Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes is desperately trying to extricate himself from a political scandal sparked by his refusal to release the names of ultra-Orthodox Jews suspected of child molestation, as well as letting powerful rabbis decide whether child abuse allegations should be reported to the police. Hynes's cooperation with the ultra-Orthodox community has been absolutely crucial to his reelection campaigns; he's won landslide victories in neighborhoods with large Jewish populations. Now, in the wake of a damning New York Times article about his handling of sex abuse cases in these communities, Hynes is... proposing legislation. more ›

Two people were arrested at a protest last night in South Williamsburg, outside a fundraiser for an alleged child molester. Nechemya Weberman is accused of sexually abusing a girl over the course of four years, starting when she was 12 years old—she's now 18, but she claims that when Weberman was her therapist he forced her to perform oral sex and other acts. Weberman belongs to the tight-knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in South Williamsburg, and many of his neighbors are donating money to his legal defense, which has outraged others. more ›

On Monday, teacher's aide Hany Abdalla, 35, was suspended from his job at PS 84 on the Upper West Side. He'd been accused of making a sexually-charged comment to an 8-year-old girl at the school. Then, on Wednesday, Abdalla was arrested after the allegations became even more revolting: police said he was accused of touching the girl "in inappropriate areas" and making her "touch him in inappropriate areas." But last night police released Abdalla after prosecutors declined to press charges. more ›

For the third time in as many weeks, a New York City public school employee has been accused of sexually abusing his charges. Police today arrested 49-year-old P.S. 174 computer teacher Wilbert Cortez, 49, and charged him with second-degree sexual misconduct against a child and acting in a manner to injure a child under 17. more ›

The teacher's aide at well-regarded Upper West Side school PS 87 who has been accused of sexually abusing an 8-year-old student was formally charged in court yesterday. Gregory Atkins, 56, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of sexual abuse, attempted criminal sex act and endangering the welfare of a child. Prosecutors say Atkins made the child strip in a school bathroom four separate times and once in an empty auditorium—he also allegedly asked the boy to perform oral sex. “He took the victim out of class on several occasions and he brought him to the boys bathroom and had him undress,” Assistant District Attorney Lauren Gretina said. And parents at the school are furiously trying to understand how this could have happened. more ›

You'll recall that in 2002, the Catholic Church was deeply shaken (and continues to be) with numerous accounts of the sexual abuse of minors by priests. At the time, the Archbishop of New York and former bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Cardinal Edward Egan, apologized for what happened. Now retired, Cardinal Egan recently gave an interview to Connecticut Magazine, rescinding the apology. "First of all, I should never have said that. I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong." more ›

It seems the Brooklyn mom who abandoned her two young daughters alongside the Shore Parkway Sunday afternoon didn't waste any time celebrating her freedom. Not long after leaving the girls on the street with some fresh diapers, Dalisha Adams uploaded this photo to her Facebook page showing a shirtless man holding a bottle of champagne. The Facebook profile seems to have been deleted or set to private (her MySpace page is still active) but the Daily News says the photo appeared on her Facebook page around 6:15; some four hours after dumping her daughters and five hours before she turned herself in to police. more ›

Giants linebacker Michael Boley is being investigated by authorities in Alabama for allegedly abusing his 5-year-old son. According to TMZ, Boley is accused of "the repeated willful abuse of a child under 18 from May 30 to June 5." A grand jury has to decide whether there is enough evidence to formally charge Boley with a crime, but Boley's attorney noted the mother had sued for more money previously, but never sought an order restricting visitation: "She sued him over a year ago for child support. The trial was in October and all she sought was five times the child support," lawyer Randall M. Kessler told the News. more ›

Jerry Sandusky has left jail—for now. Yesterday the former Penn State associate head football coach's wife Dottie cut a certified check for $50,000 to bail her hubby out after he was arrested on two more sex abuse charges. In addition to the cash the Sandusky's used $200,000 in real estate holdings to make bail. Dottie also took time yesterday to release a statement to the media in which she emphasized her belief in her husband's innocence. more ›

