The disgraced former mayor of a New Jersey town has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars for repeatedly raping a relative’s daughter, beginning when she was age 6. Matthew Scannapieco, 71, was also ordered Friday to have no contact with the victim. He was arrested in August 2014 after the girl told her mother about the abuse, authorities said.

Police were searching on Monday for a man in his 50s who authorities said sexually assaulted a little girl inside a Riverside home over the weekend while her parents were asleep. The family reported the incident, which occurred in the 5000 block of Picker Street, at about 6 a.m., according to a news release from the Riverside Police Department.

The mother of the baby boy allegedly swapped at birth at a private hospital in El Salvador screamed: ‘Doctor, where is my son?’ as she confronted her gynecologist. Mercedes ‘Mercy’ Casanellas and her husband Richard Cushworth – who is British born but a longtime US resident who calls himself American – are currently fighting to find out what happened to their biological son after he was born by emergency Caesarean at a private hospital in the capital San Salvador. A DNA test has proven that Ms Casanellas and her husband are not the biological parents of four-month-old Jacob, the child she has been ‘loving, breastfeeding and caring for 24/7’ since he was handed to her in May this year. She spoke to Daily Mail Online after a courtroom confrontation last Friday with the doctor arrested on suspicion of being involved in swapping their baby – part of child trafficking crime.

A married female tutor seduced a 13-year-old boy during a lesson at his home before having sex with him 100 times over the next two years, a court has heard. Carolyn Keeling, 64, from Taynton, Oxfordshire, allegedly smoked cannabis and drank wine during bi-weekly lessons at the teenager’s family home. Gloucester Crown Court heard how the abuse began when Keeling, who was in her forties at the time, stripped down to her underwear to sunbathe during an outdoor lesson at the boy’s home.

ALABAMA – Mobile Police arrested 27-year-old Patrick Herron Sunday, September 6, and charged him with four counts of Criminal Surveillance after reports of him videotaping and taking photos of customers in the women’s restroom at San Miguel’s restaurant on Schillinger Road. According to Robyn Toomey-Glass of Mobile, she and her family were celebrating at the restaurant when her 11-year-old daughter and a friend went to the restroom together. “My daughter’s friend didn’t want to stand outside of the stall alone, so she went in with my daughter and turned to the wall,” said Toomey-Glass. “That’s when she saw him with a cell phone and came and got me.”

INDIANAPOLIS – Jeffrey Fairbanks, the father of a three-month-old girl reported missing earlier this year, is now facing murder charges. Fairbanks, 45, was arrested Thursday and charged with one count of murder and one count of neglect of a dependent resulting in death. His initial court hearing on Friday only lasted a few minutes. He answered all of the judge’s questions and asked for a public defender. “Certainly, the state has elements that we need to prove. But as indicated, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking at this case and believe that we’re prepared to go forward,” said Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Denise Robinson after the hearing.

Authorities say 2-year-old twin boys are dead after being found unresponsive in a suburban Phoenix home. Avondale police spokesman Brandon Busse says officers were called to a home near 115th Avenue and Yuma Street shortly before noon about reports of an ill person.

It’s estimated that 90-percent of child sexual abuse victims know the offender, either through family ties or through their community. But in an increasingly digital age, child predators are hiding behind the anonymity and legal grey areas of the Internet to post and trade child porn in addition to soliciting potential victims. The numbers are startling: one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before reaching adulthood according to the Centers for Disease Control. By that measures, the Department of Justice estimates 30 to 40-percent are sexually abused by family members, and half by someone they know and trust.

LUFKIN, Texas – An East Texas teenager is accused of pushing his pregnant girlfriend’s 3-year-old nephew into a pond so the boy would drown to make room for the unborn child to live at their home. Bobby Woods, 17, faces a charge of capital murder of a person under age 6. He was booked as an adult after his arrest Friday and remained in the Angelina County jail without bond Saturday. Online records don’t list an attorney for Woods.

A woman who killed her 17-month-old baby girl with a lethal dose of methadone last year was sentenced to up to 30 years behind bars on Wednesday. Courtney Nicole Howell, 27, of Layton, Utah pleaded guilty in July to giving her baby girl Jaslynn Mansfield methadone but said she only thought the drug would help the child sleep. The Salt Lake Tribune reports that on Wednesday Howell tearfully said she will regret her choice for the rest of her life.

A Maryland man has been accused of killing his girlfriend’s one-year-old son earlier this month. Riverdale resident Osmay Sesay, 28, was arrested Wednesday, the Prince George’s County Police Department (PGPD) said Thursday. Sesay was charged with first-degree murder and child abuse, authorities said. Police identified the victim as Ahmed Jalloh.

The impact of sexual assault on a victim is devastating and the effects are long lasting. Victims of child sexual abuse may suffer physical injury, depression, self-destructive behavior, anxiety, feelings of isolation and stigma, shame, poor self-esteem, difficulty in trusting others, a tendency toward re-victimization, substance abuse, and sexual maladjustment. When the perpetrator is a family member, victims often suffer the emotional scars of guilt, betrayal and fear as well. Despite the volume of research and literature addressing sexual abuse perpetrated against a child by a family member, individuals inside and outside of the criminal justice system continue to misperceive common dynamics, misunderstand victim behavior and minimize offender dangers. Judges and juries unfamiliar with the dynamics of sexual assault may overlook offenders’ grooming tactics or misperceive common victim reactions to abuse as evidence of the victim’s lack of credibility. Prosecutors handling these cases face unique challenges. The following 10 strategies will help prosecutors prepare and litigate cases of sexual abuse perpetrated against a child by a family member.

Genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors are capable of being passed on to their children, the clearest sign yet that one person’s life experience can affect subsequent generations. The conclusion from a research team at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda stems from the genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who had either been interned in a Nazi concentration camp, witnessed or experienced torture or who had had to hide during the second world war.

Unless you’ve directly experienced bullying, you may not realize just how devastating it can be, especially to a child or teenager. As well as being deeply hurtful, bullying can leave anyone feeling frightened, angry, depressed, and totally undermined. But bullying should never be tolerated. Whether you’re the one being bullied, or you’re a teacher or parent who thinks their child is being bullied or engaged in bullying behavior, there are steps you can take to deal with the problem.