said about the Houks was condemning them for accepting Kenzie’s ex-boyfriend into the family. This act of kindness – forgiving this very imperfect man and allowing him to mourn Kenzie with them – was twisted into some sick relationship by people whose minds should be writing horror movie scripts, because the ex-boyfriend is their “real killer”.

Forget the fact that police cleared him on the very first day of the investigation. Let me describe the scenario: It had snowed the night before the murder, leaving a light coating of the white stuff on the ground in the morning. When detectives arrived at the crime scene, one of the first things they noticed was that there were no footprints leading to the house that could have been made by an intruder.

Kenzie’s ex was number one on the cops’ suspect list initially, mainly because he had recently found out that Kenzie’s youngest daughter wasn’t his biological child. Until then, he had believed all along that she was his daughter and supported the child emotionally and financially. He was, understandably, pretty pissed off, and made several threats against Kenzie’s life. She had also taken out a pair of protective orders against him.

So first stop for detectives that morning was our intrepid bad boy’s home, where the snow had another tale to tell. No footprints leading to his car, and no tire tracks indicating the car had been driven since the night before. So, unless our hero had somehow figured a low energy solution to anti-gravity, the ex-boyfriend was in the clear.

Now if I heard evidence like that, I’d probably start looking for a new patsy to pin my hopes on, but not our little group of deluded Free Jordan Brown supporters. The attacks on the Houks, and on this innocent man have never let up. It upsets me in a way only people who trash victims and their families can do, but I’ve come to understand that all I can do is respond to their lies, fabrications and half-truths with the facts I’ve gathered over the past two and a half years, and trust that most people are smart enough to know the difference between truth and lies.

We’ve picked up a lot of new readers since the HBO documentary on the Diane Schuler case aired at the beginning of this month. For you folks, I suggest you familiarize yourself with the original story about Jordan Brown (Click Here) and the three previous updates (Update 1) (Update 2) (Update 3). If you thought Diane Schulers’s supporters were out there, well….

HUSBAND OF DIANE SCHULER SUES NY STATE AND WARREN HANCE
from the article by Susan Donaldson James – ABC News

Diane Schuler was nearly perfect at everything she touched, until she drove the wrong way down New York’s Taconic State Parkway, slamming head-on into another vehicle and killing eight people, including her 2-year-old daughter, three young nieces and herself.

Now, on the two-year anniversary of the horrific crash, an HBO documentary, “There’s Something Wrong With Aunt Diane,” portrays the 36-year-old “super mom” as a control freak haunted by a dark past: Her mother abandoned Schuler when she was 9.

Just after the film aired Monday night, Schuler’s husband Daniel said he is suing the state and his brother-in-law Warren Hance, whose three daughters were victims.

Daniel Schuler claims the highway was badly designed and inadequately sign-posted, which enabled Diane Schuler to drive the wrong way into traffic, according to the New York Post. He also claims that the Chevy Trailblazer the family had borrowed from Hance, was faulty.

“It’s a terrible tragedy,” Tom Ruskin, who was hired by the Schulers to investigate the accident, told the Post. “His wife was drunk and high at the time of the accident that killed seven innocent people. You don’t keep suing people…If she was alive today, Diane would likely be in jail.”

In the documentary, which air every Monday night until Aug. 15, Filmmaker Liz Garbus attempts to piece together the psychological puzzle of Schuler’s state of mind before the 2009 accident, one of the worst in state history. Only her son Bryan, then 5, survived.

People who knew Schuler said she was a stable, devoted and trustworthy mother, not someone who would put others, especially her children, at risk.

But toxicology reports at the time revealed a blood-alcohol level of 0.19 — the equivalent of 10 drinks — and considerable levels of THC from smoking marijuana.

The accident made national news. Schuler was canonized by her family, who challenged the autopsy results, and vilified by those who called her a reckless drunk and even a “scumbag.”

The film follows Schuler’s husband, Daniel, and her sister-in-law, Jay Schuler, who for two years have been trying to clear her name, insisting a medical emergency was to blame.

It strips away Schuler’s perfect veneer. Those closest to her say she hid the pain of her mother’s abandonment. Although her three brothers reconciled with their mother, Schuler refused, according to her husband.

“She never complained about it,” one friend said on camera. “She never talked about it, almost like she wasn’t even there.”

Instead, Schuler earned a top salary as a cable-TV executive, was a take-charge wife, raised two impeccably dressed children and volunteered enthusiastically at their school.

“It’s a kind of fundamental perfectionism, so that life becomes unbearable in some ways,” forensic psychiatrist Dr. Harold Bursztajn told ABCNews.com. “After the fact, we can see the breakdown patients suffer when they feel they have to be great, otherwise they are no good.

“For someone like Diane, they try harder and harder and they will never be satisfied with being good enough,” he said. “But that was an impossible way to live and to be human at the same time.”

Friends said she smoked marijuana at night to help her sleep but that Schuler showed no signs of alcoholism. Indeed, they said, she hardly drank.

Bursztajn, a clinical psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School who was interviewed for the film, said when trauma doesn’t heal, it can have catastrophic consequences.

“Diane could not forgive her mother or herself,” he said. “She compensated in the present for what she lost in the past.

“It’s a puzzle,” Bursztajn added. “She was not someone who was mean. Not someone who was bad. And yet look what happened. It was a profound catastrophe.”

For the first time, filmmaker Garbus interviews eyewitnesses, first responders, investigators and medical and psychiatric experts and draws on surveillance footage, family photos, news clips and expert testimony to explore events surrounding the crash to see how things went so wrong.

It was Schuler herself who had appeared to have super-human powers. “She seemed to be good at whatever she attempted,” her friend, Sue Troccoli, said. “She was very good at her job, and she was a take-charge person, too.”

