RUT-ROH....

Remember Steven Allen, the Eastern Middle School teacher found dead by his own hand?

It all seemed so tragic- that he had taken his life after battling whatever illness they said was killing him.. All the public affection and support flooded in from everywhere- I've read many of his former students' comments left from news articles that were full of such heartbreak over losing such a good man..

Now it's come out that police found child pornography in his apartment.
Excuse me? Yes, child pornography.

Why would you want to kill yourself in your apartment win you have a bin full of child porn hidden away?

I'm hoping that he kept this sickness to himself, and I'm hoping that viewing such unspeakable things was the extent to which he had succumbed to that type of evil.

The middle school had to send out an e-mail to parents letting them know of this recent development. I'd hate to be one of the parents needing to tell their son or daughter that's grieving over the loss of one of their favorite teachers that he had a "really bad problem" and then having to ask if he or she were ever alone with him.

Perhaps he didn't kill himself over the illness. If memory serves, I heard of Allen's death right about the same time as when shit hit the fan for Jerry Sandusky.

Could he have killed himself over guilt? Did he think that after seeing so much of a movement coming from that nationally sensationalized story that one of his victims (if he had any) would come forward as well?

If guilt is what led him, hopefully it's not the ultimate guilt of having ruined children's lives, but for having just getting pleasure out of watching others doing so. I don't know. I guess I'm only full of speculation and who knows if anything more will ever come of this story. I hope not.

Here's the actual news article:

Greenwich Time- The Eastern Middle School music teacher who was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Cos Cob apartment earlier this month had a storage bin filled with what appeared to be child pornography, police said Wednesday.

During the course of the investigation into Steven R. Allen's death, a Greenwich detective searched Allen's apartment and found sexually explicit photographs that appeared to have come from a computer printer, police said.

There is no indication any of the individuals portrayed in the photos have any local connection or that Allen, 57, produced any of the photos himself, police said. Most of the photos appear to be from websites that offer child porn, many of which are located in foreign countries, police said.

Superintendent of Schools Roger J. Lulow said in a statement Wednesday that district officials are "surprised and distressed" at the news that Allen had child pornography.

"We are surprised because there had been no indication or suspicion that Mr. Allen was involved in any activity of this nature, nor have there been any complaints or accusations regarding his behavior," Lulow said in the statement. "We are distressed because we do not condone or tolerate this behavior in anyone, much less a member of our staff. A review of Mr. Allen's personnel file and the background check, including fingerprinting, conducted at the time of his hire, reveal no reports, accusations or suspicions of inappropriate behavior nor any criminal record."

Lulow said school officials are cooperating with the investigation, and they encourage anyone with concerns or information to contact police Lt. Kraig Gray at 203-622-3620.

Greenwich police have solicited the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the investigation, which may take several weeks to complete, police said.

Police Chief James Heavey released a statement Wednesday asserting that it is the department's intention to "determine Mr. Allen's level of involvement in this activity, identify and assist all possible victims and confirm that none of the victims are local residents."

Police responded to Allen's 84 Valley Road apartment Nov. 9 after coworkers said he failed to report to work. They found Allen had suffered what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A weapon discovered at the scene was registered to Allen, police said.

Police said an autopsy would be performed to determine the cause of his death. Failing health conditions may have caused him to become despondent, police said.

Former Eastern Middle School principal Benjamin Davenport said he was shocked by the news that Allen was found to have child pornography.

"This is a total surprise," Davenport said. "I never had a complaint from a parent or a student about Steve. Not one."

Allen, who had been a music teacher for 33 years, the last 11 of which were with Greenwich Public Schools, worked with Davenport at Eastern for about six years, Davenport said.

They saw each other earlier in the fall, he added, explaining that Allen was always a positive influence on students and staff.

"I was not aware of any problems that he was having," Davenport said with regard to Allen's health. "I just can't believe it. It's just a shame."

After his death, parents said Allen was visibly passionate about music, and shared that enthusiasm with his students. In addition to working at Eastern Middle School, Allen taught at the town's summer music camp at Greenwich High School, was the concertmaster of the Sound Beach Community Band and served as conductor of the Young People's Symphony, which is part of the Stamford Young Artists Philharmonic.