Former assistant Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky tells the New York Times in an exclusive interview that legendary head coach Joe Paterno never confronted him about any suspected misconduct with minors. Despite the fact his last interview with Bob Costas didn't exactly paint him in a sympathetic light, Sandusky (and his lawyer) agreed to this interview (you can watch excerpts from it here) as a chance to defend himself, saying prosecutors had distorted his words: “They’ve taken everything that I ever did for any young person and twisted it to say that my motives were sexual or whatever," Sandusky said. "I had kid after kid after kid who might say I was a father figure. And they just twisted that all.” more ›

Normally, Law & Order: SVU rips its stories from the headlines after they actually take place in the real world. But could it be possible that just this once, SVU predicted a scandal before it broke? Regular viewers may be struck by the similarities between the horrifying child abuse allegations against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky—accusations that legendary coach Joe Paterno knew about—and the crime tackled in the recent SVU episode "Personal Fouls." Here's the preview: more ›

A Bronx elementary school teacher has been arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a boy. According to NY1, 35-year-old Tulsie Singh was suspended without pay in January and finally fired for his job at PS 306 in April. Sources claim that Department of Education officials have known about Singh's actions for "years," and he was suspended from work "more than once as a result." Singh reportedly began molesting the boy, then eight-years-old, in his classroom in 2004, and "the abuse continued until March 2007." more ›

File under: bad parenting techniques. A mother in Greenridge was arrested for allegedly burning her 11-year-old son with a hot butter knife in order to "teach him a lesson" for acting out, cops say. Why not just show him this? more ›

Yesterday 26-year-old Bronx resident Edgar Algarin was charged with murdering the 3-year-old daughter of his girlfriend while she was away in Atlanta for work. Police say the mom, Antonia Ortiz, left the girl, Enidaliz, and her 5-year-old brother, Manuel, in the care of her live-in boyfriend, even though the Administration for Children's Services [ACS] had an open case with the family after school officials discovered Manuel with an injury to his eye earlier this month. The Wall Street Journal reports that ACS was also investigating whether the boy had been a victim of malnourishment. more ›

Last Friday morning one Bronx man had enough with those pesky kids leaning out of their fancy school buses and taunting him and his niece. So naturally he stormed up to the back of one of those offending vehicles—a bus for special needs kids—opened the unlocked emergency exit, climbed aboard and started beating on 11-year-old Jameel Grant. more ›

A 20-year-old day care worker from Staten Island was arrested early Wednesday morning for allegedly having sex with a 13-year-old boy in the Prince’s Bay area. The Post reports that Megan Donovan allegedly had intercourse with the victim on Tuesday night and the pair exchanged a slew of risqué text messages with each other after the incident occurred. And we've had a look at her Facebook page, which suggests she was a bit risqué on social media. more ›

When accused of arson, it's probably best not to arrive in court with a can of gasoline and a book of matches. Similarly, defense attorneys might advise a client charged with child abuse to maybe leave the Lewis Carroll collection outside the courtroom. Not that anybody's ever proven that Carroll was guilty of anything, but the author's habit of photographing pre-pubescent girls in the semi-nude makes you wonder. Perhaps not-so-coincidentally, photography also factors into the case of Staten Island's Francesco Zaffuto, 19, who reportedly came to court yesterday with a copy of The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll. more ›

Cops are questioning the 19-year-old boyfriend of a Brooklyn woman whose 17-month-old foster son was found "clinging to life" on Friday. Little Kymell Oram, who was found unconcious and seriously bruised and has a broken rib, a ruptured spleen and other injuries, is in critical condition at Brookdale University Hospital. Foster mother Teyunna Cummings, 32, had left the child in the care of Kysheen Oliver and Cummings' friend told the NY Times, "She thought the baby was having a reaction to asthma. Then he coughed up blood." more ›

