14 Nov 2009 Tony Alamo, a US preacher, has been sentenced to 175 years in prison for taking underage girls across state lines for sexual intercourse.

The sentence effectively punishes Bernie Hoffman, otherwise known as Tony Alamo, the founder of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries, for the rest of his life for molesting children he took as “brides” in his ministry.

During Friday’s hearing at a court in Arkansas, some of Alamo’s victims testified about how their families were destroyed while the evangelist took over their lives.

Alamo, 75, had been convicted in July on a 10-count federal indictment.

Judge Harry Barnes sentenced the 75-year old to 175 years in prison for 10 separate counts and fined him $250,000, justice officials said.

Judge Barnes said the evangelist used his status as father figure and pastor and threatened the girls with “the loss of their salvation.”

“Mr. Alamo, one day you will face a higher a greater judge than me, may he have mercy on your soul,” Judge Barnes said.

Just before the judge sentenced Alamo, the evangelist offered a brief statement to the court praising God then later adding: “I’m glad I’m me and not the deceived people in the world.”

His lawyers said they planned to appeal the judge’s ruling.

13 Nov 2009 A suspicious wife posed as a schoolgirl online to catch her husband chatting to teenagers as he groomed them for internet sex, a court heard yesterday.

Cheryl Roberts, 61, suspected her husband David was accessing chatrooms to lure girls into sex so she set up a different computer in their home to pretend she was a 14-year-old girl and caught him in the act.

A court heard she linked up with Roberts, 68, as he was in the study while she was in the neighbouring living room.

Roberts, a former pub landlord, propositioned the “girl” asking her to meet her up for sex and Mrs Roberts was so shocked by his behaviour she contacted police who seized his computer, the court heard.

Mrs Roberts, who is a mother-of-two, became suspicious about the amount of time her husband was spending in his study.

The court heard Mrs Roberts, who had been married for nearly 20 years, became suspicious when a message popped up on their computer while he was out.

Martyn Kelly, prosecuting, told the court Roberts wrote a message to her and signed it Corky, which is his nickname.

Mr Kelly said: “She realised the message on the screen was one her husband had posted to a young girl.

“She could see the chatroom he was using and decided to catch him out by creating a profile of her own to use the same internet site.

“Her husband had no idea but soon he was chatting with his own wife, believing it was a 14-year-old girl.

“She had decided to pose as a schoolgirl to confirm her fears.”

He used a webcam to carry out acts of indecency on himself, which his wife could see on her computer as she was just yards away.

The court heard she did not confront her husband but called in the NSPCC and the police instead.

Police found dozens of illegal child porn images on Roberts’ home computer and he initially understood he had been caught through downloading them.

He had no idea how he was caught until weeks later when police broke the news that his own wife had informed on him, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

When interviewed, Roberts denied having sex with any schoolgirls – but admitted he was “prepared to do so”.

Byron Broadstock, defending, said: “He’s brought shame on himself and his family.”

Roberts, of Bridgend, south Wales, had admitted engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child and making and possessing illegal images at an earlier hearing.

He was given a three-year community order and banned indefinitely from having access in person or online to children under the age of 18.

He must also register as a sex offender for five years.

The court heard the couple, who had been married for 18 years, have now split up and are getting divorced.

Mrs Roberts has moved out of their former home and was yesterday staying with friends after the case but said she was disappointed by the sentence.

She said: “I was shocked at the sentence – I don’t think he’s got what he deserves. I thought the judge would be a lot harder and that he might go to prison.

“I still feel very angry towards him. It is hard to think that a man you married could do this.

“But I did the right thing and I don’t regret it. Now I just need some time to think and put all this behind me.”

Claude Knights, director of the children’s charity Kidscape, said: “This is yet another case that points to the risks posed to young people by online sexual predators.”

2009/11/19 KUALA LUMPUR: A diplomat is being investigated for allegedly using force to outrage the modesty of a saleswoman in the embassy premises in Jalan U-Thant here.

