State police and victims’ parents are fuming that a Worcester judge refused to send a “most wanted” serial child rapist back to prison for fleeing to Florida and repeatedly violating his probation.
Worcester Superior Court Judge John McCann put Winchendon child molester Glen Wheeler on 10 years’ probation and an electronic monitoring bracelet - even though the 56-year-old con has racked up 11 probation violations, has an alias and went on the run for eight months before being tracked down at a Tampa, Fla., mosque. Wheeler was on the state police list of “most wanted high-risk sex offenders.”
“I’m disgusted,” said the mother of a 5-year-old girl molested by Wheeler. “What is the justice system there for? He should have been put back in prison.”
A divorced father of two, Wheeler was released from prison in 2004 after serving nearly five years for molesting and taking nude videos of seven young girls and boys over several years. The victims were friends of Wheeler’s daughters.
He has refused a court order to register as a sex offender and even filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming that the order violated his civil rights. The suit was tossed out.
Wheeler, who converted to Islam and changed his name to Shareef Qadeer while in jail, became a concern for state probation officials after they discovered him living in a Roxbury mosque with several families and their children. In the fall of 2004, he disappeared, sparking an eight-month hunt by the State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Unit.
“I put a tremendous amount of time into tracking him,” said Trooper Matt Aumais of the fugitive squad.
Aumais tracked him to Tampa, Fla., where Wheeler was arrested at a mosque June 6, 2005 by U.S. Marshals. He fought extradition and remained in Florida for nearly four months, including a stint in a mental hospital after stabbing himself 20 times with a pencil.
When he was brought before Judge McCann on March 3, prosecutors from Worcester District Attorney John Conte’s office sought to have him sent back to prison for up to 10 years, but McCann opted for 10 years’ probation and the bracelet. Wheeler is being held in the Nashua Street jail on $500 bail pending a March 28 hearing on charges of failing to register as a sex offender.
“I think it’s typical of what we’re seeing now and it has to stop,” said Laurie Myers of the victims rights group Community Voices. “Pedophiles are the most likely to reoffend and we’re letting them back out onto the streets.”
McCann declined comment, saying: “I don’t talk to reporters. Not on pending cases.”
State police Lt. Kevin Horton of the fugitive squad said the case is “another example” of flaws in the state’s sex offender registry.
“Failure to register is not being taken seriously in this state,” Horton said. “This man is a predator and I don’t think a bracelet is going to stop him from being a predator.”
For the victims’ families, the possibility of Wheeler’s release is infuriating.
“They’ve had their innocence robbed of them,” said the mother of three victims. “We trusted him and he used our children for his sickness and addiction. Our concern is that he will again do this.”
“I’m disgusted,” said the mother of a 5-year-old girl molested by Wheeler. “What is the justice system there for? He should have been put back in prison.”
This is a new addition to the Community VOICES website. In the future the news stories will be replaced with stories written by people who never thought they would be victimized once by the perpetrator and again by our judicial system.
Weekends-only sentence a slap to rape victim
Boston Herald
By Peter Gelzinis
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
When she was raped by her new 28-year-old brother-in-law during her own brother’s wedding reception, Jean was a young and naive 14-year-old bridesmaid.
When a judge in a Cambridge courtroom recently decided to trivialize her pain, and virtually ignore the traumatic years she and her family endured, Jean was a 31-year-old mother with two children of her own.
Not only did time fail to heal a wound caused by two counts of child rape with force, it failed to protect her from being traumatized further.
If Jean had still been a teenager when she took the stand before Judge Patrick Riley in December, would he have been so quick to cut Robert Sasso’s prison sentence of three to five years down to basically a year of weekends spent at the House of Correction?
“No, absolutely not,” Jean said recently, “but that shouldn’t matter. I have struggled to live with what that man did to me each and every day since June 16, 1991. My parents spent just about every cent they had saved for their retirement on bills for psychiatrists, hoping to keep me sane and alive.”
It’s been almost 17 years and Jean still shudders if anyone’s hand, including that of her husband, should touch her wrists. For pinning her wrists was how Bobby Sasso, a man twice her age, managed to violate her while her brother was dancing with his bride.
After the meal at the Royal Sonesta in Cambridge, Sasso, who works for his family’s paving business, lured the 14-year-old girl to a small room off the main ballroom with an invitation to check out the view of the Boston skyline.
When it was over, Jean recalled, he threatened my life. “Tell anyone,” he said to me, “and I’ll kill you.”
She said she spent the rest of that night, and many months thereafter, lost in a fog of shame, mingled with the fear of ruining a marriage that had just begun.
“My whole life, who I was, my personality, it all just changed as if somebody had flipped a switch,” Jean said. “I went from a carefree kid who was still playing with dolls to someone who didn’t want to get out of bed.”
When a gynecologist sent her parents a bill, the burden of how to tell her family was lifted from her shoulders. “After the doctor basically told my mother,” Jean said, “my father wanted me to go to the police then and there. But I made it clear to them that I needed to control this.”
