Florida swim instructor sentenced to life for
molesting three 6-year-old girls
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – A former swim instructor was handed four life sentences in a Florida court on Friday after being convicted of molesting three of his students in his class at the Deerfield Beach Aquatics Center in 2015.
The three victims, all just 6 years old at the time, testified to have been groped inappropriately by Francisco de Aragón underneath their swim clothes. Lawyers for De Aragón defended this as a technique and he later testified that there was possibly “accidental contact” and that his actions may have been misinterpreted.
After a three-day trial and four hours of deliberations this past week, de Aragón, 28, was found guilty of all five criminal counts against him – including sexual battery of a child, which comes with an automatic sentence of life imprisonment.
However, de Aragón – who rejected a plea deal that would have resulted in a 25 years behind bars – remains adamant that he is innocent.
“This is not me. There is no justice in this sentence. There is no justice in putting a life sentence on a man who is innocent,” he protested. “The facts in this case show innocence, not guilty, not that I am some monster, not that I am some sort of molester, some secret pedophile.”
It is likely he and his family will appeal the conviction.
“This is a case where they got it wrong,” his father, Frank de Aragón, told local station CBS4. “An innocent man, who is trying to help people learn and save themselves, is now in prison for life.”
Francisco’s wife, Savannah de Aragón, who is reported to have fled the courtroom in tears, expressed concern for her husband’s safety given his child sex offender status.
“I’m scared and terrified he is going to get hurt in there,” she said.
It is a Father’s duty to teach and protect his Children.
They Called Down The Thunder:
A Father’s Right
No Way!… I hesitated just to needle him, as I had my whole life, stretching the moment, for I knew what I would see when I looked at Frank.
As I lifted my eyes, Orson Wells’ Time Machine started that clock-ticking whirling sound, and when I looked at him, there was the slight smile playing on the corners of the little boy’s eyes and whole face I knew so well.
When our eyes met, the smile covered his whole face. He wanted it to be a true story, he needed it to be a true story, but how could this be possible, he had never heard it, and his big brother told him everything.
You went to the field house and not the office! What did they do?
I finally quit agitating him and told him the whole story….
Many years ago, I was told the high school coaches were putting “the sleeper” on the players, and needless to say, I got very upset. I called a good friend of mine and told him what was being done to our sons.
The next day we went to school, but not to the office, we went to the field house.
Things took a turn for the worst within minutes…. for them.
The first coach made the mistake of addressing us from a distance, and suddenly every boy knew why we were there. The midget snapped at the boys, and continued impressing the boys with his one-handed curls, while approaching us with his big midget flexing bicep. “You aren’t allowed in here, you’ll need to go to the office”.
“The office didn’t put these boys in the sleeper”.
It got worst by the minute…. for them. The second coach stopped impressing the boys, and got up from the weight bench. As he approached, he stretched and flexed his muscles. He impressed the boys with his deep voice, “What’s the problem?”
“Some of you men put your hands on these boys, but putting these boys in the sleeper is wrong AND dangerous”.
Before we left, we had invited all the coaches outside, to put us in the sleeper, AND made it very clear that this sort of thing would never happen again or we would be back.
The Obama Administration, The Supreme Court, Our Law Makers, Penn State, the Jerry Sanduskys, and Dennis Hasterts of Our Country, are pushing their #AntiChild Agenda and #AntiFamily Agenda.
The following stories of school hazing involving sodomy should be all the evidence you need, as Good Parents. I am adding one more story of a same-sex couple who killed a Child. Domestic Violence is rapidly rising due to the perverse lifestyles allowed in public by Americans.
La Vernia tries to cope in wake of sexual assault arrests
LA VERNIA, TX – Last Thursday, Phillip Higginbotham was about to set out for a spiritual retreat in Burnet when he saw an article about the arrest of several La Vernia High School students. As a youth pastor at La Vernia United Methodist Church, he works closely with the school’s students, many of whom gather at his weekly youth services.
Higginbotham hoped none of his students were involved, but did not think much else of it. The weekend, after all, was supposed to be about disconnecting from the outside world. The next few days, he didn’t have access to the Internet, his phone or even a watch. But by the time he returned on Sunday, the town was in the throes of a full-blown crisis.
Seven student athletes, all of them minors, had been taken into custody on charges of sexual assault, as part of a police investigation into allegations of hazing among the school’s football, basketball and baseball teams. Over the next few days, three more adult students would be arrested for allegedly sodomizing a 16-year-old teammate with the threaded end of a carbon dioxide tank before a football team dinner, as part of an “initiation” to the varsity team, arrest records show.
Last year, Vermont passed “Jordan’s Law,” which requires school officials to report all hazing incidents to the Department for Children and Families within 24 hours. Before, districts had been allowed to conduct their own investigations first. Across the country, though, six states still have no hazing laws, seven have laws that don’t extend to the high school level, 13 exclude “athletic events” from hazing laws, and only one state, Nebraska, actually mentions “sexual penetration” in its hazing law. Below, a state-by-state breakdown of laws, as well as a listing of all the reports found by OTL of sodomy hazing in high schools since 2011.
