By Kevin Gillick

"Cease and desist, Mr. Gillick…" said Wuesthoff Attorney Karen Davila.The General Counsel for Wuesthoff Health Systems called the office of Protect Our Children May 5, to ask the group to stop trying to contact Johnette Gindling the corporation's Vice President of Public Relations. The request came after an eighteen-month effort to determine why Gindling ordered the local charity to stop distributing their publication The Guardian Brevard, at all Wuesthoff facilities.

The Guardian was given the boot, days after Wuesthoff Nurse Joanne Pratt went before the Palm Bay City Council, to protest proposed ordinances aimed at restricting sex offenders. Wuesthoff's Marketing Director Stephanie Bacon called P.O.C. in October 2005 asking that we stop distributing the Guardian at Wuesthoff. The notification newspaper has been made available to staff and patients at the corporation's Rockledge hospital for over eight years.

Bacon denied that the request was connected to Pratt's molester rights activities. She said all publications were being removed except Florida Today Newspaper, which is provided free of charge to Wuesthoff patients.

However, Guardian staff received an anonymous call in July 2006, from a woman who said she was a Wuesthoff employee. The caller said hospital officials had not removed any publication but the Guardian.

Bacon was contacted again to ask about the call, and said only publications that had advertising for Wuesthoff were allowed to distribute under the new policy. Later that day, a volunteer visited the lobby of Wuesthoff's Rockledge facility and found six publications on display - none contained an ad for Wuesthoff.

Protect Our Children sent a fax to Gindling in August 2006, offering to run a free ad for Wuesthoff in order to reinstate the publication in their lobby. The offer was rejected.

Bacon said the removal of the Guardian was the result of a memorandum published by Gindling and said we would have to speak directly to her. Guardian staff left more than fifty messages with Gindling's secretary over a two-month period, but the V.P. refused to return our calls.

Wuesthoff's Attorney said The Guardian was harassing their staff and asked us to stop inquiring about the publication's removal. Davila phoned the group one day after Wuesthoff lawyers were rebuked in their attempt to block construction of a new hospital in Viera, after the contract for the facility was awarded to a competing company.

Protect Our Children continues to receive calls from Wuesthoff employees asking why the notification newspaper is no longer available. Davila said Wuesthoff had a right to disallow distribution of any printed materials, and was not compelled to give any reason for its decision.

However, Wuesthoff employees who have contacted The Guardian insist the ban was the result of Nurse Pratt's highly publicized activities in the Fall of 2005. Pratt appeared before the Palm Bay City Council on October 10, 2005, wearing her Wuesthoff I.D. badge, after helping to assemble a cadre of pedophiles and sex offenders to protest city ordinances restricting their movement. Pratt left a voice message on Protect Our Children's main line, in which she identifies herself as “a nurse at Wuesthoff Health Systems Melbourne.” She asked for a return call and gave the number for her office in the hospital's Wickham Road facility. The next day, Director Bacon said that the call was not official, and that employees were not allowed to use hospital facilities to conduct personal business.

Pratt lied on a nationally televised program when she was questioned about her husband's offenses. She appeared on the television program "The O'Reilly Factor", along with her husband, sex offender William Pratt Jr., on the eve of the molester rights march . The Pratts answered simultaneously, when O'Reilly asked about Bill's victim. They said his victim was a twelve year-old boy.

Guardian volunteers researched Pratt's criminal record, and found he had been sent to prison in New Jersey for molesting two children, a boy and a girl. Both were age nine at the time of the assaults. He was indicted by a grand jury on twelve counts of child sex offenses. Nurse Pratt told O’Reilly that her husband was a "kind and loving man…"

A spokesman for Wuesthoff's Human Resources Department said Joanne Pratt is employed in their Medical Education Section. She said employees who are caught passing out The Guardian Brevard would be subject to disciplinary action, and repeat offenders could be fired, pursuant to Gindling's order.

The Guardian Brevard is still available in other hospitals in Brevard. Health First makes the child-protection newspaper available to staff and patients in two places at their Cape Canaveral Facillity. Wuesthoff's Rockledge employees can pick up a copy of the quarterly paper at the Rockledge Police Department on Barton Boulevard, as well as the Public Safety Center, on Florida Avenue.

by Kevin Gillick

Waiting for victims to step forward and checking employees for criminal past, provides little protection from predators in public schools

Former teacher Daniel Cliatt (30), was sentenced January 16th, to serve seventy years in prison for the sexual abuse of a twelve year-old male student. Prosecutors say Cliatt may have a total of six student victims.

On January 16th, the packed courtroom in Viera fell silent as a thirteen year-old boy took the stand in the sentencing hearing for Daniel Cliatt, his former elementary school teacher. Sporting a dreadlock hair cut, and wearing a dark "T" shirt, he sat calmly in the witness box waiting for Cliatt’s attorney Michael Dwyer to cross-examine him.