Psychiatrist Bursztajn said Schuler was the worst kind of perfectionist who learned to self medicate. Had she sought help, the tragedy might have been averted.

“The problem is, it doesn’t work for very long,” Bursztajn said. “Eventually, the fear, the shame and the humiliation come back.”

The day of the accident, Schuler likely was stressed about running late and tried to ease her physical pain with alcohol and marijuana, which led to disorientation and dissociation. “She lost touch with reality,” he speculated.

Most experts ruled out suicide. “That is not consistent with who Diane was,” Bursztajn said. “She was not someone who gave up.”

Dr. Carol Bernstein, associate professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, said, “the reality is anybody can snap.”

“A psychiatric disorder can affect all of us, even people who look like they are functioning very well.”

She cites the case of Leshanda Armstrong, a New York mother of four who drove her minivan into the frigid waters of the Hudson River in April, killing herself and three of her small children.

“People said she seemed so normal,” Bernstein said. “People have an idea in their heads that in order for someone to engage in bizarre behavior or take a risk or harm people, or attempt suicide, or, God forbid, even what’s going on in Norway, it means they are weird or strange, and people distance themselves.”

She warns that not all those who have upsets in life will end up like Schuler. But many are too embarrassed to admit psychic pain.

“Someone may be struggling and not feel they can tell the people they love until they are pushed to the point,” Bernstein. said “People suffer in silence.”

The lesson learned, she said, is that mental problems should not be stigmatizing and those who struggle should “feel free to communicate so we can see warning signs.

“When people feel burdened and depressed and hopeless,” she said, “it’s not shameful to reach out and get help.”

I’m fucking speechless folks….My God Daniel, your wife is responsible, one way or the other, for the death of Warren Hance’s three daughters, and you sue him? Do you have any shame at all?

You incredible bastard.

The parents of children locked up by Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. as part of a $2.8 million kids-for-cash racket cheered when the prosecutors who sent the former Luzerne County judge to prison for 28 years emerged from a federal courthouse Thursday.

Several crowded around lead prosecutor Gordon Zubrod to shake his hand and offer thanks. It was Zubrod who had forcefully argued in court Thursday that Ciavarella should receive a sentence “that will keep him in prison for the rest of his natural life” for taking payments from two for-profit detention centers.

Ciavarella, who was placed in federal custody immediately after his sentencing, will be 85 on his earliest possible release date, with time off for good behavior, in June 2035.

“Full justice was done,” Zubrod told the media. “We got what we requested.”

Ciavarella’s attorneys said they will appeal the sentence and his conviction in the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

More than 200 people crammed the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik and an overflow courtroom equipped with a live video feed to witness Thursday’s sentencing. Dozens wore white T-shirts bearing a picture of Edward R. Kenzakoski III, who committed suicide in what his mother described as a downward spiral following his incarceration by Ciavarella on a minor drug charge.

Ciavarella, 61, showed no emotion when Kosik announced the sentence. The tense courtroom, watched over by a phalanx of anxious U.S. marshals, was quiet.

In a statement to the court prior to sentencing, Ciavarella attacked the prosecution and Zubrod in particular, arguing they had sullied his reputation with “kids-for-cash” allegations, but failed to prove that he had taken money for incarcerating juveniles.

Ciavarella told Kosik he agreed to plead guilty to fraud and tax charges in the case in 2009 based on the understanding that he would not admit to taking kickbacks or bribes for jailing juveniles.

“After my plea was presented to you for your consideration and acceptance or rejection, attorney Zubrod made a statement to the press and uttered three words that changed the whole tenor of this case,” Ciavarella told Kosik. “As we all know, those words were ‘kids for cash.’

“Those three words made me the personification of evil. They made me the Antichrist and the devil.”

In subsequent public statements, Ciavarella denied portions of the government’s case, leading Kosik to reject the plea agreement, which would have sent Ciavarella and a co-defendant, former Judge Michael T. Conahan, to prison for about seven years.

Ciavarella said the “kids-for-cash” allegation drove him to fight the charges and demand a trial.

“I am about to lose the physical presence of my family, a loss which is almost unbearable to shoulder,” Ciavarella told the court. “But I will never lose my will to fight against individuals who say I took cash to put children in placement when I never did.”

During Ciavarella’s trial in February, the government offered no testimony from juvenile offenders who appeared in his court, concentrating on payments Ciavarella and Conahan received from Robert K. Mericle and Robert J. Powell, the builder and co-owner of the detention centers.

Prosecutors said their case did not involve allegations that the two judges received specific payments for placing individual juveniles in specific detention centers. Rather, it focused on the overall scheme, which corrupted the entire juvenile court system.

“The defendant argues he didn’t sell juveniles retail and we agree with that,” Zubrod told the court Thursday. “He was selling them wholesale.”

The state Supreme Court has vacated 4,000 to 5,000 cases handled by Ciavarella, finding he jailed juveniles on minor charges after cursory hearings, failed to fully inform them of their right to counsel and set court policies that swelled the number of detentions.

The prosecution maintained those juveniles should still be considered victims in the federal case, even if most of them were not placed in the two centers co-owned by Powell.

“I don’t think Ciavarella or Conahan themselves really personally cared where the juveniles went as long as they could use their power to place the juveniles as leverage or control over Mericle and Powell,” U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith said after Thursday’s sentencing.

The sheer number of victims, coupled with other factors in Ciavarella’s case, inflated his sentencing score under federal guidelines, making him eligible for a life sentence.

Ciavarella was accompanied to court Thursday by his wife, Cindy, two daughters and about 20 other relatives and supporters. They declined comment Thursday as marshals escorted them to a courthouse exit.

It could not be determined Thursday where Ciavarella was being held.

