Virtual Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings are Now Safer from Predators

It took a pandemic to prove that NA and NA meetings could go virtual leaving the vulnerable population from sex predators and rapists that are in many face to face meetings that are mandated through Drug Courts.

‘The only thing missing are the hugs’: How people fight addiction amid coronavirus social distancing

Jayne O’Donnell

USA TODAY March 13th 2020
What do you call the disease caused by the novel coronavirus? Covid-19
 Congregating in church basements and other often-cramped quarters with people in recovery from addiction has long been key to staying sober for many. But the coronavirus means the meetings, hand-holding and close connection that come with the process present new risks.
Daytona Beach AA and NA meetings in the Parks.

Kenny Pomerance, who co-founded the online recovery community “In The Rooms” in 2008, said meetings are “essentially a lifeline” during the outbreak.

“If someone is afraid to attend a meeting due to the coronavirus, then they might be more apt to relapse, especially in early recovery,” said Pomerance, whose group was started for people unable to make face-to-face meetings. “The added stress and potential financial uncertainty is also a concern.”

Other recovery groups are adapting to coronavirus. Alcoholics Anonymous‘ General Service Office in New York City reported its members take precautions that include avoiding handshakes and hand-holding, along with stepping up cleanliness.

Lowell Cauffiel, a true crime author, screenwriter and producer in Hollywood, attends 12-step support meetings there and said he hasn’t seen a drop in attendance.

“I haven’t noticed any difference other than lack of handshakes and people putting their arms around each other during prayer,” Cauffiel said. “I find people have a positive attitude as a big part of recovery is not embracing fear.”

Some AA groups have contingency plans in case they have to halt in-person meetings and are developing contact lists so they can meet by phone or online. AA has online meetings where members can provide information just in case.

The group Smart Recovery, which hosts about 2,200 meetings in the USA, has about 150 meetings in California and 30 in Washington – the states hardest hit by coronavirus.

Its number of online meetings is growing, and more of its in-person meetings have canceled lately, executive director Mark Ruth said. The group is rolling out plans for facilitators of face-to-face meetings to offer online classes as an alternative. The organization has more than 130 live online video meetings.

Remote:Churches are closing doors, livestreaming services for congregants avoiding coronavirus

In The Rooms has nearly 600,000 online members who participate in 131 recovery meetings a week. Remote access is available around the world.

AA remains the biggest, with 66,345 groups in the USA totaling 1,361,838 members, it reported in January. The service office said groups make sure meeting hospitality tables are sanitary or they are temporarily “suspending food hospitality.”

In Savage, Minnesota, Vanessa Van Vorst said early this week that at the 12-step recovery meetings she attends, “we have hand sanitizer all over.” She and others worried that the sanitizer “smells like vodka,” which could trigger people new to the program to relapse. Covid-19 Ormond Beach AA and NA meetings.

By Thursday, she reported her groups decided “we will have to figure out online meetings.”  Dangerous Covid 19 NA and NA meetings Florida.

“I’m scared for our at risk members and also scared for alcoholics in general without having the meetings that keep us sober,” she said. “Online just won’t be the same. We won’t have the fellowship that we so desperately need.”

Cauffiel said he doesn’t worry about the hand sanitizer.  

“People are not as fragile as outsiders presume,” he said. “That’s why they are at a meeting, to reject triggers, as well as feel the protection of being in a group.”

Those used to the companionship that comes with meeting face-to-face shouldn’t be too disappointed with the online experience, Pomerance said.

“We’ve done our best to come up with a unique platform which gives the warmth and caring you’d find in any in-person meeting,” he said. “The only things missing are the hugs.”

 

Robbery Suspects Convicted and Mandated to AA and NA Meetings

These hardened criminals were sentenced to both AA and NA meetings after their jail time. 

Two get prison time for beating, robbing man on fishing boat

  • Mar 26, 2019
  GLOUCESTER — Two men have been sent to state prison for a 2016 beating and robbery aboard the Yankee Freedom that left the victim with a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Thomas Walsh, 50, of Gloucester, was sentenced on Tuesday to five to seven years in state prison, a week after a Lawrence Superior Court jury found him guilty of armed robbery, assault and battery causing serious bodily injury and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Port Orange Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings Churches Covid-19.

Meanwhile, his co-defendant in the case, Corey Richard, 33, of Danvers, pleaded guilty on the eve of trial to the same charges. He was sentenced under a plea agreement to 2 1/2 to four years in state prison on March 11. Holly Hill Sunrise Park Florida AA and NA.

 The beating occurred early on Oct. 12, 2016, aboard the fishing boat where the victim, who was 37 and originally from Florida, was living and working at the time.

Prosecutor Lindsay Nasson produced evidence that the two men had been drinking before going onto the boat with a plan to rob the man.

When the victim confronted the men, Walsh and Richard beat and kicked him, leaving him with three fractured ribs and a punctured lung, the district attorney’s office said.

They took the victim’s wallet, which contained more than $300, his watch and sunglasses, the prosecutor showed.

In a press release announcing the sentences, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett called the crime “a senseless act of violence motivated by greed and fueled by alcohol.”

 “The victim, a hard-working fisherman, suffered painful injuries that prevented him from working, and a loss of property,” said the district attorney.

The sentence imposed by Judge Jeffrey Karp for Walsh “reflects the severity of the crime and will provide the victim with some restitution,” said Blodgett.

Following his release, Walsh will be on three years of probation, with conditions that include no use of drugs or alcohol, unless he obtains a medical marijuana card, random testing, a mental health evaluation and treatment, including Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and $500 in restitution.

Richard will spend two years on probation following his release, and was also ordered to submit to random drug and alcohol testing.

Both men have been ordered to have no contact with and stay away from the victim.

Walsh’s attorney, Kirk Bransfield, did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment.

Richard was represented by public defender Amy Smith, who also did not immediately return a call Tuesday seeking comment on the case.

https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/two-get-prison-time-for-beating-robbing-man-on-fishing-boat/article_6526dc2c-8ab9-5498-a02b-34a0bf47a349.html

AA Member Convicted of Sexual Battery Of College Student He Met at Alcoholics Anonymous

636662312159685898-koleimij.jpg

Kevin J. Koelemij, a legal and political gadfly and former massage therapist, was found guilty today of sexually assaulting a young man he befriended at a substance abuse meeting and took into his confidence.

A Leon County jury delivered its verdict after deliberating for 20 minutes, said Assistant State Attorney Lorena Vollrath-Bueno. Koelemij, who had been out on bail for more than three years, was sent to the Leon County Detention Center where he awaits sentencing, set for July 11.  NA Daytona Meetings Port Orange Florida

Koelemij, the son of a late prominent local developer and a one-time city commission aide, faces up to 30 years for the first-degree felony count of sexual battery when a victim is physically helpless. Holly Hill AA Meetings Sunrise Park

“There was not a huge dispute as to the facts,” Vollrath-Bueno said. “The issue came down to consent. Based on the facts we had the evidence that showed that the victim did not consent to what happened.” Dangerous AA and NA Daytona Meetings continue

Koelemij’s attorney, Don Pumphrey, did not return a call for comment.

Koelemij and the 20-year-old man met at an AA meeting. At the time, the victim was an out-of-state college student struggling to stay sober, Vollrath-Bueno said.

“Kevin Koelemij is a well-known person in the A.A. community, and had supported him in recovery, and (the man) confided in him,” Vollrath-Bueno said.

Over the course of six to nine months, their relationship grew and the victim “built up a level of trust with Mr. Koelemij,” she said.

On the night of Feb. 28, 2015, he went over to Koelemij’s house after an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to talk, according to the probable cause affidavit.

They talked for awhile and at about 2 a.m. Koelemij offered to give him a massage. The man said he fell asleep around 3:45 a.m. and awoke to what “felt like someone was performing oral sex” on him, according to the probable cause affidavit. He looked down and saw Koelemij’s face down in his groin and asked what was going on.

After discussing the incident with friends the victim decided to report it to the police.

Following an interview with Koelemij, and learning of other similar allegations, he was charged and arrested in March 2015.

The victim is once again clean and sober and doing well in his life, Vollrath-Bueno said. “He just finished a special course in the military,” she said. She didn’t give the branch of the military or the state where he was stationed in order to continue to protect his identity.

She said the victim would be attending the sentencing hearing via Skype.

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/07/03/tallahassee-man-convicted-sexual-assault-during-massage/756199002/

The 13th Step Sexual Predators in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous Sub Culture

Jaroslava Mendez with a photo of her daughter, Karla Brada, who was killed by her fiance while both were in Alcoholics Anonymous. Mendez has kept Karla’s bedroom as a memorial to her. Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)Jaroslava Mendez with a photo of her daughter, Karla Brada, who was killed by her fiance while both were in Alcoholics Anonymous. Mendez has kept Karla’s bedroom as a memorial to her. Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

‘The 13th step’: Alcoholics Anonymous wrestles with subculture of sexual predators

 By  | tsaavedra@scng.com | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED:  | UPDATED: 

Abram Tuvov had been sober so long that Alcoholics Anonymous members in Palm Springs just assumed he was a good guy.

One female AA member who was new in town felt comfortable enough to go on an afternoon bicycle ride with him, even stopping at his house for waffles. The November 2014 outing ended with Tuvov, 72, raping the woman so viciously that she played dead until it was over.

Tuvov, who lives minutes away from the woman, was convicted, but is out on $150,000 bail while awaiting sentencing.

Abram Tuvov, Eric Allen Earle, William Beliveau and Lance Glock, from left. (Photos Courtesy Palm Springs PD, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Megan's Law file)
Abram Tuvov, Eric Allen Earle, William Beliveau and Lance Glock, from left. (Photos Courtesy Palm Springs PD, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Megan’s Law file)

Sexual predation among AA groups is so common that it is known in many circles as the 13th step of the famed 12-step program. Victims, former officials and some members say the culture of the organization — unregulated and loosely organized — puts vulnerable alcoholics at risk to predatory leaders whose only credential is their longtime sobriety.

And while many members are in Alcoholics Anonymous of their own volition, some criminal offenders are there as part of their court sentences. Unless they volunteer it, other members of the group don’t know their criminal history.

“It’s a bad set-up,” said the 48-year-old rape victim, who remains sober. “It’s a predator’s party.”

Tuvov was found guilty last year of rape, oral copulation by force, penetration with a foreign object and sexual battery. Neither he nor his lawyer could be reached for comment.

A representative for Alcoholics Anonymous’ General Service Office in New York stressed that each local group in the fellowship operates independently. However, top leaders in the United States and Canada have developed guidelines and reading material that acknowledge the dangers and advise members to be watchful. Leaders also warn that wrongdoers cannot hide behind the cloak of anonymity.

The fellowship even created a “safety card” that reads, in part: “We request that members and others refrain from any behavior which might compromise another person’s safety.”

But it is up to each group to decide what to do with the card.

“G.S.O. often shares the experience that has been shared with us to help AA groups study and decide how they will apply AA principles to their daily lives — to reach an informed group conscience — as every AA group gets to do,” said the representative, who requested anonymity.

Former directors and victims advocates insist the Alcoholics Anonymous General Service Board can do more to protect local members.

“Each group is autonomous. That’s … an excuse not to use the power the board has to stop abusive behavior,” said James Branscome, a former board director. “There are groups in AA where you could call it a meat market. You have older guys hitting on newcomer women. Some groups are hijacked by gurus, and AA will claim they have no power to do anything about it.”

And the attacks keep stacking up:

• In Santa Clarita, an AA member killed his 31-year-old fiancee, whom he met through the group, in 2011. Eric Allen Earle is now serving 26 years to life at R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.

• In Ventura County, two women were sexually assaulted by an AA leader who gained their trust and then gave them booze. William Beliveau is behind bars serving a 10-year sentence at Chino state prison.