"You said you want Mr. Cliatt to go to prison forever. Is that right?"

"Yes." He answered.

Dwyer retrieved a sheaf of paper from the defense table. "But when Detective Mathews asked you why you didn't report this, you said you didn't want him to go to jail... is that correct?"

"That's what I thought then...but I don’t think that now," the boy replied.

Judge David Dugan sentenced Cliatt to seventy years in prison for abusing his former elementary school student beginning when the child was twelve.

The molestation was discovered by accident in May 2005, when a teacher at Endeavor Elementary School happened to walk into the classroom as Cliatt was assaulting the child.

Cliatt had been a classroom teacher for only five years, but police say he may have abused as many as six of his male students.

Assuming he could have taught for another fifteen years, the fortunate fluke that brought him to justice, may have prevented the molestation of another twenty students.

As we can see by the response Cliatt's victim gave to the defense attorney, children who are being abused rarely come forward because they are under the spell of a predatory adult.

The whole nation is currently baffled by the case of the Missouri boy who was kidnapped by a suspected pedophile and lived for over four years in the home of his alleged abductor.

Why didn't Shawn Hornbeck simply knock on the neighbor's door, and tell them he had been kidnapped by Michael Devlin in 2002? Neighbors reported seeing the boy riding his bike and even spending time with his girlfriend. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Hornbeck spoke to local police in 2003, at age twelve, telling them that his bike had been stolen from outside Devlin's apartment.

How can an institution like our school system locate victims and perpetrators without relying on children to extract themselves from their tormentor?

"First of all, we should allow school counselors to actively question students about any abuse that may be occurring," says Criminal Investigator Jerome Hudepohl. He said current policies prevent counsellors and teachers from doing so, because the schools fear a law suit.

"They are set up to take a report from the student, but they may not actively question students." Hudepohl said an affirmative response should be turned over to sex crimes investigators immediately.

Hudepohl is currently a private investigator and a past member of Protect Our Children's board of directors. He retired from the Brevard County Sheriff's Office after a thirty-year career with the department.

He said fear of litigation also affects the way school systems check the backgrounds of perspective employees: "They contact the personnel department and ask for a recommendation. If the employee hasn't been arrested and convicted of something they give the person a clean report. The employee may have had two hundred complaints filed against him, but if none of the complaints has resulted in a criminal sentence, they say nothing. This is due to fear of litigation."

Two law suits have been filed to date, against the Brevard County School District, on behalf of Cliatt's alleged victims.

Hudepohl says school security people should talk with former co-workers of any prospective employee.

"There is no replacement for good old leg work and good investigative procedure. That always includes talking to people who know the person being investigated." He said the current method used by schools relies primarily upon computer searches of the F.B.I. Fingerprint Database and the National Sex Offender Registry.

Hudepohl says school security people should do a "residential inquiry" of every place the prospective employee has lived. He said local, county and state police agencies should be contacted,checking to see if the subject's name is in the agency's "Intelligence File", a data base of names known to the police for various reasons.

"They should ask if the person's name appears in the intelligence file as a victim, complainant or suspect. This would help to direct a further investigation."

He said the background investigation should be conducted on any adult employee who has contact with children including coaches, volunteers and non-instructional staff.

School officials said Daniel Cliatt passed both the F.B.I. and F.D.L.E. background checks. Until his arrest in 2005, he had no prior criminal record.

Hudepohl says there should be a statewide clearinghouse containing all the data collected in the background check. This would prevent a duplication of effort should a rejected employee apply for a school position elsewhere in the state.

He said adults in the school system should be checked and rechecked on an in-house, rotating basis: "People are people...things come up. The model citizen on Monday can be uncovered as an abuser on Tuesday"

When told about the recent proposal made by a local polygraph examiner, that adults in schools should be polygraphed on random basis, he had mixed feelings: "I'm not a big fan of polygraphs, because sociopaths can beat it. Most sex offenders are sociopaths or psychopaths."

He does agree that the tests can be useful in bringing forth suspicions that people have about other employees: "When good people are confronted about suspicions they may have, or even about direct knowledge of abuse perpetrated by others, they usually tell the examiner before the test commences. This can be valuable in directing an investigation," he said.

Vicki Rios-Martinez (pictured left) flips a lock of redish-blond hair away from her face. She glances around, as mothers do, in a park where children are playing. This is Junny Rios-Martinez Park in Cocoa.

"I had to put it all away for a while... I had to concentrate on keeping my family and my marriage together," she says.

Mrs Martinez talked a bit about the spiritual life she has found - a life which helps her deal with the anger and the grief she has felt since April 18th 1991. That was the day Mark Dean Schwab ended the life of her eleven year-old son, Junny.

Schwab had been released to the community one month earlier, after serving less than half of the eight-year sentence he received for molesting a thirteen year-old boy.

