Senator Alexander’s chief of staff is being investigated over child porn allegations. U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander released a statement saying he was just informed by the Senate legal counsel’s office that law enforcement agents are searching the home of Ryan Loskarn, the chief of staff of Alexander’s D.C. office, regarding allegations involving child pornography.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A former Puerto Rico Police Department officer was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison followed by 15 years of supervised release for production of child pornography. His sentence resulted from an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Puerto Rico Crimes Against Children Task Force. On Feb. 24, HSI special agents received information that William Berríos-Cruz, a police officer with 33 years of service, had allegedly sexually assaulted a minor girl after slipping something into her drink. Beginning in 2009, Berríos-Cruz served as the department’s youth officer of the Liga Atlética Policíaca, a department-sponsored athletic league.

An 85-year-old man’s sex assault trial has begun despite him having fled the country. Enrique Huerta-Ruiz was last seen more than two weeks ago, but his trial for repeatedly sexually assaulting a young child began Monday in Suburban Chicago. Mr Huerta-Ruiz is accused of continuously sexually assaulting a child younger than 13 for six years beginning in 2004, according to the Chicago Tribune.

A former Las Vegas teacher who has been charged with harboring a runaway 16-year-old girl and infecting her with a sexually transmitted disease had been accused in the past of inappropriately touching six elementary school kids in Los Angeles. Melvyn Perry Sprowson Jr, 45, is charged with felony kidnapping, child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a child and obstruction. He could face life in prison if he’s convicted of the kidnapping count.

TAYLOR, MI — 23-year-old Luis Smolen has been charged in connection with his 6-month-old daughter. Police were called to Smolen’s home at 15450 Park Village just before 10 a.m. on Dec. 7 for a report that a baby was not breathing. Once there, Payton Smolen was transported to a local hospital where doctors observed severe head trauma and injuries all over her body. The baby was pronounced dead later that day.

A 26-year-old Texas woman stabbed her toddler son to death as another woman barricaded herself and a child in another room, police say. On Sunday, Tashawna Caldwell allegedly admitted to killing her boy, who would have celebrated his second birthday on Wednesday, according to the Express-News. Two Atascosa County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a disturbance call at Caldwell’s home in Poteet at 12:50 a.m. They found Caldwell hysterical, News 4 reports. Her son, Calden Parker, was discovered with multiple stab wounds. He died at the scene.

WAVELAND — Police have arrested former coach and football player Oren Joseph Lewis on a capital murder charge in the recent death of Maleah Bush, his 23-month-old daughter. The underlying charge for capital murder is felony child abuse. The homicide is the city’s first since July 2011 resulting in a criminal charge.

A 28-year-old Marietta man was convicted Monday of rape and molestation charges against two girls, the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office said. Eduardo Samir Castillanos was sentenced to 45 years in prison after a weeklong trial, according to Kim Isaza, spokeswoman for DA Vic Reynolds. Castillanos was convicted of raping one girl between 2007 and 2008 when she was not yet 10 years old, Isaza said. He later committed aggravated child molestation for acts against the same girl in March of this year. Also in March, he molested a second, younger girl, the DA’s Office said. Both victims testified against Castillanos during the trial.

A 97-year old man accused of raping and indecently assaulting a child is not fit to stand trial, a judge has ruled. Judge Sarah Munro QC has suspended legal proceedings against retired butcher Lionel Veck, from Preston Road, North End, Portsmouth. He had denied one count of rape and two counts of indecently assaulting a woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, between 1972 and 1977 when she was aged under 16.

Fr. Michael O’Connell, the pastor of St. Alphonsus Church, one of Chicago’s oldest Roman Catholic parishes, is facing an allegation of child sex abuse, the ABC7 I-Team has learned. Fr. Michael O’Connell, the pastor of St. Alphonsus Church at 1429 W. Wellington in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, has “voluntarily” stepped aside according to the administrator of the parish, Rev. Shawn Gould. Pastor O’Connell “is no longer residing at the parish,” Rev. Gould told the I-Team. The parish also has an elementary school, Alphonsus Academy and Center for the Arts.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Monday passed a bill that would make it easier for the government to prosecute people suspected of child abuse. H.R. 3627, the Kilah Davenport Child Protection Act, was approved in a voice vote, the Washington publication the Hill reported.

For the past six years, an unassuming home in a quiet pocket of Sunshine Coast suburbia has concealed the answer to a two-decade long, international mystery. Samantha Geldenhuys was 14 when she moved with her mother, stepfather and half brother to the modest corner home at Mountain Creek, west of Mooloolaba, in 2007. Half a world away, unbeknown to Samantha, a US millionaire continued to hold vigil for his infant daughter who vanished with his estranged wife in 1994.

“Let the little children come to me; do not stop them: for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs”. At these opening words from the Bible, spoken by the Catholic Church’s barrister Peter Gray, SC, the hearing room at the royal commission into child sexual abuse erupted in anguish and anger. Some cried out: “What an insult”, “What a joke” and “Good Lord”. Some walked out. Outside the room, sobbing and wailing could be heard.

The mother of missing Brittney Wood today made an extraordinary appeal to her own sister to tell her where her dead daughter’s body is hidden. Chessie Wood, who is linked to an alleged child sex ring involving 11 people – all members or friends of her Alabama family – told MailOnline that she accepts her 19-year-old daughter is dead almost 18 months after she disappeared from home. Wood called on the one person who could reveal her daughter’s grim fate to ‘end the lies’.