• In Covina, an AA member and owner of a sober living home had to shut down his facility after his history of arrests for indecent exposure, sexual battery and unlawful touching came to light in 2012. Lance Paul Glock is listed in Megan’s Law as an offender in violation of parole.

‘Feeding grounds for predators’

Monica Richardson, who spent 36 years in Alcoholics Anonymous, produced the 2015 documentary, “The 13th Step,” tracking such sexual assaults across the world.

“How has this been tolerated?” Richardson said. “These (AA) meetings have become the feeding grounds for predators. It’s all over the world.”

Richardson and others are pushing for Alcoholics Anonymous to adopt a zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment and force leaders to undergo anti-harassment training. They also want the fellowship to create separate meetings for people under 21 years old and discourage courts and related services from dispatching criminal offenders.

According to the AA Worldwide website, there are 2 million members in 180 countries practicing the 12 steps toward self-reliance and inner faith.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 4.5 percent of U.S. men are alcoholics, with women at 2.5 percent.

Richardson said most alcoholics are downtrodden and accustomed to being scolded by family members, bosses and parents. Already yearning for acceptance, they get “love-bombed” at the meetings, she said.

“People come very, very lonely. Then they get hugged and love-bombed and told, ‘I love you, I love you,’’’ Richardson said. “A lot of them don’t have the assertiveness to say, ‘No’ (after that.)”

Meanwhile, those with the most years of sobriety are considered “elders,” with almost instant credibility, she said.

In an internal letter to the AA General Service Board in 2008, former board member Paul Cleary offered his concern that minors in Alcoholics Anonymous are especially endangered.

“Of course, alcoholics are not exempt from the problems of society, and this includes child sexual abuse. Alcoholics are not well-known for their even-keeled relationships, their well-defined boundaries or their maturity in sexual situations,” said the document obtained by the Southern California News Group. “It is not surprising that these problems continue into the sobriety period of some AA members. For all we know, the rate of child sexual abuse in AA may be higher than that of other organizations that are specifically set up to address the concerns of youth.”

The letter led to few, if any, changes.

“We’ve got murderers sitting next to movie stars. Everybody is thrown into the crucible because we all got the same problem,” said one former board member who requested anonymity. “For people to think, ‘You are not drinking, therefore, you are fine,’ is naive and inaccurate.”

‘Everybody knew she was in danger’

Eric Allen Earle had attended the program for 20 years, both voluntarily and at times as part of his court sentences, for such things as assault and domestic violence, according to news accounts. It was at an AA meeting in Santa Clarita that he met future fiancée Karla Brada, who had her own condo, a good job at a medical firm and an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Earle pursued and eventually moved in with Brada. Then the beatings began. Earle punched Brada in the face and tried to drown her in the kitchen sink in August 2011, said Brada’s mother, Jaroslava Mendez, 72, of Sylmar.

Earle was arrested and jailed. Brada was ready to leave him there, but AA leaders besieged her to bail him out, Mendez said. The leaders even drove her to the jail to pay the bond.

Three weeks later, Earle again choked and beat Brada, this time to death.

“Everybody knew he had beaten her (the first time), everybody knew she was in danger. Nobody did anything,” Mendez said. “I mean, HELLO!”

The grieving mother tried unsuccessfully to sue Alcoholics Anonymous for wrongful death. Still, Mendez keeps trying to get out the message:

“It‘s very dangerous in AA.”

The mentor

William Beliveau was a go-to guy at AA meetings in Thousand Oaks. Beliveau taught lessons on the AA “big book” — the unofficial bible of Alcoholics Anonymous — and handed out sobriety coins at meetings. He was steeped in the culture.

And, according to prosecutors, he sponsored alcoholic women with an eye toward mentoring them into bed.

On one occasion, Beliveau showed up for a date with a bottle of booze under his arm. On another, he started the evening by purchasing an alcoholic drink for his date, another AA member.

Beliveau never imbibed himself, said Ventura County Senior Deputy District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.

“His whole notion of being a sponsor was a ruse,” Nasarenko said. “He knew first-hand how vulnerable these women were.”

Nasarenko continued: “He was someone who was looked up to and gained the trust and confidence of certain women. At the meetings he appeared to have some recognition.”

Beliveau was convicted in July 2017 of raping one woman who was intoxicated and another who was unconscious. Both were in their 50s and pressed charges using their first names only, Susan and Heidi.

Nasarenko said Beliveau put his victims up in hotels under the pretense of sponsoring them.

In addition to the two rapes, Beliveau was suspected of assaulting two other AA members, again plying them with alcohol.

“It became clear to the government, this was part of a pattern, something the defendant did with multiple women,” Nasarenko said. “He was somebody who would take advantage.”

Megan’s Law

Lance Paul Glock, owner of a Covina sober living home and AA member, wasn’t afraid to fight City Hall. Glock sued Covina for trying to regulate his Johnson Sober Living Home in 2011.

Glock had to drop the litigation and close the facility, according to his former lawyer, Lou Fazzi, after his criminal history caught up with him in 2012.

In a two-day period, Glock, then 51, was arrested for allegedly sexually touching a woman in a discount store and again hauled away the next day for child annoyance in a Covina business, according to news accounts.

It wasn’t Glock’s first arrests. According to court records, Glock had been charged with six sex crimes — including indecent exposure — and two counts of vandalism since 1988.

His friend, Shane, who requested to be identified by only his first name in keeping with the tenets of AA, said Glock is not a rarity at group meetings.

“The people that come in are not poster children. We get all kinds of people,” said Shane, 70, who has spent most of his life in Alcoholics Anonymous. “It’s men on women, women on men, sick people on sick people. The only requirement is you have to desire to stop drinking.”

‘You’re not broken’

It seemed there was an extra requirement for the woman raped by Tuvov — don’t go to police.

Moments after the rape, the woman said, she went to her sponsor of three years, who advised her against reporting the attack to authorities or going to the hospital.

“She said, ‘You were not violently raped, you’re not broken,’ ” remembers the woman. ” ‘If you talk about this, you’re going to get a reputation in AA and everybody will hate you.’ “

The woman said her female sponsor advised her to work on her inner self and pray because she was a sinner. AA Daytona Beach Meetings are dangerous!

“I knew in my heart that what she was telling me was crazy. I knew it wasn’t the best advice,” the woman said. Holly Hill NA Daytona meetings are dangerous!

She called a rape hotline, which advised her to put her clothes in a sealed bag, preserving the DNA that Tuvov had left behind.

She said she didn’t report the rape to police until nearly a month later and the case file lingered for more months before the DNA was processed. While the investigation was slow going, the repercussions were immediate, she recalls.

Female members cornered her in bathrooms or hallways and told her to stop talking about the attack at meetings, because she was scaring off newcomers.

“They said I was ruining people’s chance to get sober. Rape was an outside issue,” the woman said. Sunrise Park Holly Hill Florida AA and NA Meetings are dangerous!

“There’s a lot of bad things that go on in the hush-hush.”

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/05/25/alcoholics-anonymous-wrestles-with-subculture-of-sexual-predators/

ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS CONTINUES TO PERPETUATE SEXUAL ABUSE

The Culture of Alcoholics Anonymous Perpetuates Sexual Abuse

Women are encouraged to “look for their part” in what’s happened to them.

“I still believe in the foundation of AA because it did save my life and help me get sober almost ten years ago,” says Adrian Wilson. She tells me she had been in the program for six years when she met a man at an Alcoholics Anonymous barbecue hosted by her female sponsor. The man asked for her card, saying he could help promote her clothing business. Wilson says she checked with her sponsor as to whether the man was a “safe” person and was told “yes—he’s an elder with 30 years sober.” A few weeks later, Wilson alleges that she went on a bike ride with him and then stopped by his house for waffles where he proceeded to sexually assault her “in every way, shape, and form.”

Wilson says she drove to her sponsor’s house, hysterical, immediately after the rape where her sponsor told her not to call the police or go to the hospital because “everyone in AA will hate you.” She suggested that instead, Wilson “get on [her] knees and pray, work the steps, and look for [her] part in what happened.”

Wilson says she initially trusted her alleged perpetrator because “elders,” those with many years of sobriety in the program, are considered golden in the AA community—highly respected and put on a pedestal. Wilson ultimately decided to press charges and is now awaiting a second trial nearly three years after the alleged incident. Her first case ended in a mistrial this past summer. Wilson states her AA “family” disintegrated quickly when she began speaking out about the alleged attack.

“I tried to stay in the family because that was my support group and that’s what kept me sober. So, I went into meetings and I talked about it. I said: ‘I was raped by a man in AA,’ and I was hauled out of meetings by various women saying: ‘How dare you say that in a meeting.’ They said that I was going to scare newcomers, that I was going to keep them from getting sober.”

The recent avalanche of allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and other powerful members of the Hollywood community have been a horrifying reminder of the prevalence of sexual assault, harassment, exploitation and abuse in American society. There is something uniquely heartbreaking, though, about the way people who have been sexually abused in AA (and other 12 step groups) are encouraged to “look for their part” in what has happened to them.

In addition to that, the fear that goes along with being cast out of the AA community is about more than a loss of social and emotional support or employment. AA members are repeatedly told that leaving the fellowship will lead them to drink, which will lead them to die and that the community’s welfare is more important than the individual’s. “AA must continue to live or most of us will surely die,” states AA’s First Tradition. “Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterwards.”

“It’s not the same. Not at all, because you’re taught that AA is the only way you’re going to be able to survive. You’re taught that if you leave meetings, ‘you’re going to drink, you’re going to use, you’re going to die,’” she tells me. “So, to speak out against sexual harassment in meetings is like risking your life. Leaving meetings means using. Using means jails, institutions, and death.”

“Jails, institutions, and death” is another commonly used phrase taken from Narcotics Anonymous literature to refer to the inevitable fate ahead for those who leave the fellowship. Leslie also states she was told by a fellow AA member that she “wouldn’t be free” until she “found her part” in her own childhood sexual abuse.

“I still believe in the program,” says Natalie Patterson, who has been attending AA meetings since 2011. “I think the fellowship is dangerous—extremely dangerous.” Patterson states she was also sexually assaulted by a man that she met through AA. When she spoke out about the assault and filed a personal protection order against her alleged attacker, she says that she was ostracized by fellow AA members and that her membership at the club where her home meetings were hosted was revoked. Patterson attempted to prosecute her alleged attacker but was unsuccessful. She won a civil suit against him in 2016.

“I just can’t imagine any female who attends AA for even a brief period of time doesn’t experience some form of sexual harassment,” says Jenny, who wishes to remain anonymous. Jenny was in the program for more than 12 years before walking away. “I would be slapped on the butt and I had people stalk me and the older people in meetings would say ‘Oh, they’re actually really good people and maybe they’re sick and you should pray for them’ and ‘What did you do to make this happen?’ Men in AA are emboldened to behave the way they do because you’re not allowed to have any resentments, and if you do have one the solution is to look at where you fucked up.”

“Look for your part” is a 12 step-ism that appears to have derived from a well-meaning passage from AA’s main text, “The Big Book,” which states: “Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame?”

The Narcotics Anonymous “fellowship-approved” document “Working Step Four in Narcotics Anonymous” uses the language to guide their members for through their fourth step “inventory”: “In each situation, try to see where you were wrong, what your motives were, and what your part was.”

What began as a recommendation encouraging members to take personal responsibility for their actions and let go of resentments against others for the sake of their own well-being is now being used in many 12 step groups as a way to put the responsibility for sexual harassment, exploitation, and assault within the community back on the victims themselves.