Students said after Allen's death that he was a caring teacher who offered them plenty of extra help and created his own musical arrangements, customizing the music to fit the skill level of those he was teaching.

In a letter to parents Nov. 9, Ralph Mayo, principal of Eastern, said Allen's death was a great loss to the school and the entire Greenwich public school community.

Lulow said in his statement Wednesday that the district's goal at this time is to help the school community, particularly the students, in dealing with the news.

"To that end, the District as a whole and Eastern Middle School and Greenwich High School (schools with students of Mr. Allen's) specifically, will provide support and guidance for staff, students and families as needed," he said.

Parents who have concerns about their children's response to the incident should contact the child's school and ask to speak with the psychologist, social worker or guidance counselor, he said.

The Greenwich Public Schools curriculum includes instruction in Grades 1, 4, 8 and 11 for students on how to recognize inappropriate or illegal behavior and what to do if they believe they are experiencing or witnessing those acts, Lulow said in the statement.

In order to maintain or hold a license to teach in the state, teachers must abide by a code of responsibility, which addresses expectations of conduct, he said.

PTA council president Lisa Beth Savits and Eastern Middle School PTA co-presidents Mary King and Sheila Keatinge declined to comment for this article.

(See my last post about Allen's death)

This Day In History

Jun 27 1988
Hillel Slovak, original guitarist from sock-friendly rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers dies of a smack overdose in Hollywood.

Jun 27 1995
The LAPD arrests streetwalker Divine Brown on Hawthorn Ave. where she is discovered giving British movie star Hugh Grant oral sex in his white BMW. To be fair, they also arrest Grant for procuring said oral sex.

Jun 27 2001
Police arrest comedian Paula Poundstone in Malibu, California on charges of lewd conduct with a minor. Poundstone's pending criminal trial remains front page news for the next three months, until it is overshadowed by the World Trade Center attacks in September. Soon thereafter, she pleads guilty to a lesser charge, and the details of her indictment are never disclosed to the public.

Garrido Associate's Properties Searched

PITTSBURG, CA (KGO) -- The investigation into the 1991 Jaycee Dugard kidnapping and sexual assault case expands as authorities comb three Contra Costa County properties in search for new evidence. Among the things police confiscated were DVDs and a computer. Whether they are connected to child pornography, police will not say.

Jim and Cheyvonne Molino have not been shy about their association with Phillip Garrido over the past several years, but they insist it was strictly business. On Wednesday, police conducted three aggressive searches of properties owned by the Molinos, who said they were shocked by the focus of those searches.

"They completely took my bedroom apart," said Cheyvonne Molino.
Cheyvonne said the Contra Costa sheriffs arrived at their Pleasant Hill home with no warning and searched room to room, looking for videos, photos, cameras. A tenant at the Bay Point location said the sheriffs were searching for anything that could be related to child pornography.

"They went through everything. They went through my drawers, they went through my garbage, everything personal. They just came out and violated my privacy, 15 police officers," she said.

She showed ABC7 the receipt for the property seized by sheriffs, which included her Apple computer, and about 20 VHS tapes and DVDs.

"Anything that looked like it was homemade, they took with them," she said.

Two other properties owned by the Molinos were also searched by sheriff's deputies. Besides the Pleasant Hill home, they searched the couple's business -- J.M. Auto Wreckers in Pittsburg. The third location police searched was the couple's rental home just outside of Pittsburg in Bay Point. The tenants say they took a video camera, DVDs and VHS tapes.

"I don't understand why they came here like that because there is no link between us and them, other than business and buying his printing products," said Jim Molino. "They took nothing from here. They looked around. It's absolutely ridiculous. We're a wrecking yard. We do cars. Why associate me with somebody who I just did business with on cards and printing? It's ridiculous."

"When you walk in, in full tactical gear and you draw guns on adults that have children, there was no need for that," said Cheyvonne.

Contra Costa County Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee told ABC7, the visits to the Molino properties were probation searches. He said "It was all part of the larger Garrido investigation. If they felt it was heavy-handed, I'm sorry for that."

Lee would not confirm that investigators were looking specifically for anything related to child pornography.