In addition to the prison sentence, Ciavarella was ordered to pay $1.17 million in restitution to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the IRS, but testimony at his trial indicated he is heavily in debt and would probably be unable to pay.

Defense attorney Al Flora Jr. said Ciavarella will appeal his conviction on most of the counts against him, but not on tax charges to which he admitted guilt during his trial.

Under Kosik’s sentence, Ciavarella is to serve a 20-year sentence on racketeering and conspiracy charges that will be the subject of appeal, followed by a five-year sentence on a tax conspiracy charge, followed by a three-year sentence for filing false tax returns.

I was actually quite surprised to hear about these developments, since the way things stood at the end of our original series of articles on Mark A. Ciavarella and Michael T. Conahan both man had plea deals in place and were expected to receive seven year sentences.

But I guess U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik, who had caught wind of Ciavarella’s attacks on the prosecution’s case against him – made AFTER the plea deal was signed – decided that maybe wasn’t exactly sincere when he admitted to selling his judicial soul for money, and causing undue suffering for thousands of children and teenagers.

In one more case of “I wish I’d kept my big mouth shut”, Judge Kosik rejected the entire plea deal for both defendants. Ciavarella and Conahan were free to negotiate with federal prosecutors once again, with the understanding that they would have to accept a much longer sentence, or one or both could choose to go to trial and face the full 157 years if convicted of all the charged against them.

Michael T. Conahan took a new deal and got 20 years in federal prison, but Mark A. Ciavarella, who seems to believe to this day that his crimes weren’t all that bad, decided to take his chances in court. He lost, and discovered that the cost of his arrogance and lack of remorse would likely be the rest of his life.

Seems fair to me. Especially after listening to this clown talk to reporters after his conviction. You’d think he’d been acquitted of all charges. Take a look at this video of Mark A. Ciavarella leaving court after the verdict. Pay special attention to his non-reaction to the distraught mother’s tirade against him (more about her later).

Jesus Christ, you’d think Mark was the victim here…this man’s arrogance knows no bounds. So he took kickbacks from the owners of these two private juvenile facilities, to send children to those facilities, but he denies that he took “cash for kids”?

Well, it may not have been specifically so much money per child, but splitting hairs like that only make a guy like Mark A. Ciavarella appear to have even less remorse than before he went to trial.

The mom in the video who confronts Mark A. Ciavarella with so much emotion was Sandy Fonzo of Wilkes-Barre, PA. Her son, Edward Kenzakoski III, appeared before Judge Mark A. Ciavarella’s court in 2004 on a drug paraphernalia charge. In spite of a spotless arrest record, Ciavarella ordered Kenzakoski several months in two different juvenile facilities.

He was never the same after that, according to his mother and father, doing a second stint in juvenile facility, and another at a State Department of Corrections boot camp, both for assault.

A month after completing boot camp, Edward Kenzakoski III took a pistol and ended his life with a shot to the heart.

Was this Mark A. Ciavarella’s fault? The truth is the vast majority of his victims haven’t harmed themselves. But it’s also a pretty safe bet that Edward Kenzakoski III would still be alive if not for the actions of a certain judge.

Mark A. Ciavarella did immeasurable harm to countless young people, and he did it for the most irrelevant of reasons – money. That’s what makes him so Hellworthy, at least in my book. And now, thanks to his arrogance and his big mouth, he finds himself about to enter the federal prison system with little chance of coming out – remember, there is no parole available in federal prison. He’s going to serve every day of those 28 years, and I hope each one of them is even more painful and miserable than the one before.

Luke Wright, who was convicted last month of raping and torturing his mentally disabled sister, Laura Cummings, was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison on Tuesday in Erie County Court.

Wright did not speak before the Judge Michael D’Amico handed down the sentence.

Laura Cummings, 23, was found dead in her family’s North Collins home in January 2010. Prosecutors say she had been beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, and scalded at the hands of Wright and their mother, Eva Cummings.

The District Attorney’s office was seeking the same sentence for Wright that had been given to his mother, Eva Cummings, 52 years to life.

Erie County Assistant District Attorney Thomas Finnerty said, “Although Luke Wright did not kill Laura Cummings, his conduct was so depraved and so egregious and occured over such an extended period of time, I respectfully request that this demands a lengthy sentence.”

Wright’s defense attorney, John Nuchereno, asked the judge for mercy, saying his client was a victim in the case as well, given his mental retardation and the fact he had suffered abuse as well.

“Mercy seasons justice judge, and I suggest to you that Luke is deserving and Laura would understand that,” said Nuchereno.

D.A. Frank Sedita reacted to that statement by saying, “Nonsense, nonsense. I don’t think Mr. Nuchereno is in any position whatsoever to speak about what the victim would think.”

Sedita said that with Wright’s sentence justice has been done, “Most of the people who are sentenced to life in prison, serve the rest of their life in prison and are carried out in a pine box.”

Monday night, 2 On Your Side aired an investigative story about Eva Cummings’ cousin Joyce Landahl.

Landahl handled the SSI Disability checks for Laura, Eva Cummings and Luke Wright.

Landahl, by her own admission, said she saw Laura every day.

Despite the horrific abuse that authorities say Laura suffered over the last two years of her life, Landahl said she saw Laura with a bruise on her just once.

Scott Brown: “If she knew what was going on, or if she saw bruises on Laura and did nothing to stop it, is that something that you can prosecute?”

D.A. Frank Sedita: “The law says that mere presence at a crime scene or mere knowledge that crimes are being committed in the vast majority of circumstances does not mean criminal liability.

“If I have sufficient evidence to demonstrate that anybody else committed crimes against Laura, you bet I would prosecute them too.”

Scott Brown: “But you don’t believe you have that evidence?”

D.A. Frank Sedita: “No.”

