Friday, April 9, 2010

Lowell "Dusty" Thompson - Repeat Sex Offender - Produced Child Pornography


A Central Ohio man who admitted to the FBI that he taped himself having sex with a child for money is thought to have fled the area.

Lowell "Dusty" Thompson, 52, of Mount Sterling is charged with producing and distributing child pornography. Mount Sterling police received a parental complaint that Thompson forced two 8-year-old girls into sexual activity with each other while he videotaped it.

According to an FBI affidavit, one of the girls said Thompson forced her to have sex with him at his home and at a hotel.

Thompson later admitted taping children having sex as far back as 2004.

He told the FBI he produced as many as 15 videos that he sold to a man in Arizona for $100 per tape.

Thompson told the FBI and Mount Sterling police that he "wanted to cooperate" and "would bring (the FBI) more info."

Last week, he "was released with his promise to return the next day."

Instead, Thompson fled.

Many neighbors and others in the community say he should have been arrested and detained rather than allowed to leave the police station.

Mount Sterling Police Chief Michael McCoy told reporters he could have arrested Thompson but chose not to based on the input of the Madison County Prosecutor's office.

Prosecutor Steve Pronai countered that he had no input on the decision.

Thompson served three months in prison in 1994 for gross sexual imposition, yet neighbors said kids regularly would hang out at his house.

Thompson's backyard featured a treehouse and a swimming pool. A tire swing hung in the front yard.

"I'd seen him with his white truck and trailer loading stuff up," said neighbor George Smith. "I think they probably should have kept him under the charges."

The FBI believes Thompson may be driving a 1998 dark green Chevrolet Venture van with Ohio license plate ENZ4931.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte

John Dunn - Repeat Sex Offender - Arrested for Failure to Register then Reoffense discovered


A convicted sex offender living in Daphne's Lake Forest community now faces child porn charges.

Daphne police arrested John Dunn last Tuesday for failure to register as a sex offender. In 2007, Dunn was convicted in North Carolina for Solicitation of A Child by Computer to Commit an Unlawful Sex Act. When he got out of prison, he never registered his address. North Carolina State Police learned he was living in Alabama and contacted Daphne police.

After Dunn's arrest, they seized his home computer. They found child pornographic movies on it. At this time, Daphne Police have no evidence any of the children are from Daphne or the surrounding area.

The US Attorney’s Office in Mobile has agreed to assist with the investigation.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte

Kenneth W. Coble - Repeat Sex Offender - Repeatedly

Coble was convicted in 1999 of unlawful sexual intercourse and unlawful sexual contact with a victim between the ages of 1 and 11 years old, according to the state’s Sex Offender’s Registry.

He was also convicted in 1977 of sodomy.



A high-risk sex offender was arrested Wednesday night after he allegedly brutally attacked a 63-year-old Bear woman and tried to rape her.

Kenneth W. Coble, 47, of the 700 block of Clymer St. in New Castle, was charged with first-degree assault and first-degree attempted rape, New Castle County police spokesman Senior Cpl. Trinidad Navarro said.

The incident unfolded about 11:50 p.m.

Officers were called to a home on Heron Court to investigate an assault.

When officers arrived, they found the victim bleeding heavily from several fractures to her face.

She was taken to Christiana Hospital, where she was admitted in serious but stable condition, Navarro said.

An investigation determined that Coble went to the woman’s home late Wednesday and asked for a ride to New Castle.

Navarro said the suspect, a third-tier sex offender, was an acquaintance of the victim.

The woman allowed him into her house, and Coble proceeded to give her a hug that made her feel uncomfortable, Navarro said.

The victim told police that she tried to distance herself from the situation when Coble asked her to perform a sexual act with him, Navarro said.

When the woman refused, the suspect allegedly grabbed her by the head and forced her to the floor.

Navarro said the woman struggled to break free, but Coble beat her in the face and threatened to kill her.

The woman suffered fractures to the bones around both eyes, a fractured nose and several cuts from the beating.

The suspect then ran from her house and returned to his home in New Castle.

Officers went to his Dobbinsville home and later arrested him as he was asleep in bed, Navarro said.

Coble was convicted in 1999 of unlawful sexual intercourse and unlawful sexual contact with a victim between the ages of 1 and 11 years old, according to the state’s Sex Offender’s Registry.

He was also convicted in 1977 of sodomy.