"He saw Junny’s picture in the newspaper and a few days later he contacted us. He said he was a photographer for a surfing magazine. Back then there was no sex offender registry... no warning at all."

"He brought all these things, T-shirts, caps, shorts. He said these people would sponsor Junny and this was some of the free merchandise he would get from these companies. Junny was all exited."

Later that week, Schwab picked Junny up at school on a pretext. Two weeks later he told police where the body was.

On May 19th, Mrs. Martinez will present an award to Mark Lunsford, whose daughter Jessie was allegedly murdered by another convicited molester: John Couey.

Called "The Junny", it represents all the progress that has been made since April 18th 1991. She glances around, as mothers do...

Spring 2006

Child advocates, law makers and law enforcers are slated to converge on Cape Canaveral in May to participate in the Space Coast Conference On Child Protection. The event, which is themed the "Lunsford Act Workshop" (L.A.W.), will examine the dramatic new legislation designed to protect Florida's children from sex predators.

State Representatives Mitch Needleman and Bob Allen will be on hand to discuss the dynamic legislation in the works in Tallahassee. Both are co-sponsors of the Jessica Lunsford Act. Representative Allen has introduced the "Sexual Predator Elimination Act" which calls for mandatory life sentences for certain sex offenders. The controversial bill also outlaws plea bargaining for those charged with the most severe sex crimes.

Scheduled between the 2006 legislative sessions, the conference is an opportunity for law enforcement to present a laundry list for state law makers.

"Certainly, there will be some tweaking to do." says Sheriff Jack Parker, "these laws have changed the landscape for local law enforcement." Parker who is earning a reputation for his agressive posture toward policing sex criminals, will take his turn at the podium to outline his goal of creating a "Child Safe" community.

Parker will be joined by Chief Phillip Ludos of the Cocoa Police Department. The veteran cop is president of the Association of Chiefs of Police: "In some cases, these local ordinances are running ahead of existing state law." Chief Ludos spoke to THE GUARDIAN by telephone March 14.

Melbourne-based attorney Michael Kahn, will discuss issues concerning civil liberties at the workshop. An expert in constitutional law, Kahn’s presentation will be aimed at anticipating challenges to this radical new legislation.

Activist and Author Claire Reeves (pictured left), will keynote the event along with Mark Lunsford. Her organization Mothers Against Sexual Abuse (M.A.S.A) spearheaded some of the fundamental laws of the American child-protection movement. She was a prime mover behind the elimination of the statute of limitations for sexual assault on young children. The adoption of the law allows victims to file charges many years after their abuse. Reeves was instrumental in forcing adoption of California’s chemical castration law. She is the author of "Childhood: It Should Not Hurt".

Host Mayor, Rocky Randells of Cape Canaveral will welcome the conferees at the Radisson-Resort at the Port. The one-day event begins at 9:00 AM, May 19th and registration can be made by calling Protect Our Children at 321-638-3711. To register on-line visit the website at www.uspoc,org. The cost of registration will increase after May 5th, and group discounts are available. Luncheon will be provided by the Radisson’s banquet staff.

By Kevin Gillick

Despite proposed ordinances designed to keep convicted sex offenders from residing near schools, registered offenders who have children attending Brevard schools are allowed entry to school grounds to visit their kids.

Nervous parents called THE GUARDIAN last week complaining that sex offender William Pratt (pictured right) was frequenting Ralph Williams Jr. Elementary School in Rockledge. Pratt, was the subject of an article by FLORIDA TODAY staff writer John Torres, published September 13. The story focused on the offender's opposition to a proposed Palm Bay ordinance which would effectively banish both predators and offenders from the city.

School resource officer John Hudgens says parents who come to the school to visit their children must enter their name and their child's name in a computer at the front office. The computer prints out a bright yellow tag which is to be worn by visitors at all times.

"No parent is allowed to be off by themselves," says Hudgens, "They are usually in a common area like the lunchroom, and are not outside the view of other adults." He said any parent or visitor without a yellow tag is stopped and questioned.

Parents are allowed to come on campus to eat lunch with their children and attend functions in the group setting. Volunteers who work "one-on-one" with students are required to pass a background check. Tutors and Apple Corps volunteers are fingerprinted and screened before they may access school grounds.

Principal Cynthia Ford said she has received inquiries periodically from parents asking about Pratt’s access to the campus.

Viera resident Terry Ramey thinks the system is not adequate; "There are no real safety precautions, you put a name in the computer, get a sticker and walk. No one really checks you in."

Ramey whose children attended Williams Elementary last year, was shocked when she noticed Pratt on campus; "I had seen him at the school at various functions...a science fair among other things." she told THE GUARDIAN in a telephone interview. "In my opinion sex offenders should not be allowed on school grounds regardless of whether they have children attending the school. Common sense dictates that people who have hurt a child that way should not be there at all."

