Adult Maine residents with disabilities to gain Medicaid services with lawsuit settlement

11-28-2014 Maine:

AUGUSTA, Maine — Adults in Maine with autism and intellectual disabilities will receive housing and other support services through the state's Medicaid program under a class-action lawsuit settlement.

The settlement, completed Monday in Kennebec County Superior Court, was welcomed by Gerald Petruccelli, the plaintiffs' attorney.

"The best of it was that we worked collaboratively with the Department of Health and Human Services and the attorney general's office before things got too far down the legal path," he told the Portland Press Herald.

He told the paper (http://bit.ly/1xRNOTx ) as many as 1,000 people could benefit from the agreement. The suit filed in 2013 said some people who sought MaineCare services had been on waiting lists for years.

The Department of Health and Human Services said in response that there was not enough money to cover those services.

Eighteen people sued, but the settlement could benefit as many as 1,000 people who are on waiting lists for MaineCare services including housing vouchers and other support. The state's share of the cost of services to the people affected by the settlement is expected to be about $7 million.

DHHS spokesman David Sorensen told the paper he was aware of the settlement, but that the department would have no comment at this time.

Petruccelli said that while Gov. Paul LePage's administration agreed to the settlement, there were no specifics on how the money would be generated or shifted to pay for it.

Rep. Richard Farnsworth, the Portland Democrat who chairs the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee, said he thinks there is enough flexibility in the MaineCare budget to meet the settlement terms. ..Source.. by Portland Press Herald

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Mother of low-IQ sex offender worries about loss of therapy program

11-24-2014 Minnesota:

With an IQ of 60, Claire Potter's 47-year-old son Clark verbalizes at the developmental level of a 13-year-old. But socially, he's even younger -- perhaps 8 years old, according to his mother.

He's also a sex offender. Although never charged with a crime, Clark Potter forced himself on his girlfriend at a group home for the mentally disabled some 20 years ago, his mother said. He later sexually assaulted a staff member's young child.

As a result, he spent a year in a state psychiatric facility, followed by 20 years in group therapy. For three hours a day, up to five days per week, he has met with therapists and other low-IQ sex offenders at ABC Mental Health Therapy on Payne Avenue in St. Paul.

That door is now closed. After losing a Ramsey County contract, the nonprofit officially called it quits Friday, capping nine years of running the "Onward" group therapy program in St. Paul. Metropolitan Community Mental Health Center ran Onward from 1970 to 2005 before it went out of business.

With painstaking effort and medication, Clark Potter has recognized his mistakes and avoided making new ones, his mother said through tears. He recently began job training after nearly two decades of preparation.

"There is nothing comparable to this program," said Claire Potter, a retired airline customer fraud investigator.

"It's such a niche. I'm terrified of having my son's support system yanked out from under him."

Ramsey County officials felt otherwise. Earlier this year, they informed ABC Mental Health director Dane Jorento that they would no longer contract with the nonprofit and another day-treatment therapy program, Pathways Counseling Center on University Avenue.

While the county did not fund ABC Mental Health directly, losing the contract eliminates the nonprofit's ability to qualify for reimbursement through Minnesota's Medicaid medical assistance program, known as MA.

Most clients have no income, and without the reimbursement, ABC Mental Health can't afford to pay its staff, Jorento said.

"All the staff, I think, already have job offers, as they are well-trained, awesome staff, and there is growing demand for therapist and therapy services," he said. "I really hope Ramsey County succeeds but unfortunately can't see that happening with going back to failed practices."

Jorento and several fellow therapists from Metropolitan Community Mental Health opened the nonprofit together and operated it for six years at Fairview and University avenues before relocating to Payne Avenue in 2011.

They believed their strategy toward treating low-IQ offenders was working, keeping the offenders and society safe.

Organized something akin to a support group, the approach helped clients suffering from brain injuries, autism and mental disabilities to acknowledge their crimes and then think through ways they could control their negative impulses.

The effort took years, and in some cases decades.

Jorento said his therapists worked with peeping Toms, clients who had engaged in public masturbation and some who had committed more serious offenses, such as sex assaults. Many, but not all, were referred through a county correctional system and had been found mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Ramsey County officials said they review all county contracts on a five-year basis and determined that the day-treatment programs no longer were meeting modern standards within their field.

They said they want each offender to have an individualized case plan, based on the latest research, with the goal of getting them back into work sites.

Jorento is skeptical.

"Most of our clients can't keep a job because they have offended at the job sites," he said.

"They need ongoing structure, oftentimes the first stable, safe structure they have ever experienced in their lives, to create stable and durable behavioral changes, including brain neurology changes.

"One-on-one therapy, one hour a week doesn't work with these clients and hasn't worked in the past," he said.

It's unclear what Ramsey County's new strategy will be for low-IQ offenders. Claire Potter said that in addition to the expense posed by residential programs, developmentally delayed clients like her son would be easy targets for more sophisticated predators.

"He falls between the cracks for a number of reasons," she said. "The programs that are available are for people who are much higher functioning, in which case he's the vulnerable person. It's like putting the lambs in with the wolves."

Based on discussions with various state Department of Human Services staff, Jorento believes there are 150 low-IQ sex offenders housed at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program, which is located at state psychiatric facilities in Moose Lake and St. Peter.

And someday, they may go free. The state of Minnesota is under increasing legal pressure to release patients who have been held for years after the end of their criminal sentences, especially if they are deemed low-risk.

If that happens, counties appear ill-equipped to direct them to appropriate services, Jorento said. Officials with the Department of Human Services confirmed last week that they had set up a contract with ABC Mental Health to provide therapy to low-IQ offenders if more are released.

Claire Potter still cries when she thinks of her son's sexual assaults two decades ago, and she said she spent years in therapy herself to relearn how to love him.

"He's in the right place," she said. "It has taken 20 years of therapy and medication to get him, in very tiny increments, to understand at all that what he has done is wrong."

On Friday, Jorento penned an open thank-you letter to county officials and state contacts within the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

"There will never be another nonprofit like ABC, as there are very few skilled and experienced people crazy enough to do so much for so little for the unwanted," Jorento wrote. "This fight, to get the best therapy services to vulnerable clients, is over."

Counseling sex offenders rarely results in awards and recognition, but Jorento has his share of fans.

"I thought he ran a very respected organization in the field," said Christopher Onken, who owns about 20 group homes in the south metro and has worked with ABC since it opened. "We should be expanding resources for this under served population, not reducing them." ..Source.. by Frederick Melo

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Parents hope Schumer's proposed Avonte's Law will become reality

Finally a lawmaker proposes a useful law. These kids need protections such as this.

UPDATE: The bill pays for available technology. Right now the federal program has some sort of glitch in paying for technology which this bill clears up. Note highlight below "Pays for." see also: "Avonte's Law" Looks to Fund Tracking Devices for Children with Autism and Schumer Proposes ‘Avonte’s Law’ to Protect Children With Autism

1-28-2014 New York:

Alex Siri, 15, has autism and is considered nonverbal. Alex uses an iPad program to let others know what he wants or how he is feeling. Alex's father is hoping his son will also benefit from a new bill proposed by Sen. Charles Schumer. If passed, Avonte's Law would use federal money to pay for a voluntary program to help police locate missing at-risk autistic children using GPS tracking devices.

The proposal is named for Avonte Oquendo. The 14-year-old boy ran away from his Long Island City, Queens, school in October and was found dead earlier this month in the East River. Schumer made the announcement Sunday with Avonte's mother by his side. Schumer said it would be similar to a federal program that tracks seniors with Alzheimer's disease.

