Director Schaffner Wants Sex Abuse Victims To Hide!

By Attorney David Engler

This week I stood in the parking lot of Trumbull County Children Services with two brave young women. We were very close to the spot where they were sexually molested as 12 and 13 year olds. It took so much courage for them to get in the car with me and drive to a group of awaiting cameras including their old caseworker who stood outside during his work day filming the young women. The two recounted how they were preyed upon by a Youth Leader woman that was hired to protect them while at children services. This Dorm Mother actually would take overtime so she could sleep with one of the three girls during the night.

There were three girls age 12, 12 and 13 when the sexual abuse first started.

Image credit:  123RF Stock Photo

 

They each were left into the care of the Government because their own homes were broken, parents were addicts or a father was a molester.  Each of their lives had not been easy but they have overcome extreme cruelty to become good mothers, daughters, friends and employees.  Each of the three have given me more inspiration then what I could possibly gain from representing them.

The cruelest comment, after we announced a lawsuit against CSB for employing a pedophile, came from the Director Tim Schaffner.  His response to finding out that three preteens  were sexually abused by an employee was shocking. He said he was appalled that Attorney Engler would expose these girls. I have encountered many tone-deaf Government types in my 26 years of practice but this is the worse. Instead of expressing outrage that the abuse happened, or expressing concern for the girls, or being troubled… he was appalled that the girls would dare show their sweet faces.  This guy is running an agency that is supposed to protect children. These girls are heroes for giving a face to childhood sexual abuse. If you’re a victim you do not have to hide in a closet. The shame is not the victims but the pedophile and the agency that employed her and did nothing to stop her and protect young girls who could not have been more vulnerable.

Since I have first stepped up to take on the agency that permitted a known pedophile to rape a baby at its own office, I have been swamped with the calls of victims or parents or grandparents who are suffering at the indifferent hands of Trumbull CSB and others throughout the State. Others have joined the fight with the notable exception of no elected officials or judges who place kids into CSB. I cannot figure out how many murdered or abused children it takes before someone in power cares to act.  I suppose this is the same sort of thing that happened at Penn State. 

As an attorney we are taught to stay dispassionate from our clients in the course of litigation. I am shaking with anger. My clients are each beautiful, intelligent, caring young African-American women. They needed good foster parents to have taken them out the CSB hell they were placed into. But the reality is people want babies not young teens. I told each of these girls that I would have been proud to have been their father. I am not sure I could be a foster parent now but wish I had known these girls when they were 12.  There are other children out there.  They are victims of all sorts of terrible things. It is so sad that they had to be insulted and victimized one more time by a Director who believes victims of abuse should hide their faces. Shame on you Director Schaffner.

Attorney David Engler

Phone: 330-729-9777

http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website

Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

If Only Trumbull County Leaders Would Be As Accountable as PennState Trustees!

By Attorney David Engler

The Louis J. Freeh report came out this week regarding the callous indifference shown by men in leadership at Penn State University towards child victims of sexual abuse by Jerry Sandusky.  Judge Freeh was the former head of the F.B.I. and a federal judge.  This Board of Trustees had requested a full throttled examination of the scandal, no matter how damaging.

 

One commentator stated the essence of the report was that Joe Paterno, the University President and Vice President all allowed Jerry Sandusky, a pedophile, on campus and bestowed upon him the gifts from which he would lure more young boys into his sick world.  We now know that Sandusky will be in jail for life and undoubtedly in hell thereafter.

 

I had stated when the scandal first broke that Paterno should be fired immediately. Now his reputation and legacy will be that he put the importance of the football program over the safety of children.  The others lost their jobs and at least one faces perjury charges.

 