Andrea E. Alford, Director of District and School Security says when her department receives an inquiry about a sex offender, the staff checks to see if the person has been released from any restrictions imposed by the state: "If they have completed their sanctions, there is no reason to take additional action." she said.

Alford says people who are classified as predators are not allowed on school campuses. State law however, places no restrictions on adults who have been classified as sex offenders and have completed their sentences. "They have civil rights," she said "and we can't place sanctions on them that the state has not."

Director Alford spoke to THE GUARDIAN in a telephone interview September 29th. She said the school system does not keep a list of parents who are released sex offenders.

The subject of child molesters visiting their children in schools was the topic of an article in the Summer 1997 issue of THE GUARDIAN. Convicted molester John W. Daniels was reported to be entering the campus of Atlantis Elementary School to eat lunch with his child. At the time Daniels was still on probation, after being convicted of committing a lewd act on a child in 1987. The article whose headline reads "Campus Molester Gets Detention" explained that Daniels was barred from being present on any school property by the conditions of his sentence. Atlantis Principal Vickie Mace reported Daniels to probation officers who arrested him for violating his probation. Daniels eventually completed his probation, and because his conviction occurred before 1995, he is not required to register with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Florida schools are just beginning to grapple with the problems of maintaining safety standards when convicted sex criminals are given access to school grounds. This month, Brevard schools began implementing state procedures requiring vendors who service schools to undergo a background check. Some school systems in Florida now have student sex offenders in the upper grade levels.

New technologies promise to improve on the "make your own label" system currently in place at Williams Elementary. Sophisticated scanners are coming on line which verify the identity of the visitor automatically. The new systems match the face of the visitor with the photo on the drivers license which is inserted in the device.

E. Allan Measom, President of Raptor Technologies says, "Seventy-three percent (73%) of all of the Registered Sex Offenders logged at our Texas school installations had previous convictions of sexual crimes against children—with the victim's average age being eleven (11). The most disturbing part of this is that most of these (offenders) are parents or guardians with children at that school. And even worse than that, many of them visit the school on a regular basis."

Meason's company markets visitor I.D. systems to schools in Texas and Florida.

Rene' Bray is a talk show host and child advocate. Her organization Kids In Danger Of Sexploitation was instrumental in promoting Florida's Chemical Castration Law.

That is the question asked by the many citizens who helped to lobby the chemical castration bill. Chemical castration, also known as MPA treatment, was passed and went into effect on October 1, 1997. Basically the law requires anyone convicted of a sexual battery with a prior conviction, MUST be sentenced to MPA treatment. The MPA treatment may be ordered on any conviction of sexual battery. MPA is simply a weekly injection of depro prevera, a birth control substance for women. When given to a male it lowers the levels of testosterone and prevents erections. This treatment has been used in Denmark for over 30 years and has lowered the recidivism rate to 2.2%. In light of the recent molestations and murders of Sarah Lunde and Jessica Lundsford by repeat offenders, one has to question why our justice system isn’t using all the tools available to it, such as MPA.

It has taken an inquiry by WFLA –TV reporter, Mark Douglas, to get those questions and others answered and the answers are rather disturbing to those of us who work everyday to prevent sexual assault. The state court administrators have reported that over 50 repeat rapists escaped MPA for no good reason. More than 2000 sex offenders could have been given the treatment, but weren’t. The Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia, which houses those who are being held under the Jimmy Ryce Act, isn’t using it either. They say at $600.00 per month, it is too costly. However the cost of incarceration is $6000.00 per month per inmate. Dr. Fred Berlin of John Hopkins is an expert in sex offenders and MPA and he says he is amazed that MPA isn’t being used in this state. The excuses from judges and prosecutors is that they didn’t know of the law or felt like it wasn’t necessary to impose it due to the length of sentences or age of the defendant at the time of release. Ignorance or disagreement of the law is not an excuse to ignore it. One judge in our state took a stand. Judge Anthony Johnson of Orange County sentenced a first time offender to 20 years in prison followed by 10 years of MPA treatment. Johnson said, “ I want to insure the safety of the public and that’s what I am doing in this case.” We can only hope that other judges and prosecutors follow his example.

Founder and President of a local grassroots, non-profit organization Protect Our Children Inc. and editor of the Guardian Brevard Newspaper, Kevin Gillick offered me a medium in which I was able to vent my frustrations and affect change on a local level. It was on! I climbed out of that pit and jumped into the battle to protect and save our children. Over the past seven years I have served this small organization with the powerful voice as Secretary, Founder of the Internet Sting Team, Member of the organization’s Court Room Monitor Program and now as Executive Director. "The Guardian Brevard" is published by Protect Our Children and released quarterly. It identifies Brevard County Sex offenders by photo, mapped address and the crime they committed against somebody’s child. The victims are never identified. We drive infinite miles delivering countless copies of The Guardian to the driveways of residents in neighborhoods where these sex offenders live. This system works but it is not enough.