Just weeks before Avonte disappeared, Alex wandered away from his Upper East Side apartment. Luckily, he was quickly found.

Project Lifesaver is a similar private program already doing this for at people at risk.

"If the person goes wandering, each bracelet has a separate frequency in it, a radio frequency, they can tune their receivers, which they've been trained to use, go into an area, locate that radio signal, track to the person, locate them, and bring them back home," Gene Saunders, the CEO and founder of Project Lifesaver International, told Fox 5 via Skype.

Until Alex gets such a device, his dad has tagged his shoes with his name and address and hopes Alex never needs that again.

More than 200 mourners attended Avonte's funeral Saturday.

Investigators are still trying to determine how he died. ..Source.. by MYFOX NEW YORK STAFF

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Teen ‘sexting’ case goes to trial in Fairfax County

4-17-2013 Virginia:

Three Fairfax County high school students made cellphone videos of drunken sex acts with fellow teens and shared them among themselves, authorities said. When they go on trial Thursday, they face a charge usually reserved for adult predators: child pornography.

The case is one of a number in Virginia where teens caught “sexting” have been charged with a felony that can carry a sentence of 20 years in prison and could require registry as a sex offender.

In Virginia, Maryland and many other states, the law has not caught up with the combustible mix of teens, technology and sex that has made sexting an issue. Prosecutors must rely on a patchwork of laws created before the rise of smart­phones to handle such cases.

Some parents and rights groups are calling for a new law that would distinguish sexting from child pornography, create lesser punishments and focus on educating teenagers, not punishing them. But they also acknowledge that young victims can be devastated when embarrassing photos or videos are spread among their peers.

A Franklin County, Va., mother whose 15-year-old son was charged with 12 counts of child pornography for sexting called the experience a nightmare. She said the teen, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was naive when he sent out a topless photo of a classmate.

“It was probably the worst point of our life,” the woman said. “My son was in a severe depression. He is thinking his life was at an end. He could be labeled as a sex offender.”

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said prosecutors across the state grapple with how to handle sexting cases. He said that no one wants to slap a teen with a felony sex charge but that those concerns have to be weighed against the impact on a victim when a sexted image or video goes public.

Parents of two teens in Ohio and Florida say their daughters committed suicide when they were ridiculed after sexually explicit images of them were forwarded to others. And sexted images and videos can be found by child pornographers, who trade them on the Internet.

“We try to resolve these cases wherever possible without going to the courts,” Morrogh said. “At the juvenile level, the goal is to rehabilitate the child.”

Most sexting cases in which teens are initially charged with child pornography are resolved outside of court or with lesser charges that result in probation or community service.

Morrogh declined to discuss the Fairfax County case, but authorities have said two 16-year-olds and a 15-year-old from West Springfield High School were charged with possession and distribution of child pornography in January after they filmed themselves engaging in sex acts with at least six teenage girls. A source with Fairfax County schools said the videos were filmed surreptitiously.

The Washington Post does not generally identify juveniles charged with crimes.

Rodney G. Leffler, an attorney for one of the boys, has said that all of the sex acts were consensual and that the 10 videos at the heart of the case were filmed at parties at the teenagers’ homes beginning in December 2011. He said that all of the girls eventually learned that they were being filmed and that the boys shared the videos among themselves but did not distribute them widely. It is not clear whether the videos were texted, e-mailed or sent by other means.

The Franklin County mother said that in her son’s case, a classmate borrowed his phone, went into a high school bathroom and took a topless photo of herself. She said the girl did not have a phone and wanted to send the photo to two other students.

When the teenager got the phone back, he discovered the topless picture and forwarded it to friends. The boy, the girl and other students that received the photo were arrested under Virginia’s child pornography statute in 2010.

The mother said her son eventually pleaded no contest to the 12 charges of distribution of child pornography — one for each time he forwarded the photo. He was given probation for a year and required to do 60 days of community service. The charge has since been wiped from the teen’s record, his mother said.

In Maryland, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said he has yet to prosecute a sexting case. He sees them as “opportunities for education and intervention.” Nevertheless, he said the state might benefit from a specific sexting statute to address situations where explicit photos are shared willingly between underage teens of about the same age.

“The existing laws are inadequate to address sexting,” McCarthy said.

There has been little movement to create a sexting law in Maryland, but the Virginia State Crime Commission explored the idea in 2009. The body ultimately did not recommend any legislation. A bill that would make sexting a misdemeanor also went nowhere in 2010.

The sticking point: Legislators say they worry that such a law could unintentionally open a loophole that might be exploited by pedophiles.

“Every time we try to write a carve-out for this specific situation, we just give the true sex predator a road map on how to commit a crime,” said Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax). “You cannot make a mistake when you are drafting this type of bill. The stakes are too high.”

In addition, the circumstances of such cases vary widely. They range from a girl willingly texting a racy photo of herself to a boyfriend who does not share it, to teens secretly recording sex acts and maliciously spreading the videos.

Nationally, at least 20 states have passed legislation on sexting since 2009, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. States have generally moved to create more lenient punishments for sexting teens and to shield them from having to register as sex offenders in such cases.

A University of New Hampshire survey found 7 percent of young people had received a nude or nearly nude image of others, while 1 percent said they had created sexually explicit images of themselves.

Jonathan L. Phillips, a lawyer and former Fairfax County prosecutor, has handled sexting cases on both sides. He said there is room to find common ground on a sexting law in Virginia.

“If you look at some states, the age of the senders, the intent of the senders is considered,” Phillips said. “Having another statute doesn’t close out charging someone with child pornography. It’s better to have more of a spectrum of options.” ..Source.. by Justin Jouvenal

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Exclusive: The Secret Behind The Xbox Sex Case

Folks may remember this post about the NY AG kicking ALL NY registrants off "gaming systems (XBox type)" because of a crime committed by a 19-yr-old (not a registered sex offender) who the AG referred to as a Predator. Now we find out more about the 19-yr-old who is professionally diagnosed as having the social mind of a 10-11-yr-old. You must read the story below! Now, what is your opinion of the NY AG's actions?

4-13-2012 New York:

Greece, N.Y. --- For more than a year the criminal case against Richard Kretovic has garnered local, state, and even some national headlines. Kretovic’s arrest last March stemmed from an investigation that revealed he had sexual encounters with a twelve year-old boy he met while playing Xbox Live online.

Now, Kretovic’s mom reveals a secret that few people ever knew about her son. A secret that, for some, changes the conversation and debate that has surrounded this case since Kretovic was arrested.

"Every case is not a cookie-cutter case,” Karen Kretovic, Richard’s mom said in an exclusive interview with 13WHAM News. “Every case has a story."

For Karen Kretovic her son’s story begins when he was first diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of five. The disorder specifically affects one’s social skills and puts Kretovic on the autism spectrum. Most describe those with Asperger’s as being high-functioning autistic.

"Chronologically he's 19, academically he is way beyond his years, but socially and emotionally he's about ten, eleven years old," Kretovic’s mom said about her son, who just turned 20 last week.

April is Autism Awareness month and later this month, on April 26th, Kretovic will stand before a judge to be sentenced. Last month he pled guilty to one D-level felony charge. His plea agreement includes a six month jail sentence, ten years probation, and registration as a sex offender in New York State.

The original 19-count indictment accused Kretovic of Sexual Abuse 2nd Degree (9-counts, misdemeanor), Criminal Sexual Act 1st Degree (9-counts, felony), and Endangering the Welfare of a Child (misdemeanor.) A conviction to any of the felony-level charges exposed Kretovic to a possible 5-to-25 year prison sentence.