And while it hasn’t been this way for every woman in the program, a pattern of oppression persists. “AA has absolutely saved my life,” says Amy Dresner, who has been in and out of AA for 20 years, and recently published a memoir about her addiction and recovery called My Fair Junkie. “I was never sexually harassed per se,” Dresner says. “What I did feel happened to me was that I was preyed upon when I was very vulnerable. When I came in and I was new, no girls pulled me aside and said ‘Hey, these are the guys who usually wait for the fresh meat to come in. These are the guys that fuck the newcomers.’ I was fucked multiple times by guys with who had double digit [years of] sobriety while I was still counting days. I was 13th stepped.”

“13th stepping” is a phrase all of the women I spoke to were familiar with. It is not an actual step in the program, but rather an expression commonly used within the fellowship to refer to the practice in which elder members with more years of sobriety sexually pursue newcomers because they’re in a vulnerable state and more open to manipulation. A 2003 study in the Journal of Addictions Nursing showed that 50 percent of the female AA members surveyed had experienced the 13th stepping phenomenon.

In spite of this, Dresner says it’s the responsibility of those entering the program to go in with their eyes open. “If you’re expecting it to be a room full of saints, you’re an idiot. It’s a place where sick people go to get better. It’s a looney bin. Wherever there’s a power hierarchy there’s going to be sexual abuse. AA is no different. There is a power hierarchy,” she tells me.

 Dresner states that she has witnessed some internal policing of sexual harassment within the group. “What I have seen happen is a whole meeting kicked someone out after he was sexually harassing another member, sending her texts and following her to her car,” she says. “I also knew a girl who was newly sober and a virgin. She got in a relationship with a fellow member and he videotaped her—without her knowledge—giving him head and dispersed that video to people in AA and his friends. She had a total breakdown, but he was not just run out of AA, he was run out of town. So there is our own Wild West type of police forcing that happens.”

Monica Richardson was a member of AA for 36 years before she walked away and embarked on a personal mission to expose abusive practices in the 12 step community. She produced a documentary about sexual and financial exploitation in 12 step groups called “The 13th Step,”and states that since starting her blog LeavingAA in 2010, she has received “thousands” of emails from current and former members who have experienced sexual harassment, assault and abuse from other members of “the fellowship.”

One of Richardson’s major points of contention with AA is their refusal to warn newcomers to the program that they may be sitting next to someone who has been court ordered to attend meetings as a condition of probation or parole. AA’s own 2014 membership survey states that 12 percent of members were referred to the organization by the criminal justice system. 

“AA needs to warn its members that there could be a sex offender or violent offender who’s been sent there, so be careful who you trust,” Richardson says. She also thinks that the group should tell the court system to stop requiring attendance for violent offenders, that the program should institute a hotline for members to call if they’ve been sexually assaulted by another program member, and that safety guidelines stating that sexual harassment, assault, and exploitation within the group are “not okay” should be read and posted at all meetings. Meeting leaders and sponsors are not required to go through any sort of training. 

She also rejects AA’s assertion that the program is a “microcosm of society” where sexual harassment and assault are no more likely to happen than they would anywhere else. “It’s not a microcosm,” she says. “You’re pulling together a group of people who are malfunctioning. They’re addicted to drugs and alcohol. They may have issues with self-esteem and being assertive. And they’re all reading a book from the 1930s.”

I contacted AA’s General Service Office for comment on this story and asked about the organization’s handling of what appears to be a rampant problem. They responded by directing me to two pamphlets released in 2017 which are available for download on their site, “Safety and AA: Our Common Welfare” and “Safety Card for AA Meetings,” which they tell me have been “made available to AA groups in the US and Canada should they choose to utilize them.” The first states that some groups have chosen to address issues including sexual harassment through their “group conscience.” The second states that members can ensure each other’s safety by “walking to your car in a group after a meeting” and also states that if “a situation breaches the law, the individuals involved should take appropriate action.”

When I pressed further, asking for specific answers to my questions, the response was always the same. I asked the rep if asking women to “look for their part” in their sexual assault, harassment, exploitation and childhood sexual abuse was a practice endorsed by the GSO, and was told that the links to the two flyers I was sent, which make no mention of looking for one’s part in abuse, had already “thoroughly and thoughtfully addressed” my question.

Same deal when I asked if the GSO had ever considered establishing a hotline for members of AA who had experienced sexual harassment or assault at the hands of another group member. And when I asked if the GSO had considered alerting newcomers that 12 percent of AA’s attendees were referred to (or forced to attend) the program by the criminal justice system, again, it was: “Refer to the flyers.”

 None of the women currently attending AA meetings that I spoke to for this article had ever seen or heard of either of these flyers.

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/7x4m8q/sexual-assault-alcoholics-anonymous

AA Member Convicted of Sexually Assaulting Women He Met at Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings

WilliamBeliveau.jpeg

Newbury Park man convicted of sexually preying on women in AA

, Marjorie.Hernandez@vcstar.com 805-437-0263

July 27, 2017

A jury found a Newbury Park man guilty of sexually assaulting two women he met through Alcoholics Anonymous programs.

After about a two-week trial in Ventura County Superior Court, jurors on Thursday voted unanimously and found William Beliveau, 64, guilty of one felony count of sexual penetration of an adult woman while she was intoxicated, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Erik Nasarenko.  Daytona AA and NA Meetings in Sunrise Park.

Jurors also found Beliveau guilty of one felony count of sexual penetration of an adult woman while she was asleep or unconscious. The Newbury Park man could face a maximum of 10 years in state prison when he returns to court for sentencing on Aug. 24, Nasarenko said. Holly Hill Florida Daytona AA Meetings are dangerous!

The prosecutor said Beliveau befriended the two victims, both in their 50s, at Alcoholics Anonymous programs in Malibu and the Conejo Valley.

“The defendant took advantage of women who were struggling with the disease of alcoholism and used their vulnerability to commit crimes of sexual assault,” Nasarenko said.

 Thousand Oaks police arrested Beliveau on June 25, 2016, after responding to a report of a sexual assault in the 1300 block of Newbury Road.

The woman told police she was staying at a hotel with Beliveau when he assaulted her. The woman was examined by a forensics assault nurse, and DNA was later found on the woman’s body that matched Beliveau’s DNA, Nasarenko said.

During the trial, a second victim testified she had relapsed and was in a heavily intoxicated state sometime in December 2015.

“She remembers waking up in her Thousand Oaks house to the defendant penetrating her,” Nasarenko said. “She remembers going to bed with clothes on, but she woke up nude and the defendant was between her legs. … He was nude, as well.”

Nasarenko said Beliveau was an engineer for a sign company and had a 1980 aggravated assault conviction in Pennsylvania.

Beliveau also will have to register as a sexual offender once he is sentenced in August, Nasarenko said.

http://www.vcstar.com/story/news/2017/07/28/newbury-park-man-found-guilty-sexual-assault/518641001/

12 Step Member Charged with Child Porn with Teen He Met At 12 Step Meeting, Also Charged With The Murder Of Woman Stabbing Her 100 Times

 Accused murderer pleads not guilty to child porn charges

Illegal Immigrant Threatens to Cut off Head of Boss with Knife, Attorney Suggests he be Ordered to Attend Alcoholics Anonymous

MORRISTOWN — A Superior Court judge ordered the pretrial detention of a man who is charged with returning to his workplace in Parsippany with a 16-inch hunting knife and threatening to cut off an owner’s head, moments after he was fired for being drunk on the job, according to records.

“The nature and circumstances of the offense are particularly troubling to the court on a number of fronts,” Superior Court Judge Stephen Taylor said in Morristown on Tuesday, in deciding to detain Brooklyn, N.Y. resident Gregory Radzyuk, 46, in the Morris County jail while his criminal charges are pending.

Radzyuk was fired on June 27 from Farmplast where he worked as a welder, according to information made public during his detention hearing on Tuesday.

Farmplast, a manufacturer of plastic containers, is located on E. Halsey Road in Parsippany. The company fired Radzyuk after he allegedly reported to work intoxicated, despite prior warnings, according to court documents. An immigrant from Israel who has been in this country since 2000, Radzyuk also has overstayed his work visa and was due to have an immigration hearing in September, according to hearing information.

 After he was fired, Radzyuk allegedly retrieved from his car a 16-inch, double-edged serrated hunting knife, re-entered the business, grabbed the arm of the female co-owner and said: “I’ll cut your (expletive) head off,” Morris County Assistant Prosecutor John McNamara Jr. said at the hearing. NA Daytona Beach Florida is dangerous.

The knife was in a sheath, and Radzyuk did not unsheathe it, said authorities. Police have said other employees were able to seize the knife and restrain Radzyuk outside the building until police arrived. AA Daytona Beach Florida is dangerous.

Radzyuk is divorced and said he lives in Brooklyn with his mother’s cousin. Under the state’s new criminal justice reform program – which does not use monetary bail as a factor in release from custody – McNamara filed a motion with the court for Radzyuk’s pretrial detention. McNamara said Radzyuk poses a danger to the community and specifically to the victim at Farmplast, and is a flight risk.

As occurs now with all defendants who are charged on warrant complaints, a public safety assessment (PSA) was done on Radzyuk through an algorithm used on all defendants. A score was produced that showed him to be a low risk for committing a new offense or failing to appear and recommended that he be released pretrial.

The Prosecutor’s Office disagreed and filed a detention motion, noting the PSA didn’t include Radzyuk’s past failure to appear in court on motor vehicle offenses nor accounted for his particular characteristics.

 

Since the PSA was low and release was recommended, it was McNamara’s burden to prove to the judge that no conditions could be placed on Radzyuk that would protect the community short of detention.

Other factors warrant detention, McNamara argued, citing Radzyuk’s alleged drinking habits, his tenuous stay in the United States because of his expired work visa, and documents that show different addresses for him in New York City. McNamara said Radzyuk may even be transient.

Defense attorney Elizabeth Martin argued for release, and said Radzyuk, who was assisted at the hearing by a Hebrew interpreter, wants to stay in the United States and hopes to renew his work visa during the immigration hearing in September. But the judge noted Radzyuk no longer has a job.

Martin suggested Radzyuk be released on condition he have no contact with the alleged victims and said he could even be ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I don’t think we can detain someone just because they have an alcohol problem,” she said, noting that Radzyuk has no prior criminal record, only motor vehicle offenses. “We can’t detain a person just because he is homeless.”

Taylor said Radzyuk poses a danger to the victim and is a flight risk. He said he could not think of a release package that would ensure Radzyuk was adequately supervised on release and opted to keep him in the Morris County jail while the charges are pending. He asked why Radzyuk had a 16-inch hunting knife in his vehicle.

“That is very troubling,” the judge said. “I have not heard any legitimate reason for it.”

Radzyuk is charged with burglary for re-entering the business after being told to leave; terroristic threats, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon.

http://www.dailyrecord.com/story/news/crime/morris-county/2017/07/11/fired-worker-accused-wielding-hunting-knife-parsippany-remain-jail-pretrial/468215001/

AA Sponsor Charged With Felony Sexual Abuse of Sponsee

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Trial set for Osage man accused of sex abuse

MARY PIEPER  mary.pieper@globegazette.com

April 26th 2017

 OSAGE — An Osage man sentenced to up to 35 years in prison last year for attempted murder and sexual abuse has a trial set in June on additional sexual abuse charges involving a second alleged victim.

Mark Retterath, 52, is accused of committing sexual acts against the will of a man while acting as his Alcohol Anonymous sponsor in May and June 2015.

Retterath was not only the man’s AA sponsor, but also served as an officer with the organization, according to the criminal complaint.

 He is scheduled to be tried June 6 on felony charges of third-degree sexual abuse and sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist.

Those charges were filed in June 2015, around the same time Retterath was charged with attempted murder and solicitation to commit murder for allegedly plotting to kill another man accusing Retterath of sexually abusing him from the time he was a teenager.

Retterath was found guilty by a jury in August 2016 of attempted murder, solicitation to commit murder and third-degree sexual abuse.