The charges and sentences are as follows:

Predatory sexual assault: 25 years to life

Criminal sex act: 25 years plus 5 years post-release supervision

2nd degree rape: 2 1/3 years to 7 years

Criminal sexual assault: 7 years plus 5 years post-release supervision

Incest: 1 1/3 to 4 years

Unlawful imprisonment: 2 1/3 to 7 years

Endangerment: one year

Assault (x2): 15 years plus 5 years post-release supervision for each count

All sentences are to be served concurrently, except the assault charges which will be served consecutive to the 25 to life sentence.

Last month it took a jury less than four hours to find him guilty on all 10 counts against him, including assault, sodomy, and endangering the welfare of a mentally incompetent person.

The jury rejected Wright’s defense that he was not responsible for the charges because he suffered from brain damage and mental retardation.

_____________________________________________________________________________

EVA CUMMINGS SENTENCED TO AT LEAST 53 YEARS IN PRISON
from the article written by Scott Brown – WGRZ-TV, Buffalo, NY

In a case that shocked the community, a North Collins woman learned Tuesday she will spend the next 53 and a third years to life behind bars for the torture and beating death of her developmentally disabled daughter.

Erie County Court Judge Michael D’Amico handed down the sentence to Eva Cummings. Cummings pleaded guilty earlier this year to her role in her daughter Laura’s death.

The 53 and a third years is a combination of sentencing on 4 charges. Cummings recieved 25 to life for murder, 25 and 5 years supervised release for assault, 2 and a third to 7 years for unlawful imprisonment and 1 year for endangering the welfare of a mentally challenged person. Those sentences will be served consecutively, meaning Eva Cummings will not be eligible for parole until she is 108 years old.

Laura’s brother, Luke Wright, also accused in participating in the murder of his mentally-challenged sister, still faces trial.

Earlier this month Judge D’Amico, found Wright competent to stand trial in the killing of his sister.

He’s charged with repeatedly raping and beating Laura. If convicted, Wright faces life in prison.

Wright’s trial is now expected to take place sometime next spring. His attorney says he’ll use an insanity defense in the case.

After 18 months in prison for a child pornography conviction, Scott Lake Elementary School’s former principal, John Stelmack, is about to be a free man.

A three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland ruled Friday that photographs he had were not child pornography because the nude bodies shown were those of an adult.

Photos of the faces of children, one of them a Scott Lake student, had been placed on those bodies, but none of the photos actually showed children nude.

“Unseemly as the images in this case may be, their possession is not (outlawed in Florida) because the only sexual conduct in the images is that of an adult,” Judge Morris Silberman wrote in the opinion. Judges Charles A. Davis and Marva Crenshaw concurred.

Stelmack’s lawyers have failed in previous attempts to get him released from the Wakulla Correctional Institution while his appeal was pending.

Chip Thullbery, a spokesman for the State Attorney’s Office, said there are no other charges the State Attorney’s Office can file.

“Essentially, our prosecution of Mr. Stelmack has ended with this decision,” Thullbery said Friday.

Appellate judges heard arguments Oct. 13 about whether children’s faces cut from photographs and pasted onto images of adult nude bodies should be considered child pornography.

Lawrence Walters, a lawyer for Stelmack, argued such images aren’t child pornography, and his client’s conviction and five-year prison sentence should be thrown out.

Walters said the images don’t fit the legal definition of child pornography because they “do not depict a child engaged in sexual conduct.”

He said a federal law was created to address “composite or morphed images,” but no such law exists under state law.

“As uncomfortable as the images may make us feel, they simply are not reached by current Florida law,” he said.

Diana K. Bock, an assistant state attorney general, insisted the images are child pornography, and the ex-educator’s punishment is appropriate.

Bock said the purpose of creating the images was to objectify a real child and to represent sexual conduct by that child.

“Once that picture was placed on that body, it changed the nature of that picture,” she said.

The appellate court judges, however, sided with the defense and said that if the state Legislature had intended to make simulated child sexual exposure illegal, it would have had to write that into state law.

Kent Lilly, a Lakeland lawyer who represented the family of two sisters who sued the Polk County School District in the matter, could not be reached Friday for comment.

Legal representatives for the Polk County School District also could not be reached for comment.

Deputies arrested Stelmack in December 2007 after finding cut-and-paste images in his briefcase stored in a closet in his office at Scott Lake Elementary School.

Stelmack had been placed on suspension Dec. 14, 2007, while school officials investigated accusations he had inappropriately hugged fifth-grade girls.

The two sisters were considered Stelmack’s “favorites,” David Carmichael, a lawyer for the school district, has said.

Four images recovered from Stelmack’s briefcase had the face of a 12-year-old Scott Lake student. One other image had the face of an 11-year-old student from a school in New York where Stelmack previously served as principal.

The girls’ faces were superimposed over the head of a 19-year-old nude model.

The Polk County School Board agreed several months ago to pay $120,000 to a family who said Stelmack inappropriately hugged their two daughters.

According to a court order signed by Circuit Judge J. Michael McCarthy earlier this month, the two sisters, who were not identified, will split $82,500 in a college trust fund. The remainder of the settlement money will be used to pay court costs, lawyer fees and future counseling should the girls need it.

The lawsuit also claimed Stelmack was obsessed with the girls, and had been “grooming” them for “further and advanced sexual activity” as they grew older. The girls were removed from the school and placed in a different one in another city to avoid “the chaos and turmoil” at Scott Lake, the suit said.

The settlement wasn’t based on the pornographic pictures but the inappropriate contact Stelmack had with the girls, Carmichael has said.

Last year, a jury found Stelmack guilty of five counts of possessing child pornography. He was sentenced July 10, 2009, to five years in prison and 10 years of sex offender probation.