Current registration and tracking methods of these sex offenders are failing our children and their families. There are far too many offenders for our already taxed system to keep up with, and the numbers are growing. Legislation must be passed in which these individuals are tracked by Global Positioning Satellite Systems. Bracelets or Ankle Monitors are only effective if the offenders keep them on. Once removed, though an alarm would alert in the monitoring system, the offender would have ample time to disappear. A surgically implanted chip strategically placed beneath the skin of the offender would rectify this issue and would allow for consistent effective monitoring of these dangerous offenders. In addition to registration, if insertion of these devices were imposed as a condition prior to release, we would not have to rely upon sex offenders to notify law enforcement of a change of address or their movement through out our communities. This legislation should also allow for free public access to map and trace the offenders’ beacons via the Internet.

Protect Our Children’s Court Room Monitor Program boasts of diligent conspicuous adults who advocate for the greatest possible prosecution and sentencing of sex offenders of children. These advocates attend the bond hearings, trials and sentencing of the sex offenders who harm children of Brevard County. Their purpose is to ensure the offender is prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent allowed by law. Your participation is needed! Call 321-638-3711.

by Kevin Gillick

When Foster parents Jim and Cathy (not their real names) agreed to provide a home for children who had been sexually abused, they understood the task could be daunting. They had special skills after raising their own daughter who had been gravely injured in an automobile accident as young girl. After all, doctors had said the child would not live past the age of ten and yet she was an adult living as full a life as could be expected despite her profound physical and psychological injuries. They had beaten the odds with love, patience and hundreds of hours of special training.

In 1998, when state authorities asked them to provide a home to a boy and a girl who had been sexually abused, they agreed. The boy was eleven and had been assaulted by older males in a group home. The girl was thirteen and had been molested by her own parents before the age of five. Within a year Jim and Cathy needed help.

Jim had been awakened one night to find the boy in the bedroom of another foster child - an eight year-old. The eleven year-old seemed to be trying to remove the pajama top of the younger boy. They consulted a child psychologist who agreed to work with the youth. He also told them about a new support group for parents of sexually abused children called; “Parenting the Victimized Child”.

“We had been offering a support group for adults who had been sexually abused as children.” says Melinda Poole, Facilitator of “Victims No More”. “We began to get calls from people who were concerned about how to help children in their own families who had been abused. They were parents, grandparents and other caregivers such as foster parents. In response to this need, we developed the second group using the same collaborative arrangement with PREVENT! of Brevard and Protect Our Children.”

Poole went to work immediately. They devised a new sleeping arrangement for the family whereby the boy could not access the other children without awakening Jim and Cathy. She worked closely with the individual counselor to arrest the boy’s behavior and she helped the foster parents understand what his behavior meant.

“He was becoming the sexual bully...”, Poole explained, “reenacting what had been done to him by older boys in the group home.” She enlisted the aid of other experts who further evaluated the child. The consensus seemed to indicate that the boy needed inpatient treatment. The hunt for an appropriate facility was on.

During this time another bombshell exploded. The female foster child, who was now fourteen, had begun to exhibit bizarre behaviors. “ She was defecating in wastepaper baskets and had developed a compulsion to stuff objects in the bathroom bowl and flush it over and over” said Poole.

The same kind of regime was used: individual counseling for the child and weekly group sessions with the foster parents, giving them information and emotional support and devising strategies to overcome the behaviors. The child had not only been sexually abused by her birth parents, but had been forced to watch her siblings, some as young as three, being raped.

The boy’s behavior continued to deteriorate. The child told Jim one day, that he wanted to do to other boys, what had been done to him.

There were only two facilities in the country capable of treating the boy and both were expensive. The treatment team which had been assembled to help the family, began a desperate search to find the necessary funds.

Jim literally took the child, now thirteen, under his wing, hoping that enough patience and love would do the trick. He sensed, as well, that they might be losing the battle. Months passed, and the search for money to pay for the child’s treatment proved fruitless. Jim and Cathy had to face the possibility that the boy would have to be given back to the state, to live in the group homes where he was first abused.

“They truly loved the child, but he had unfinished emotional business. When a child acts out like this he often seeking to relive the trauma in order to be free of it” the counseler explained, “ It’s a natural reaction to severe abuse.”

But the “acting out” behavior was placing the other children at risk, and the boy was removed from their home.

“We grieved together”, says Melinda Poole. “It was a process similar to that which is experienced with the death of a child. The foster father was particularly devastated.”

Poole continued her work with Jim and Cathy in order to help the abused girl. Her extensive background in dealing with addictive behavior seemed to help in working with the parents of the compulsive child. In fact it was her experience in treating addictive behavior that led to her to work with victims of child sex abuse; “We were finding that many people who were addicted to substances, or behaviors or even other people, had in fact been sexually abused as children. Recovery is, for these people, all part of the same process.“

Group sessions went on for two more years. Each new cluster of behaviors was addressed as soon as they appeared, therapist and client knowing full well that the child would have to leave, should her behaviors become threatening to the other children.

