WORCESTER — More than two decades after being found guilty of raping a 12-year-old girl, 54-year-old Henry O. Valerio was sentenced today to 25 to 40 years in state prison.

It was on March 21, 1990, that Mr. Valerio, formerly of Clinton, was convicted in absentia in Worcester Superior Court on three counts of child rape, assault with intent to rape a child and indecent assault and battery on a child, crimes that had occurred over a four-month period in 1987 in Clinton and Lancaster.

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio — A Knox County man is arraigned Wednesday on multiple charges of rape, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and intimidation of a crime victim or witness.

After a 90-minute deliberation Tuesday, jurors decided to send Spring nurse Abigail Young to prison for 20 years because she failed to protect her 4-year-old daughter from a horrific and fatal beating allegedly inflicted by her handyman lover.

Emma Thompson died in June 2009 after a beating that left the preschooler with a fractured skull and ribs, a torn vagina and at least 80 bruises covering her body.

Bradenton, Florida – Bradenton police have arrested 21-year-old Heather Lovett. She’s the owner of “Our Kids Home Daycare,” located at 1420 16th Street West in Bradenton. Lovett has been charged with child neglect.

Detectives say a 22-month-old female toddler who was in her care had to be rushed to the emergency room at Manatee Memorial Hospital. The child had multiple bruises on her head, face, neck and body. There was dried blood by her ears. The child had abrasions around her neck and injuries consistent with a sexual assault, according to a police report.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41) — A former YMCA counselor who was accused of sexually abusing four boys at a summer day care program in 1990 has agreed to turn himself in, almost 20 years after the fact.

43-year-old Michael Bond had fled to Thailand, but sources with the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office now confirm that he turned himself in to Atlanta Police and will soon be extradited to Louisville.

While the number of cases overall has declined, child advocacy centers in West irginia are busier. The centers connect agencies that deal with child abuse and neglect cases in an effort to make investigations and prosecution more effective.

The centers saw more than a 25 percent increase in the number of children served last year than the year before. Chittenden said she doesn’t think that’s an indication that the statistics are wrong.

(CNN) — William Garner, 37, who was convicted of murdering five children in 1992 in Cincinnati, Ohio, was executed by intravenous lethal injection at 10:38 a.m. Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, according to the state’s Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston man who beat his 6-year-old son for eight hours until the boy went into a seizure and died has been charged in the child’s killing, police said Monday.
Alex Duncan, 34, is charged with murder and his girlfriend, 30-year-old Tammyra Lanette Sampson, who witnessed the beating early Sunday, is charged with injury to a child by omission, police said.

A man charged with the 1998 murder of a 10-year-old girl Salt Lake City girl was arraigned Monday in 3rd District Court. Matthew John Breck, 31, is charged with aggravated murder — which carries the potential for the death penalty — for the Sept. 10. 1998 stabbing death of Anna Palmer on the front porch of her home.

A Carson City woman who told authorities she had smoked methamphetamine and then fell asleep next to her infant daughter faces felony child abuse charges after the baby tested positive for the drug. Charlene Marie Benitez, 22, is being held at the Carson City Jail on $50,000 bond after being arrested early Saturday morning. Charges include felony child endangerment and abuse that caused the infant physical or mental harm. The condition of the infant is unknown at this time.

The North American Riders Against Child Abuse, a two-year-old organization, had a poker ride Sunday, with the money raised going to the St. Clair County Child Abuse and Neglect Council and other such councils in southeast Michigan. Jack “Jacko” Suisse, 48, of Port Huron, president of the riders group, said he is a survivor of child abuse and has participated in similar rides for more than a decade. He started the local group after several child abuse cases in St. Clair County ended in murder.

Popular social networking website Facebook will add a ‘panic button’ application which will report child abuse to Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). Once installed, the application appears on the homepage saying that the users are in ‘control online’. Facebook had initially resisted the idea, but finally agreed after months of negotiation with the CEOP, BBC reported.

Juarez, Mexico (The Weekly Vice) – Pedro Artega Velazquez, a 53-year-old Mexican street clown, was jailed Wednesday after he allegedly raped his 14-year-old stepdaughter. According to the Chihuahua State Attorney General’s office, Velazquez was juggling on a street corner in Juarez, a violent border town across from El Paso, Texas, when he was brought in for questioning.

Oakland, CA – According to several witnesses, one of them an off-duty police officer, 21-year-old John Taylor Jr. was seen violently shaking a toddler last Saturday evening before tossing her into oncoming traffic. Though the wheels of an oncoming vehicle didn’t touch her, she was burned and scraped by the car’s undercarriage. One witness heard the commotion from her home and raced out to rescue the 18-month old child.