What can I say, except if this is the law, then the law is crazy.

Some of the regulars will remember the “discussion” that went on last year when John Stelmack was convicted of possession of child pornography last year. One person is particular, argued that Stelmack’s First Amendment rights were violated when this happened. Believe it or not, the gentleman who emailed me to inform us of the successful appeal argued the exact same thing. In fact, I thought he was our old friend, except this fellow is much less arrogant and is almost a pleasure to disagree with.

But, civil or not, he’s still misguided, in my opinion anyways. Stelmack’s conviction wasn’t overturned because of misconduct by the prosecution or the police. It wasn’t overturned because John Stelmack’s rights were violated in any way.

Oh no, my friends, the 2nd District Court of Appeals let this moral degenerate walk out of prison because existing Florida law didn’t specifically outlaw the type of composite photographs he was caught in possession of. They found the pictures disturbing and repugnant, but not illegal.

My question to the judges is this; What did you think John Stelmack was thinking about when he looked at those picture? Where do you think his hands were? Don’t you think that, after a while, he’d have to have the real thing. Smarter people than I have published studies of pedophiles showing that this is indeed the pattern.

Unreal. But the assault on our children’s innocence doesn’t stop with the Florida courts.

Did you know that, according to the Supreme Court Of The United States, the kind if pictures John Stelmack created by taping the heads of little girls he was attracted to onto the body of a 19-year-old sex model is considered free speech and is protected by the First Amendment? Oh yes, and the justices would like us to know that those pictures are NOT child pornography.

The thing that gets me about Stelmack’s case is that he was in a position of trust, responsible for hundreds of young children. What scares me is that he had started to take the next step into pedophilia; The parents of twin girls who’s heads were used to create Stelmack’s “paper dolls” sued him and the school board for inappropriate touching the girls. The case was settled out of court.

We here at People You’ll See In Hell are in mourning today. We are mourning the death of common sense in our courts. We thought it was just lost, and couldn’t find it’s way home, but we are now forced to admit that it lives no more.

God help us all.

His eyes cast downward, the Souderton man accused of raping and killing a 9-year-old girl who was his neighbor showed little emotion as his alleged crimes were addressed in court.

James Lee Troutman, 24, through his lawyer, Wm. Craig Penglase, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday during an arraignment hearing in Montgomery County Court to charges of first- and second-degree murder, rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, aggravated indecent assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment and abuse of a corpse in connection with the May 9 death of Skyler Rae Kauffman.

Troutman and Kauffman were neighbors at the Souderton Garden Apartments at Second and Chestnut streets.

Judge William R. Carpenter set Troutman’s trial date for Jan. 9, 2012.

Troutman, his hair appearing much shorter and sparse than at the time of his arrest, did not respond to a reporter’s questions as he was escorted from the courtroom under heavy guard by county sheriff’s deputies for the trip to jail where he will remain without bail pending his trial. Troutman’s lawyer previously claimed Troutman had pulled hair out of his head after his arrest.

Friends and relatives of Kauffman, including her mother, Heather Gebhard, and her father, Eric, packed the courtroom for the hearing. Some of the spectators were overcome by emotion and had to be consoled by other friends or relatives as prosecutors recited the specific crimes allegedly committed by Troutman.

“We’re all here for Skyler. Obviously, this is the process through which we are seeking justice for Skyler and members of her family were here to see the court proceeding, to let us know, to let the defendant know, that they are there,” District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said after the hearing.

Ferman and Deputy District Attorney Thomas W. McGoldrick informed the judge prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Troutman in the event he is convicted of first-degree murder, which is an intentional killing.

In order to seek the death penalty, prosecutors must show that aggravating factors, things that make a killing more heinous, existed at the time of the murder.

“We only pursue the death penalty in cases where the facts are of such egregiousness and the history of the case is so serious that we think it is warranted. So to file notice of our intent to seek the death penalty is in itself a very serious statement about the nature of the crime,” Ferman said. “We do that very rarely. We only do that in those extreme cases where we believe it is warranted.”

“In our review of the evidence in this case there were three very significant aggravating factors that we sought to pursue,” Ferman added.

The aggravating factors against Troutman, according to court papers, include: the victim was a child under 12 years old; Troutman committed the killing while in the perpetration of other alleged crimes, namely sexual assault, kidnapping and false imprisonment; and that Troutman killed Kauffman to prevent her from testifying against him.

Penglase, of Doylestown, indicated he was not surprised by Ferman’s notice to seek the death penalty.

“Mr. Troutman understands what those charges are, understands that his life is on the line in this case. I expect this case to proceed to trial in January as planned,” Penglase said.Penglase, hinting at potential defense strategies, said, “mental health will be an issue in this case.”

“Mr. Troutman has engaged in various forms of mental health treatment throughout his lifetime and that will become public once the trial begins,” said Penglase, indicating he has retained mental health professionals to evaluate Troutman during the pretrial period.

Penglase previously said Troutman reported suffering from autism or Asperger’s syndrome.

Kauffman, authorities alleged, went missing while she was playing in the courtyard of the apartment complex where Troutman also lived around dinnertime on May 9. Minutes before midnight Souderton police found Kauffman’s body wrapped in a comforter under bags of trash in a Dumpster behind the apartments.

An autopsy determined Kauffman died of asphyxia and blunt force trauma, according to court papers.

Police found both blood and a clog that was similar to one Kauffman had been described as wearing in the basement area of one of the apartment buildings, according to court papers.

While interviewing neighbors of the girl, authorities noticed what appeared to be blood on one of Troutman’s sneakers, according to authorities. When detectives searched Troutman’s apartment, where he lived with his fiancee, they found bloody clothes, according to a criminal complaint.