The Molinos have done numerous media interviews since Phillip Garrido's arrest about their association with the accused rapist and kidnapper. Cheyvonne told ABC7 she saw Garrido, Jaycee Dugard, and her two daughters dozens of times over a 10 year period, including most recently at a birthday party the Molinos had for their teenage daughter. She also gave ABC7 the photos of two girls who are believed to be the daughters Garrido fathered with his kidnap victim Jaycee.

The couple believes Jaycee could clear their names.

"I'm pleading to Jaycee Dugard. Please step forward and tell the media, tell the government exactly what happened to you," said Cheyvonne.

Molino says she tried to contact investigators numerous times since Garrido's arrest, but never heard from them until Wednesday.

"So now I'm the bad person? I had four police officers today tell me why didn't I say something sooner. And I said, 'Well why didn't the parole officer do his job?'" she said.

Cheyvonne was referring to the numerous visits by the parole officer to the Garrido home without detecting the presence of Jaycee.

As for Wednesday's searches, there was one arrest at the location in Bay Point, but it was unrelated to the Garrido investigation. A man was arrested at one of the homes on an unrelated matter for failure to appear in court. Two young children at that location were also taken into protective custody by Child Protective Services because deputies thought that home was too squalid for the kids to remain there.

The Contra Costa Sheriff's Department would not say if they found any incriminating evidence from the day's searches.

Jaycee Dugard Trust Fund Checks only to:

Jaycee Dugard Trust Fund

c/o Viewtech Financial Services

P.O. Box 596Atwood, CA 92811

Garrido's Love Songs to Girls

SF Gate- Kidnap-rape suspect Phillip Craig Garrido recorded love songs featuring lyrics that appear to refer to young girls, a business acquaintance said Friday.

"For every little girl in the world, they want to be in love, yeah," Garrido sings in one song. "Please tell me that you want me."

In another song, Garrido croons, "The way she walks, yeah, subtle, sexy. What can I do? I fall victim too. A little child, yeah, look what you do."

Garrido told Marc Lister, a 15-year acquaintance, that he wrote the songs while serving time in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., for a 1976 kidnapping and rape, Lister said.

Garrido gave two CDs containing 20 songs several years ago to Lister, a former glass-shop owner who hired him to print his business cards and invoices and who knew people in the music business.

Lister said he believes some of the lyrics could reflect a predilection for young girls. Garrido, 58, who led a rock band and played bass as a teenager in Brentwood, is accused of kidnapping Jaycee Dugard, then 11, from South Lake Tahoe in 1991, raping her and keeping her imprisoned in a backyard compound at his home outside Antioch.

His wife, Nancy Garrido, 54, has also been charged with kidnapping and rape. Both have pleaded not guilty.

"The language, the lyrics, they're suggestive and they're provocative in a lot of the songs," Lister, 57, of Concord said Friday during an interview at the Walnut Creek office of his business attorney, Mark Mittelman.

Lister said he wanted to share the lyrics with law enforcement and raise money from the songs to benefit abused women, but not before he gets a chance to "sit down with Jaycee and make sure it is not going to impair or slow down, in any way, her going back into society, just starting out a normal life."

Garrido sought Lister's help to get his music released to raise money for a religious program to "let people hear the word of God in the way that he interpreted it," Lister said.

"When he gave me these, he said, 'Someday, these are going to be worth millions,' and I just thought, 'Well, Phil's just being weird again,' " Lister said.

He said he had listened to the music - which features Garrido playing bass - without fully comprehending the lyrics and had tossed the CDs into storage.

Lister said he had visited the Garridos' home on Walnut Avenue a number of times and had seen Dugard and her daughters, who authorities say were fathered by Garrido.

Garrido introduced the girls as "our daughters," Lister said, but it was unclear to him whether Dugard or Nancy Garrido was his wife.

Dugard "always looked healthy to me," Lister said. "There was absolutely nothing that I saw that would have raised suspicion."

Mittelman and Lister shared transcribed lyrics and played short snippets of some of the songs with reporters. They also displayed one of Garrido's business cards that they said showed a picture of Dugard several years ago.

The card, which they did not allow to be photographed, shows an attractive, smiling woman with flowing blond hair. Lister said the picture was clearly a "glamour shot" and that Dugard, who helped Garrido with his printing business, often wore her hair up in a bun.

