NAPLES, Fla. - A 39-year-old woman forcefully had her 13-year-old daughter's genitalia pierced to make it uncomfortable for her to have sex, the girl told jurors in her mother's child abuse trial.
The girl, now 16, told jurors Wednesday that her mother asked a tattoo artist friend in 2004 to shave the girl's head to make her unattractive to boys and later held her down for the piercing.
"She was trying to protect me, but it hurt me," the girl testified. "It not only hurt me physically, but it hurt me mentally. ... That's emotionally scarring. That's physical abuse."
Prosecutor Steve Maresca said the mother called on a friend to shave the girl's head and do the piercing after realizing that she had been having sex, including with the mother's boyfriend.
Defense attorney Donald Day told jurors that the mother had trouble with her rebellious daughter and that the girl agreed to the piercing to help rebuild her mother's trust.
"It wasn't torture or extreme violence," Day said. "It was, in the young girl's words, to try to save her. ... That decision was a last-ditch effort. In my client's mind, she had no other options."
Child welfare officials were called after the girl became infected from the piercing.
The mother, whose name is being withheld to protect her daughter's identity, is charged with two counts of aggravated child abuse and faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.
Tammy Meredith, 43, who did the piercing in her home, was sentenced to a year in jail for her role. An arrest warrant has been issued for the mother's boyfriend on allegations he had sex with the girl.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 — The Federal Emergency Management Agency staged a fake news conference this week, with agency staff officials, pretending to be reporters, peppering one of their own bosses with decidedly friendly questions about the response to the California fires, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday.
The action, first reported on Friday in The Washington Post, drew a rebuke from the White House and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and an apology from the agency official who was at the lectern, Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy director.
“We have made it clear that such a stunt will never be tolerated or repeated,” a spokeswoman for the department, Laura C. Keehner, said on behalf of Mr. Chertoff.
The questions from the staff were posed after FEMA gave reporters only 15 minutes notice for a news conference on Tuesday, meaning that other than television camera crews, no reporters showed up before questioning began. A toll-free telephone line was provided so reporters could listen in, but it was not set up to allow questions.
As a result, staff members asked Mr. Johnson a series of friendly questions like, “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” and, “What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?”
Mr. Johnson gave no indication that the questions came from his own staff.
“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Mr. Johnson said in response to one question, according to a transcript.
Dana Perino, the White House spokeswoman, said the event was mishandled. “It’s not something I would have condoned,” she said. “And they — I’m sure — will not do it again.”
Police in Teaneck arrested a man for allegedly having sex with a corpse.
Anthony Merino, a 24-year-old lab technician, was arrested Sunday after a security guard saw him having sex with a dead 92-year-old woman in the Holy Name Hospital morgue, police said. The suspect works part time at Holy Name Hospital, holds a full time job at Overlook Hospital and another part time position at Bio Reference Labs in New Jersey.
Merino is charged with desecrating human remains in the second degree. His bail has been set at $400,000.
Merino is also expected to undergo a psychological evaluation and is restricted from working in a health care facility.
2nd degree? I think that makes this even worse than premeditated. That means he caught site of the 92-year-old and he just couldn't control himself. Seriously, even if she was alive this story would belong here. Did he just figure, well, if you're gonna do it with a dead body, may as well be one that looks the same as when it was alive? Or maybe he does this on a regular basis and there just hadn't been any fresh young ones lately.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Police have cited a local high school principal with loitering for the purpose of prostitution. Officers said he was dressed like a woman when found Tuesday evening.
Dr. Paul Schum, 50, the principal at Bethlehem High School, a Catholic school in Bardstown, has requested a personal leave from his job.
Louisville Metro police said they spotted Schum in an alley at 23rd and Stone Streets. Louisville Metro Police Department Detective Phil Russell said Schum wore all black leather, fishnet stockings and women's plastic breasts.
"The first thing that came to mind after I had time to process it was, how quick we all are to judge people," Schum's next door neighbor, Kim Alexander, said. "I wasn't there. You weren't there. None of us know exactly what happened."
On Thursday, the archdiocese released a statement Thursday saying Schum denied the allegations against him.
Schum is due in court at the end of November.
He teaches chemistry at Bethlehem and worked for 26 years at Saint X High School.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholic pharmacists on Monday to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing drugs with "immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia."
In a speech to participants at the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists, Benedict said that conscientious objection was a right that must be recognized by the pharmaceutical profession.
Such objector status, he said, would "enable them not to collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products that have clearly immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia."
In his speech, the pope also said that pharmacists have an educational role toward patients so that drugs are used in a morally and ethically correct way.
"We cannot anesthetize consciences as regards, for example, the effect of certain molecules that have the goal of preventing the implantation of the embryo or shortening a person's life," he said.
Emergency contraception pills, which can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, work by preventing ovulation or by preventing the embryo from being implanted into the womb.
The pope said pharmacists should raise people's awareness so that "all human beings are protected from conception to natural death, and so that medicines truly play a therapeutic role."
The issue has been debated extensively in the United States.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich introduced the rule more than two years ago requiring pharmacists to fill all prescriptions. Pharmacists challenged the rule, and a legal settlement earlier this month allowed pharmacists who object to dispensing emergency birth control to step aside while someone else fills the prescription.
In Washington state, pharmacists have filed a federal lawsuit over a regulation requiring them to sell emergency contraception, saying it violates their civil rights by forcing them into choosing between "their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs."
A few states in the U.S. have passed laws that specifically allow pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to provide health care due to religious or moral objections, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank based in New York.
Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota have legislation that explicitly permits pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives, according to the Institute, and Florida, Illinois, Maine and Tennessee have broadly worded legislation that may apply to pharmacists.