The alleged incident took place on Tuesday afternoon when the saleswoman went to meet the diplomat.

It was learnt that after the meeting, the envoy allegedly grabbed the woman and kissed her several times before she broke free and fled.

The woman lodged a police report stating that he tried contacting her several times after the incident but she refused to answer.

It was also learnt that police have made a request to Wisma Putra to record a statement from the diplomat as he has diplomatic immunity. Police have also requested the tapes from the closed-circuit television cameras at the embassy.

16 Nov 2009 A 55-year-old Taiwanese man tricked up to 20 women into having sex with him in an elaborate scam where he posed as both a handsome young man and that man’s ailing father.

Hsu Shian-ming, who was arrested on Saturday, allegedly posted photos of a youthful male model online, claiming to be that person, and attracted numerous calls from women interested in romantic liaisons, the China Post reported.

Hsu would then use the telephone conversations to tell his victims he had a father whose medical condition required constant sex to stay alive, sweet-talking them into doing what was necessary to save him, it said.

The women would then meet up with the “father”, also Hsu, waiting for them at various hotels in Taipei, according to the report.

One of his victims eventually became suspicious after several attempts to see the handsome “son” were unsuccessful, and after she uncovered the truth with the help of private investigators, police were involved, the paper said.

November 24, 2009 A GROUP of transsexual sex workers in Chow Kit are using pornographic films to distract clients before robbing them, reported Harian Metro.

Members of the group would seduce the victim while another sex worker would try to steal belongings like wallets and handphones.

In a recent incident, a client known as Ping said he was asked to lie on the bed before choosing a free DVD pornographic movie to watch as a “warm-up”.

“The sex worker told me to take off my pants. It was then placed on a chair nearby,” said the 33-year-old chef.

Ping declined to elaborate on what happened next, but said he reached for his pants only to find that his handphone was missing from the pocket when he heard loud noises that sounded like a fight outside the room.

“I was even more surprised to find that my wallet, which was originally in my pocket, was moved to the top of the television set. Some RM400 was also gone,” he said.

After Ping repeatedly demanded the sex worker to return his valuables, she finally agreed to give them back, claiming that her friend had stolen them.

17 November 2009 NEW YORK: A US court has handed 19-and-a-half years in prison to an actor convicted of abusing children as young as six on trips to Thailand and posting the images on the Internet.

Wayne Nelson Corliss, 60, was also ordered to pay a 5,000-dollar fine. The federal court in Newark, New Jersey said on Monday Corliss – who reportedly played Santa Claus for children – would be under supervision for life.

Corliss was arrested in May last year in Union City, just outside New York, after a two-day global manhunt called by Interpol after Norwegian police spotted online images of his sex acts with children as young as six.

Interpol had sent a cropped photo of Corliss from the pornographic images to police around the world.

“Wayne Corliss is a determined sexual predator who travelled the world to engage in horrible conduct with helpless young victims,” Paul Fishman, the US attorney for New Jersey, said in a statement.

“The length of the sentence will ensure – as it should – that Corliss will never have the opportunity to prey on anyone else,” he said.

Corliss pleaded guilty to travelling to Thailand annually from 2000 to 2002 with an intent to abuse children and to storing images of child pornography on his home computer, prosecutors said.

Corliss allegedly gained access to the young boys at the home in Thailand of Canadian John Wrenshall, who was extradited last year from Britain to the United States and awaits a separate trial in New Jersey.

The Newark-based Star-Ledger newspaper said Corliss played roles in small theatre productions in Manhattan and at least three movies including the 1982 comedy “Waitress”.

More recently, he made a living playing Santa Claus at children’s birthday parties and fairs, the newspaper said.

It was Interpol’s second public appeal for a suspected paedophile, a year after a high-profile operation that reconstructed computer images to track down suspected Canadian paedophile Christopher Paul Neil in Thailand.