Golf Pro Arrested On Child Sex Charges

ATLANTA -- Federal agents arrested a metro Atlanta golf pro on child exploitation charges on Sunday.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Greg Jones said that authorities arrested Barry Loman, 45, after he traveled from Peachtree City to meet with someone he thought was a minor child.

He is charged with attempted aggravated child molestation, computer pornography, child exploitation, attempted manufacture of child pornography and reckless driving.

Loman is the head pro at Lake Spivey Golf Club, according to the club's Web site. His bio on the site says Loman is married with three children and two grandchildren.

He is being held at the Catoosa County Jail.

1, 2, 3 Undercover Cops and You're OUT!

Wired.com - It’s official. There’s nobody in the chat rooms but pedophiles and undercover police.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of an Indiana man whose online efforts to proposition underage girls led him to not one, not two, but three undercover cops, none of whom apparently knew about the others.

The case began in August 2006, when aspiring sexual predator James Daniel started an online conversation with Amanda_13, a fake 13-year-old girl voiced by Sergeant Richard Howard of the Porter County Sheriff’s Department.

After several highly explicit chats, Daniel asked Amanda_13 to meet him at a park in Valparaiso, Indiana, to have sex. When he showed up, he was arrested for inducing an individual under 18 to engage in criminal sexual activity.

When Secret Service agents searched Daniel’s computer, they found logs of chats with two other apparent minors, who described themselves as 13 and 15 years old, respectively. Federal prosecutors introduced the chats at Daniel’s trial as evidence of his perverted motives.

Supposedly, it was only after Daniel was convicted that the feds realized that one of those girls, daisy13_Indiana, was also a cop working the very same Secret Service operation. They informed Daniel’s attorney, who appealed on the grounds that the government improperly withheld information that would have proven entrapment.

The case became even more bizarre when the three-judge appellate panel reviewing the conviction saw the screen name of the third supposed teenager, blonddt, and recognized it from an earlier case.

“To our surprise, the government was unaware until this panel told it at oral argument that the other screen name, blonddt, was also an officer from the Indiana operation,” wrote Judge Diane Wood on Thursday.

Despite the prosecutorial missteps, the panel upheld Daniel’s conviction, ruling that the additional chat logs still showed his intent to commit a crime. Daniel is serving a sentence of 17-and-a-half years in prison, followed by supervised release for life.

There’s no evidence in the record that he ever succeeded in talking with a real underage girl.

Federal Agents Apprehend Fugitive After 15 Years

WASHAKIE COUNTY, Wyoming (CNN) -- Federal agents have apprehended accused child molester Edward Eugene Harper, who was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, an FBI official said Thursday.

Harper, 63, is accused of molesting two girls, ages 3 and 8, in his neighborhood in Hernando, Mississippi, more than a decade ago, the FBI said.

The FBI said it received a telephone tip in June at the Denver office regarding Harper, and brought a SWAT team and a hostage negotiation team to apprehend him in rural Wyoming on Thursday.

He surrendered without incident, the FBI said, and later admitted his identity to agents.

Harper was living in a 1979 truck with a camper top in the southern portion of Washakie County's Big Horn Mountains, the FBI said.

He is believed to have lived a nomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place and earning a living by doing odd jobs and herding sheep, the FBI said in a statement.

He was indicted in April 1994 with conspiracy to commit sexual battery, fondling a child and sexual battery.

He failed to appear for a scheduled court hearing and a state warrant was issued for his arrest in October 1994. He was later charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, a federal offense. The FBI added him to its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list last year.

Before living in Mississippi, Harper had been a ranch hand, working with cattle and sheep in Montana and Wyoming, the FBI said in its release on Harper last year. He has also worked as a truck driver, the agency said.

According to the FBI, Harper subscribed to "sovereign citizen" ideology and claimed to be a member of the Montana Freemen, a group that rejected the authority of the U.S. government. The group became famous for an 81-day standoff with federal agents in Montana in 1996.

But after the arrest and conviction of many of its members, the group essentially disintegrated, according to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"As far as I know," they don't exist, he said. "Most of them went to prison and there was nothing left."

Evangelist Guilty of Taking Minors Across State Lines for Sex

(CNN) -- A jury in Arkansas convicted evangelist Tony Alamo on Friday of 10 federal counts of taking minors across state lines for sex, according to the court in the Western District in Arkansas.