In California, on the other hand, pharmacists are required to fill all valid prescriptions and can only refuse with employer approval and if the customer can still access the prescription in a timely manner.
In Britain, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has a code of ethics allowing pharmacists who have religious objections to refuse dispensing certain drugs, such as emergency contraception. But their objection must be stated to their employer before they start working, and they must refer patients to other pharmacists who can provide the requested drugs.
From what I’ve gathered in these forums, I believe that what I am about to say may prove to be unpopular. If you don‘t care about long winded rants, please feel free to simply filter past my post.
I actually find it offensive that you would put the beliefs of a faith in the “fucked up news” thread right after discussion on someone who received sexual gratification from a corpse. I know your post was meant to juxtapose two seemingly related articles in an effort to point out an apparent hypocrisy in the Catholic church, but the truth is, the church is made up of sinners, saints, and of people who will totally screw up. Everyone is imperfect no matter if one is Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.
I know religion isn‘t very popular in these forums. Some of you are Christian and some of you are not, which is perfectly fine with me. Some of you are pro-life, pro-choice, in-between, indifferent, or whatever. That’s cool. I have my beliefs, and you have yours. Christianity itself is very diverse. Some Christian religions put up museums explaining the beginning of the Earth in a less than pleasing manner, and some respect both science (SCIENCE!!) and faith. Here is something Pope Benedict XVI has also stated:
“Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God.
This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such.”
See? Catholics can think objectively. Catholics are simply encouraged to be pro-life. The whole subject of abortion is so subjective, I don’t understand why you would put it in the “fucked up news” thread. It’s just a belief.
Are you angry that a high school principal from a Catholic school dressed up as a woman and solicited sex? I am too! I’m furious about it! But with more than a billion Catholics in the world, there are bound to be a tremendous amount of screw ups! Does that make the whole faith of a church hypocritical and wrong and Fucked up? This man will go to trial, and I hope justice is served. The diocese mealy states that he denies the allegation. If he is guilty, the church will not defend him.
I like you guys on the forum a lot. I’m not trying to be argumentative. I’m just trying to show some of you a different opinion. You guys are fun and quirky; please don’t be angry at me.
I think it's okay to say that it's fucked up for a high school principal to dress like a woman and solicit sex, regardless of that person's religious affiliation.
As for the second article, I think it's fucked up for a pharmacist to push his religious beliefs on his customers by denying them their requested (or prescribed!) medication. It's simply not within the scope of that profession. If you don't want people to have abortions, take it up in the courts, and the voting ballots, and anywhere else within legal boundaries, and get the laws to be changed. If you don't want to do that, and the state in which you work allows abortions, then you have to suck it up. Where does something like that end? Are Christian Scientists allowed to deny all medication to people because they don't believe in modern medicine (okay, I realize that there are probably very few Christian Scientist pharmacists, but you get the idea)?
I should probably also mention that you seem to be arguing against some of the anti-Catholic statements in the articles as if Jakey were the one saying them. He's just quoting the article verbatim. Don't shoot the messenger.
Comments
That belongs in the amusing news thread!
Also: They are targeting government officials, is a monkey uprising imminent?
Um, a person died. It's morbidly amusing. Hence this thread!
He knows what John does, because he is John.
They just can't catch a break, can they?
...yet.
And, we're forgetting the real question, did he take it to dinner and a movie first? Or at least a cup of coffee?
Pope Tells Pharmacists Not to Dispense Drugs With 'Immoral Purposes'
I actually find it offensive that you would put the beliefs of a faith in the “fucked up news” thread right after discussion on someone who received sexual gratification from a corpse. I know your post was meant to juxtapose two seemingly related articles in an effort to point out an apparent hypocrisy in the Catholic church, but the truth is, the church is made up of sinners, saints, and of people who will totally screw up. Everyone is imperfect no matter if one is Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, etc.
I know religion isn‘t very popular in these forums. Some of you are Christian and some of you are not, which is perfectly fine with me. Some of you are pro-life, pro-choice, in-between, indifferent, or whatever. That’s cool. I have my beliefs, and you have yours. Christianity itself is very diverse. Some Christian religions put up museums explaining the beginning of the Earth in a less than pleasing manner, and some respect both science (SCIENCE!!) and faith. Here is something Pope Benedict XVI has also stated:
“Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God.
This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such.”
See? Catholics can think objectively. Catholics are simply encouraged to be pro-life. The whole subject of abortion is so subjective, I don’t understand why you would put it in the “fucked up news” thread. It’s just a belief.
Are you angry that a high school principal from a Catholic school dressed up as a woman and solicited sex? I am too! I’m furious about it! But with more than a billion Catholics in the world, there are bound to be a tremendous amount of screw ups! Does that make the whole faith of a church hypocritical and wrong and Fucked up? This man will go to trial, and I hope justice is served. The diocese mealy states that he denies the allegation. If he is guilty, the church will not defend him.
I like you guys on the forum a lot. I’m not trying to be argumentative. I’m just trying to show some of you a different opinion. You guys are fun and quirky; please don’t be angry at me.
As for the second article, I think it's fucked up for a pharmacist to push his religious beliefs on his customers by denying them their requested (or prescribed!) medication. It's simply not within the scope of that profession. If you don't want people to have abortions, take it up in the courts, and the voting ballots, and anywhere else within legal boundaries, and get the laws to be changed. If you don't want to do that, and the state in which you work allows abortions, then you have to suck it up. Where does something like that end? Are Christian Scientists allowed to deny all medication to people because they don't believe in modern medicine (okay, I realize that there are probably very few Christian Scientist pharmacists, but you get the idea)?
I should probably also mention that you seem to be arguing against some of the anti-Catholic statements in the articles as if Jakey were the one saying them. He's just quoting the article verbatim. Don't shoot the messenger.
Luc Besson should've followed this advice