The teamwork, the strategising and the occasional crying paid off. The teen began to respond, and eventually the demons disappeared. She grew to adulthood as Jim and Cathy’s beloved foster child. Last month she completed her basic training in Texas and is serving her country in the armed forces.

A Titusville man who has been a registered Sex Offender since 1993, is being sought by Police for abusing at least four more local children. Anthony Tyrone Lewis (34), is the subject of an active warrant for multiple counts of Sexual Battery on four children under the age of twelve.

Although details about the exact age and gender of the alleged victims is unavailable, Lewis's criminal record shows a history of abusing underage females. Police are actively interviewing other children in a search for more victims. The assaults are thought to have occurred between the beginning of August and the end of October.

Lewis, who is known to have friends and family in Titusville, Cocoa and Palm Bay, has worked recently as an auto detailer.

Lewis has been registered as a sex offender since July 1994, when he was placed on reporting probation for six years. The sentence was the result of a plea agreement in a case involving the abuse of a thirteen year-old Cocoa girl. The arrest narrative charged Lewis with having intercourse with the girl, digitally penetrating her and performing oral sex. The child said she was afraid to resist Lewis.

Court records show that Lewis has an earlier offense, a lewd and lascivious act which occurred in 1982. Details were not available on the offense. Lewis was released from supervision in 2002. He has been charged with violating his probation five times since 1993. Department of Corrections records show that Lewis was incarcerated between June 1997 and June 1999. His record also shows arrests for Domestic Violence, Driving While License Suspended and Petit Theft.

Titusville Detective Gary Boyer says the warrant carries a minimum $5,000 dollar bond. He said police believe Lewis remains in Brevard County and is considered a fugitive. Although residing in Titusville most recently, Lewis has also lived in the Lincoln Road area of Merritt Island and the Junior Avenue area of Cocoa, at various times.

Police are continuing their search for more possible victims. Citizens can call Boyer at the Titusville Police Department at (321) 264-7800. Tips can also be reported to 1-800-CRIMELINE. Callers may be eligible for up to a $1,000 dollar reward for information leading to an arrest.

Anthony Tyrone Lewis is wanted on suspicion of sexually battering children under 12.

View Anthony Tyrone Lewis's FDLE Flyer Here.

It was no surprise that he would accept a nomination to join the board of a controversial activist group like Protect Our Children. From the time he joined the department in 1981 to the present day, as head of the Investigations Division, he has placed a priority on crimes against children. Mutter also feels there is a role for civilian participation in law enforcement; "Every year the police have to do more and more with less and less," he says, "...we must have participation from civilians."

In the anteroom of his windowless office, he keeps stacks of back issues of THE GUARDIAN BREVARD. "It's been a great tool for checking on sex offenders...it's much easier to use than the internet. I find myself checking something in THE GUARDIAN almost every day."

Commander Mutter was elected unanimously to the Board of Directors of Protect Our Children at a special meeting June 19th. "Bobby's name seems to come up at every meeting," says Board Member Roy Caldwell, "It seems like a natural thing to have him with us." Caldwell, a Titusville resident, is Mutter's neighbor. "He's extremely dedicated..." Caldwell added. In a telephone interview June 19th, he said Mutter would add valuable law enforcement expertise to the group.

Mutter worked closely with Protect Our Children volunteers in 1998, when a sex offender with four convictions was seen stalking children walking to and from local schools. "Bobby had this guy's whole route mapped out," says Kevin Gillick, President of Protect Our Children. "He knew where (the offender) would be and when he would be there. Clearly he spent a lot of his own time on it."

Volunteers handed out fliers to parents and staff at the schools, and Titusville Police kept intense scrutiny on the man until he finally left the area. He is currently in a South Carolina prison serving time for molesting a child in that state.

"I'm looking forward to giving my input concerning the future of the organization. We are just beginning to understand how we can protect children from predators," Mutter said, "...but we can do much more."

Four men have filed suit against the Florida Department of Corrections claiming that they were sexually abused by two female employees while incarcerated at a facility for youthful offenders in Vero Beach. The suit, filed May 19th in West Palm Beach, alleges that the men were abused in 1999 and 2000 when they were ages 14 through 17. Former Educational Supervisor Jolynn Burke, and former Teaching Assistant Alyson Guiste are also named in the charge - both are no longer employed by the Department of Corrections.

Orlando Attorney Dan Brodersen, primary counsel in the case, said the Department of Corrections, "..had knowlege of what was going on for more than ten years". Brodersen filed a "Whistleblower" suit in Orange County, claiming that the Department harrassed and eventually terminated, a former teacher who reported the abuse. The teacher, Gary Gaylor, of Palm Bay, complained to numerous state and local agencies including the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Department of Children and Families. Gaylor described an "atmosphere of fear and intimidation" at the facility in which co-workers were forced to remain silent about the allegations. He said he suspected that Burke had "dozens and dozens of victims, in her 26 year tenure at the Indian River Correctional Institution. He alleges that the abuse took place in the offices occupied by the women, who had covered their windows with paper in order to assure privacy.