Later asked by detectives why he killed the little girl, Troutman allegedly said he had to because once he took her down to the basement he knew she could get him in trouble, according to arrest documents.

As you all know, by now I’ve become a pretty hardened individual when it comes to the stories that we publish here at PYSIH. I rarely, if ever, have an emotional reaction to the suffering of the victims, nor does my anger rise to the level it used to when I first took over the helm of this website.

I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing. It seems like a natural reaction to constantly working with tales of child rape, murder and abuse perpetrated by neglectful, selfish parents or caregivers, and deviant predators attempting to satisfy their twisted sexual desires. I’d call it pure self defense – I think a person in my position must either grow a thick skin or eventually I will find myself at the bottom of a massive depression.

But this case has been different. It’s gotten to me, and done it in a big way. Part of it is defense attorney Wm. Craig Penglase’s attempt to blame this entire incident on the fact that Mr. Troutman has either autism or Asperger’s syndrome, and the associated stigma that strategy will cast on legitimate sufferers of these conditions.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with autism and Asperger’s syndrome, the main feature of both conditions is an inability to interact socially with other people. Depending of the severity of a person’s disease, symptoms can range from shyness or awkwardness in a group all the way to complete withdrawal from reality and rejection of any form of touching or affection.

Well James Lee Troutman managed to find himself a fiancee, Heather Clemens, and the way Heather tells it, James was quite the romantic social cripple:

“He was wonderful to me, and he was the kind of guy where you could ask him to do anything for you and he would.”

Poor, poor James.

The thing is, I know people who have autistic children, and the last thing they need is an undeserved reputation for violence or uncontrollable sexual urges. These kids have enough problems just living their daily lives. And as far as I’ve been able to discover through my research, there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE that people who suffer from either autism or Asperger’s syndrome are prone to any sort of violent behavior at all.

I was also very much affected by the pain of Skyler Kaufman’s father, Eric Kaufman. During the arraignment of James Lee Troutman, Mr. Kaufman was inconsolable. According to Matt Coughlin of PhillyBurbs.com:

As prosecutors read aloud the charge of rape of a child causing serious bodily injury, Skyler’s father, Eric Kauffman, began sobbing uncontrollably and his own father embraced him as they sat two rows back in the courtroom gallery. Later, as Troutman was escorted out of the courtroom by a half-dozen deputies, Eric Kauffman’s father and an unidentified man both embraced and restrained Eric Kauffman. The other man could be seen saying, “You’re a better man than that.”

I can see myself reacting the exact same way, which may explain the huge amount of empathy I have for Mr. Kaufman. Whatever the case, there is no doubt in my mind that Eric Kaufman loved his daughter Skyler with all his heart, and that his heart was shattered by the sick, depraved actions of James Lee Troutman.

A judge imposed a life sentence Monday for a former Marine and pastor’s son convicted of strangling his wife and their two sons in their beds, opting against the death penalty in a state where capital punishment soon will be outlawed.

Circuit Judge Milton Wharton said justice would be better served if Christopher Coleman, 34, spent a lifetime behind bars, where he’d be forced to reflect daily on the crimes prosecutors say he committed to further an affair and keep a high-paying security job with a global ministry.

Wharton suggested he found crime-scene and autopsy photos shown to jurors distressing, noting Sheri Coleman, 31, and her two sons, ages 11 and 9, were found dead in their beds, which “should have been a place of safety.”

An obscene phrase was seen spray-painted in red on one of the boys’ bedding – vandalism jurors concluded Christopher Coleman staged to make the slayings look like the work of an intruder.

“The horrible nature of the crime cannot be diminished,” Wharton said.

Jurors convicted Coleman last week on three first-degree murder charges and ruled him eligible for the death penalty. They were to hear testimony Monday from both sides over whether Coleman should face that fate or the only other option – life in prison without parole. But Coleman chose not to offer any witnesses on his behalf and cut short the hearing, putting his fate in Wharton’s hands after deciding he didn’t want to put his family through the emotional toll of testifying that his life was worth saving.

Such a hearing would have been moot anyway. Although prosecutors sought the death penalty, such a sentence would likely have been symbolic because capital punishment was abolished in Illinois in March. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has pledged to commute a death sentence given to anyone before the ban takes effect July 1.

To Coleman, “it all seemed to be a lot of effort at this stage that would have done a lot more harm than good,” John O’Gara, one of Coleman’s three attorneys, told reporters afterward. “Today’s sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole ends a very sad chapter.”

While Coleman’s attorneys were satisfied that Wharton did not impose a death sentence, “there aren’t any small victories here,” O’Gara added. “All there is is tragedy.”

Coleman and his family – his parents and two brothers – sat expressionless as Wharton announced the sentence. Coleman’s only words publicly were a polite “Yes, sir” when Wharton told him of his appeal rights. Otherwise, he stood rigidly in front of the judge, his hands clasped behind his back as if still a Marine.

As deputies escorted him from the courtroom, Coleman glanced briefly at his family and saw one brother gesture for him to keep his chin up.

Sheri Coleman’s family, who attended much of the trial and last Thursday called the guilty verdicts “justice” on the two-year anniversary of the killings, didn’t attend Monday’s sentencing.

Prosecutors theorize Coleman killed his family on May 5, 2009, in the family’s lakeside home in nearby Columbia because he feared his affair with his wife’s longtime friend would cost him his $100,000-a-year job as the security chief for Missouri-based Joyce Meyer Ministries. His case, with its mix of religion, adultery and violence, has tantalized much of the St. Louis region.

Prosecutors argued Coleman spent months setting up the killings by sending himself threatening emails and he sprayed the crime scene with red paint to make it look like the killings were the work of a stalker critical of Meyer.