Her newly married brother was the last to know because Jean said she feared what his reaction might be. “He’s in law enforcement,” Jean explained, “and I worried what he might want to do.”
Eventually, Bobby Sasso’s parents were told and the secret continued to gestate between two families, punctuated by strange lunches between Jean and her rapist’s mother. “ ‘Jean, dear, are you sure it happened like that?’ she’d ask me,” Jean said. “For awhile, she tried to cut her son off, but that didn’t last long.”
Years of psychiatrists, support groups of rape survivors and the good fortune of finding a supportive husband finally led Jean to confront the evil she had suffered. Some four years ago, she reported her rape to the authorities in Middlesex County and the machinery of justice began to grind away very slowly.
“Last December, when the jury said they were having trouble deciding on the force issue,” Jean said, “Judge Riley basically told them not to worry about it. They could forget about whether there was force involved.
“When the jury came back and found him guilty, Bobby looked like he wanted to throw up, Judge Riley announced from the bench that he would take 30 days to decide about revising and revoking the original prison sentence of three to five years.
“And that’s just what he did. He threw out a sentence which I thought at least validated the pain I’d gone through, and he replaced it with one that victimized me all over again.”
“And that’s just what he did. He threw out a sentence which I thought at least validated the pain I’d gone through, and he replaced it with one that victimized me all over again.”
A perfect example of why Massachusetts needs sentencing reform and judicial accountability.
Wicked Local, Quincy
Brothers convicted of incest sentenced to probation
Wed Apr 30, 2008
DEDHAM - Two brothers found guilty of incest by a Norfolk Superior Court jury will not serve any jail time.
Judge Kenneth Fishman sentenced Jason Chau, 39, of Quincy to three years of probation and Anthony Chau, 46, of Methuen to two years of probation.
David Traub, spokesman for the Norfolk County district attorney’s office, could not comment on why the judge ordered different sentences.
Prosecutors had requested a four- to six-year prison sentence for each man. The conviction carried a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
The Chau brothers were acquitted of rape and indecent assault charges but found guilty of incest on April 17. Quincy police arrested them in March 2006. The female victim was an adult.
Fishman delayed his decision on whether the two men will need to register as sex offenders until May 13.
Eagle Tribune
Judge throws out molestation case, saying child's description not specific enough
By Julie Manganis
Staff writer
SALEM — A little girl's description of being touched "down there" wasn't specific enough to prove that she was molested by a former family friend, a Salem District Court judge ruled yesterday.
And with that finding, Judge Dunbar Livingston granted a defense motion for a required verdict of not guilty in the case against Thomas Elliott, a former Salem man charged last year with indecent assault and battery on a 6-year-old girl. The judge's decision took the case away from a jury that had already started hearing evidence in the case, including the little girl's testimony.
The ruling angered the girl's mother, who was visibly distraught and crying as she left the courthouse. As the girl's mother cried outside court, the girl reached up to put her hand on her mother's back.
The Salem News is not identifying the girl or her mother because the newspaper has a policy not to use the names of sexual abuse victims.
Moments later, Elliott, 37, formerly of 10 Prince St., Salem, walked out of the courthouse, free for the first time since his arrest in December. He avoided eye contact with the girl and her family and rushed across the street.
Police first learned of the incident in November, after the girl, now 7, told a counselor that one night last summer "Tom" had come into the living room where she slept and reached under the covers, then reached into her shorts.
During an interview with police, Elliott allegedly told Detective William Jennings that he sometimes sleepwalks.
Police arrested and charged Elliott.
The girl took the stand yesterday and in a soft voice described how she was watching cartoons and drifting off to sleep when Elliott came in and stood next to the sofa where she slept.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Satelmajer asked the girl to describe what happened and where Elliott touched her.
"Down there," the girl said.
Satelmajer tried repeatedly to get the girl to be more specific, asking, "Do you remember what part of your body Tom touched?"
"No," said the girl.
Livingston denied a request by Satelmajer to let the prosecutor use "leading" questions to clarify the girl's testimony, something courts have allowed in cases where a child is testifying. The judge said he would consider the request on a question-by-question basis.
Defense lawyer Jesse Dole briefly questioned the girl about possible confusion between his client and another man named Tom who was a friend of the family.
After the judge found that the girl's testimony had been insufficient to prove that an indecent assault had occurred, he barred the counselor from testifying about what she was told and ruled that Jennings would not be allowed to testify about Elliott's interview with police.
Livingston said he believed he had no choice but to grant Dole's motion for a required verdict of not guilty and then sent the jury home.
Prosecutors plan to file new charges against Elliott for simple assault and battery. Because of a quirk in the law, assault and battery cannot be considered as a "lesser included offense" to indecent assault and battery on a child. Had the case been indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older, jurors would have been able to consider the lesser charge.