 Investigators said Retterath decided to kill the accuser in the initial sexual abuse case with the poison ricin to prevent him from testifying against him.

Retterath allegedly got the idea for the murder method from a friend, who’d seen a TV character make ricin from castor beans and kill someone on AMC’s hit show “Breaking Bad.”

http://wcfcourier.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/trial-set-for-osage-man-accused-of-sex-abuse/article_b5479707-7ada-505a-95a4-a28e15d22ba0.html

       

Church Will Stop Hosting Alcohol Anonymous Meetings After Complaints From Neighbors

Alcoholics Anonymous left homeless in Paso Robles

Support groups will need to find a new meeting place by February 2017

–Leaders at St. James Episcopal Church will stop hosting meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous and similar support groups after being pressured by the city and receiving complaints about the meetings from neighbors. NA Daytona Meetings in Park.

Paso Robles city officials met with parishioners at the church earlier this year advising them the group meetings are “non-church” activities and require a special permit.

The church asked the Paso Robles Planning Commission for a conditional use permit on Nov. 8. The commission heard from church members in favor of the permit and neighbors opposed to it. Neighbors Mark Brown and Brian Bengard complained about parking on the street, noise of people talking, and hours of operation.

The commission declined to approve the permit and instead asked for mediation between parishioners and neighbors. But, after one mediation session, church leaders decided to stop hosting the support meetings at the end of Feb. 2017.

Saint James’ currently hosts 27 weekly meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Al-Anon, and Overeaters Anonymous. In addition, lunch was served for the hungry of Paso Robles. The church, founded in 1891, has hosted AA meetings since 1949. AA Daytona have dangerous violent felons at meetings.

AA meetings canceled

Overview of the church location’s and proximity to the surrounding neighborhood residences.

“When faced with the inevitable fact that a significant number of meetings would possibly be minimized due to the permit requirement, we decided to withdraw our application and help the groups find other venues for their meetings,” said Corporate Secretary Michael Coffin for the church and a member of the church council.

“We felt it wouldn’t be fair to limit the number of meetings any particular group could host, or limit which groups could host meetings in general. As a church we don’t want to be in the position to deny meetings that are important for supporting people. We decided to help the groups find space where they can meet as often as they need rather than force them into a schedule with us that won’t be workable.”

“Addiction does not have a time clock, when they need a meeting they need a meeting,” said Coffin. “This is a great opportunity for community organizing. This will bring the council people and the city members together to help our community. Some groups have already reached out to the city to find new locations and they are all actively working to find new meeting locations by February.”

Planning Commission Chairman Bob Rollins, who recommended mediation, said, “This is really unfortunate as there is a very real need for someone or someplace in the city to accommodate these meetings. It is an important issue for these people and I suspect that maybe it is better to divide up the meetings, so that the burden would not be on one facility to host all weekly meetings.”

Neighbor Mark Brown was pleased with the outcome. “The situation has been resolved, by talks being done closely and directly between the church and residents, with support of the city… without dissent and with everyone involved on good working terms,” he said. 

Statement from St. James Episcopal Church’s permit application

“Meeting both the spiritual and temporal needs of Paso Robles defines the mission of our church and harkens to the most basic social responsibility that we as citizens are called to provide: basic care for each other. This mission must also be carried out with our dual responsibility to be a good neighbor to those with whom we share our geographical location. It is a balancing act that requires all parties to work closely together in the efforts to help those in need and to provide a safe and healthy neighborhood for all.

Through attention to facility use (including entrance/exit of attendees), parking considerations, and hours of use, we believe Saint James’ is being a responsible neighbor and still providing for the vital needs of our community. We look forward to working closely with our neighbors and city government to be a beacon of hope for our friends and families in need for generations to come.”

http://pasoroblesdailynews.com/alcoholics-anonymous-left-homeless-paso-robles/65421/

AA Killer Eric Earle Murders Alcoholics Anonymous Girlfriend: 26-years-to-life upheld

Photo via Pixabay

Killer murders Alcoholics Anonymous girlfriend: 26-years-to-life upheld

A state appeals court panel Tuesday upheld a former Saugus resident’s conviction for the September 2011 murder of his girlfriend, whom he met earlier that year at an Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that there were errors in the trial of Eric Allen Earle, including the admission of evidence of uncharged acts of domestic violence against the murder victim, Karla Brada, and his ex-wife.

The appellate court justices noted in their 58-page ruling that there was “overwhelming evidence demonstrating that defendant was intoxicated the night of August 31 to September 1, and that when defendant was intoxicated, he became angry, belligerent, aggressive and threatening, even with law enforcement officers, male friends, nurses, jailers and his mother.

We discern no reasonable probability that the (trial) result would have been different absent evidence of defendant’s prior acts of domestic violence,” the panel found.

Earle was convicted in September 2014 of first-degree murder for the Sept. 1, 2011, asphyxiation of his girlfriend, Karla Brada, who died just two days short of her 32nd birthday. Holly Hill Sunrise Park AA Meetings have Violent Felons.

Brada was found dead inside the condominium she shared with Earle, who maintained she had fallen down the stairs and then come upstairs and shown him some bruises from the fall. He said he awoke to find her dead in bed. AA Daytona Meetings in Holly Hill Park.

Earle is serving a 26-year-to-life prison sentence.

http://mynewsla.com/crime/2016/12/20/killer-murders-alcoholics-anonymous-girlfriend-26-years-to-life-upheld/

Longtime AA Member That Lead Meetings for Years Gets Life Sentence for 9th DWI

Donald Middleton, 56, of Houston was sentenced by a Montgomery County judge on June 6, 2016 to life in prison for a DWI conviction stemming from an incident on Memorial Day 2015. It was the man?s ninth DWI conviction, and he won?t be eligible for parole for 30 years. Middleton registered a blood alcohol content of more than twice the legal limit after his vehicle struck a car driven by a teenager, who was not injured. The judge found Middleton had used his vehicle as a deadly weapon. Photo: Norm Gomlak / handout

Donald Middleton, 56, of Houston was sentenced by a Montgomery County judge on June 6, 2016 to life in prison for a DWI conviction stemming from an incident on Memorial Day 2015. It was the man’s ninth DWI conviction, and he won’t be eligible for parole for 30 years. Middleton registered a blood alcohol content of more than twice the legal limit after his vehicle struck a car driven by a teenager, who was not injured. The judge found Middleton had used his vehicle as a deadly weapon.

Repeat DWI offender gets life sentence for 9th conviction

56-year-old not eligible for parole from state prison until he’s 86

A Houston man’s ninth DWI conviction has landed him a life sentence with no possibility of parole until he is 86, Montgomery County prosecutors said Wednesday.

Donald Middleton, 56, was driving with a valid license about 9 p.m. on Memorial Day 2015 when he made a left turn into oncoming traffic and struck another vehicle, Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Justin Fowles said. Under state law, a DWI conviction can get a driver’s license suspended but not permanently revoked.
At the time, Middleton was on parole from a 13-year prison sentence he received in 2009 following a DWI conviction. This time, because the judge found Middleton used his vehicle as a deadly weapon, he will not be eligible for parole for 30 years.

Middleton turned left onto Fostoria Road from Four Pines Road, near Texas 59 and about 5 miles south of Cleveland. Prosecutors said surveillance video from a convenience store showed him turning into the left lane and striking a red truck driven by 16-year-old Joshua Hayden, whose father is Montgomery County Precinct 4 Constable Rowdy Hayden. The teen was not injured. Daytona Beach AA and NA Meetings are dangerous!

After the crash, Middleton ran into the convenience store, audio and video surveillance shows.

“Hide me,” he told the clerk repeatedly. He then entered a neighboring home with the same request, Fowles said.

With a search warrant under the district attorney’s “No Refusal” program, the responding officer tested Middleton’s blood alcohol content. According to the district attorney’s office, it was 0.184 percent, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Fowles said jury selection was set to begin last month when Middleton conferred with his attorney, Bill Cheadle, and agreed to plead guilty to the felony DWI charge.

“The bottom line is, he was trying to take responsibility, finally, after nine times,” the attorney said.

During the sentencing hearings, Middleton took the stand and told District Judge Kathleen Hamilton that his drinking began as a freshman in high school after years of being picked on by classmates, according to the Montgomery County Police Reporter. Middleton showed no remorse for the crash, the website reported.

On Monday, Hamilton sentenced Middleton to life in state prison. Cheadle said Wednesday that an appeal is in the works.

Cheadle said a ninth DWI offense points to a broken system.

“We’re not dealing with the root of the problem,” he said. “We need a system where this person is not allowed to drive ever again, not just by being in jail, but by getting state-sponsored rehabilitation or an interlock system.”

Fowles and Cheadle both said Middleton twice had been sent to Alcoholics Anonymous while out of prison and had received counseling in prison. But Cheadle said alternatives remained.

“We’re in an age of technology where we can prevent somebody from driving,” he said, adding that Middleton had been sober for six years before the most recent incident. In fact, Cheadle said Middleton, who worked an at auto service center, had been leading AA meetings and had met his girlfriend there.

Fowles said a life sentence was the appropriate response for a ninth DWI, which is rare but not unprecedented in Montgomery County. In February 2015, a Montgomery County jury gave two life sentences to 64-year-old Bobby Gene Martin of Houston, after his 10th DWI conviction.

“To me there was no question that we needed to do everything that we could to ensure he wouldn’t be on the roads driving with our friends, our families, our kids on the road putting everyone at risk,” Fowles told reporters after the sentence was handed down.

“Many people are worth the risk of trying to help fix them, so to speak, but Donald Middleton is not one of them,” Fowles told the Chronicle on Wednesday.

According to Harris County court records, Middleton was charged with his first DWI when he was 20. He also faced charges in 1983, 1992, 1993, twice in 1997, 1999, and 2008. In 1993 he faced a separate charge of possessing crack cocaine.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Repeat-DWI-offender-gets-life-sentence-for-9th-7971698.php

Stanford Sex Assault Judge Went Easy On Student Athlete Mandating AA Meetings

 

Stanford Sex Assault Judge Went Easy On Another Student Athlete

Judge Aaron Persky, under fire for his sentencing of former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, delayed sentencig for a domestic violence offender so he could play football in Hawaii. “They made it easy for him,” the victim told BuzzFeed News.

The California judge who faces a recall campaign after giving a former Stanford swimmer a six-month jail sentence for sexual assault approved an extraordinarily lenient sentencing arrangement for another young male athlete convicted of domestic violence, according to court records. NA Daytona and AA Daytona Meetings are dangerous.

In February 2015, 21-year-old Ikaika Gunderson beat and choked his ex-girlfriend. He quickly confessed to police and three months later pleaded no contest to a felony count of domestic violence.

Gunderson faced up to four years in state prison, but he got a break.

In most domestic violence cases, sentencing occurs within a month or two of the guilty plea, but Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky agreed to delay sentencing for more than a year so that Gunderson could attend the University of Hawaii, where he had been accepted, and play football there.

The judge said he would reduce Gunderson’s charge to a misdemeanor if the athlete completed a 52-week domestic violence program and attended weekly AA meetings.

Typically, domestic violence defendants have to successfully complete probation before a felony charge is reduced. But instead of having to report to a probation officer, Gunderson was told he did not have to check in with the judge for seven months. Even then, Persky said Gunderson’s attorney could appear on his client’s behalf, meaning Gunderson did not have to return to California. Holly Hill Sunrise Park AA Meetings are dangerous.

The unorthodox arrangement also skirted a federal statute that bars adult offenders from moving out of state without permission.

It was a generous show of good faith, but it did not work out.

By October, Gunderson had dropped out of college and stopped attending AA meetings. He also had failed to take part in the required domestic violence program. Two months later, he was arrested on another domestic violence charge in Washington state.