Kretovic’s Asperger’s

The diagnosis came when he was five years old and it has remained a lifelong struggle for Kretovic and his family, according to his mom. She says her son also suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and provided letters and documents dating back more than a decade to substantiate her claim.

In a rare circumstance, Kretovic also waived patient privacy rights and allowed a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been counseling him for the last four months to speak publicly on his behalf.

"I certainly would never want a true predator to go free, I would want a true predator to be caught but that's not Ricky and that's what's disturbing to me," Kitty Moran Wolfsong said of Kretovic. "Socially I would say that Ricky is somewhere between the age of ten and twelve."

Both Kretovic’s mom and Wolfsong describe him as being very intelligent with a clear idea of what’s right and what’s wrong, but they also say he’s socially naïve and unable to comprehend various social interactions. Kretovic’s mom says that the encounter her son had with this 12 year-old victim was his first sexual experience.

"This invisible disability needs to be recognized by law enforcement, by government,” Kretovic’s mother said.

Kretovic’s Criminal Case

In March 2011, the victim’s parents reported the sexual abuse to Greece Police and a criminal investigation led right to Kretovic’s front door. Court and police paperwork (attached) indicates the challenges police had in even convincing Kretovic to open the door for officers.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kretovic said over the phone to an officer standing outside his home trying to convince him to come to the door. “I’d rather not, I’m sorry, I don’t want to go to jail.”

Kretovic’s mom returned home later that evening and says she immediately filed a missing person’s report on behalf of her son because she could not locate him and was unaware that he was at the police station speaking to investigators.

"He would never, ever leave the house without calling me or writing me a note or anything and I came home from work and he was gone,” Karen said of that day.

Police interviewed Kretovic for some time and according to the police report he appeared to admit to multiple sexual encounters with the victim. While Miranda warnings were issued according to police, we asked Kretovic’s mom if she thinks her son had a full understanding of his legal rights at the time of this questioning.

“No absolutely not, absolutely not; he was just doing as he was told, that is what he was doing,” according to Kretovic’s mom. "I know that they had to interrogate him to the point where he just cracked, I mean there's no doubt in my mind that he just cried and gave up and was curled up in a ball in the fetal position.”

A Greece Police Spokesman confirmed for 13WHAM News prior to this report that investigators did include in their police report what information they could gather concerning Kretovic’s autism.

Just last week, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman specifically pointed to Kretovic’s case as a reason why his office rushed to broker an agreement with the manufacturers of these online gaming systems.

"Operation: Game Over in fact took on an added urgency after a recent event in Greece, New York…" A.G. Schneiderman said at a press conference in New York City last Thursday. The agreement involved the removal of all registered sex offenders in the State of New York from the online databases of these gaming systems.

A spokeswoman for A.G. Schneiderman’s Office refused to comment for this report and when asked if the office was aware of Kretovic’s Asperger’s.

"He's being vilified in the news as a predator who went out looking, trolling for some younger person (and) that's just not how it was,” Wolfsong said. “He was on a gaming site looking for friends because he doesn't have many friends, because he's not good at making friends.”

Kretovic’s Punishment

By most accounts the plea deal Kretovic received is a more than favorable one. Yet for those who know Kretovic the best, there is passionate concern that his having to go to county jail will set him back years in his development.

“That is the piece that I'm most disturbed about because it truly is like putting an innocent ten or eleven-year-old in with adults who are street smart; it is absolutely not an appropriate punishment,” Wolfsong said. “Ricky will be destroyed in jail, it terrifies me what jail is going to do to him. Best case scenario he'll come out damaged and need years of therapy to deal with it, worst case scenario he will be turned into a predator…It is not going to correct anything."

Kretovic’s mom said she understands her son must be punished for what he’s done.

"Rick broke the law, knowingly or unknowingly he broke the law, I'm not saying that he should not be punished for his crime,” she said. “But not as severely as this."

Kretovic’s mom said the victim in this case was a large twelve year-old boy the size of her own son. She said she remembers him at her home on three occasions and never once does she recall any signs or signals that would suggest he was being victimized. Karen Kretovic said the victim said certain things that suggested he was much older than twelve. She added that she was never introduced to the boy’s parents despite at least one attempt by her to invite them inside for coffee.

13WHAM News was unable to substantiate or corroborate those claims as the victim remains anonymous.

"I regret that I had to wait this long, and had to suffer this long, and my son had to suffer this long before I came forward,” Karen Kretovic said through tears. “Because I'm glad I did and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I can keep my son home with me."

Kretovic is due to be sentenced on April 26th in front of Monroe County Judge Victoria Argento. ..Source.. by Sean Carroll

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Man says he tried to report sex abuse by Penn State professor

11-18-2011 Pennsylvania:

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A Phoenix, Ariz., man is alleging that he tried, without success, in 2001 and 2002 to reach someone at Penn State who would act on his claims he had been sexually abused as a child by a Penn State professor.

Paul McLaughlin, 45, of Phoenix, Ariz., alleged in a news release issued by the National Center for Victims of Crime that he was 11 years old in 1977 when he began to be abused by Penn State professor John T. Neisworth and two other men. He said the abuse occurred during a period of four years in several states, including at Neisworth’s home in Julian and at his Penn State office, McLaughlin said.

From 2001 to 2002, he said he contacted Penn State officials in order to make them aware of his allegations against Neisworth, a full-time professor regarded as an expert on early childhood education and autism. Several Penn State officials declined to take action on his complaints, he said in the news release.

"Although I had clear evidence of abuse by this professor, the university refused to act," McLaughlin said in the news release. "At the time I was abused, there were no policies or safeguards in place at the university to prevent this kind of crime."

According to an interview with McLaughlin in the (Harrisburg) Patriot News, McLaughlin went to Penn State’s dean of education, David Monk, and eventually had a phone conversation with university President Graham Spanier in early 2002. Both brushed him off, he said, despite his offer to share a tape recording he made of Neisworth admitting to performing oral sex on him.

Neisworth retired as a professor emeritus from Penn State in the early 2000s, but continued to teach distance courses part-time for years afterward, the Centre Daily Times previously reported. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.

McLaughlin filed a civil suit against Neisworth and a California man named Karl Goeke in New Jersey in 2001. McLaughlin agreed to an out-of-court cash settlement, which included a non-disclosure agreement, in 2002, according to the Centre Daily Times archives.

In 2005, charges of child sexual abuse were filed in Maryland — the only state in which the statute of limitations had not expired — against Neisworth, who was 67 at the time; Goeke, who was 58; and David A. Smith, who was 64. However, prosecutors later made a declaration of nolle prosequi — a voluntary dropping of charges — because of lack of evidence, according to court documents and newspaper accounts of the trial.

Throughout the civil case and the criminal proceedings, Monk expressed support for Neisworth.

"He has an impeccable record as a scholar, and he’s been a fine member of the faculty here," Monk told the Centre Daily Times in 2005. At the time, he said Penn State was not investigating Neisworth’s activities at the university.

Neisworth sued McLaughlin and his wife, Joy McLaughlin, in 2007 for breaching the terms of the non-disclosure agreement signed after the 2001 civil suit for initiating the criminal proceedings against him in Maryland. McLaughlin counter-sued for abuse of process, breach of contract, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and fraud. The results of those suits could not be determined Thursday.

McLaughlin appeared at a press conference Wednesday in Harrisburg to push for the passage of several child abuse-related bills.