No trial date has been set in either case.

Attorney Dan Brodersen is asking anyone with information about abuse at the facility, to call his offices at (407) 472-0622.

A Kuwaiti citizen, wanted for sexual assaults on minors in Brevard has been captured in Canada. Najeeb Saad (28) of Merritt Island, was arrested by immigration officials in Toronto, September 20th. Saad has warrants outstanding for committing lewd acts against a fifteen year-old girl and a fourteen year-old boy. State Attorney Norm Wolfinger immediately requested his extradition to Brevard County, in order to stand trial on charges. Police say Saad supplied the teens with "ecstasy", a street drug which causes users to become sexually pliant.

Saad was introduced to his alleged victims by a 16 year-old Palm Bay boy, whom he befriended through an internet chat room. Police say Saad victimized the pair in March and April, at various homes and motel rooms in Brevard and Orange Counties, while providing them with drugs, including ecstasy and cocaine. Sheriff’s agents suspect Saad may have more victims who have not come forward. Records show that Saad was already on probation for a sexual assault against a Titusville girl in July 1998. Saad is being held in Toronto without bond.

Since the day of the crime, I have had many people tell me their version of how they would feel, and what they would do. I can tell you from experience that no amount of mental preparation, no book, no video, no amount of therapy or discussion can prepare you for the gut-wrenching horror of that moment.

Like most people, I believed that my first reaction would be uncontrollable rage. What I experienced was quite different. When I picked my daughter up from their house that evening, I immediately noticed something was wrong. At first I thought; perhaps she had a problem with one of the kids, but as soon as she got into the truck her whole attitude changed. I knew something was very, very wrong.

She hung her head and looked down at the floorboard. She was so afraid and so ashamed that she couldn’t even look at me. She still felt felt shame even though she was in no way responsible for the disgusting crime she was forced to participate in. She said; "Daddy.." in a soft, subdued, tearful, little voice, "...I have something to tell you, and you’re not going to like it." She said Bill made her touch him and rub lotion all over his body. I asked; "You mean his private parts?" She said "yes".

What I experienced was shock and disbelief and unspeakable horror - horror so strong and so real that nothing Stephen King could dream up would come close to what I was feeling.

We remember when our daughter started school and she came home telling us how scared she was of bad people climbing through her window and hurting her, or grabbing her off the street and taking her far away from us. When we inquired to what caused her to imagine such things, she told us she learned about them in guidance counseling in school. She also told us about how they taught her about "good touch" and "bad touch" , and how if it happens to you, you should tell an adult. We remember being angry at first, that it gave her nightmares and caused her to be afraid to sleep in her own room at night. Now we understand why it is important to teach these things at such a young age. We are convinced that the counseling she received gave her the knowledge and courage to tell about her abuse, even though she was threatened to keep silent. She was very brave, and thanks to her telling the truth, this pedophile has been brought to justice. If the State monitors him correctly, there will be no others.

On February 22, Father John Geoghan was convicted and sentenced to nine years in a Massachusetts prison for fondling a 10-year-old boy. This was quickly followed by the resignation of Fort Lauderdale's Bishop Anthony O'Connell for a similar incident with a teenaged male. Conviction and confession alike have proven hundreds of allegations against Catholic clergy worldwide, yet in retrospect the more frightening factor common to most of these cases is the way the policy of the Catholic Church helped to aid these pedophiles. Not only did the Church use its influence and financial assets to protect the accused priests from prosecution, but by allowing them to remain in the priesthood they also gave them access to more victims. Over four decades, Father Geoghan victimized hundreds of children. His collar was removed, 12 years after his psychiatrist told the Church that Geoghan had admitted to molesting dozens of boys in the 1970's and 80's. Brevard County has seen the consequences of religious cover-up firsthand. A former Catholic Priest, Thomas Pagni, was released last year after serving four years in prison for Sexual Battery and Lewd Acts upon a Child. These acts were committed while Pagni worked as a youth counselor in Merritt Island. Pagni left the priesthood in 1986, after being shuttled between eight different parishes on the heels of sex abuse allegations. The church helped Pagni pay for his degree in adolescent counseling to "compensate" for his departure from the priesthood. He came to Brevard County with an apparently clean record, and began working with troubled boys. This policy of making secrecy agreements, while providing ineffective counseling to the perpetrator, has failed the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul recently issued a Papal Directive authorizing the Vatican to issue guidelines on how to deal with the problem. A letter was sent to all bishops to direct them that in the event there is "even a hint" of a case of pedophilia they "must open an investigation and inform Rome". However, no mention was made in the letter as to whether a bishop should inform civil authorities. Churches worldwide immediately addressed that omission. The Catholic Media Office for England and Wales issued a statement of clarification to emphasize that the Vatican is not seeking to replace proper legal processes. "This clarification in no way circumvents or replaces normal legal procedures. Child abuse is a crime." In Australia, Bishop Pat Power stressed the rights of alleged victims and the importance of local knowledge. "I think that what needs to be done is justice in terms of the victims. I do sometimes wonder whether people removed from the situation do fully understand all the implications of it." Religious leaders here in Brevard County echoed these sentiments. Pastor Ira Lightsey of St. Mary's Baptist Church in Mims said, "there has to be a balance set between a private and a civic matter. When a crime has been committed, it immediately becomes a police matter." Rabbi Richard Margolis of Temple Beth Shalom in Suntree added that with the explosion of youth population, especially in Suntree, "this problem takes on new proportions." Rabbi Margolis added that while the Catholic Church may, in retrospect, have erred, they had good intentions and were concerned equally for the victim and accused. In some cases, he noted, "False accusations can be raised, accusations which might cost a man's reputation." When asked how he would react if an allegation were brought before him, Margolis said he would talk to the parties involved, and attempt to make "a conclusion of wrongdoing. If I felt incapable of making a decision I would defer to the authorities."