Persky’s decisions have been under scrutiny since the victim in the Stanford rape case released a letter describing the devastating impact the attack had on her. Prosecutors had asked for six years in prison, but Persky gave Turner six months, which was in line with what the probation officer suggested. Turner is scheduled to be released on Sept. 2.

On Aug. 25, Persky asked to be reassigned from criminal to civil cases in hopes that the move would reduce the distractions the Turner sentencing brought to the court. The recall campaign against him will continue, said its leader, Michele Dauber, adding that Persky could transfer back to hearing criminal cases whenever he chooses.

“Judicial bias is just as serious regardless of whether a case is civil or criminal,” Dauber said in a statement. “Many issues affecting women are heard in civil court every day.”

Persky’s critics say the Gunderson case fits the judge’s pattern of leniency in cases involving privileged men charged with serious crimes. Persky’s supporters counter that the judge’s actions show his desire to offer young offenders a chance at rehabilitation rather than incarceration. They say it’s unfair to hold Persky under a microscope, especially since prosecutors have to sign off on plea agreements, too.

But lawyers, domestic violence advocates, and other experts who were briefed on the case, including one high-profile judge who has publicly opposed the recall campaign, told BuzzFeed News that Gunderson’s sentencing agreement was highly unusual.

“There are so many problems with how this case was handled that I’m not even sure where to start,” said retired Judge LaDoris Cordell, who, like Persky, served as a Santa Clara County superior court judge. She said it was troubling that Persky didn’t ensure Gunderson was properly supervised, and that Hawaiian authorities were not notified when the defendant moved there.

“The system is set up so that if someone has admitted a violent offense and is now a convicted felon, they should be closely monitored,” Cordell said. “You don’t just cross your fingers and hope everything is going to be fine. That’s not how the courts are supposed to work.”

The victim, Gunderson’s ex-girlfriend, agreed, she told BuzzFeed News in a recent interview.

“It just wasn’t handled right,” the woman said. “They made it easy for him.”


Ikaika Gunderson grew up in Camas, Washington, a suburb of Portland, Oregon. His dad coached high school football, and his mother, an IBM executive, graduated from Stanford just four years before Persky, although there’s no indication they knew each other.

Gunderson dreamed of playing college football but was told his career was over after he suffered concussions during high school, according to a 2011 newspaper article that said Gunderson battled headaches and mood swings. But in January 2012, Gunderson got the opportunity to play football for Foothill College, a community college in Los Altos Hills, California. According to an athlete profile page from that time, he was 6’2’’ and weighed 250 pounds.

“Looks like I’m gonna be taking my talents to Cali,” Gunderson wrote on Facebook. “Gonna be playin ball by the bay area. 2 years then dreams of going big time.”

According to the statement that the victim, then 20, gave police, she and Gunderson started dating in the fall of 2013 and broke up in December 2014. They reconnected in January 2015 and went out for dinner in downtown Sunnyvale. After a few drinks, they got into an argument, which escalated into violence as they sat in his car in a parking lot.

“Don’t raise your voice at me, I’m a man,” Gunderson told the victim, according to her statement. Then, she said, he punched her in the face and split her lip. She told police Gunderson hit her repeatedly in the face, pushed her head through the open car door window, and closed his hands around her neck until she couldn’t breathe. He then shoved her out of the vehicle.


“There are so many problems with how this case was handled that I’m not even sure where to start.”


The victim walked away, she later told police, but Gunderson drove up alongside her and persuaded her to get back in the car. When she did, they started arguing again, and Gunderson backhanded her in the face, calling her “bitch” and “whore.” They drove to his house. As she sat on his front steps waiting for a friend to pick her up, Gunderson ate a bag of chips and laughed at her, according to the report.

The victim’s friend drove her to a hospital, and a nurse notified police. The responding officer noted the victim’s visible injuries in his report: Her face and lips were swollen, there were cuts and bruises on her face and body, and her left eye had broken blood vessels.

“The victim believes Gunderson has a ‘two sided personality,’ due to his concussions,” the officer wrote.

The police arrested Gunderson that night after he admitted beating and choking the woman. She had hurt him “with her words,” Gunderson said by way of explaining his behavior, according to the police report. “I pushed her out of my face.”


Three months later, Gunderson appeared before Persky and pleaded no contest to the domestic violence felony charge.

Persky went “out on a limb,” Deputy District Attorney Ted Kajani would later say in court, and set Gunderson’s sentencing for July 2016, more than a year later. Until then, Persky told Gunderson he could go to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandmother and attend college as planned. If all went well, according to the arrangement, the felony would be reduced to a misdemeanor.

Assistant DA Brian Welch told BuzzFeed News that even though the prosecutor signed off on the deal, it was “solely within the court’s discretion to determine the sentence” in this case.

It is not uncommon for judges to give defendants a chance to “earn” a lesser charge, but legal and domestic violence experts said it is unusual for a judge to defer sentencing for so long for such a violent crime, and with such minimal supervision.

The victim told BuzzFeed News she supported the judge’s initial decision to give Gunderson a chance but was disappointed to learn he was unsupervised during the seven months before his attorney checked in with the court.

“I think it should have been stricter,” she said. “They didn’t even check in on him or anything like that the whole time?”

By October, Gunderson had dropped out of school, which meant he was no longer on the football team. He had stopped going to AA meetings. Instead of completing a state-mandated course on domestic violence, he took part of one online. All were violations of the plea agreement.

Gunderson’s attorney acknowledged this when he appeared in front of Persky in December, on his client’s behalf, as planned. Persky then ordered Gunderson to come in person the following month.

At that hearing, Gunderson blamed his failure to keep up his end of the agreement on the fact that his grandmother had died the previous October. He also provided a psychiatrist’s note that recommended a leave of absence from class. His attorney called it a “speed bump,” and court transcripts show Persky was inclined to be understanding.


“They didn’t even check in on him or anything like that the whole time?”


“If he’s completely back on track with the original program and probation and the People don’t have an objection, we can revert back to that,” the judge said of Gunderson.

This time, the prosecutor successfully objected, and Persky set Gunderson’s sentencing for March 2016. He received three years’ felony probation, four months in county jail, as recommended by probation — although he served less than two months — and was ordered to complete a certified DV program.

Washington state records show that Gunderson was arrested on another domestic violence charge in December 2015. According to the police report, he punched his father during a family argument. “The family expressed concern repeatedly requesting that there be no charges as Ikaika needs treatment,” the police report states. That case is still pending.

Gunderson’s parents told police that their son had lived with them in Washington since Nov. 1 — despite Gunderson’s agreement to be in college in Hawaii at that time.

BuzzFeed News asked several local public defenders, retired judges, domestic violence advocates and legal experts to comment on Persky’s decision-making in Gunderson’s case. All agreed that the 14-month deferred sentencing was unusual although not unprecedented. But opinions differed as to whether this was a good thing and whether Persky alone should be faulted for the plea deal’s failure.

“I think everybody played a role in the lack of success in this particular case,” including the district attorney, said Steve Clark, a former prosecutor who is now a defense attorney. “That doesn’t mean I don’t think we should give people chances, particularly young people,” Clark said. “I don’t know if we would want to live in a society where no one got a break.“

Others, however, said it was improper for a judge to oversee an offender’s rehabilitation in the way Persky did. The lack of supervision, among other issues, was not only “bizarre” but a “miscarriage of justice,” said Nancy Lemon, a leading authority on domestic violence and a lecturer at University of California Berkeley’s law school.

Gunderson’s attorney, Anthony Brass, said his client is under medical care resulting from injuries that likely stem from playing football.

“No judge wants to derail a young person starting their life, particularly if they are going to college, but the fact is that Gunderson faced challenges that made it very difficult to complete the promises he made,” Brass told BuzzFeed News. “That doesn’t excuse him, but it was a challenging situation for him. The amount of freedom and amount of time he got ended up being something that didn’t serve his purpose.”

If Gunderson had been on official probation, he would have had strict guidelines to follow. For instance, he would have known that taking an online domestic violence class was unacceptable. Nobody told Gunderson this: Court records show that he asked the judge in May 2015 if he could take an online course and got no response.

Persky’s decision to allow Gunderson to move to Hawaii may have violated a federal statute as well. The Interstate Compact for Adult Offender Supervision bars offenders from moving out of state without making a request to that state first. Yet Hawaii was never made aware that Gunderson was there.


“The amount of freedom and amount of time he got ended up being something that didn’t serve his purpose.”


Judges need to “do better to send a message that violence against women is not tolerable,” said Michelle Rocca, a director with the Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. They shouldn’t bend the rules to benefit abusers, she said, as Persky appeared to have done.

“Violent offenders who are not held accountable continue to put communities at risk, and with the added layer of not being assigned formal supervision by the courts, they are free to re-offend in any state they choose, including Hawaii,” she said.

Before Persky asked to quit criminal court, he also disqualified himself from making a decision in another sex crime ruling. His efforts might not be enough to take the heat off.

For Dauber, the leader of Persky’s recall campaign, Gunderson’s sentencing once again proves that Persky “does not take violence against women seriously.” Instead, she said, Persky “essentially sentenced Gunderson to a year-long Hawaiian vacation.”

Persky’s supporters see a different pattern — one of a judge who looks for alternatives to incarceration.

“We have so many judges that take a one-size-fits-all, assembly-line approach to being a judge, so I appreciate a judge who takes the time to individually consider cases,” said Sajid Khan, a public defender in Santa Clara County who is one of Persky’s leading supporters.

But even some who oppose the recall campaign said it’s a judge’s ultimate responsibility to do the right thing in the courtroom — and that didn’t happen in Gunderson’s case.

“If I’m a judge, and I see that things aren’t happening as they normally should, it’s on me,” said Judge Cordell. “I should say, ‘No, this deal isn’t going to happen.’”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/stanford-sex-assault-judge-went-easy-on-another-student-athl?utm_term=.qeLVRzzXED#.xi47988rv5

The 13th Step- A Documentary Film, Exposing Sexual & Violent Predators, in Alcoholics Anonymous Available NOW on VIMEO

Laurels for Film The 13th Step2016-04-29 at 1.50.47 PM

The film that tells the truth about the most revered self-help group on the planet. AA- ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS, promoted as the wonder of this century by ROCKEFELLER,  NEUT GINGRICH, DICK VAN DYKE, ELTON JOHN, EDIE FALCO, Senator Hughes, Chuck Lorre, Martin Sheen and many more.

Little did I know how deep the rabbit hole went when I started making the film in May of 2011. It was Christine and Saundra Cass’s murder in Hawaii that did it for me.  Learning about Karla Brada’s murder put the nails in the coffin as well.

But when I learned about how Pilots, Nurses, and Doctors are extorted to attend in such an insane way …I could not believe my ears or eyes as I read their contracts. This could be another whole film on CNN , FRONTLINE or 60 Minutes – but I digress.

The latest News about Corrupt Sober Living Houses, (Chris Bathum featured on ABC 20/20 recently)  fraud in Rehabs and how PROP 36 sends all the diversion folks to a SOBER LIVING, drug tests all clients and makes everyone follow the 1936 -12 step

Prohibition WAYS of NO ALCOHOL , “no nothing” kinda mentality. YIKES !!!

Interesting note that Major Insurance is paying for The Sober Living sham, through a thing called IOP’s and expensive Drug Testing. Who owns the drug testing COMPANY you may ask? I find myself digging, again, down another rabbit hole. But, that’s another film. There is one pilot who I interviewed in this film. He was afraid to be seen.

Here is the link to rent or buy the film.

An Award Winning new Documentary that exposes the dark under belly of the most revered self help groups, Alcoholics Anonymous. The Courts are plea dealing Violent offenders and Sex offenders to AA meetings and women are getting murdered and raped. Journalist Gabrielle Glaser, Author Lance Dodes, Tom Horvath, Dr Jaffi, Dr Marc Kern, HAMS creator Kenneth Anderson, Author Stanton Peele, Cluadia Chrisitan, Steven Slate, Founder of SOS, Jim Christopher and filmmaker Monica Richardson.