Authorities in September charged Alamo, the 74-year-old founder and leader of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, and raided his 15-acre compound near Texarkana, Arkansas.

Jurors reached the verdict after more than eight hours of deliberations. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Between March 1994 and October 2005, Alamo transported five girls younger than 18 across state lines for sex, according to the indictment.

The criminal complaint included accounts from three of the girls, two of whom were 17 when the complaint was filed last year and one who was 14. All three said Alamo sexually abused them.

Alamo, whose real name is Bernie Hoffman, had denied all wrongdoing. In a phone interview last year with CNN, he called the accusations a hoax.

"They're just trying to make our church look evil ... by saying I'm a pornographer. Saying that I rape little children. ... I love children. I don't abuse them. Never have. Never will."

Asked why authorities were searching the property, Alamo compared himself to Christ.

"Why were they after Jesus," he asked. "It's the same reason. Jesus is living within me."

Alamo also has compounds in Oklahoma and New Jersey.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says Tony Alamo Christian Ministries is anti-Catholic and a cult.

Mass. Neighbor Accused of Trying to Rape Girl, 6

ABC- A man lured his son's 6-year-old friend to an apartment with a promise to show her some pet gerbils, then bound her with tape and leg shackles, injected her with an unknown substance and tried to rape her, but she fled while still chained, authorities said Monday.

Justin Shine, 26, was charged with kidnapping, attempted rape, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon — a hypodermic needle — and resisting arrest.

At his arraignment Monday in Hingham District Court, a prosecutor described in chilling detail what happened after the girl went out Saturday to ride her bike in front of her apartment in Hanover, a middle-class suburb just south of Boston.

Shine was ordered held without bail pending a dangerousness hearing Wednesday. Not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf.

Assistant District Attorney Sharon Donatelle said the girl told police that Shine, who lived in the same apartment building, saw her outside and yelled out his window, inviting her to see some gerbils. The girl knew Shine as the father of a little boy she often played with in the apartment complex.

Once inside, Shine showed the girl the family's gerbils but then bound her hands with tape, put tape over her mouth, wrapped her arms with a "fishnet-type material" and shackled her ankles with a chain, Donatelle said.

The girl told police that Shine injected her in the hip using a syringe and that she felt "somewhat sleepy" afterward. Donatelle said the syringe is being tested to find out what was in it.

The girl said that after she heard knocking on doors, Shine got a knife and cut the tape off her hands. She said she was crying and Shine told her to "shut up."

"He also told her that she was not going to die today — that he was," Donatelle said. He later let the girl leave, she said.

The girl fled the apartment as police were going door to door looking for her. A man at the complex found her and carried her to police. Her feet were still shackled together, and her arms and legs had blood on them. Police later determined that the blood on the girl was Shine's blood.

"She was very upset and crying," Officer David Zemotel wrote in a police report. "I asked her what had happened and she stated, 'The man took me.'"

The girl then showed police Shine's apartment, Donatelle said.
Police said they arrested Shine after finding him in a bedroom, covered with blood. He had an open wound on his left wrist.

Zemotel said he hit Shine on the head with his gun after Shine ignored police commands and lunged toward officers. Shine had a black eye when he appeared in court Monday.

Police said they found the girl's pink bicycle and Barbie bike helmet in his apartment.

Donatelle said that while Shine was being treated at a hospital, he told a state trooper that he had lured the girl into his apartment and bound her and admitted "he had plans to engage in some sexual activity" but had "second thoughts."

He said he had injected himself with cocaine but didn't admit injecting the girl with anything. He told the trooper it may have been by accident, Donatelle said.

Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz said the girl was taken to a hospital but had been released.

"She escaped, and we hope she's going to be OK, but I'm sure it's going to be a long road for her," Cruz said.

The girl's mother told police she let her daughter ride her bike outside while she put her son down for a nap. When she didn't hear her outside about 20 minutes later, she went outside to look for her, then called police.

Shine looked down and did not speak during his arraignment, except to accept the judge's offer for a court-appointed attorney, William Leonard, who declined to comment to reporters.

- Take A Crack At A Dead Man -

Immediately following Michael Jackson's death, an influx of shameless pedophile-related jokes emerged!

Here is a taste of some.. If you have any you would like to add, feel free.

"Due to the fact that MJ is mostly plastic his body will be melted down and molded into legos so kids can play with his bits for once."

