[Publib] Boy raped in Boston library...NY Times

[subs itoors]

This is dedicated to the person who said that the last time something  
bad happened to kids in libraries was in 1874 or something like that  
and sees no issues with adults in the kids section of the library.

This is from today's New York Times:

Sex Offender Accused of Raping Boy, 6, in Public Library

By KATIE ZEZIMA
Published: February 2, 2008

BOSTON — A convicted sex offender was arrested this week and charged  
with raping a 6-year-old boy in the New Bedford public library, feet  
away from his mother, who was working on a computer.

The suspect, Corey Saunders, 26, had pleaded guilty to attempted rape  
of a child in 2001, but was released from prison in 2006 over the  
strong objections of prosecutors and psychiatrists.

The police said Mr. Saunders lured the boy into the library’s book  
shelves on Wednesday. “He sees the little boy and asks him if he can  
show him something,” said Lt. Jeffrey Silva of the New Bedford Police  
Department. “The little boy thought he was going to show him a book in  
there.”

Lieutenant Silva said a librarian noticed Mr. Saunders speaking to the  
boy after the alleged rape. The librarian remembered Mr. Saunders’s  
name from a previous encounter, he said, and looked him up on the  
state’s sexual offender registry. When Mr. Saunders’s name came up,  
the librarian approached the boy’s mother and called the police.

Mr. Saunders fled the library and was later arrested smoking a  
cigarette outside a homeless shelter, Lieutenant Silva said.

Mr. Saunders’s lawyer, Lee Fortier, could not be reached for comment.

Judge Richard Moses of Superior Court had ruled in December 2006 that  
prosecutors did not prove in a civil commitment hearing that Mr.  
Saunders was a sexually dangerous person and that he should be held in  
a treatment program after his sentence was completed. Instead, Mr.  
Saunders received probation and was required to register as a Class 3,  
or high risk, sex offender.

Paul F. Walsh, the former Bristol County district attorney who handled  
Mr. Saunders’s case, strongly objected to his release, as did  
psychiatrists who testified at the hearing. In an interview, Mr. Walsh  
said he and others had feared that Mr. Saunders would commit another  
crime.

“I was D.A. for 16 years,” Mr. Walsh said, “and I put him in the top  
10 most dangerous offenders. Everybody knew this guy was just another  
incident waiting to happen.”

In his ruling, Judge Moses wrote that Mr. Saunders was “far from  
emotionally mature” at the time of his offense, and that his difficult  
childhood and low I.Q. were mitigating factors in the decision.

Court records show that Mr. Saunders’s mother left him when he was 9.  
At 14 he was found wandering the streets clutching a teddy bear and  
was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for a month.

A court spokeswoman said Judge Moses could not comment because the  
case was on appeal.
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Oh and as to my identity, I am a law enforcement officer for children  
in Manhattan.