Father Sentenced to Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings and Weekends in Jail for Felony Child Abuse of Baby Daughter

Father sentenced to a year of weekends in jail for child abuse

By Katy Barnitz / Journal Staff Writer Saturday, May 28th, 2016
A Rio Rancho father convicted of child abuse must spend the next 52 weekends in county jail, a Sandoval County judge ruled Monday.
Matthew Najar, 32, pleaded guilty in February to one count of reckless child abuse, a third-degree felony, according to court documents.

Najar was originally indicted in November 2012 on four counts of child abuse. Rio Rancho police reported being called to a local hospital in December 2011 after health care workers reported that an 11-week-old girl had a skull fracture, according to a Rio Rancho Observer report from 2012. Employees also reportedly said they found healing fractures of the girl’s ribs, left leg and collarbone.

During a sentencing hearing Monday afternoon, Najar told state District Court Judge George Eichwald that he’d made mistakes in his life, but said substance abuse was the root of the problem. He said he’d been clean for three years and asked the judge to allow him to maintain his relationship with his children.

“I want to be a father to these girls,” Najar said. “Give me a chance to be the father that these girls need.”

Najar’s defense attorney Leonard Foster said that, in the many years since the charges first arose, Najar started attending Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous classes, and he’s gone through group therapy sessions with the state Children, Youth and Families Department. He even started his own business with his brother, which allows him to make child support payments and support his children, Foster said. He asked the judge to place Najar on probation. Daytona AA and NA meetings have violent felons, please beware!

Prosecutor Aaron Aragon asked for 18 months of incarceration, combined with substance abuse and anger management courses. Holly Hill Sunrise Park NA Meetings complaints.

Eichwald sentenced Najar to 104 days in custody, “one year of weekends,” he said. He also told Najar to enroll in and complete anger management courses, and to continue attending NA and AA meetings.

“I’m keeping you from losing your job,” Eichwald said.

In a brief interview after the hearing, Najar said he was disappointed with the sentence and nervous about returning to jail every week.

“I was loaded and I dropped my daughter,” he said, adding that he took the infant to the emergency room immediately.

Najar said he’s scared to go back to jail.

“Jail’s ugly,” he said, calling it a “drug- and violence-infested area.”

He said he hopes spending the weekends in custody will remind him why he changed his life.

“I’m scared,” he told the judge. “I don’t want to lose all this.”

http://www.abqjournal.com/782483/father-sentenced-to-a-year-of-weekends-in-jail-for-child-abuse.html

Man in Court for Threatening to Kill People is Mandated to Attend AA Meetings

Christopher Hagins
By Norman Miller  Daily News Staff   Posted May. 16, 2016 at 8:08 PM

FRAMINGHAM – A Framingham man tried to force himself into an Edmands Road apartment on Sunday, threatening to kill the terrified residents as they clutched kitchen knives for protection, a prosecutor said Monday in Framingham District Court.

Police arrested Christopher Hagins, 36, at the Edmands House at 15 Edmands Road at 12:21 a.m., prosecutor Megan Fitzgerald said during Hagins’ arraignment.

The two tenants told police they were in their apartment when someone tried to force open the door. They said they armed themselves with kitchen knives in case he got in, and held the door shut until police arrived.

As Hagins tried to break down the door he screamed, “I’ll kill you. I know you,” Fitzgerald said.

When police arrived, they found Hagins punching and kicking the door. He refused to answer questions and when they tried to take him into custody, he struggled and appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, the prosecutor said.

“When the officers spoke to the residents, they were both visibly shaking and crying,” Fitzgerald said. Hagins was a complete stranger, the residents told police.

One of tenants said she had seen Hagins late Saturday as she worked at a nearby gas station. According to a police report, Hagins acted bizarrely while buying cigarettes.

“He was saying, ‘Do we have a problem here … Oh, I definitely know you have a problem,’” Hagins was quoted as saying.

Hagins did not tell police why he was trying to get into the apartment. He had recently moved into the building.

Police charged Hagins with attempted burglary, threatening to commit a crime (murder), disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace and resisting arrest.

Hagins also had a Natick District Court warrant for driving under the influence of liquor and a Dedham District Court warrant that charged him with driving under the influence of liquor, driving to endanger, resisting arrest and speeding.

Fitzgerald asked Judge Jennifer Stark to hold Hagins on $1,000 bail and to order him to stay away from the alleged victims and to undergo random screenings for alcohol.

Probation officer Dave DiGiorgio also asked Stark to hold Hagins without bail, pending a probation violation hearing. He said he is going to recommend sending Hagins to jail. Hagins is on probation for drunken driving.

“It’s a scary police report,” said DiGiorgio. “I think he’s dangerous.”

Hagins’ lawyer, Charles Hughes, asked for his client’s release. He said Hagins has a minimal record, and is willing to cooperate with the rest of the conditions. Holly Hill Sunrise Park Crime.

Stark ordered Hagins held without bail for the probation violation hearing and set $500 bail on the new case. She also ordered Hagins to drink no alcohol, be subject random alcohol tests and attend two Alcoholics Anonymous meetings a week. Judge Stark ordered Hagins to stay away from the alleged victims whom she said “are now terrified of you.” AA Daytona and NA Daytona meetings are dangerous places.

Hagins is due back in court on June 24 for a pretrial conference.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/20160516/da-framingham-man-tries-to-force-way-into-apartment

AA Member With Severe Mental Health Problems Sentenced to Jail for Brandishing Knife at Police Officers

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Man who brandished knife sentenced to prison

PORT CLINTON – The man subdued by police while brandishing a knife during an incident caught on security camera footage in August will spend several more months in jail after receiving credit for time served.

Judge Bruce Winters, of Ottawa County Common Pleas Court, sentenced Weinheimer to 180 days for the misdemeanor and a year in prison for the felony, which are to be imposed concurrently. NA Daytona and AA Daytona meetings have dangerous felons. Beware!

Weinheimer was also given credit for 233 days served since the offense occurred, leaving just over four months of prison remaining on the sentence.

Weinheimer addressed the court during his sentencing hearing on Thursday and apologized for the incident.

“I just want to say, I’m sorry for wasting the court’s time and I’m sorry to the police officers and everybody for what I did during my drinking,” he said.

He and his defense attorney, Howard Whitcomb, asked the court to consider outpatient care because of a severe mental health condition Weinheimer has been diagnosed with and treated for in the past, as well as an addiction to alcohol.

“Continuing with (Alcoholics Anonymous), I know I can do it. I really do,” Weinheimer said.

“You were fortunate enough to have met up with an officer who had a taser,” Winters said. “My prediction would be, if there hadn’t been a taser there, a firearm would have been used to stop you from approaching the officers with the knife.”

Winters said he understands the mental health issue and the addiction are both severe in this case, referred to as co-occurring disorders.

“The two of them together really make things difficult for you, but then again, you make things a bit difficult for yourself,” the judge said.

Winters noted, based on the pre-sentence report, there does not seem to be consistent way to ensure Weinheimer will take his prescribed medication, and said he has discussed potential treatments with mental health professionals, but was still “at a loss” in this case.

“I struggle with the fact that, if you’ve got mental health issues, prison is not the place for you,” Winters said. “You need mental health assistance in some way, but I’m just not seeing that assistance available. I’m not convinced that all of your actions can be written off to mental health problems. You do some choosing in this, too.”

Winters recommended Weinheimer take advantage of any available help, such as substance abuse treatment, while in prison.

http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/story/news/local/2016/03/24/man-who-brandished-knife-sentenced-prison/82199874/

Convicted Rapist of 13 Year Old Girl Who Went to AA Meetings Dies in Prison

Convicted rapist from Waterville dies at Maine State Prison

BY BETTY ADAMS KENNEBEC JOURNAL  badams@mainetoday.com | 207-621-5631

Donald Riley, 67, was serving a sentence for raping a 13-year-old neighbor in his basement on Pine Street.

A Waterville man who died in prison Thursday was serving a sentence for forcing a 13-year-old neighbor into his Pine Street basement and raping her on May 16, 2006, as well as for a later burglary that occurred in Washington County.

Donald Riley, 67, who also used the middle names Edwin and Edward, died at 2:15 p.m. Thursday at the Maine State Prison in Warren, according to the Maine Department of Corrections.

In 2009, Riley pleaded guilty to a charge of gross sexual assault in connection with the rape, and he was sentenced to serve an initial 5½ years of a 15-year sentence.

The remainder of the sentence was suspended, and he was placed on six years of probation.

Riley also was given credit for the three years he had been held while the charge was pending.

While he was out on probation, he broke into a grocery store in Calais and was ordered returned to prison on June 1, 2014, to serve two years on the burglary conviction and the remaining 9½ years on the gross sexual assault charge.

The prosecutor in the rape case, then-Deputy District Attorney Alan Kelley, said the girl had been riding her bicycle in the neighborhood and entered Riley’s backyard after his son asked her to help him get his bicycle out of the mud.

“Don Riley came out of the basement, grabbed her arm and pulled her into the basement,” Kelley said. AA and NA Daytona meetings have violent dangerous felons, BEWARE!

The next day, the girl told a friend what happened. She was administered a sex-assault examination at Inland Hospital, and Waterville police investigated.

Riley initially told police there was mutual fondling through clothes, then admitted having intercourse with her, Kelley said. Port Orange AA meetings are dangerous!

At a hearing, the victim’s stepfather said the effect of the rape had torn the family apart.

Riley’s attorney told the judge at the 2009 hearing that Riley had been treated for Parkinson’s disease and depression and had attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and sex-offender counseling.

Riley also had been convicted in 2002 of assault on an 11-year-old girl who was visiting his son. Holly Hill Florida in Sunrise Park have dangerous AA and NA meetings, beware!

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/02/12/waterville-rapist-dies-at-maine-state-prison/

Sexual Predator Hunted for Victims in AA and NA Meetings to Torture Them

Amanda Kathleen McGee of Calgary received an eight-year sentence after pleading guilty to eight charges, including human trafficking, sexual assault and forcible confinement.

Amanda McGee sentenced to 8 years for human trafficking, sexual assault

Women were confined, drugged and sexually tortured

By Meghan Grant, CBC News Posted: Jan 22, 2016

With 30 years experience as a prosecutor and judge, Justice Earl Wilson said he’s never seen a case as bizarre and depraved as the sexual, physical and emotional torture of young women at the hands of Amanda McGee.

The 33-year-old Calgary woman pleaded guilty to eight charges including sexual assault, forcible confinement and human trafficking.

She was sentenced to eight years in prison in a Calgary courtroom Friday.

Wilson berated McGee for several minutes, telling her he had never — with his decades of experience — seen any case like this, calling it “stunningly horrible.”

“You are evil, cold hearted, I don’t know if you’ve even got a soul,” said Wilson to McGee after accepting her guilty pleas.

Between July 2013 and March 2014, McGee drugged two young women and sexually assaulted them, forcing one to prostitute herself for weeks while locked in a bedroom, according to an agreed statement of facts.

The victim was allowed out to watch McGee work as a prostitute. She was also forced to do drugs and was punished with sexual violence when she didn’t do as she was told.

The young woman — a teen at the time — was forced to earn a quota of $2,000 per day and tried to kill herself several times during her captivity by drinking drain cleaner and attempting to hang herself.

“One of these poor victims tried to kill herself because of you. Thank god she didn’t because, at the end of the day, her life is worth living. She’s a survivor,” said Wilson.

‘I will always be a victim’

Videos were taken of the young women and McGee threatened to send them to their families. Dangerous felons in Daytona NA and AA meetings in Holly Hill Florida.

“I will never be just a girl again. I will always be a victim,” said one of the young women McGee drugged and assaulted.