"Hot off the presses: MJ got food posining...He ate 12 year old nuts..."

"MJ has died, and children all around the world can now breathe a sigh of relief"

"June 25th, 2009: Two celebrity white women have died on the same day."

"Farrah went to heaven and God asked her her final wish, she said I want the world to be a better place....he killed MJ."

"The national security level was just lowered to orange by the Boy Scouts."

Porn Pic Found On Hospital Printer

CLERMONT, Fla. -- A man was arrested Wednesday after a photocopy of a picture showing a naked child was left on a printer at a Clermont hospital.

James Robert Chapman faces 100 counts of child pornography possession.

According to investigators, the copy of the picture was found at South Lake Hospital in Clermont last month but wasn't linked to Chapman until this week.

Chapman's bail has been set at $1 million.

Man Guilty In Child-For-Sale Case

SAN ANTONIO -- A federal jury on Friday found a man guilty of trying to sell his girlfriend's 5-year-old daughter for sex.

Jurors returned the guilty verdict against Sean Michael Block after deliberating about 2½ hours. Block was on trial on a charge of aiding and abetting the sale of a child and distributing child pornography. He could face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Block's defense attorney, Jimmy Parks Jr., said he was disappointed with the verdict because Block never went through with the scheme. He also said it set a dangerous precedent.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Braun said that sexually explicit e-mail correspondence between the defendant and Jennifer Richards, the child's mother, and other testimony led jurors to their decision.

"It's hard for normal people to hear that stuff," Braun said. "It is hard enough for people to realize, that there are others in our community that would sell children for sex and talk about it and plan it and find sexual gratification in it."

Block didn't take the stand in his own defense after Richards testified that the defendant threatened her and forced her to go along with a plan to sell her daughter in exchange for a car and an apartment.

Richards, who pleaded guilty to similar charges earlier this year, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Block will be sentenced in July, when his lawyers said they will ask for the minimum 30 years in prison, while government attorneys will ask for the maximum sentencing, which is life in prison.

Florida Epidemic: Teachers Sleeping with Students

Time Mag-- If you're the parent of a teenage boy in Florida, you probably muttered "Not again" while reading your morning newspaper this week.

There on the front page was yet another case of an adult female teacher being arrested for admitting to having had sex with an underage male student. This time the alleged perp was Maria Guzman Hernandez, a 32-year-old instructor at the private Our Lady of Charity school in Hialeah; her victim was 15.

But she just as well could have been the 34-year-old Jacksonville public-school science teacher arrested last month for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old student, once in her SUV; the 32-year-old St. Petersburg teacher collared in March for allegedly "sexting" nude pictures of herself to an eighth-grade boy; or the 45-year-old teacher at a private Christian academy in South Daytona who was arrested days before for allegedly having sex with a boy from her class in various Daytona Beach hotels.

Other female teachers in Florida have been booked for the same crime this year — and scores of others have been arrested or disciplined in the past few years for sexual misconduct with students, according to a recent investigation by the Orlando Sentinel, which noted the problem is rising in the state "among female educators in particular." Florida, of course, is hardly the only state where female teachers have been nabbed for preying on boys.

And nationwide, male teachers still commit far more acts of sexual misconduct than females. A 2004 Education Department study found that about 10% of the nation's 50 million public-school students had experienced some kind of improper sexual attention from teachers and other school employees, and a 2007 Associated Press report indicated that men were involved almost 90% of the time. What's more, even in Florida, those offenders are a small fraction of the state's more than 200,000 public- and private-school teachers.

But parents and prosecutors alike are nonetheless asking why the female version of pedagogue perversion seems more common on their peninsula compared with other places. "It certainly seems more prevalent, although we can't say for sure if it's worse than other large states," says Michael Sinacore, the Hillsborough County assistant state attorney who in 2005 prosecuted one of Florida's most high-profile cases, that of Tampa middle-school teacher Debra Lafave, a blond siren who pleaded guilty to lewd and lascivious behavior after being charged with having sex with a 14-year-old boy. (In a controversial decision, a judge did not make her serve prison time.) "None of us can really say why at this point."