"Last week’s arrest of Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky for the same kind of abuse suggests that little has changed (at the university)," he said. "At Penn State and other institutions, witnesses can just ignore abusers, leaving them free to abuse children again and again."

McLaughlin and the National Center for Victims of Crime are advocating for the elimination of the statute of limitations for criminal and civil cases alleging child sexual abuse.

"Institutions can best protect their reputations by preventing child sexual abuse and holding abusers accountable," said Mai Fernandez, executive director of the National Center for Victims of Crime. "By acting immediately, they can earn their good name and protect themselves from the kind of catastrophe now unfolding at Penn State." ..For the remainder of this story.. by Cliff White / The Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.)

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DSM-V Draft Promises Big Changes in Some Psychiatric Diagnoses

2-10-2010 National:

Substantial changes are in the offing for the "psychiatrist's bible," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, according to a draft of the forthcoming fifth edition.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has posted the draft of DSM-V on a special Web site, www.dsm5.org, to obtain comments from its members, other members of the mental health community, and the public.

At a telephone press briefing before the draft's release, members of the APA team leading the DSM revision highlighted several substantial innovations they are proposing:

•Recategorizing learning disorders, including creation of a single diagnostic category for autism and other socialization disorders, and replacing the controversial term "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability"

•Eliminating "substance abuse" and "substance dependence" as disorders, to be replaced with a single "addiction and related disorders" category

•Creating a "behavioral addictions" category that will include addictions to gambling but not to the Internet or sex

•Offering a new assessment tool for suicide risk

•Including a category of "risk syndromes" for psychosis and cognitive impairment, intended to capture mild versions of these conditions that do not always progress to full-blown psychotic disorders or dementia, but often do

•Adding a new disorder in children, "temper dysregulation with dysphoria," for persistent negative mood with bursts of rage

•Revising criteria for some eating disorders, including creation of a separate "binge eating disorder" distinct from bulimia

•Using "dimensional assessments" to account for severity of symptoms, especially those that appear in multiple diagnostic categories

The APA will accept comments through April 20. The work groups managing the revision will consider them and make further changes as needed to the draft, said David Kupfer, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh, chairman of the DSM-V task force.

The draft diagnostic criteria will then undergo two years of field testing. The final DSM-V is scheduled for release in May 2013, a year later than originally planned.

New Categories for Dyslexia, Autism

In the area of neurodevelopmental disorders, DSM-V will put dyslexia and dyscalculia -- reflecting disabilities of reading and mathematics, respectively -- into a new category of learning disabilities.

Autism, Asperger's syndrome, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified will make up the new "autism and related disorders" category.

The head of the APA's work group on substance-related disorders, Charles O'Brien, MD, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania, told reporters on the press call that substance dependence and abuse had no basis in the research on addictions.

"We unanimously agreed that . . . there really isn't evidence for an intermediate stage [short of addiction] that is now known as abuse," he said. Instead, there will be substance use disorders for each of the major types of drugs that cause problems, such as alcohol.

He added that the term "dependence" was problematic as a psychiatric diagnosis because some types of physical dependence are "completely normal" for some medications, such as opioid painkillers.

In fact, under the draft, DSM-V will include "discontinuation syndromes" to allow physicians to properly assess symptoms of withdrawal from psychoactive substances, including caffeine, O'Brien said.

He also said his work group had considered including sex and Internet addictions as disorders, but decided there was insufficient evidence to allow development of reliable diagnostic criteria for them.

Consequently, gambling addiction is slated to be the only disorder formally listed in the behavioral addictions category.

But O'Brien added that, under current plans, sex and Internet addictions would be included in an appendix to DSM-V, intended to encourage additional research that could lead to their inclusion in future editions.

Carole Lieberman, MD, a Beverly Hills, Calif., psychiatrist who appears frequently on television, regretted the omission of Internet addiction.

Contacted for comment by MedPage Today and ABC News, Lieberman said in an e-mail that behavioral addictions are a worthy category. "But why would it not include 'Internet addiction,'" she wrote. "Could it be that the psychiatrists involved do not want to acknowledge that their own Internet usage could meet the criteria for addiction?"

Lieberman added that compulsive shopping was another form of behavioral addiction that deserves recognition.

Dimensional and Risk Assessments

APA leaders also emphasized the two new suicide risk assessment scales planned for DSM-V, one for adolescents and one for adults.

David Shaffer, MD, of Columbia University, told reporters on the press call that suicide nearly always occurs in the context of some psychiatric disorder, but not always depression.

The new risk assessment tools focus on risk factors such as impulsive behavior, heavy drinking, and chronic severe pain and illness.

In DSM-IV, suicidal ideation is treated as a symptom of major depression and certain other disorders.

Shaffer also explained the genesis of the proposed new childhood disorder, temper dysregulation with dysphoria (TDD).

"About 40% to 60% of the cases [seen by child psychiatrists] will be children who are doing things that other people don't want them to do," he said. Many of these are children who are "stubborn and resistant and disobedient and moody."

There is currently a recognized syndrome known as oppositional defiant disorder, but some children also display severe aggression and negative moods that go beyond mere stubbornness, according to Shaffer.

Such children are often tagged as having juvenile bipolar disorder, but research has shown that the label is often inappropriate, since they usually do not qualify for a bipolar disorder diagnosis when they reach adulthood, although they remain dysfunctional. More often, these children are diagnosed as depressed when they become adults.

He said the addition of TDD would better describe the severity and frequency of irritable behavior while also recognizing the mood disorder that goes with it.

Another innovation in DSM-V will be the extensive use of so-called dimensional assessments. Whereas DSM-IV relied heavily on present-absent symptom checklists, the new edition will include severity scales for symptoms, such as anxiety or insomnia, that may appear to larger or smaller degrees in many different mental illnesses.

Darrel Regier, MD, MPH, the APA's research director, said such checklists "don't always fit the reality that someone with a mental disorder experiences." Often, a symptom like insomnia isn't on the checklist for a particular disorder, he said, "but they can still affect patients' lives and affect the treatment planning."

Incorporating quantitative dimensional assessments should allow clinicians to develop treatment and response-monitoring plans better tailored to individual patients' needs, Regier said.

But Lieberman foresaw problems with the dimensional assessments. "I don't think [they] will add anything but confusion," she said in an e-mail. "As it is now, people don't really make use of the subcategories that there are to describe severity of symptoms. Instead, I see this as a tool that insurance companies could well co-opt to try to deny benefits."

Gender Identity Disorder Stays

A closely watched issue in the DSM-V revision has been whether to change or do away with gender identity disorder, now listed in DSM-IV. At this point, the draft retains the designation but with some changes, officials said.

People who consider themselves "transgendered" have long criticized DSM-IV and previous editions for labeling them with a mental disease when their problems, they believe, are purely somatic -- that is, they have the wrong genitalia and hormonal balance.

At the APA's annual meeting last May, members of the transgender community made a case for dropping gender identity disorder from DSM-V, but keeping some kind of "gender variance" diagnosis as a medical condition. Such an approach would eliminate the stigma of a psychiatric diagnosis while leaving a pathway for third-party payment for gender transition treatments, they said.

William Narrow, MD, the APA's research director for DSM-V, told reporters that the draft does remove the term "disorder" from the condition when applied to children, renaming it as "gender incongruence."

For adults, gender identity disorder will remain in DSM-V but with substantially altered diagnostic criteria, Narrow said.

But APA officials said the organization planned more discussions with members of the transgender community.

