Recently in Child Abuse Category

Here's an update in a case that New York criminal defense attorneys will likely be following.

A 33-year old woman was charged with attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child after an alleged suicide attempt.

The woman, Devi Silvia Dominic of Upper West Side, was strolling with her eighteen month old daughter on the pier at West 70th Street when she apparently threw herself into the water, after throwing her daughter, Jessica Catherine Prithiviraj, into the water.

A woman was plucked from the Hudson River on Tuesday, after sources claim she jumped in to the water.

The incident is being investigated as a murder-suicide. The woman allegedly jumped in with her toddler.

A New York City woman is facing the maximum sentence for beating and starving her three month old baby to death. The woman, Jovanniee Florestal, 26, received a sentence of 25 years to life.

The gruesome 2004 incident involved her three month old son, Colesvingtong. The baby's body was found in a Harlem shelter for the homeless with a fractured skull and shaken baby syndrome. At the time, the three month old weighed nine pounds.

Although child abuse laws are sometimes in conflict with the rights of autonomy of a parent to raise their child, the laws generally aim at protecting children from neglect. The child abuse laws therefore strike a delicate balance between the consitutional rights of parents and the criminal laws that protect the children.

A former teacher has pleaded guilty to attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor, or in other words, sending a minor an X-rated video and trying to seduce her.

In actuality, Alexander Kravitz really sent the video to an undercover cop who was posing as a 14-year-old girl. The New York Daily News reports that NYPD officers arrested him at a motel where he thought he was going to make a porn movie with the minor.

In addition to all of this, child porn was found at his home.

The scariest thing about this case is that Kravitz was a teacher at William E. Grady Vocational High School. It is frightening to think that a man like this was around children so often.

New York as well as other states may be influenced by one Delaware lawmaker.

The AP reports that Rep. John Atkins, is trying to introduce several proposals that would increase the punishment that sex offenders might face from life sentences to special license plates.

Due to the severity of one of his penalties, the candidates must meet all of the following requirements: male, high-risk, repeat sex offender, over 21 years old, and the intended target was under 12 years old (AP).

If this proposal becomes the law, then anyone who matches that description might have to undergo chemical castration in his state.

In an article by the Washington Post titled, "Can Castration By a Solution for Sex Offenders?" chemical castration is described as when "drugs are injected to lower the testosterone level, which in tern reduces sex drive." This is different from a surgical castration because the testes are not removed.

Measles, mumps, and rubella, oh my. After the New York outbreak of the mumps, many are wondering how this could have happened and who is to blame.

Giavonna Vizard is safe at home after being abducted by three teenage girls: Shawnice Reese, 16, Jenny Dominique, 16, and (who is believed to be ) Lisa Keitt, 13. The one-year-old baby girl is Keitt's niece. 

One man visiting New York will be leaving with more than an "I <3 NY" mug: criminal charges. Larry Warren, 57, was arrested when he thought he was meeting an underage girl at a hotel for sex.

Warren, as reported by the NY Daily News, is a Tennessee minister and the director of operations and personnel at a Christian drug treatment program called Youth Town.

Depending on how old the girl was thought to be, Warren could be facing a number of charges.

New York criminal defense lawyers may have a new law on their hands. 

The oldest registered sex offender of New York is free from a halfway house and headed out into the streets. At 100 years old, Theodore Sypnier has quite a list of convictions including "2 counts of rape" and "15 counts of sodomy and endangering the welfare of a child... as well as three in Buffalo." He was first arrested in 1987: he was 78.

As Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita puts it, "People don't start to become pedophiles at 78." There could have been dozens of other unreported cases.