Once McGee no longer had control over her victims, she began hunting for more — joining women-only chapters of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.

“The criminality here is beyond the pale; these people are sentenced to life — that’s what you’ve done,” said Wilson. Daytona homeless in Daytona AA and NA meetings.

“It’s disgustingly depraved what you did and continued to do, you just went from one victim to another.”

At the time of her crimes, McGee was addicted to drugs and made some terrible decisions, according to her lawyer’s submissions on Friday.

Wilson also told McGee if she had gone through a trial and been found guilty, he would have sentenced her to life in prison.

“I think you are that dangerous of a human being.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/amanda-mcgee-human-trafficking-sexual-assault-plea-1.3416535

Killer of Girlfriend Mandated to Alcoholics Anonymous Meetings for 90 Days

Jail, not prison, for Utah man guilty of girlfriend’s 1996 death

First Published Nov 30 2015 06:00AM      Last Updated Dec 01 2015 07:12 am

A judge on Monday sentenced a Utah man to jail — not prison — in connection with the 1996 death of his live-in girlfriend.

Billy Justin Charles had entered an Alford plea to one count of manslaughter, a second-degree felony, in August. NA Daytona Meetings have dangerous criminals!

The plea was not an acknowledgment of guilt, but recognized that Salt Lake County prosecutors likely had enough evidence to secure a conviction at trial.

Jamie Ellen Weiss, 18, was found dead and submerged in the bathtub of the couple’s Magna home on Aug. 7, 1996 — one day before the couple planned to marry.

An autopsy found she had died from blunt force trauma to her head and asphyxiation, and there was no water in her lungs.

“I’d like to say I am sorry to Jamie’s family, to my family and most of all to our son, Jesse,” Charles told the court before he was sentenced. “If I could give my life for Jamie’s, I would.” AA Daytona Beach meetings have dangerous criminals- BEWARE!

Charles, now 39, was convicted by a jury of first-degree felony murder in 2007. But the conviction was overturned by the Utah Court of Appeals in 2012 and sent back for a new trial.

In his appeal, Charles claimed his defense attorney failed to present evidence that would have exonerated him.

Instead of a second trial, the case was settled with the plea deal.

Under the terms of the plea, prosecutors agreed to recommend that Charles — who has been incarcerated since his arrest in 2007 — not go to prison, but instead serve an additional year in jail, followed by three years of probation.

Third District Court Judge Mark Kouris agreed to the recommendation, imposing a sentence of one to 15 years in prison, which was then suspended in favor of 365 days in jail, plus probation.

Kouris also ordered Charles pay nearly $25,000 in restitution, attend 90 days of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and complete a mental health evaluation with an emphasis on domestic violence.

Prosecutors and the family of Weiss told the judge that Charles has a history of domestic assaults on women, including girlfriends and family, as well as a witness in the original case.

“If you choose to hit a woman again, it’s a ticket to the penitentiary,” Kouris said.

Charles got no forgiveness from the three members of Weiss’ family who addressed the court on Monday. Rather, they implored him to address his issues with women and use the chance he is getting to avoid prison to change his life.

“I will never forgive Billy for the hurt he has caused, unless one day he [can] man up,” Weiss’ sister, Andraya Perrine said. “This is his chance to be the person my sister hoped he would be, instead of the monster he was.”

Deborah Nelson, Weiss’ mother, told Kouris she had battled the legal system for years trying to get justice for her daughter. To survive the pain, she said she had turned to meditation and forced herself to separate the murder from the man, his ego and his need for control.

“Billy, stripped from his ego, is a man who has harmed himself,” she said.

http://www.sltrib.com/home/3234717-155/jail-not-prison-expected-for-utah

NA DAYTONA MEMBER THREATENS LIVES OF LOCALS IN SUNRISE PARK HOLLY HILL FLORIDA

Here we are at the 5 year anniversary of this Daytona NA nightmare event. Since this occurred there have been additional events of harassment of local Holly Hill citizens and business owners. AA Volusia County Intergroup has bullied multiple times people out of pavilions, including threatening and harassing locals.  They had an incident where an NA member tried to hit another member with a baseball bat! They continue to run people out of pavilions, and recently have been breaking the new No Smoking rules implemented by The City of Holly Hill. We commend Holly Hill for moving forward with this new Park rule!  We Hope they respect Holly Hill more than Daytona Groups do. Continue reading

Daytona Beach “Just For Today” Narcotics Anonymous Meeting at Hollyland Park Continues to Harass Citizens

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This story told by 4thechildren about the Just For Today NA Meeting in Holly Hill deserved it’s own post.

On Memorial day weekend, a volunteer who was cleaning up trash at Hollyland Park, had to listen to excessive swearing from members of the Daytona Beach NA group, “JUST FOR TODAY” who were holding their large meeting directly in the middle of the playground.

Someone had properly rented the park’s main pavilion for a family reunion gathering. This Daytona NA group’s non-traditional chairperson decided to take over the pavilion in the middle of the playground which was about 30 to 40 feet from the family reunion event!

Too bad if the children of the family reunion were hoping to use the playground!

The volunteer was so sick of hearing the foul language and witnessing the inappropriate behavior from this group on Memorial day weekend that he decided not to visit the Holly Hill park last Sunday.

He considered not going again this weekend but then asked himself, why should any citizen allow this group, who takes over the park every Sunday morning, to deny one from enjoying a typical park experience because of their foul language and inappropriate aggressive behavior?

So at about 11:30 a.m., after purchasing a sub from Subway, he decided to stop by and eat his brunch in the park at a nice shady picnic table across the field and away from the meeting.

He got out with his book to read and paused from time to time to watch some batting practice going in the ball field as he ate his food.

The citizen just continued to read his book. Even at this distance one could not help but hear swearing. He also heard a lady who apparently was walking with a small child coming closer to where he was sitting. As she got closer she heckled the citizen with an extremely derogatory and critical remark.

Then two other Daytona NA members came by where the citizen was sitting and muttered derogatory comments about him to one another as they passed.

I guess they are retaliating because this citizen has had to call the police in the past when Daytona Beach NA members illegally smoke and harass citizens etc.

What happened next was much worse! AA Daytona Meetings in Daytona Beach Florida Volusia County

As the citizen continued with his book and some NA members were getting in their vehicles, a newer,tan diesel truck drove toward the citizen.The truck pulled up tightly behind the citizen’s car, which was the last one in the parking area. THEN THE DRIVER AGGRESSIVELY MANEUVERED THIS TRUCK AROUND THE CAR, WAY UP ON TO THE GRASS, TIGHT TO AND PART WAY AROUND THE TREE AND PICNIC TABLE!

HE THEN SAT STARING RIGHT AT THE CITIZEN, WHILE PARKED APPROXIMATELY 10 FEET FROM THE CITIZEN’S SIDE OF PICNIC TABLE, ON THE GRASS WITH HIS DIESEL MOTOR RUNNING! Every time the citizen looked up from his book, the aggressive man in the truck was staring right at him!

After many minutes had gone by the citizen started to pick up his food and book to put it in his car. The man in the truck just kept staring and then pulled his truck sideways right behind the car, blocking it. The citizen just calmly continued to put his things in his car and then thought it best to check the license tag of this truck!

At that point the Daytona NA man in the truck made some aggressive and unusual maneuvers, backing his truck up across the grass, way over towards the nursery. The man in the truck continued to stare at the citizen from his truck. The citizen then walked diagonally across the field to get the license number from the truck. After realizing that the citizen was getting his tag number the truck quickly left the area.

The citizen stayed a while longer and watched some batting practice to relax but then it began to rain so he decided to leave.

As the citizen reached the stop sign at the edge of the park and prepared to pull out, the same truck pulled slowly in front of him on the street and then stopped in the road just past the intersection.

The citizen then pulled out onto the road and went in the opposite direction of the truck to avoid further aggression from this man. At that point the man in the tan, crew cab, diesel truck quickly pulled into Centennial Park and stopped right in the entrance way.

As the citizen headed east, the man in the truck peeled out of Centennial Park and you could hear his tires squealing 3+ blocks away!!

VERY AGGRESSIVE !!

Knowing the long criminal and violent history of some of these anonymous members and the completely unsupervised nature of their meetings, it boggles the mind to think of them being permitted to take over a playground just to avoid paying for an appropriate space.

This would not be allowed in Daytona, Ormond or Volusia County Parks!

Their organization’s 7th tradition expects them to pay their own way and they always recite how their traditions are
NON-NEGOTIABLE!

Violent Man Mandated to AA Meetings Charged in Killing His Infant Son Chance

Baby Chance father’s violent past well known to state officials

BY DAVE CULBRETH & STANLEY B. CHAMBERS JR.

 NOVEMBER 2, 2015

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Before Joseph Walsh was arrested and charged in connection with the death of his infant son, the state Department of Children and Families was well aware of his violent history, having taken multiple children from a previous marriage away from him, a WINK News investigation revealed.

Walsh, 36, and Kristen Bury, 32, are each charged in connection with the death of Chance Walsh, their nine-week-old baby whose remains were found Oct. 15 in a heavily wooded area about 13 miles from their North Port home. Walsh is charged with second-degree murder; Bury faces a homicide negligent manslaughter charge.

Chance, whose funeral was on Sunday, was last seen by relatives on Sept. 9. The couple’s inconsistent versions of what happened to Chance during a vehicle wreck in South Carolina eventually led authorities to the baby’s body.

Walsh’s criminal history started as a teenager when he escaped from a juvenile facility in Okeechobee. By his mid-20s, Walsh was raising seven children with his first wife and becoming well known to law enforcement:

  • He was charged with aggravated assault and battery in 2002. The charges were later dropped.
  • He was charged with attempting to strangle his wife’s friend in 2004. Those charges were also dropped.
  • Walsh became a felon in 2006 after pleading guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Walsh was on drugs when he jumped onto a kitchen counter top, lunged at his mother-in-law and attacked her with a kitchen knife, according to court documents.
  • In 2007, Walsh was charged with assaulting his wife. Those charges were dropped.

In total, Walsh faced 11 charges, including threatening to put his wife in a body bag on three different occasions, according to court records. Nine of those charges were dropped.

Domestic abusers often have their charges dropped because the victim doesn’t show up for court, said Dr. Laura Streyffeler, a Fort Myers therapist who testifies in domestic violence cases.

“They’re afraid of being punished by their partner for going to court and what they would say, putting him or her in jail,” she said.

In a letter to court officials, Walsh’s first wife said she was afraid for her life.

“I am worried that he will just snap one day and hurt me really bad or possibly even kill me,” she wrote.

In domestic violence stories, WINK News often does not name the victim for their safety. For this reason, WINK News has chosen not to name the woman or her mother.

The woman also claimed Walsh told her that “I will beat you so bad I probably won’t get out of jail,” according to court documents.

In a separate letter, the woman’s mother wrote that Walsh beat two of his children, ages 9 and 10, “black and blue” in 2004.

State officials eventually took the children away from the couple.

Chris Kalas, a friend of Walsh’s, described his first marriage as one “fueled by drugs and alcohol.”

“He was a bad father,” he said. “His love became drugs and alcohol and not his family any longer.” Mayor John Penny neglects Holly Hill Fl. Parks with cigarette butts and trash littering the parks like Sunrise Park and Holly Land Park where children play.

Kalas met Walsh in 2013. Walsh was ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Kalas was his sponsor. Daytona AA Meetings Sunrise Park have violent Criminals.

Kalas eventually gave Walsh a job washing and moving cars at a car dealership.

“He was a model employee,” he said. “He never missed work. He was always there. Very polite. He was the type of person that I would not be afraid to have around my family.”

Kalas said that changed when Walsh met Burry.

“I just wish he would have never met Kristen,” he said.