Kupfer, the DSM-V task force chairman, stressed that further changes in many diagnostic categories are likely following the comment period and field trials.

Final revisions will be submitted in 2012 for approval by the APA's two governing bodies, the Assembly and the board of trustees. ..Source.. John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today

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So much for the weaker sex

7-17-2009 Global:

Can you prove anything you want by statistics? You bet.

But here's one case where there's no need to manipulate figures to prove a point.

It's a straight, simple, indisputable fact that women live 5.4 years longer than men.

So was the Almighty just unkind to men or is this problem the result of their own stupidity?

Male vulnerability starts early. The pregnancy of a male fetus is more likely to end in miscarriage or stillbirth. Even as infants, the mortality rate of premature boys is higher. They have a higher rate of developmental disabilities and autism, and are more likely to be born colour blind.

Males also die more often than women from almost all of the leading killers, coronary attack, cancer, chronic obstructive lung disease, diabetes, AIDS, liver disease, pneumonia, influenza and kidney problems.

As teenagers, they're 11 times more likely to drown. Later on, men are three times more likely to be murdered and four times more likely to commit suicide.

All this is enough to drive men to drink.

Women's health issues get more national attention.

For instance, the number of new cases of prostate cancer is nearly the same as breast cancer. Yet in 2005, the U. S. government spent $394 million on prostate research and $710 million on breast cancer. There are also more headlines about breast cancer compared to that of the lowly prostate.

Even as I write this column there's a huge walkathon for breast cancer in Toronto.

But aren't women supposed to be the weaker sex?

Not according to Dr. Robert Tan, a geriatrics specialist in Houston, Texas.

He says, "It's not that we could be the weaker sex, we are the weaker sex!"

Even when women and men have the same diseases, men are more likely to die. The best example is that men are less likely to recover from hip fractures than women.

But you can also argue that men are just crying in their beer.

It's easy for them to blame genetics, government and the media for their earlier demise.

The blunt fact is men are largely the architects of their own misfortune.

And if they would get smarter, it would be easy to increase their longevity.

To do so, men must take the step that they're so reluctant to do -- see their doctor for regular checkups.

Today, prevention is the name of the game when diagnosing problems before they gain a foothold and end your life.

A regular examination will detect early hypertension and onset of diabetes, both major killers if left undiagnosed.

Men could also literally wipe out colon cancer deaths if they submitted to colonoscopy screening. And studies indicate that the PSA test for prostate cancer has steadily reduced the number of men dying from this disease.

But they have to get it done.

Male behaviour plays a role in decreased longevity. It would help if they consumed less alcohol and tobacco, increased their use of seat belts and sunscreen. And if they were less aggressive, fewer would die from car accidents.

Equally important, they have to get their macho brain in the right gear.

Dr. Will Courtney, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, reports that men tend to assume they're physically indestructible.

Their heroes, like John Wayne, can survive bullets in movies.

But Wayne succumbed to lung cancer, at least partly caused by his smoking.

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, died from complications of a chest cold after ignoring his doctor's advice.

Bluntly, men have to accept the fact that in real life no one is bulletproof. Nor is the male brain bulletproof.

Today, too many men won't acknowledge they're depressed and they refuse to seek help. They've been trained from early childhood to tough it out. And, all too often, this ends in needless suicide.

This aversion to asking for help is not easy to overcome.

But men could take a lesson from New York City firefighters.

Since the collapse of the World Trade Center, they have not tried to hide their emotions and have frequently sought help from counsellors.

Shakespeare had the right message for men on how to improve their longevity.

He penned, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."

Dr. Gifford-Jones' commonsense- based medical column, offered with the occasional dash of humour, has been published in Canadian newspapers for 30 years. ..Source.. by DR. GIFFORD-JONES

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NC- Judge's ruling in Chatham leads counties to butt heads

A war between officials (court and sheriff) over a sex offender, who needs sex offender treatment, in a locked down facility, which is in a proscribed area due to a residency law; who will win? Unfortunately logic plays no part in the sheriff's thinking related to residency laws...

4-20-2009 North Carolina:

Authorities in Forsyth and Chatham counties are engaged in a high-stakes game of pingpong involving a convicted sex offender who admitted molesting a 4-year-old girl.

The situation could result in more criminal charges if court officials from Chatham County try to follow through on a judge's order to place 16-year-old Carlos Dominguez Moreno in a treatment center in Forsyth County that's close to a day-care center and a school for children with autism.

The legal stalemate boils down to opposing viewpoints.

Officials in Chatham County -- notably Judge R. Allen Baddour Jr. of Superior Court -- clearly believe that Moreno is a young man who might yet be salvaged, someone who could benefit from therapy. Authorities here think that Moreno is a sexual predator, a danger to the community, and a problem to be dealt with in Chatham County.

Right now, the battle over Moreno is at a standoff. Baddour signed an order March 12 to place Moreno in the Old Vineyard Behavioral Health Services facility in Winston-Salem. Forsyth authorities objected, and sent word that Moreno would be arrested for violating sex-offender residency laws if he shows up here.

"To take on responsibility for an individual who, one, would be in violation of the law and two, might jeopardize children ... I cannot allow that," said Detective Paulo Gargiulo, the man who runs the sex-offender registration unit for the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office. "If a court says we have to take him, we will. But we can't just do it blindly or without protest."

(eAdvocate Post)

Too close for comfort

The showdown began Dec. 15 when Moreno pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child, three counts of sexual battery, felony breaking and entering and misdemeanor stalking.

As part of that plea bargain, he was sentenced to 16 to 20 months in prison for taking indecent liberties with a child and sexual battery, followed by six to eight months for the other offenses. The sentences were immediately suspended, and he was ordered to be on supervised probation for 60 months.

(How a child molester can get a deal like that is a story for another day. Suffice it to say, the arrangement is very generous.)

A month later, court officials in Chatham determined that Moreno could be treated at Old Vineyard and notified Forsyth probation officers that he would be coming Jan. 30.

The response from Forsyth County? No way.

"We found that Old Vineyard is within the 1,000-foot rule," said judicial district-manager Chris Oxendine, referring to a state law that says a convicted sex offender can't reside within 1,000 feet of a school or day-care center. "We advised Chatham County of that."

In his order, Baddour used MapQuest and Google maps to determine that Old Vineyard is more than 1,000 feet away from the ABC School of NC and the Bunny Stop Preschool.

But that's driving distance. The attorney general's office says the 1,000-foot rule is a point to point measure calculated through property-tax records.

To further support his ruling, Baddour came up with two other questionable exceptions to the law governing where sex offenders can live.

He ruled that because Old Vineyard provides "educational services," Moreno could be considered a student, and he wrote that the 1,000-foot rule doesn't apply because Old Vineyard was in its present location before the ABC School and the day care.

"The program out there is to help sex offenders, pre-trial and the key phrase is ‘not convicted,'" said Tom Keith, the district attorney for Forsyth County. "It's a fine point of the law, but this guy has been convicted and we don't think it's appropriate for him to be here."


‘We don't want him'

For the time being, Moreno remains at home in Chatham County under house arrest.

"The reason judicial officials wanted him to go (to Forsyth County) was because it gave him a chance at sex offender treatment in a locked facility," wrote judicial assistant Tammy Keshley in an e-mail sent on Baddour's behalf.

"Mr. Moreno is very young, and one of the other main concerns was regarding what happens after he's off probation."

Gargiulo said he knows of at least seven other similar residential-treatment programs in the state, some of which are closer to Chatham County than Old Vineyard. Baddour's order doesn't specify why Old Vineyard was selected.