Churches throughout Brevard have been adding new policies and updating old ones to deal with child victimization. First United Methodist Church of Cocoa Beach recently invited Protect Our Children President, Kevin Gillick, to join a forum to review their new policy dealing with youth programs for their church. Some of the more popular trends include a "two-adult rule" which provides for two adult supervisors for every youth event. This insures that no child will be alone with an adult. Pastor Lightsey of St. Mary's Church has installed large windows in the youth areas, which allow for walking inspections from the outside. Background checks for all youth workers are standard, and most churches do not allow anyone with a record of child abuse to work in areas that involve children. Florida law says anyone who has a "valid suspicion" of child sexual abuse must report the suspicion to the Department of Children and Families. Increased community vigilance of this nature has been the catalyst behind many of the new policies. One of the foundations of every institution or group is the fraternity of its members. However, this allegiance to the group can have devastating consequences when a pedophile is a member. The fact that John Geoghan was convicted of molesting a child while serving as a priest is not an indictment of the Catholic Church, for it is likely that Geoghan had pedophilic tendencies before he became a priest. It is quite likely, however, that John Geoghan and others are aware of this tendency toward fraternal protection, and even depend upon it in the commission of their crimes. The fact that child molesters can deceive a Diocese is not at all surprising; they have deceived youth organizations, school systems, state agencies, and commercial corporations. A child molester lives by deception, and only by complete exposure can a predatory pedophile stand a remote chance of living without offending children. Yet when the institution provides sanctuary and protection to the pedophile while "shaming and blaming" the victims, as alleged in a current California lawsuit against the Jehovah's Witnesses, the stage is set for further victimization. The plaintiff in that case, a young woman, claims that church elders knew of her abuse, and failed to report it.

In many of the cases involving the Catholic Church large sums of money were paid to the victims, in exchange for a promise to refrain from publicizing the accusation. The victim of Bishop O'Connell in Fort Lauderdale received 125,000 dollars in compensation, but violated the secrecy agreement years later. Had the Catholic Church simply used its current policy and reported these incidents to the police, the current media frenzy would have been largely avoided. Ironically, the most eloquent direction for reporting allegations may come directly from the scriptures. In Matthew 22:21, Jesus says "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's." These words may outline the best policy for reporting sex abuse allegations in any institution - the only appropriate internal response is immediate and unfettered external communication. Pastor Doug Weiss, speaking to a non-denominational church in Merritt Island, stated "60% of pastors were educationally unprepared for dealing with sexual abuse issues. If you bring your questions about this problem to your pastor you probably know more than he does." Despite the growing number of reports, most religious leaders have little or no experience whatsoever with child sexual abuse cases or allegations. Rabbi Margolis in Suntree stated that he has served "33 years without even the hint of an allegation being brought to me." There has always been, and perhaps should always be, a heated debate in the United States about the separation of Church and State. Among other things, our founding fathers did not want the Church to interfere in the affairs of State. This has happened, in the case of John Geoghan and many others. Institutional policy has overwritten criminal law. Speaking anonymously, a Brevard County Sheriff's Deputy offered this observation. "If I found out that someone who had not had any experience, someone not connected in any way with law enforcement, had taken an allegation of child sex abuse and buried it. I would be deeply offended. I have been trained to do a job, and if I can't do it because someone wants to protect the name of their group then something is definitely wrong. Florida Law states that anyone who knows of an allegation of a child being sexually abused is obligated to report it to law enforcement." Or, as Pastor Weiss eloquently explained, "being a member of a church doesn't excuse you from your membership in the human race."