It's never a good thing when a young witness identifies a photo as, "Uncle Joe, bad person." Joseph Passof, the head counselor at the Flatbush Park Day Camp, is accused of molesting a 5-year-old boy in the bathroom at summer camp last summer. He was arrested Wednesday and pleaded not guilty yesterday, and lawyer Jay Cohen says that diabetes and high blood pressure has rendered Passof impotent. more ›

There's no shortage of news reports about would-be pedophiles getting busted by undercover cops posing as minors on the Internet. So why do these men keep falling for it? Because they are sick puppies who just can't help themselves, we suppose. The latest alleged perv is an adjunct professor of economics at several city universities named Igor Sorkin. Prosecutors say [pdf] Sorkin, 31, sent sexually explicit messages and photos of his genitals to a vice officer posing as a 14-year-old girl online. He was arrested Tuesday when he tried to meet up with this fictional teen in Queens, and faces up to seven years in prison. But was the feedback Sorkin's received on Rate My Professors a red flag? more ›

Even though the NYPD is quick to point out that felony offenses have been on the decline for the past few years, the victims of such violence have been getting younger. The Post reports that the number of child murder victims (children under 10) jumped from just seven in 2009 to 24 in 2010. 21 of those murders were a result of domestic abuse, which NYPD spokesman Paul Browne says is "not unusual. Children are put at risk by relatives and caretakers." more ›

Teresa Foster, the mother of a two-year-old fatally beaten by her boyfriend for not reciting his ABCs properly, is currently being held on assault and endangerment charges at Rikers Island for admitting to repeatedly beating her son, Aiyden Davis, with a belt. However, she was allowed to attend her son's funeral yesterday, where the Daily News reports there was a palpable tension between her and Aiyden's father's family. "I still don't understand a 31-year-old man beating on my grandchild," said Aiyden's paternal grandmother, Stephanie Pratt. more ›

A two-year-old was tragically beaten to death on Friday night in his Bed-Stuy apartment after allegedly refusing to recite the alphabet for his mother's boyfriend. The child, Aiyden Davis, was pronounced dead on arrival at Interfaith Medical Center after suffering blunt-impact injuries to his head, torso and extremities, a lacerated liver and internal bleeding. Both his mother, Theresa Davis, and her boyfriend, Reggie Williams, have been arrested. more ›

Apparently Bloomberg's always been a little bit whiny. While discussing the importance of New Yorkers reporting suspected child abuse yesterday, he shared an anecdote about how his crying as a child led to a meeting with the social services. "The way my mother tells it, my father said, 'the kid's crying' and my mother said 'yeah, he'll go to sleep,' which I did," Bloomberg said. "But the next morning the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children showed up with a police officer because a neighbor heard me crying. I guess they examined me and found I was not a battered child." more ›

An 11-month-old baby is in critical condition after suffering second degree burns over 30% of her body, and her mother's boyfriend was arrested. The Queens DA's office says that Anthony Parra, 20, was watching the baby and her two-year-old sister while their mother was at work. When Raylin Castillo refused her bottle, Parra allegedly punished her by placing her under a shower and turning up the water's heat twice and pouring even hotter water from the kitchen sink over the baby. more ›

Nine-year-old Christopher Moss was released from the hospital after his father held his hands over an oven burner for two minutes as punishment for stealing money from his wallet. Father James Moss was charged with second-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child, but posted his $15,000 and is due in court on Tuesday. When asked by authorities why he punished his child by burning him and putting him in an oven, Moss allegedly claimed the punishment fit the crime. Christopher was treated for 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his hands. more ›

The Queens elementary school teacher accused of sexually abusing five of his female students in the classroom over the course of the last three years was investigated three times when he taught at Public School 115 in Canarsie. School officials tell the Daily News that Simon Watts used corporal punishment against a student in 2005, but since it was his first infraction no action was taken beyond "a note in his file." Two other allegations of corporal punishment were investigated and not substantiated. Meanwhile, Gothamist commenter "Britthney NoCense Cox" describes her experience as a former student of Watts: more ›