About three weeks after Chance was born, DCF officials received a tip that Bury was using drugs. The department said there wasn’t enough evidence for an investigation because the caller didn’t have first hand knowledge of the drug abuse.

Six weeks later, Chance was beaten to death, authorities said.

“We failed,” DCF Director Mike Carroll said.

http://www.winknews.com/2015/11/02/baby-chance-fathers-violent-past-well-known-to-state-officials/

Colorado AA Member Shoots and Kills Recovering Addicts at Sobriety House

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Colorado Springs gunman was an AA Member

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The man who fatally shot three people during a rampage through the streets of Colorado Springs was a recovering alcoholic who posted an online video two days earlier expressing displeasure with his father for allegedly falling under the sway of a particular preacher but gave no indication of the violence to come.

Authorities on Monday identified the gunman as 33-year-old Noah Jacob Harpham, who lived steps from where his first victim was slain Saturday.

Witnesses said Harpham had a rifle in one hand and a revolver in the other when he first killed a bicyclist. He calmly walked less than a mile and fatally shot two women on the porch of a sobriety house. Harpham then was killed in a gunbattle with police.

A motive for the downtown shootings in broad daylight was unknown, and Harpham left few clues in blog posts and on social media.

His mother, Heather Kopp, a writer living in New York, described his struggle with addiction in “Sober Mercies: How Love Caught Up with a Christian Drunk.”

Authorities have not said whether there was a link between his substance-abuse problems and the fact two of his victims were women who themselves were in addiction recovery. NA Daytona and AA Daytona Beach have violent criminals at meetings!

Colorado Springs police released no new details about the shooting but identified the victims Monday as Andrew Alan Myers, 35; Jennifer Michelle Vasquez, 42; and Christina Rose Baccus-Gallela, 34. The El Paso County sheriff’s office said four officers fired at Harpham, but they were not wearing body cameras, and their squad cars were not equipped with dashboard cameras.

A fuller picture of Harpham emerged in details from his mother’s book, in which she described him as “introverted and moody” and said he turned to drugs and alcohol about the time he gave up on college. Kopp said Harpham, who lived in Eugene, Oregon, at the time, “struggled just to live and keep a job.” His family was so worried about him, they staged a “mini intervention,” but their efforts failed.

He completed a three-month program in California but drank on his first night out, Kopp said. Holly Hill Sunrise Park holds Dangerous NA and NA Daytona meetings.

“Noah loved and hated all of us in equal measure,” she wrote. “In Noah’s mind, he was the loser child, the burnt piece of toast in the bunch.”

During a visit to his family’s Colorado Springs home years ago, he drank too much, became angry and “exploded,” Kopp said. His mood had become “so toxic it was scary.”

His mother and stepfather urged Harpham to move in with them. In Colorado Springs, she said, he found work as an insurance agent and met with an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor regularly. Mayor John Penny Holly Hill ignores dangers of AA and NA Meetings.

His mother wrote that he seemed to improve under their roof and eventually moved into his own place. She said he began helping other addicts.

In a YouTube video posted Thursday, Harpham questioned what he called his father’s involvement with the Rev. Bill Johnson and the Bethel Church in Redding, California. The church is part of a stream of Pentecostalism that heavily emphasizes signs of God’s miracles and revelations in modern-day life, along with supernatural healing. Johnson and his church have come under criticism from conservative Christians who say Johnson promotes teachings far beyond the boundaries of mainstream Christianity.

Efforts to reach Harpham’s father, Thomas, and officials with the Bethel Church by telephone on Monday weren’t immediately successful.

Kopp and other relatives did not return messages seeking comment. Benjamin Broadbent, lead minister of the First Congregational Church of Colorado Springs, released a statement he said was provided by Harpham’s family, saying they were shocked and saddened and requesting privacy.

Harpham first shot Vasquez, who was sitting outside the house, causing Galella to open the front door to see what was going on, said Galella’s uncle, Chris Bowman.

The white picket fence in front of the house was riddled with bullet holes on Monday.

Neighbor Teresa Willingham said the third victim, Myers, was a bicyclist who begged for his life as the gunman continued to fire.

http://www.semissourian.com/story/2246625.html

AA Member Recounts Killing Her Husband She Met at an AA Meeting

 

Joanna Madonna recounted for jurors on Wednesday her recollection of the night she told her husband she wanted out of their marriage – and the gunshots and knife fight that followed. AA Daytona and AA Daytona have mandated violent felons at meetings!

In a clear, strong voice, she testified in her defense on the seventh day of the trial in Wake County Superior Court over accusations that she murdered her husband.

Madonna, 48, is charged with plotting the violent death of Jose Perez on Father’s Day weekend in June 2013. Violent criminals attend AA and NA Daytona Beach meetings.

The former Wake County teacher provided jurors with a daylong account of her life until Father’s Day on June 16, 2013, when police came to her home on Schoolhouse Street in Brier Creek neighborhood, investigating Perez’s death.

Perez, almost 18 years older than Madonna, was found dead in a ditch near Falls Lake by a passerby earlier that morning.

What led to Perez’s death has been the subject of competing narratives in a trial that has highlighted tribulations of people who bonded over substance abuse issues and their resolve to stay sober.

Prosecutors contend Madonna killed her husband shortly after starting a romantic relationship with her former therapist.

Quickly after settling into the witness box on Wednesday, Madonna admitted she had a hand in her husband’s death but said she did not plot to kill him.

Many relationships

Then over the next several hours, Madonna took the jurors on a quick journey through her life, talking about her struggles as a teen, leaving her parents’ house and living on the streets, where she abused drugs and alcohol, and suffered from sexual assaults.

Then Madonna described relationships with the three men with whom she had daughters. She talked about falling in love, developing relationships and marriages that didn’t last.

Madonna described her three daughters and a series of jobs she has had over the years. She was a teacher in the Wake County public schools for a while, but quit several months before her husband’s death because her youngest daughter was having trouble in school.

In 2009, Madonna married Perez, a man she met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and befriended while still married to a different husband.

That husband, the father of her youngest child, testified at the trial that Perez moved in with Madonna almost a month after he moved out.

But Madonna offered a different take on that on Wednesday.

Perez, she said, moved into her home first as a platonic friend. She said he told her he had cancer and only a few months to live not long after they met.

Prosecutors have suggested that Madonna married Perez, in part, for the benefits that he received as a veteran. Though her daughters received benefits for their education from Perez, she said her family had not relied on him financially.

Madonna said she started to suspect in 2013 that Perez was having an affair with a woman in Florida, and saved a Facebook exchange from his page that was presented in court on Wednesday.

Madonna also said she found bottles of rum in the garage on two occasions that led her to believe that Perez had started drinking again.

As a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser, Madonna said she could not live with a husband who was drinking, lying to her and cheating on her.

Madonna said she told Perez on several occasions during their marriage that she wanted out of the relationship. Whenever she did that, she said, Perez was able to talk her out of it by telling her that his life was not worth continuing without her in it.

By Father’s Day weekend in 2013, Madonna said she had told many she was leaving Perez, including her father and sponsors and friends from AA.

She decided to tell him on a Saturday afternoon after she had visited her former brother-in-law and his teenage son, who was dying from a rare bone cancer.

During that visit, Madonna got a handgun and knife from the teenager, an avid weapons collector.

Perez, according to autopsy reports, had been shot and repeatedly stabbed before his death.

Life-ending drive

Madonna said she planned to take Perez on a drive, end the relationship and drop him off at his sponsor’s home off N.C. 98.

Madonna, with little emotion in her voice, described stopping at a Sheetz gas station not far from their home before that conversation unfolded, then going with Perez to a Family Dollar store where she bought nail polish for a jewelry project she was making and a candle lighter.

After that stop, Madonna said her husband became more and more agitated about her wanting to end their marriage.

She said she told him she knew he was drinking and cheating on her.

She recounted him responding: “Jo, I can’t live without you. Jo, I love you, you’re my whole world. I’ll kill myself if you’re not here.”

Madonna said she was driving because Perez had left home without his wallet. She said she left her cell phone at home, charging in the bedroom, and he told her he did not have his phone, though she later said she remembered seeing it in the car and retrieved it later to text his friends.

Madonna said she pulled over twice during that ride.

The first time, Madonna recounted pulling into a church lot. He was yelling at her in English and Spanish, using profanity and clutching his chest.

“He’s getting more and more agitated,” Madonna recounted. “He starts getting loud and he starts looking like he’s panicking and he starts clutching his chest, saying ‘I’m going to have a heart attack. I’m going to have a heart attack.’”

In the church lot, Madonna said the two got out of the car. She moved from the driver’s side to the passenger side where he was.

“By the time I was coming around the back of the car I heard a gunshot and I looked up and he was pointing the gun at me,” Madonna recounted. “I was in shock. I just stood there and he started pointing the gun at himself.”

She pointed to just under her chin to demonstrate for the court just where he pointed the gun’s barrel. Madonna said she lunged at him and the gun went off.

Perez, according to the medical examiner report, suffered a wound in his jaw area that shattered his dentures.

Deonte’ Thomas, one of two Wake County public defender’s representing Madonna, asked, “and he shot at you?”

“He fired a shot at me, yep,” Madonna said in matter-of-fact tone.

Perez was bleeding from the wound in his cheek. He initially told her he was going to walk to the hospital, she recounted.

Madonna said she got Perez back in the car, strapped him into the passenger seat and began driving toward WakeMed, the nearest hospital.

But Perez, she said, told her he did not want to go to the hospital and said if he had to go he wanted to go to the Durham Veterans Administration Hospital, where he would not get charged as much for a visit.

Thomas asked Madonna why she didn’t just call emergency dispatchers. She explained that she had left her phone at home, charging in the bedroom, and that Perez told her he did not have his with him.

As they drove, Madonna said she was blaming herself for what she thought was a suicide attempt by Perez.

“I’m thinking it’s my fault that he was upset,” Madonna said. “I had expected that he might kill himself.”

Their drive toward the VA in Durham took another unexpected turn, Madonna said, when Perez again began clutching his chest. She pulled over again.

At that stop, not far from where his body was found, Madonna said Perez knocked her in the chest and she ended up on the ground with him on top of her and his arm across her. She said she struggled to breathe and thought she was going to die. Her arm was cut, she said, but she could not recall how.

Then, without remembering which arm she used, Madonna said she saw a knife glimmer within her reach and she grabbed it and began swinging it.

“I thought I was going to be dying right there,” Madonna said. “I just started swinging at him and I kept swinging at him until I felt he wasn’t holding me down any more.”

Madonna said she got up, ran toward the car, then saw Perez out of the corner of her eye push up off the ground as if he were going to get up. She said she rushed back toward him, took off his shoes, threw them away and tossed the knife into the woods.

She said in her mind, she thought he was going to get up and go to his sponsor’s on his own.

“I didn’t realize how many times I had stabbed him,” she said. “I was completely in like a frenzy, an adrenaline thing.”

Madonna, once home, quickly made phone calls to her middle daughter and then tried to enlist her help in cleaning the blood out of the front of the jeep. The daughter refused to help her.

Madonna said she did not call police or emergency dispatchers because she thought Perez was going to get up from the violence and go to his sponsor’s.

“I kept telling myself that,” she said.

But then she also got his phone out of the car and texted people to tell them he was going to Florida, where he used to live. “I didn’t want people to worry,” she said.

Madonna also texted the former therapist many times on that Saturday and Sunday, and, after going to Mass on Sunday, went to visit her romantic interest.

Madonna acknowledged to her defense attorney that her visiting her former therapist might “look like she was cheating on her husband.”

“You were, in fact, cheating on him,” Thomas said. Madonna responded that she was.

But Madonna said at the end, shortly before prosecutors began their cross-examination of her, that she did not intend to kill her husband and did not know he was fatally wounded when she left him on the side of the road, near Falls Lake that Saturday.