"If he (Moreno) is to be successful in rehabilitation, you'd think you'd want him closer to his family or whatever support network he has," Gargiulo said.

Rob McCartney, the CEO at Old Vineyard, said the center will abide by the legal process.

"We understand that we're a member of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County community and we will always take that into consideration, along with what's in the best interest of the patient and our other residents," he said.

Whether you view Baddour's move as a noble attempt to salvage a damaged kid or a ham-fisted effort to palm a predator off on us depends on where you live. Take it from a helpful employee in the Chatham County clerk's office who spoke frankly only under the cloak of anonymity.

"I understand why you wouldn't want him there," the woman said. "We don't want him here, either. I got grandchildren, you know?" ..News Source.. by Scott Sexton | Journal Columnist

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OFF TOPIC- Craigslist killer sentenced to life in prison for murder of Katherine Olson

Will all persons previously convicted of homicide be kicked off Craigslist?

4-2-2009 National:

Michael John Anderson was convicted on Tuesday, then sentenced on Wednesday, for the premeditated murder of Katherine Olson

The Associated Press is reporting that Michael John Anderson, who, in the fall of 2007, was arrested on charges of placing a phony Craigslist ad for the sole purpose of murdering its respondent, has been sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree premeditated murder of Katherine Olson.

Olson was a recent college graduate of St. Olaf College (the alma mater of this writer) at the time of her death.

Additionally, the judge in the trial ordered Anderson to pay Katherine Olson’s family $6,500 from his prison wages to reimburse her funeral expenses.

Anderson, now 20, has no possibility of parole for his role in the shooting death of Olson, 24.

In the media, Anderson was dubbed the “Craigslist Killer,” due to his using the popular free classifieds service as a means to commit his crime.

During Anderson’s trial for Olson’s murder, the duration of which was a week, prosecutors argued that Anderson deliberately placed the ad, posing as a couple who recently relocated to the Twin Cities seeking a nanny, in order to experience what it might feel like to commit homicide.

By contrast, the defense argued that the shooting was accidental in nature. Anderson’s attorneys now plan to appeal his sentencing, due to allegedly not being allowed to present evidence that Anderson has Asperger’s syndrome.

Attorneys on Anderson’s behalf additionally argued that that the disorder led Anderson to place the ad to seek romance, and then to accidentally shooting Olson when his plans went awry.

Prosecutors ridiculed this assertion by countering that Anderson himself never offered this explanation of the events, and pointing to the testimony of Anderson’s jail inmate, who stated that Anderson told him that he wanted to feel what it was like to kill.

In October 2007, Anderson was arrested for the murder of Olson after police found her body in the back of her car. In addition to finding Olson’s purse in a trash can in Savage, MN, where Anderson resided at the time, police also found a trash bag with a blood-soaked towel inside.

From there, those clues were able to lead police to Anderson.

After the verdict was read, Olson’s family immediately embraced one another. Though they gave no immediate comment to papers--including the Minneapolis Star-Tribune--after the verdict was read, Olson’s father, a Lutheran minister told The Today Show on Thursday that the trial constituted a “last of of parenting,” and that the tenet of forgiveness was helping him cope with the trial and his daughter Katherine’s death.

Olson told the Today Show that “In the New Testament the word ‘forgive’ means to cut loose or release. That’s what we’re trying to do with Mr. Anderson and his influence on our family. He’s had such a negative power in our lives, that we’re attempting to cut that free, to let it go, to release it so we can get on with the vital, loving lives that we want.”

A benefit concert for Katherine Olson will be held at St. Olaf College on May 3rd.

Our Take

It’s easy to condemn the media for focusing on sensationalistic stories--particularly when it comes to Craigslist, which is having some kind of run of bad publicity this month.

Furthermore, Katherine Olson’s father said that she had used Craigslist before to successfully find nanny jobs--in Turkey, no less.

And that’s part of what makes this case so utterly senseless.

This could have been any one of us, as we all used Craigslist for a wide variety of (hopefully) legal reasons. Just this past week, my fiancee and I picked up a new desk through the service.

Additionally, Olson attended St. Olaf College around the same time that I did. She was in the St. Olaf Choir around the same time I was in the Orchestra, and she was there for the tour that both ensembles took of Norway (though I never met Katherine).

That connection makes this case feel all the more surreal.

For better or worse, St. Olaf College preaches community as a value, and practices it by being a tight-knit Liberal arts school. Katherine’s death sent a shockwave through that community, even for those who never had met Olson.

With the sentencing of Anderson, one can only hope that the Olson family can start their long healing process, and that St. Olaf college will be there to help. ..News Source.. by Jon Graef

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PA- Williams Township solicitor fears group home could house sex offenders

1-8-2009 Pennsylvania:

WILLIAMS TWP. | The social organization running an embattled group home for two men with autism typically treats individuals convicted of rape and felony sex crimes, a township solicitor said during a Wednesday zoning hearing.

Employees for Resources for Human Development Inc., the nonprofit social organization running the home, acknowledged that such individuals are sometimes treated by the group.

But Terri Trigiani, corporate assistant director for the organization, said the two 26-year-old men residing at the 400 County Line Road property have never been arrested for any such crimes.

"Where they're going is a remarkable place to go," Trigiani said of questions raised by township Solicitor Brian Monahan.

Monahan said he did not know if the two men at the home fit those criteria because the organization has never provided such information to the township.

"We simply have not been given that information," Monahan said. "But it is conceivable that those types of individuals could be treated down the road."

Richard Adams, township zoning officer, said the agriculturally zoned property doesn't allow for group homes. He also said the group would require a business permit, which was never sought.

But Richard DeMarco, an attorney representing Resources for Human Development, said under the federal Fair Housing Act, such group homes are permitted as long as the number of tenants does not exceed the number of family members allowed in a township residence.

DeMarco asked whether Adams reviewed the Fair Housing Act before issuing his cease and desist order. Adams said he had not.

Several neighbors in houses near the group home also testified Wednesday, claiming their concerns were not about the two autistic men, but about alleged questionable activities by the staff working there.

Peter Dunne, who has lived on Country Line Road for nine years, said he frequently hears loud noises, sees cars speeding on the road and has witnessed frequent late-night parties with up to 15 cars parked around the home.

Group home officials previously said family gatherings and picnics are sometimes held at the home. But William Gahres, another neighbor, said he has found beer bottles and other litter scattered around the home.

Testimony is expected to continue at future dates and the township zoning hearing board will render a ruling about the group home later. ..News Source.. by COLIN MCEVOY, The Express-Times

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Dangers Lurk Closer to Home - #1 Killer of children

9-15-2008 National:

Kidnapping. Sexual abuse. Childhood cancer.

If parents of young children were asked to name their biggest fears, these three would probably top the list, if only because they are so terrifying, so cataclysmic — and so widely publicized when they occur.

But they seldom do. The biggest threats to children’s health and well-being are often right under parents’ noses, present in activities so mundane that caregivers are desensitized to their risk, like bathing, swimming or riding in a car.

“What really stands in the way of kids surviving into adulthood and being healthy so they can accomplish their dreams are accidents — unintentional injuries,” said Ileana Arias, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Injuries are the No. 1 killer of kids.”

Accidents and unintentional injuries — mostly a result of drownings and motor vehicle accidents — kill more than 4,000 children ages 1 to 14 annually in the United States, according to the C.D.C. That number also includes deaths caused by fire and burn injuries, pedestrian accidents and suffocation; poisoning accounts for just 1.3 percent of accidental deaths of children in this age group.