Compare the Sandusky scandal to the one in Trumbull County, Ohio.  The case is remarkably similar: There, inside the Trumbull County Children Services facility, a pedophile named Cody Beemer was allowed lengthy, private, closed-door access to his 9 month old infant victim! Even though Trumbull’s CSA was in possession of a Court Order prohibiting any such contact by the known pedophile, the staff at the CSA simply ignored the order. They also ignored what was going on behind that closed door, they never saw the pedophile rape an innocent child. He raped a 9 month old baby who had been placed into the CSA’s protection specifically to prevent this type of attack. What exposed his heinous actions were his own cell phone. Left at the baby’s grandmother’s house, she discovered the video he had taken with his phone of his actions inside the closed room in The Children Services Agency. He had plenty of time to create a sick movie of his rape of his own infant child and was monstrous enough to do so. Thankfully one human being stood tall, the Grandmother who promptly delivered the cell phone to the Police, who finally took appropriate action.  As I said, the Court acknowledges in their Order that the child should be protected and that no unsupervised visitation should ever take place. Both the Court and Children’s Services knew Cody Beemer. Not only would he come to sexually molest his own baby daughter, he also engaged in the sexual molestation of another infant outside the agency and will likely serve a life sentence for his crimes. But they also knew that Cody Beemer had previously raped his 3 year old sister.

 

Pedophilia has no cure.  He was not in any treatment. He was not chemically or physically castrated.  He was an immediate and present danger and CSB knew it. They put the baby rapist in a room without any supervision.  Why was he even allowed to be there? The State of Ohio’s investigation of Trumbull’s CSA was beyond obvious:the CSA should improve their risk assessment. Really? The Commissioners, unlike the Penn State Board of Trustees, have said nothing. The Sheriff said nothing.  The County Prosecutor belatedly brought in the State to conduct an investigation.  This request was made well before the P.S.U. Scandal.  No response. When the State investigated it was discovered that the records were not only incomplete but in the end one supervisor got two weeks off, during the holidays for fudging visitation records. That is all that has happened.

 

A board member and high ranking County law enforcement official said the event was unforeseeable. Let me make this final analogy.  What would happen if a ten year old boy was put in a cell with Jerry Sandusky or any other pedophile behind bars? Are the leaders of Trumbull County so naive to think that a pedophile cares where they are at?  Most of the rapes occur with known family members or people in a position of trust.

 

Penn State stated this week that the Freeh Report was the first step toward creating a culture of transparency and accountability. Sadly for Trumbull County it appears that allowing a pedophile to have free access to victims on its property is not such a big deal. As Commissioner Frank Fuda told me once “these sort of things happen to kids in Children Services” (I was telling him about the insane number of murdered children in Trumbull County over the last ten years)

 

Callous indifference towards the sexual abuse of children by men in leadership positions does not seem to be isolated only in Happy Valley.

 

Attorney David Engler

Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on Family Fault Lines Blog http://familyfaultlines.com/

How Hard Can You Beat a Man You Find Molesting Your Defenseless 5 Year Old Daughter?

By Attorney David Engler

The family of first generation Mexican immigrants lived in a small town named Shiner, Texas about 130 miles west of Houston.  The land is not easy to farm because the sun is so relentless and the soil rocky. 

But the extended family worked their farm and raised horses and crops enough to keep everyone fed. There was never enough money to buy  the newest  John Deere harvester or spend much money on building new barns. 

When Jesus, 47, who hung around the local hardware shop and the two beer joints at night offered to come shoe the horses for a few bucks, the young 23 year old father of two agreed. 

It was a Saturday in June and the work was going to be capped off with barbecued chicken on the grill.  He had plenty of Mesquite wood lying around to give it a taste like his Dad used to make it. Sunday was going to father’s day.  He would relax only then.

Around 3:30 pm Miguel heard a scream and at the same time a young neighbor boy turned the corner and yelled, a man had taken Angel from the house crying. Miguel could  recall the sprint to the barn from where he heard his daughter scream. Back along a pile of fencing, Jesus was on top of his daughter with his pants at his ankles.  By 4:30 pm the local coroner would pronounce Jesus dead. Miguel had landed the eight blows quickly to the head and neck of his daughter’s attacker. His five year old daughter was sobbing.

After beating Jesus Flores, the father called 911.

“I need an ambulance,” the father told the dispatcher, according to 911 tapes released by police. “This guy was raping my daughter and I beat him up and I don’t know what to do. This guy is fixing to die on me, man, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Come on! This guy is going to die on me!” he continued during the frantic, five-minute call. “I don’t know what to do!”

Emergency workers, as well as the daughter’s grandfather and aunt, tried to revive Flores but could not. Lavaca County Sheriff Micah Harmon said he found the distraught father crying, saying that he had not intended to kill Flores.

“He’s a peaceable soul, ” V’Anne Huser, the father’s attorney, said. “He had no intention to kill anybody that day.”

