Vail, CO — Scott Filler, 41, faces a misdemeanor child abuse charge for allegedly punching a 14-year-old girl in the face at the Beaver Creek ski resort in Vail last Friday. According to police, the teen, visiting from Mexico, was skiing on a beginner run with a ski school class when she swerved to avoid a skier who had fallen in front of her and accidentally bumped into Filler’s 4-year-old son, knocking both of them to the ground. Filler, who was on the run with his son, thought the teen had been skiing recklessly. Believing his son had been seriously injured, Filler attacked, jumping on the teen and punching her in the face.

CLIFTON, N.J. — Police are searching for a New Jersey man after police say he raped a 12-year-old girl he met online while another man videotaped the assault. Police say that 20-year-old Leonardo Quintero met the girl on AOL Instant Messenger and had been chatting with her for a few weeks. On Dec 17, Quintero talked the girl into sneaking out of her house at around 2 a.m. where the girl thought they were just going to drive around the block. Instead Quintero took the girl to the home of 19-year-old Canpolat Cankurt. There the two men refused to take the girl home when she asked and took her into the basement instead where they had her drink alcohol. Afterwards Quintero raped the girl while Cankurt videotaped the assault with his cell phone.

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — An Indiana woman told police investigators she fed her 3-year-old son olive oil and vinegar until he stopped breathing and died, then wrapped his body in a blanket and hid it for more than a year, according to court documents. Fort Wayne police arrested Latisha Ann Lawson on Tuesday, a day after family members reported her and her two children missing. Officers found Lawson and her 10-year-old daughter living in a house that a church had provided for them in recent weeks. Investigators reported finding a child’s remains inside a tote bag. An autopsy was planned to confirm they were the boy’s and to determine a cause of death.

(CNN) — An American school founder who young Haitian men once hailed as a savior was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 20 years in prison for sexually abusing them. Douglas Perlitz, 40, was sentenced in federal court in New Haven, Connecticut, to 19 years and 7 months behind bars for abusing the Haitian men when they were boys under his care, said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston. “We’re very pleased with the sentence,” he said. “He was brought to justice and I hope it sends a strong message to people who are doing that or who are even thinking about doing that.”

President Obama signs Dodd’s bill to protect children and victims of domestic violence. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) released a statement after President Obama signed into law Dodd’s Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) reauthorization bill, which will strengthen federal efforts to identify, treat, and prevent the abuse and neglect of our nation’s children. This bill also reauthorizes the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act (FVPSA), which helps states prevent domestic violence and provides services to victims of domestic violence and their families.

LOUISVILLE, KY – Gruesome child abuse cases have filled the headlines recently and investigators tell Fox 41, they are also being inundated with cases in Kentucky. “The child’s lower back, his legs, buttocks, privates, it’s pretty bad,” said Bullitt County Sheriff Detective Scotty McGaha. On Friday, Detective McGaha said a two-year-old had to be admitted to the hospital for multiple tests which revealed what doctors and investigators feared, another case of child abuse. The same day, a 4-year-old Southern Indiana boy died from what investigators report as a severe beating. “There’s something in the center here that white,” said McGaha pointing to a picture of the child’s bruised leg. The Detective said the two-year-old’s abuser used some sort of object to beat the child from head to toe. The person now charged with criminal abuse is the toddler’s mother, 20 year old Ashley Sneed.

Pope’s child porn ‘normal’ claim sparks outrage among victims. Victims of clerical sex abuse have reacted furiously to Pope Benedict’s claim yesterday that paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s. In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society. “In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.

Melbourne Beach police arrested James Charles Wright-Roberts, 63, (former Michigan teacher/resident) Monday evening, accusing him of more than 300 counts of sexual battery and showing pornography to two girls younger than 12 years old. He has worked since 2005 at BCC’s Palm Bay Learning Lab, a resource center that provides extra assistance to college students, school officials confirmed. BCC had not had any complaints with Roberts during the time, according to a statement from the college.

ORANGE COUNTY, FL – The man who was chased out of a Florida Walmart by the mother of the child he flashed is a registered sex offender who has spent time in prison for…can you guess? If you guessed child related sex crimes then you would be correct. Shocker, right? At around 3 p.m. Sunday, a tall man with a ponytail opened his trench coat and exposed himself to a young girl at an Ocoee Walmart and took off after the child’s mother tried to stop him. Using descriptions given by witnesses as well as surveillance footage, police have nabbed 43-year-old David Huffman, a transient, and charged him with lewd and lascivious exhibition to a child under 16.

DREAMCATCHERS: JP Morgan CHASE (Grant Report). Dreamcatchers was awarded $20,000 — this is an update as to “how” we have applied the funds to-date.

Sex offender Stephen Wilson has been jailed for nine years after raping and abusing a girl. Speaking via video link, the victim told Grimsby Crown Court that her sickening ordeal had been “horrible” and says it has ruined her life. Wilson, 52, of Saltergate, Grimsby, denied rape, indecent assault and two offences of gross indecency with a child but was convicted by a jury on majority verdicts after a trial. During the trial, the court heard that Wilson took advantage of the girl on several occasions, starting when she was only eight years old. Geraldine Kelly, prosecuting, said the information came to light after she confided in a health professional, by writing a letter outlining what she had been subjected to some years before, and stating how the experience had ruined her life.

A man accused of raping three young children is now behind bars in Perry County. The criminal complaint says that the defendant not only raped girls as young as 3 and 4, but also photographed himself doing it. That’s what police reportedly found on his computer. Mark Permenter, 32, of Camp Hill, faces numerous charges, including the rape of a child. Through an ongoing investigation, police seized his computer and said they found disturbing images of Permenter having sex with very young children. Police aren’t sure exactly how long this has been going on, but said it could have been happening for a long time. After being interviewed by police, Permenter apparently admitted to many of the terrible details in the criminal complaint. He is currently in the Perry County Prison on $150,000 cash bond. He is due in court on Jan. 12.

The mother of missing baby Gabriel is heard in newly released telephone recordings describing how she suffocated her son until he turned blue, stuffed him in his diaper bag and threw him in the trash. The audio recordings come nearly a year after Gabriel was last seen on Dec. 26, 2009 with his mother, Elizabeth Johnson, in San Antonio, Texas. Johnson, who is currently jailed in Arizona on kidnapping and child abuse charges that she has pleaded not guilty to, has long insisted that her 8-month-old son Gabriel is alive and that she handed him over to another couple in a San Antonio park. But in the recordings released late last week by the Tempe Police Department, Johnson tells a different story.

Almost 60% of American adults say they had difficult childhoods featuring abusive or troubled family members or parents who were absent due to separation or divorce, federal health officials report. In fact, nearly 9% said that while growing up they underwent five or more “adverse childhood experiences” ranging from verbal, physical or sexual abuse to family dysfunction such as domestic violence, drug or alcohol abuse, or the absence of a parent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).