November 19, 2009 A 36-YEAR-OLD temple priest has sex with a few women in the temple premise in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu. To make things worse, he had also recorded his activities on his mobile phone, Makkal Osai reported.

The priest, identified as Deva­nathan, surrendered to a magistrate after being on the run for two months.

The daily said that the father of two had applied for bail but it was rejected by the Madras High Court.

The priest’s exploits were exposed when he sent his mobile phone for repair. The technician had downloaded the clip through MMS and on the Internet.

2009/11/24 SABAK BERNAM: A 16-year-old school dropout was raped several times by her employer over the past four months.

This had resulted in her getting pregnant. The girl is now carrying the 48-year-old suspect’s child.

A police source said the victim’s ordeal only recently came to light after she confessed to her mother, who then took her for a check-up at the hospital. The girl was first raped on July 26, after her employer’s foodstall had closed for the day at 10pm.

When she confronted the man, he threatened to harm her if she told anyone. It was only early this month that the girl gathered enough courage to tell her mother of her ordeal and lodged a police report.

The suspect, who is married, was picked up from his house on Saturday.

The victim, who dropped out of school after Year Six, is the seventh of nine children.

20 Nov 2009 A Detroit father has been accused of murdering his son after the 15-year-old boy confessed to sexually abusing his 3-year-old half-sister.

Jamar Pinkney, 37, has been accused of forcing his son, who shares his name, to kneel naked in a vacant lot before shooting the boy with a single bullet in his head on Monday.

Lazette Cherry, the boy’s mother, told the Detroit Free Press that Mr Pinkney had rushed to her home in Highland Park, Michigan, after she told him that their son had confessed to having “inappropriate contact” with his young sister at his father’s home in east Detroit.

She said when her former partner arrived at her house on Monday, he was wielding a gun.

“I called and told his father this isn’t something you sweep under the rug,” Miss Cherry told the newspaper.

Mr Pinkney then allegedly marched his son outside, forced him to strip and kneel down. Miss Cherry told how her son begged, “No, Daddy! No!” before his father shot him.

Mr Pinkney, a postman, later turned himself in to authorities.

He has been charged with first degree murder and faces life in prison if convicted.

His lawyer, Corbett O’Meara, called the incident a “devastating tragedy”.

“My client is in shock and in mourning, but is hopeful that his family will be able to come out of this in as whole a state as possible,” said Mr O’Meara.

17 Nov 2009 A technology writer has assembled a group of fellow whizz kids to pose naked for a Nude London Tech charity calendar.

The Nude London Tech calendar features 24 tasteful portraits of London’s IT pioneers.

The photos show the men and women posing with strategically-placed laptops or wrapped in computer cables.

Organiser Milo Yiannopoulos said that he wanted to dispel the notion of internet entrepreneurs as being “unattractive geeks”, as well as raise money for charity.

Proceeds from the calendar go to Take Heart India, a charity that funds IT and business training for disabled people in India.

Mr Yiannopoulos said: “Someone suggested the idea as a joke, and I just thought why not. There is a perception that the people who run these internet startups are unattractive geeks, and I wanted to show that’s not the case. We are hoping to sell over 5,000, and are also working on an iPhone app.

”It’s about getting together entrepreneurs to raise money for an entrepreneurial charity.

“The charity doesn’t just dish out money in India – it educates and trains people to support their work skills.

“It was easy to persuade my friends to take part in the calendar as it’s raising money for such a good charity that promotes business skills.”

The team creating the calendar held a launch party at London club Sway on Monday night.

Hermione Way, 24, of news site techfluff.tv, posed for the calendar and said: “I have no regrets – the pictures are great. It was loads of fun for a good cause and I hope we raise lots of money.

“I really think that geeks are the rock stars of today, and hopefully this calender can help celebrate the geekiness of people. What could you want more for Christmas than a load of naked geeks on your wall?”