Though cancer is the second leading cause of death among young children, it causes far fewer deaths than accidents or unintentional injuries, with 1,377 children ages 1 to 14 dying of cancer annually, C.D.C. figures show.

Children are far more likely to be affected by other less lethal but more common chronic illnesses, like asthma (9 percent of children under 18); obesity (16 percent of children 2 to 19); and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (7 percent of children 3 to 17).

Autism, which receives a lot of attention in the news media, affects fewer than 1 percent of children, according to a national report on the prevalence of autism in 8-year-olds issued last year by the C.D.C., which found a mean rate of 6.7 cases of autism per 1,000 8-year-olds.

Children are often victims of crimes, but not necessarily of the sort that keep parents awake at night, said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham and the author of “Childhood Victimization: Violence, Crime and Abuse in the Lives of Young People.”

“Assaults by other children are the most common, and if you factor in sibling assaults, more than half of all kids are victimized each year,” he said. “Some people say, ‘You can’t count that.’ But children are intimidated and hurt by their siblings.”

Although parents worry about strangers kidnapping or sexually molesting their children, these kinds of crimes are rare, he said, noting that it is family members and close acquaintances who commit most serious crimes against children. “Children face substantial risks, but there is misplaced anxiety,” he said, attributing it to a natural tendency to trust people who are known and part of the community.

According to one Department of Justice study, about 115 child kidnappings each year fit the stereotype of stranger abductions — that is, someone who does not know or barely knows the child; who holds the child overnight or takes him or her 50 miles or more away from home; and who kills the child, demands ransom or plans to keep the child permanently. It is teenage girls, not young children, who are most likely to be the targets of a stranger kidnapping and sexual assault, Dr. Finkelhor noted. Teenagers in general are two to three times as likely as adults to be victims of a conventional rape, robbery or aggravated assault, according to the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, derived from interviews with about 100,000 citizens each year (the survey does not include children under 12).

The message for parents is to take all available precautions to prevent accidents and injuries, Dr. Arias of the C.D.C. said. That means enforcing car seat use for children until age 8, regardless of weight and height, and keeping them in the back seat until they are 10 or 12, depending on their size, she said.

Bicycle helmets should be worn for skateboarding and biking, she said. A recent study in Ontario, Canada, found that bicycle-related death rates for children 1 to 15 years dropped 52 percent after enforcement of a helmet law started in 1995. ..News Source.. by RONI CARYN RABIN

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MI- Part one: How to wreck a boy's life

This dectective should be fired and charged with a crime, notice that he completely ignored the fact that, the court appointed a lawyer for this boy, and that the lawyer was not contacted before this Gestapo-like interrogation. He ought to be required to register as a sex offender since he was clearly not acting within the scope of his duties. At the end the paper has posted video portions of the interrogation. eAdvocate

3-16-2008 Michigan:

Experts say an Oakland County detective ran roughshod over a 13-year-old in a sexual abuse case against his parents

In the fading twilight of a Tuesday in early December, a 13-year-old boy sat alone in a West Bloomfield police interrogation room, sobbing as he cradled his head in his hands and rocked from side to side.

For nearly an hour, Detective Joseph Brousseau had grilled the boy about accusations that he and his autistic sister had been sexually molested by their father.

No, the boy insisted, he'd seen nothing to support the detective's lurid suspicions. Three times, he offered to take a lie detector test.

But Brousseau hammered away, challenging the boy's honesty, his manliness, his loyalty to his disabled sister.

Again and again, the detective told the boy his body language betrayed the burden of a terrible secret.

"What if I told you that one of those videotapes confiscated from your parents' house had you in it?" the detective asked suddenly.

The 13-year-old straightened. "Was it me doing something sexually?"

"I don't think I'd be bringing it up if it wasn't," Brousseau answered. "That's what I'm trying to tell you -- it's going to come out."

If it were merely what it purported to be -- the disclosure of a deviant father's treachery -- the videotaped exchange would be excruciating enough to watch.

But the truth is a good deal uglier than that.

Charges have been dropped. In fact, prosecutors now concede, much of what Brousseau told the boy during his Dec. 4 interrogation was a fabrication.

There were no videotapes depicting the boy in sexual situations with his father or sister. There was no new crime lab evidence confirming his sister's allegations, despite Brousseau's repeated assertions to the contrary.

Legal experts who have reviewed the videotaped interrogation, which was obtained by the Free Press, say it reveals multiple violations of the rules Michigan law prescribes for questioning juveniles who may have witnessed sexual abuse.

"I would not hesitate to use the word 'reprehensible,' " David Moran, associate dean of the Wayne State University School of Law, told me after watching the interrogation at the Free Press' request.

Brousseau didn't respond to voice-mail messages I left at his office and home. His supervisor, West Bloomfield Police Lt. Carl Fuhs, said he hadn't seen the videotape but defended Brousseau's motives.

"He didn't mean to harm anyone," Fuhs said. "The bottom line here is that the detective was trying to get to the truth. I don't know whether he went over the line or not."

Case dropped; damage remains
Last week, after a 105-day ordeal that began when a 14-year-old girl with autism, assisted by a teacher's aide at her Walled Lake high school, typed graphic allegations of sexual torture, Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca announced that his office was dismissing criminal charges against the girl's parents and dropping its objections to the family's reunification.

The Free Press is withholding the parents' names to protect their children's anonymity.

The father had spent 80 days in jail without bond on three counts of first-degree sexual assault. His wife, whom prosecutors had charged with abetting her husband's alleged crimes, had been confined by an electronic tether, and their children had been dispatched to separate foster homes.

Prosecutors said the case collapsed when the girl, who cannot speak and communicates only by typing with the physical assistance of a paraprofessional facilitator, indicated that she was afraid of her father and was no longer willing to testify.

But attorneys for the girl's parents rejoined that their daughter's statement had been suspect from the beginning, and reported that she hugged and kissed her father and mother joyfully when the family was reunited last week. "This is a case that should never have been brought," said Jerome Sabbota, the father's lawyer.

In fact, the prosecution's case already had begun to unravel by Dec. 4, when the girl's 13-year-old brother, who has been diagnosed with a mild form of autism known as Asperger's syndrome, was brought in for questioning.

A psychologist who'd treated the girl warned police that the teacher's aide might have unconsciously authored the allegations against the girl's parents. And a nurse's examination revealed that the girl's hymen had three "nonacute" tears but remained intact, casting doubt on her supposed assertion that she had been raped repeatedly from the time she was 6 years old.

In hindsight, the boy's Dec. 4 interrogation can be understood as a desperate attempt to salvage a doomed prosecution -- a charade calculated to conjure credible evidence where none existed.

Former Wayne County Circuit Judge James Lacey, who retired in 2006 after presiding over juvenile cases for more than two decades, said Brousseau got off on the wrong foot by interviewing the 13-year-old without notifying his family or Abbie Shuman, the lawyer a judge had appointed four days earlier to look out for the boy's interests.

"Anything he said in that situation, I would never admit into evidence," Lacey said.

Moran said the boy's youth and what Moran called obvious signs of an autistic disorder made the detective's use of deception and coercion especially difficult to excuse.

"The officer was using tactics that are used to break down adult criminal suspects," Moran said. "It's remarkable those tactics didn't work. But he did succeed in inflicting a lot of damage on an extremely vulnerable young man."