While acknowledging Coleman’s affair, his attorneys argued there was no physical evidence directly linking him to the killings, and much of the testimony – including that involving comparisons of Coleman’s writing samples and the graffiti – was unscientific and meaningless.

Coleman told police he left the house while his family was asleep to work out at a gym about 5 miles away on the morning of the killings and grew concerned when he could not reach them by telephone. Their bodies were found after he called police.

In sentencing Coleman, Wharton alluded to a case he faced “many, many years ago as a young judge” when he was asked to decide whether life support should be disconnected from a badly abused girl. Wharton said he opted then to keep the child attached to those machines “and prayed for a miracle, but to this date the miracle never came.”

The girl became an adult, still in a vegetative state.

“It’s a decision every day of my life that I think about,” wondering if the ruling was right, Wharton said before turning to Coleman. “Somehow, I don’t think I’ll worry about this decision for the rest of my life.”

COLEMAN GUILTY: VERDICT COMES ON 2ND ANNIVERSARY OF THE SLAYINGS OF HIS WIFE AND SONS
from the article by Beth Hundsdorfer – The Belleville News Democrat

A jury found Chris Coleman guilty of the murders of his wife, Sheri, and their two young sons, Garett and Gavin, on Thursday — the second anniversary of their deaths.

Coleman bowed his head and began to breathe heavily after the verdict was read.

Sheri Coleman’s mother, Angela DeCicco, cried as Sheri’s uncle, Joe Miglio, held her hand. Sheri’s brother, Mario DeCicco, put his arm around his mother.

“This is a difficult day for obvious reasons… Next year would be better,” Mario DeCicco said after the verdict. “We stayed strong. We had faith in the criminal justice system.”

Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman were found two years ago Thursday — on May 5, 2009 — strangled in their beds at their Columbia home.

Coleman and DeCicco family members, friends, reporters, spectators filed into the courtroom about 7:30 p.m. Thursday. John O’Gara, Bill Margulis and Jim Stern, Coleman’s defense lawyers, filed in, then Monroe County State’s Attorney Kris Reitz and special prosecutor Ed Parkinson followed. Parkinson talked to the DeCicco family.

Circuit Judge Milton Wharton warned the gallery not to display any emotion when the verdict was read.

The jury forewoman read the verdicts. Each of the jurors, 10 women and two men, was asked to confirm his or her votes to convict. Each confirmed. Several looked at the DeCicco family when answering.

It took 15 hours for the jurors to arrive at their verdict.

Deliberations on whether Coleman strangled his wife and two young sons began at 3 p.m. Wednesday and went until about 8 p.m. that night. Jurors returned to their deliberations at 10 a.m. Thursday after their daily bus ride from Pinckneyville.

They took a break to smoke at noon and were fed sandwiches at 12:30 p.m. That’s when Coleman returned to the jail, a little smile on his face. When jurors had another smoke break before 6 p.m., there were three distinct groups. Wharton took a stroll and appeared stressed.

Deputies escorted Coleman from the Monroe County Jail three times Thursday morning. He had to be present when jurors asked questions, but those questions were asked behind closed doors.

Fried chicken was ordered for the jurors, but they arrived at their decision before they ate. They dined before they got on the bus back to Pinckneyville.

Kathy LaPlante, who was friends with Sheri Coleman, fell on a courthouse staircase and an ambulance was called. Her condition was not known.

After the verdict, about 100 onlookers stood near the sallyport where Coleman left the courthouse. A cheer went up as he looked out of the back of a Monroe County Sheriff’s Department squad car. Car horns honked. Media lights illuminated the rainy night.

Jurors will return to the Monroe County Courthouse this morning to decide whether Coleman is eligible for the death penalty, then they will hear evidence in aggravation and mitigation to decide whether he will receive the death penalty or natural life without parole.

Gov. Pat Quinn abolished the death penalty in Illinois and commuted the sentence of 15 death row inmates to life in prison.

During jury selection, several of the potential jurors asked why they were deciding a death penalty case when the death penalty was abolished. They were told by Judge Wharton that it is still the law in Illinois.

The law abolishing the death penalty goes into effect on July 1. Quinn will commute the death sentence of anyone who receives it before then, his spokeswoman has said.

Mario DeCicco didn’t want to talk about capital punishment. He said it wasn’t up to him to decide his brother-in-law’s punishment. He expressed his gratitude to police, prosecutors and the judge.

“I didn’t know how many people put their heart and soul into finding out the truth,” Mario DeCicco said. “Today we know what the truth is.”

Prosecutors closed on Wednesday by painting Chris Coleman as a man under pressure. He’d promised his mistress he’d marry her and he wanted to keep the $100,000 security chief job that allowed him travel and adventure with Joyce Meyer Ministries.

Reitz said Coleman repeatedly lied to police, and evidence showed he was home when his family was killed.

Defense attorney James Stern hammered on the fact that the entire case against Coleman was circumstantial and he was presumed innocent. He said there was no physical evidence whatsoever connecting Coleman to the three murders.

He said Coleman was a Chester minister’s son, a former Marine and former employee to the worldwide Joyce Meyer Ministries. He said Coleman wasn’t the type to kill his family.

Coleman did not testify during the trial.

Some of the highlights of the prosecution’s case included:

* Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist and star of HBO’s “Autopsy” series, who testified that Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman likely were strangled sometime around 3 a.m. — hours before Christopher Coleman left for a workout at a south St. Louis County gym.

* Tara Lintz, Sheri Coleman’s high school best friend and Christopher Coleman’s mistress, who testified that Chris Coleman told her he planned to confront Sheri Coleman with divorce papers on May 4, 2009, but her name was misspelled. He told Lintz he was giving Sheri the papers on May 5, 2009 — the day Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman were found murdered in their beds.