The local sheriff ruled it a homicide, because that is what it was.  In the low hills of Texas people talked straight. Within a day the local prosecutor presented the case to a grand jury that just as plainly said, Miguel was justified.

Being justified.  It is the doing of an act that no reasonable person would say should not have been done.  No one really needs a law book to read the defense laid out in Texas law that deadly force to stop a sexual attack is justifiable. Of course it is.  If Miguel’s wife had turned the same corner and seen this drifter raping her girl and her husband landing blow after blow; she would not have stopped it.  There is not a place in my mind where I can say he should not have delivered such a sure and swift justice.  The beauty of this story is the remorse shown by Miguel. No one would have ever blamed him yet he said he did not mean to kill. 

The father’s protection of his children knows no bounds.  For Miguel there will be nightmares.  But he shall forever be justified.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal

Also published on Family Fault Lines Blog http://familyfaultlines.com/

What Happens When a 15 Year Old Girl Accuses 22 Year Old Boy of Rape

By Attorney David Engler

What Happens When a 15 Year Old Girl Accuses 22 Year Old Boy of Rape

It is easier to draft this blog after the jury has come back from 70 minutes of deliberations. In 26 years of practicing law the pressure point of a judge getting ready to say “guilty” or “not guilty” is easily the most excruciating second of time.

On a Thursday night in October of 2010 two girls, one who was petite and at least 20 and the other who was more developed but with a younger face show up at the house of four 22 year old young men. They are carrying a duffel bag and are staying the night. The one is blowing up the cell phone of her soon to be ex-boyfriend who attends college and is not answering any frantic calls after 2:00 a.m.. I ask her on the stand was she crying that night because she thought her boyfriend was with some other girl. She said “no” she was worried about him. When she came in to take the stand, the only thing missing was a rattle and blanket. My client and one of the other four boys did not recognize her. Her hair was in a pony-tail and she wore a shirt buttoned up to the neck. Her sister came to testify as well that she warned everyone at the house that night that her sister was just 14, ready to turn 15. The sister promptly then changed into a leopard print corset and later had the boys sign their names on her chest like they were a rock band. Even later the sister goes to bed with a housemate and sleeps the night. What turns out to be the younger sister goes into the bedroom of my client and they have sex.
The sister on the stand gets a real foggy memory and does not recall if she had to wash sharpie from her chest the next day.

A few days later the younger sister tells her boy-friend who is no longer the ex-boyfriend that she was raped by the older guy at the party. A month later the news slowly gets to the mother, who calls the police and my client, Matt gets charged with 2 counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. The issue for the jury was whether Matt knew or was reckless in not knowing that the girl was either 14 or 15. In Ohio as in most states the age to consent to sex is 16. Matt thought she was 19 and friended her on Facebook the night of the sex and she posted her age as 19.

The jury was a very bright group based upon their education. I left two police officers on the jury. This caused a minor buzz in the Courthouse, since defense attorneys believe police want everyone arrested. I thought differently. I am not sure if it worked but I knew my client had no idea the girl was nearly 15. Police have an instinct to cut through lies quickly and I believed it was the victim, her sister and Mom who would be fibbing through the trial.

So the words came out of Judge Evans’s mouth: “We the jury find Matt not guilty of Count 1 and 2 of the indictment”. I heard a long sigh come from my client. His life was back. One of the woman on the jury asked Matt if he learned a lesson. He did. I am not sure the young girl learned anything since the day of her testimony she posted on her Twitter account, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”

Matt told me he had not been able to take a breath of air or a bite of food over the last 17 months awaiting this trial without thinking of his fate. This is a tale of caution to our sons and daughters. The Mom thought her little girl was at a sleepover and never bothered to check. The girl started telling a lie all because she was playing college girl, was over her head and wanted the attention of her boyfriend. The jury wasn’t able to see this girls Facebook pictures, tweets and texts that portray a very cunning now 16 year old. She could care less who was going to get hurt. For her it was an interesting story of teen drama. For my client and the rest of us it is a story of the risks of casual hook-ups with someone you just met. Protect your daughters……and sons.

Attorney David Engler
Phone: 330-729-9777
http://www.DavidEngler.com Attorney Engler’s website
Areas of Practice: Family Law, Elder Law, Domestic Relations, Bankruptcy, Criminal