What has to change? Lipkins says there needs to be greater awareness and accountability, so that victims feel more comfortable coming forward and going to the courts. “If we can’t break the code of silence, we’re not going to change things.”
FOR MORE, STREAM THE FULL EPISODE OF OUTSIDE THE LINES PRIMETIME ON WATCHESPN. PARENTAL DISCRETION IS STRONGLY ADVISED.
Mother, girlfriend charged in deadly Child Abuse case
MD Youth League Soccer Coach Charged
With Child Sex Abuse
BALTIMORE, MD – A man has been arrested and charged with sex offenses after he abused a youth soccer player while he was a coach with the Maryland City Mustangs, according to Anne Arundel County Police.
Eris Murray, 55, of Hanover, turned himself in to police on Dec. 22.
The investigation into Murray began in October, when a report was made to the Department of Social Services.
A juvenile victim reported they were sexually abused on two occasions approximately four to eight years ago.
Anne Arundel County Child Abuse Unit was made aware, and Child Abuse detectives conducted interviews and worked with the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office to obtain an arrest warrant.
After Murray surrendered himself, he was charged with two counts of Second Degree Sexual Offense, two counts of a Third Degree Sexual Offense, two counts of a Fourth Degree Sexual Offense, Sexual Abuse of a Minor, Second Degree Child Abuse, two counts of Second Degree Assault, and two counts of Sodomy.
Penn State lawyer: Ex-Coach ‘walked away’ from Child Abuse
BELLEFONTE, PA – A Penn State lawyer on Monday turned claims in a civil lawsuit against a former coach who offered key testimony against Jerry Sandusky, saying it’s not the school’s fault he can’t find a coaching position but rather a response to the man’s own failure to stop the child sexual abuse he witnessed.
Attorney Nancy Conrad cited Mike McQueary’s own words from an email as the defamation and whistleblower lawsuit began, saying the national media and public ruined him — not Penn State.
“He should not be permitted to exploit the tragedy that was caused by Jerry Sandusky for his own personal financial gain,” she said. McQueary is seeking at least $4 million in lost wages and other damages.
Conrad said comments that flooded in to the university after Sandusky was first charged in 2011 with child molestation were deeply critical of McQueary for not acting to stop an alleged child rape.
“Yet he walked away,” Conrad told jurors, saying any harm to McQueary is “a result of his own decisions and actions.”
McQueary has said he happened to go to a team shower late on a Friday night in February 2001 and saw Sandusky engaging in what he concluded was a sexual act with a boy about 10 to 12 years old. He slammed his locker shut and saw they had separated, but did not say anything to Sandusky, a retired assistant coach, nor did he report the matter to police.
Instead, he met about the incident the next day with then-head coach Joe Paterno, and more than a week later with two high-ranking school officials.
Nothing happened until nearly a decade later, when police investigating other complaints about Sandusky got a tip to contact McQueary. His testimony helped convict Sandusky of being a sexually violent predator, and Sandusky is now serving a lengthy prison sentence while appealing a 45-count conviction.
McQueary says he was put on leave, and then his expired contract was not renewed as retaliation for his help in the criminal case. He also says he was defamed by a statement issued by then-university president Graham Spanier when Sandusky was arrested, and that he was misled by two of Spanier’s lieutenants into thinking they took his report seriously and would respond appropriately.
“Their intention,” McQueary lawyer Elliot Strokoff told jurors, “was to sweep this incident under the rug.”
Other coaches who might hire him are concluding, based on how Penn State treated McQueary, that he must have done something wrong, Strokoff said.
“This is a cloud that hangs over his head today,” he said.
Witness Jonelle Harter Eshbach, a former prosecutor who had a leading role in the Sandusky investigation, described email exchanges shortly after charges were filed and McQueary’s role in the probe became public. McQueary told her he felt he had not been properly supported during a prosecution news conference, his story had not been accurately told in a grand jury report and that he felt he was being vilified.
Former university lawyer Wendell Courtney recounted telling one of the administrators, Gary Schultz, to report the shower incident matter to child welfare authorities.
“It was my assessment that the appropriate course of conduct would be to report it and let the Department of Public Welfare investigate it in a manner it deemed appropriate,” Courtney said.
He said Schultz described the incident as horseplay and did not mention any sexual component, as McQueary claims he related to Schultz, then the school’s vice president with supervisory authority over police, and Tim Curley, then the athletic director.
Lisa Powers told jurors that Spanier knew at least a week ahead of time that Sandusky, Curley and Schultz were going to be charged in November 2011. He called her into a meeting with then-general counsel Cynthia Baldwin and Steve Garbin, then the trustees’ chairman, to work on a news release — a statement the lawsuit claims made it appear McQueary had lied.
Powers said Spanier seemed to have formed a strong opinion.
“He had already indicated that he knew that the charges were groundless,” Powers testified. “He felt it was an attack on his leadership team and nothing more.”
My Brother's Keeper 