After being charged Wednesday, he was committed to the Young Correctional Institution in lieu of $80,000 secured bail.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte

James E. Gafford - Repeat Sex Offender - Rapist


A convicted sex offender who failed to register his current address in Panama City is back in jail after he fled to Alabama and raped a 17-year-old runaway, authorities said.
Bay County Sheriff Maj. Tommy Ford said James E. Gafford exemplifies the importance of sex offender registration.
“That’s the reason we take this so seriously,” Ford said. “It’s not as punishment for what sex offenders have done in the past. This proves the point that they’re, in a lot of cases, likely to reoffend and that we need to keep track of them.”
Gafford, 44, first showed up in the Panhandle in mid-December, Ford said. Gafford was charged in 2001 with attempted sexual battery on an adult and had served time in an Alabama prison. He was required, subsequently, to keep police notified at all times of his whereabouts.
He registered his address as the Panama City Rescue Mission when he first arrived in town and then, a week later, as a shed on Baldwin Road. The Baldwin Road address irked some residents, who said they didn’t want a sex offender so close to two schools.

The charity that owns the shed responded that neither Gafford nor anyone else was living there, although police found take-out food and beds in the portable units.
“It kind of became a moot point, though, because (Gafford) was arrested for burglary the same week,” Ford said.
Gafford spent all of January and most of February in the Bay County Jail for his involvement in a couple of car break-ins. When he got out of jail, he again listed his address as the rescue mission.

The following week, he told police he was staying at a hotel on U.S. 98 and, in mid-March, he said he was at another motel near the rescue mission, Ford said.

When police asked Gafford which room he was staying in, the major said, he got “kind of squirrely.”

After checking the hotel and finding he wasn’t there, police issued an arrest warrant March 26 for absconding.
Eight days later, Mobile, Ala., police arrested Gafford on a first-degree rape charge.
A copy of the police report was not available by press time, but Ford, who had seen the report, said he thinks Gafford met the teen on his bus ride to Alabama.

Gafford and the girl — possibly a runaway from another state — were staying at a motel in Mobile, Ford said. A motel security guard reported the case to police after he saw the girl walking through the parking lot and “acting strange,” Ford said. Gafford had choked her as well, he added.

Gafford is being held in the Mobile County Metro Jail without bond.

“We’re hoping that, if he gets out, he decides not to come back to Panama City,” Ford said.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte

Vernil Jones - Repeat Sex Offender - Given own granddaughter to abuse by apologist judge


A Washington state teen is suing for millions of dollars in damages after she said a family court investigator "ruined her life" by knowingly sending her to live with her grandfather, a convicted sex offender who proceeded to abuse her nearly every day for a decade.
In court documents filed late last month, the unidentified teen claimed that she was just six years old when Cowlitz County Family Court Services investigator Mark Workingor took her from her mother and placed her in a home with her father and grandparents.
The teen said in the court documents that it happened in spite of her own father warning Workingor that his father, Vernil Jones, had been convicted of sodomizing a 10-year-old girl.

"She went through 10 years of incest of every kind almost daily by her grandfather," said Lincoln Beauregard, the attorney representing the teen.

"The bottom line is, regardless of where she lived, she should not have lived with a pedophile," said Beauregard.
Jones since has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the assaults against the teen.

Outlined in the court documents is the sequence of events that led to the teen being placed under the same roof as Jones.

In March 1999, the teen's father petitioned the court for custody of the then-6-year-old. According to the court documents, the father told authorities that he was worried that the teen's mother "neglects the child's supervision, nutrition and hygiene" and had a "history of drug use."

The father also claimed that his daughter suffered from "chronic head lice infestations" because of the "filthy home" the mother kept, according to the court documents.

The investigator found that while the teen's mother had provided the majority of the teen's care since she was born, she was doing so inadequately and awarded primary custody to the father.

Also included in the investigator's recommendation was that any contact between the child and the sex offender grandfather "be supervised by either the father or the paternal grandmother."

The teen's lawyer referred to that recommendation as "outrageous," and called the county's decision to place the child with Jones "egregious."

The teen's lawyer said that his client decided to bring her case to the public's attention in hopes of helping other children like her who have become victims because of the "egregious actions" of Cowlitz County.

"She hopes that bringing visibility to her case will be a form of justice to her," said Beauregard.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
.........Sarah Tofte