The damage is manifest in the videotaped interrogation when the boy admits that Brousseau's revelations about hard evidence supporting his sister's allegations have undermined his confidence in his father's integrity.

"It's not going to be the same anymore," he tells the detective, "because now I've lost my trust in my dad."

No threats or pressure allowed
Since the early 1990s, when a series of celebrated child abuse prosecutions against workers at the McMartin preschool in southern California ended in acquittals or hung juries, legislators and law enforcement officials across the nation have taken dramatic steps to protect juvenile witnesses from abusive interrogation and to minimize false allegations of sexual abuse.

Michigan's reform efforts culminated in a 1993 Forensic Interrogation Protocol, incorporated in the state's child abuse law, which lays out the ground rules for interviewing children and teenagers about suspected sexual abuse.

The protocol warns interviewers to avoid threats, promises and leading questions. It recommends that they pose open-ended queries without betraying their "surprise, disgust, disbelief or other emotional reactions" to the juvenile witness' answers.

Lt. Fuhs said he didn't know whether Brousseau was familiar with the protocol. In any event, the detective appears to have ignored it throughout the Dec. 4 interrogation.

At one point in the interview, when the boy confesses doubts about his parents' innocence, Brousseau scoffs at his professed confusion:

Boy: I'm starting to believe that my dad might actually have --.

Detective: Let's stop it right there. You know what's been going on. You know it. You know firsthand what's been going on.

Boy: No! That's --

Detective: You're using this excuse, this crutch of "I think I know what's going on, or "I think I've got a feeling" -- Bullshit, man! You know what's going on, because you've experienced it firsthand."

Accusations and warnings
Later in the interview, under continuing pressure to recall anything that might be construed as inappropriate, the boy tells Brousseau that his father has helped shower his disabled sister, sometimes when both were naked, and once joked about seeing a mouse after the boy glimpsed the father's exposed penis.

"But do you know what?" Brousseau interrupts. "That's how it starts. And things gradually progress. They push the envelope a little bit further to see what they can get away with. So after that, how did it progress?"

Sandra McClennen, a psychologist who treated the autistic daughter for five years, said the girl frequently needed assistance with bathing, and that she was not alarmed to learn that the girl's father had sometimes helped her shower.

"She at times gets stuck, and her body kind of freezes," McClennen said. "Would it have been better if her father pulled on a pair of bathing trunks before helping her? Probably. But any parent of autistic children will tell you that some of the typical rules for how a family functions don't apply, because you have to adapt to the needs of the autistic child."

The Forensic Interviewing Protocol warns investigators not to express their own judgments while interviewing juvenile witnesses about suspected abuse.

Yet in his interrogation, Brousseau repeatedly challenges the 13-year-old's truthfulness, suggesting 35 times in the course of two hours that the boy is holding back.

"It's right on the tip of your tongue," he tells the boy at one point, "and you're kind of like teetering -- Should I say it? Should I not say it? ... I can't express to you the relief that you are going to feel when this is no longer a secret. It's an absolute enormous feeling."

On at least a dozen other occasions in the interview, Brousseau challenges the 13-year-old to "be the man" and "speak for your sister."

"You think you feel guilty now?" the detective says. "Wait till later. Wait till later, when that guilt just eats at you because you didn't do the right thing, you didn't help your sister."

Lawsuit is a possibility
Christine Henk, a speech and language pathologist who treated the boy for Asperger's syndrome for more than 10 years, said that no one from police or the prosecutor's office ever called her to ask about his condition, although Michigan's interviewing protocol recommends such a query. Henk, who viewed a video of the boy's interrogation at the Free Press' request, said that some of the behaviors Brousseau interpreted as signs of evasion or nervousness were classic Asperger's symptoms that surfaced under the stress of the confrontational interview.

"The rocking and the crying and the constant nose-wiping were all typical of" the boy "under extreme duress, especially when he was younger," Henk said. She said obvious manifestations of the boy's condition, such as an aversion to eye contact, had all but disappeared in recent years, but that they had clearly reemerged during the interrogation.

"Really, he held himself together very well," she said. "But there was some regression, and I think at some point he began to lose confidence in his own thoughts and memories."

Moran and attorney Alan Zweibel, who won a $750,000 civil judgment against New York's Orange County after suing on behalf of two parents who lost custody of their child in a similar FC prosecution, agreed the boy's interrogation may yet see daylight in a civil action against police and prosecutors.

"There's definitely a potential lawsuit there," Moran said. "People who see it will be horrified."

Sabbota, the attorney who defended the boy's father, wouldn't speculate on the prospect of a civil lawsuit. But he worries that his client's 13-year-old son, who was separated from his parents for more than three months, may have a hard time understanding that he was deliberately deceived by the police.

Near the end of the Dec. 4 video, the weeping boy tells Brousseau: "I've lost the image I've had of my dad -- the image of a trustworthy person."

I'll bet a lot of municipal lawyers are already worrying about the price tag jurors might place on such a loss. ..more.. by BRIAN DICKERSON at 248-351-3697 or bdickerson@freepress.com.



Police video of 13-year-old boy's interrogation

Last Dec. 4, without notice to a legal guardian appointed to represent the boy, West Bloomfield Police Detective Joseph Brousseau interrogated a 13-year-old witness about allegations of sexual abuse against his father.

Last week prosecutors dropped criminal charges against the parents and agreed to reunite them with their son and daughter, who had been living in separate foster homes for more than three months.

The 13-year-old's interrogation was an attempt to corroborate allegations of abuse his autistic sister had typed with the physical assistance of a paraprofessional facilitator. The accuracy and authorship of the allegations have both been questioned by experts in facilitated communication, who say the accusations may reflect only the facilitator's unconscious suspicions.

Legal experts say the video record of the boy's interrogation reveals numerous violations of rules that are supposed to protect minors who may have witnessed sexual abuse and to minimize false allegations of abuse. One called Brousseau's tactics, which included deception, threats and repeated insinuations that the boy was lying, "reprehensible." A therapist who treated the boy for Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism, said the detective may have misinterpreted symptoms of the boy's condition as evidence of evasion or guilt.

A spokesman for the West Bloomfield police said: "The bottom line here is that the detective wanted to get the truth. I don't know whether he went over the line or not."

During the twoñhour interview, Brousseau repeatedly tells the boy that police have uncovered new evidence supporting his autistic sister's allegations against their father. As the interrogation progresses, the detective stuns the boy by suggesting that videotapes recovered from the boy's home depict him in sexually compromising situations.

After steadfastly denying any knowledge of sexual abuse, the boy ultimately concedes that the unseen evidence may prove his involvement, although he can't recall any sexual contact with his father or sister. Weeping, he tells Brousseau that the detective's revelations have shattered his confidence in his father.

In fact, prosecutors now concede, evidence to which Brousseau makes repeated references during the interrogation does not exist. In the video excerpts, which can be viewed below in chronological order, the Free Press has blurred the boy's face to help obscure his identity and that of his sister. The parents of the boy in the video gave the Free Press permission to publish it after discussing the matter with their son.

Early in the two-hour interrogation, Detective Brousseau tells the13-year-old that police have uncovered other evidence supporting his autistic sister's allegations of sexual abuse. The detective never explains what evidence he is referring to.

Now CLICK to hear portions of the actual event posted on the News website.

This is sickening, and for the first time I simply am lost for words to describe how much this shows how our criminal justice system is BROKEN given it allows this person to continue to work every day when at least he should be suspended pending the outcome of a PROPER investigation of his actions. Hopefully there will be a lawsuit started to stop this kind of Gestapo-like action.

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