Lintz also testified that she met Coleman while he traveled on business as televangelist Joyce Meyer’s personal bodyguard. The two traveled to Arizona and Hawaii together. The couple also planned a cruise in June 2009, but the cruise never happened. Coleman was in jail, charged with the murders.

* Marcus Rogers, a Purdue University professor who specializes in computer forensics, testified that threats against the Coleman family sent to Joyce Meyer and her employees were created on a Dell laptop owned by Christopher Coleman.

* Former Columbia Police Detective Sgt. Justin Barlow, who told jurors that he set up a video camera trained on the Coleman mailbox to investigate threats left there. On the morning of May 5, 2009, Barlow crossed the street and found the bodies of his neighbors. Barlow questioned Coleman later. On the police interrogation videotape, Coleman says he had a peaceful night with his family on the night before the murders and denied he was having an affair, even as he was texting Lintz inside the interrogation room.

* Televangelist Joyce Meyer told jurors in taped testimony that Coleman would not have been fired if he divorced his wife, but he would have faced discipline, including termination, if he was having an adulterous affair. She said he called in sick the day before the murders.

* Columbia Police Detective Karla Heine testified that she discovered a St. Louis hardware store receipt, signed by Christopher Coleman, for RustOleum brand Apple Red spray paint — the same type used to write graffiti found inside of the Coleman’s house the day of the murders.

Prosecutor Parkinson said he talked to Sheri Coleman’s family after the verdicts and they believed Sheri, Garett and Gavin received justice.

One quick note about Judge Wharton’s decision to sentence Christopher Coleman to natural life. Illinois recently passed a law banning the death penalty, due to go into effect on the July 1st of this year. Because of that, Governor Pat Quinn has promised to commute any death sentence imposed before the law takes effect. In my opinion, Judge Wharton gave Coleman the only sentence he could have. A death sentence would have been purely symbolic.

The Belleville News-Democrat made up this great little timeline and posted it on Dipity.com. It details all the event that led up to Chris Coleman’s Conviction, starting with the Summer of 2008. You can view it by Clicking Here – I highly recommend it for people who want to get a good idea about how evil and well thought out Coleman’s plan to kill Sheri and the boys, Gavin and Garret

Christopher Coleman is the embodiment of everything I hate in a human being. He is a phony and a hypocrite, evidenced by his attempt to portray himself as a good Christian family man, while all the while carrying on a sexual affair with his mistress, Tara Lintz. He’s an abuser of women – Sheri told friends that he began beating her in the Summer of 2008, in the hopes of forcing her to take the kids and leave.

Coleman was an egomaniac too. Apparently he believed that in order to fulfill the destiny God intended for him, he needed to rid himself of his family. So God didn’t approve of Sheri and the kids, but adultery and murder were OK, in Coleman’s world anyway.

But worst of all, Christopher Coleman was selfish and self-centered to the extreme, the polar opposite of Christianity’s foundation, love your neighbor. He truly believes himself to be a good Christian, but how murder fits into anything resembling love is something I can’t begin to explain.

This update took me a very long time to put together – usually, I can throw one of these together in a couple of hours, but this took me for days, counting the revisions I had to make after the sentence came down last night. Nothing I wrote was good enough. None of the pictures I found were what I really was looking for. Every video I tried to record gave me trouble.

Ah yes, I feel sooo much better now.

A 59-year-old Bantam man avoided jail time by pleading guilty in an April 2, 2010, incident in Ridgefield in which his two German shepherds mauled a man and a puppy, according to court records.

Robert Kahn pleaded guilty Wednesday in state Superior Court in Danbury to two counts of allowing a dog to roam and second-degree reckless endangerment for the dog attack on Guy Marchison and his then-15-week-old golden retriever, according to the prosecution.

“We’re grateful that the state’s attorney’s office handled this appropriately, with an interest for protecting public safety,” said Marchison’s lawyer, William Bloss, of Bridgeport. “We’re hopeful that other dog owners will not be forced to confront this type of situation.”

The prosecution said Marchison, then 50, was walking his dog, Star, near the Ridgefield Recreation Center when they were attacked by Kahn’s German shepherds, which were running loose.

Marchison suffered cuts to his arms, face and neck, while Star had several broken ribs and an injured front paw, court documents show.

Marchison said Kahn then whistled for the dogs before driving off without so much as an apology, according to the prosecution.

Police said Marchison picked his puppy up to try to shield it from the attack.

Superior Court Judge Susan Reynolds sentenced Kahn to six months in jail, but that sentence was suspended and he was placed on two years of conditional discharge.

Kahn, who now lives in Virginia, has been ordered to pay $9,100 restitution, Bloss said in an email to The News-Times.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit, Kahn admitted to investigators he was walking his two dogs off the leash near the recreation center that day and he “heard the puppy yelp in pain, but thought that the man walking the puppy stepped on the puppy.”

Southbury Canine Control Officer Marilyn Muratori told investigators that “Kahn and his dogs have been involved in several incidents where his (dogs) have attacked animals. One of the incidents also involved him leaving the scene after an attack as the police were being called,” the warrant said.

Kahn had previously told the court the German shepherds have “always been very well-behaved dogs.”

“They are not attack animals. I’ve had dogs all my life. I love animals and I would never want to see anyone hurt, dog or human,” he said.

I don’t know about any of you, but I want to knock that fucking smirk off Robert Kahn’s face so bad I can almost feel his teeth break against my fist. What an incredible dickhead this guy is.

According to investigators, Bob-O’s criminal record shows he has arrests for evading responsibility, drugs, and assault. They also found he has a history of problems involving his dogs and neighbors and complete strangers. In other words, he has little, if any, respect for his fellow humans and thinks only of how a particular situation will affect him. You’d be hard pressed to find a more selfish, self-centered individual.