Whatever the reason, the crime appears to be getting more cavalier in the Sunshine State. According to police in Hialeah, a mostly Cuban-American enclave adjoining Miami, Hernandez had been having sex with the 15-year-old boy since March, often in the apartment he shared with his mother (who herself is now under investigation for allowing the abuse to occur).
After the principal at Our Lady of Charity (a private Catholic school that is not formally affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church) heard of the illicit relationship last week, she reported it to the state's Department of Children and Family Services. Police questioned Hernandez last weekend — after she returned from a trip to Disney World with the boy — and she made a taped confession, they say. She was charged with sexual battery on a minor, akin to statutory rape, but has not yet been arraigned.

One theory for the growing number of cases like these, says Sinacore, is what he calls "the more relaxed if not blurred boundary lines between teachers and students as teachers try to communicate with kids in this day and age." Today's kids, as the media have reported recently, are far less shy about innocent physical contact like hugging than their parents were as teens. That can be exploited by any male pervert overseeing a classroom. But it can also embolden predatory female teachers, whom experts say are often in emotionally needy states. "The trend with female offenders, more than males, is that they have emotional turmoil going on in their lives," says Sinacore.

Lafave's pregnant sister, for example, had been killed by a drunk driver before Lafave began hitting on a student; Hernandez is estranged from her husband. Such problems certainly aren't excuses for pedophilia, but they can compel women like Lafave to seek out emotional comfort — or a feeling of control that they might not experience in relationships with adult men.(Read about the notorious Mary K. Letourneau teacher-student affair.)

It doesn't help that society already brings a double standard to these cases, the notion that somehow it isn't as harmful for a boy to be seduced by a woman as it is for a girl to have sex with a man. In fact, it's not uncommon in the wake of news like Hernandez's arrest to hear morning-radio jocks in Florida declare congratulatory high-fives for the boys.

"This isn't an 'affair'; it's abuse, and we have to shift that paradigm," says Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation (SESAME) in Nevada. "We say, 'Bully for the boy and his conquest of the geometry teacher,' but that makes it harder for boys to vocalize their victimization." Indeed, studies by psychologists like Julie Hislop, author of the 2001 book Female Sex Offenders: What Therapists, Law Enforcement and Child Protective Services Need to Know, note that boys who are sexually abused by women often develop alcoholism, depression and their own sexual dysfunctions, including rape, as men.

But why should Florida seem to be experiencing an especially high number of such cases? Are those women, and for that matter, the hormonally charged boys they target, somehow egged on by the state's more sexually relaxed atmosphere, with its sultry climate and scantily clad beach culture? (California also has a high rate of teacher sexual misconduct.) Or are Floridians simply reporting more cases like Hernandez's? It is a crime in Florida, as in most states, not to report such cases, but perhaps the tabloid publicity of the Lafave case has prodded Sunshine State denizens to be more vigilant, to no longer be in denial about cases like these or take them so lightly.

And yet paradoxically, says Sinacore, it might also be engendering more cases. As potential female predators see more and more headlines about teachers like themselves bedding boys, it can seem like more acceptable behavior in their eyes — especially when they see that offenders like Lafave get relatively light sentences. (That might be changing, however: a Florida judge recently slapped a two-year prison term on a 28-year-old female teacher in Pensacola convicted of unlawful sexual activity with a 15-year-old male student.)

Activists like Miller are calling for stricter hiring processes for teachers — the kind of psychological and polygraph testing, for example, that police are subject to — and they have complained that school boards and teachers' unions have blocked legislative efforts to more effectively ferret out potential or actual abusers. But Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Teachers Association, the state's major teachers' union, insists the group is doing its part to attack the problem and raise teacher awareness. At the same time, he points out, unions have an obligation to help teachers who are themselves victims of bogus accusations, which is also a problem. "There needs to be an understanding," says Pudlow, "that even when a false accusation hits the newspapers, it can ruin a teaching career."

True enough. But for the moment, Florida seems more concerned with the growing number of valid complaints. (Jacksonville alone saw two female teachers arrested last month.) So it's no surprise that a Florida Congressman, U.S. Representative Adam Putnam, recently co-introduced a bill, the Student Protection Act, to set up a scholastic version of the national sex-offender database and prevent teachers like Lafave from getting classroom jobs in other districts or states. Whether or not the legislation passes, it's a sign of the emotional turmoil that women like her have wrought in their communities.