 Middlesex District Attorney's Officer John Burbine, 49, of Wakefield, Mass., is accused of sexually abusing more than a dozen young children. By NBC News staff A Massachusetts man raped and sexually abused more than a dozen young children in their homes and videotaped the assaults, a prosecutor said Thursday. The purported victims were as young as 8 days old, Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said. "This is among the most troubling and disturbing cases of child abuse ever prosecuted in Middlesex County," Leone said in a statement. John Burbine, 49, of Wakefield, was indicted Thursday by a Middlesex grand jury on more than 100 counts of child sex offenses. He gained access to many of the children through a child care service operated by his wife, Leone said at a news conference Thursday. According to authorities, Burbine and his wife advertised child care and tutoring services on various websites including parenting websites and coupon service websites. They also transported children to another family's home for day care and ran a summer activities program in which they took children to various places, prosecutors said. Burbine raped and sexually assaulted at least 13 infants and young boys and girls who were in his care from August 2010 through August 2012, according to the indictment. Many of the children were abused multiple times over several months or years, the charges allege. The victims ranged in age from 8 days to 3½ years old and are from Stoneham, Medford, Newton, Reading, Melrose, Woburn and Waltham, prosecutors said. Investigators said they found images and videos on Burbine's home computer of the victims "posed in various states of nudity and engaged in sexual acts" "It is alleged the defendant videotape recorded the assaults on the victims," the prosecutor's office said. "He committed these unspeakable crimes in the victims' homes and communities. Further, the defendant filmed the repeated, unthinkable abuse," Leone said. "The defendant gained access and opportunity to abuse young children through advertising child care services with his wife, who operated a tutoring and child care business, which was not licensed. Children are our most vulnerable victims and we will continue to prosecute to the fullest extent those who harm or exploit them." Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com Burbine's wife, Marian Burbine, 46, of Wakefield, has been indicted on charges of reckless endangerment of a child and operating an unlicensed day care business. Prosecutors said she was not present during the alleged rapes and did not know about them. She is free on bail, with conditions that she wear a monitoring bracelet, stay in her home from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m., and have no contact with alleged victims, clients, former emloyees, and any children under 16. John Burbine was originally arrested Sept. 28 in Reading by Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney's Office after an investigation into allegations of unlicensed child care at Waterfall Education Center, the business run by his wife, purportedly uncovered evidence of a sexual assault on a child. Leone said his office obtained a court order shutting the business down while the criminal investigation continued. Following John Burbine's arrest, the Middlesex District Attorney's Office said it discovered more victims as well as video evidence allegedly showing the assaults on the victims, leading to the indictment Thursday. Burbine will be arraigned Dec. 12 in Middlesex Superior Court. More content from NBCNews.com:  |
12/06/2012
Prosecutor: 13 infants, children sexually abused
Zimmerman sues over edited 911 call
(CNN) -- George Zimmerman, charged in the shooting death of a 17-year-old Florida boy, sued NBC Universal on Thursday for using "the oldest form of yellow journalism" by editing an audio tape of his 911 call to make him sound racist, the lawsuit said. Zimmerman is seeking "damages in excess of the jurisdictional limit" in Seminole County Circuit Court in Florida, where the lawsuit is filed. Zimmerman, who is Hispanic and is charged with second-degree murder, is accused of fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, who was African-American, in an incident last February that has provoked national controversy. Zimmerman says he shot Martin in self-defense. Attorneys for Martin's family say the teen was shot and killed "in cold blood." "NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain," the lawsuit said. "Because of NBC's deceptive and exploitative manipulations, the public wrongly believes that Zimmerman 'us(ed) a racial epithet' while describing Martin during the call to the dispatcher on that fateful night," the suit said. NBC Universal couldn't be reached immediately for comment. (MORE)  |
All San Diego man wants for Christmas is a Latina girlfriend
| Former reality show actor and current millionaire Marc Paskin has a very special Christmas wish: He wants a Latina girlfriend. Paskin took out an ad on a billboard in San Diego on Highway 5 on Mission Bay Drive and it was spotted by a Reddit user by the name of Mexicanmilkyway. The billboard has a picture of Paskin and reads, "All I want for Christmas is a Latina Girlfriend." Paskin, who has a net worth of $200 million, would be best known for his appearance on the ABC reality TV show "Secret Millionaire." At the end of his "Secret Millionaire" episode, Paskin gave $40,000 to John Cook, the founder of Really Living Foundation, which provides free transportation and financial assistance to those who are uninsured or underinsured, according to Hispanically Speaking News. During Paskin's "undercover" time as a driver, he met 24-year-old mother Courtney, a mother struggling with her young daughter's illness as well as the failure of her own transplanted kidney. In the end, he gave the mother and her daughter $20,000. RELATED: Penn State Sorority Apologizes for Offensive "Mexican" Themed Party Sadly, Paskin is a widower after losing his wife of 28 years to diabetes in 2002. Any Latina who wants to take him up on his offer might be interested in how he wants to be remembered when he's gone. "When I die, no one will be at my funeral talking about my cash flow or how many properties I own," he told UT San Diego during his time on "Secret Millionaire." "But they will be talking about my heart, and how I used my success to help others in need. Giving back, helping others – to me, that is success, not the size of your bank account." A couple of Latinas on the Reddit post said they would be contacting Paskin at the creative "ChristmasLatina@aol.com" email he posted. "Being a Latina in San Diego as well kinda makes the whole thing tempting," one user wrote. "I can msg him!' wrote another. "I'm Latina and over the age of 21 and live in San Diego." RELATED: Hockey team's controversial Latino promotion moves forward minus Dora and plus Latino veterans One Reddit user even gave Paskin advice — from one caucasian male who likes Latinas, to another. "White guy here, married a Latina from Los Angeles," he wrote. "They like us but many assume that we don't like them, so they ignore us. The trick is that you have to be more direct/aggressive with them. Plus they are used to that in their culture. Don't beat around the bush." Paskin may have to use the advice if his billboard doesn't net the reach outs he's hoping for. |
Morsy condemns violent Egypt protests
Inmates building NASA hardware for 85 cents/hour
| View more videos at: http://nbcbayarea.com. By Suzanne Shaw, NBCBayArea.com CALIFORNIA -- Tucked deep back in the tightly guarded machine shop of California's oldest prison, well away from the muscle flexing inmates in "the yard," a select group of convicted felons has their eyes on space. They fabricate metal housing for miniature satellites designed to explore the heavens. That's right. San Quentin inmates serving time for horrible crimes are given easy access to some of the sharpest metal humans can make. They are, most likely, the only prisoners on Earth helping to develop products for space exploration. Ariel Wainzinger, a man with ten months left on his sentence, said: "You come to prison and you think it's gonna be all gloom and doom and you find yourself with a lot of different opportunities and you take advantage of it." Working under the strict guidance of NASA, Ariel and a handful of other skilled inmate machinists are making something most people have never heard of: P-PODs, Poly Picosatellite Orbital Deployers, essentially, aluminum boxes designed to hold tiny satellites known as CubeSats, which ride "piggyback" into space as secondary payloads. The devices are part of a new generation of low-cost, miniature launch vehicles developed for research used by more than 150 universities worldwide. The inmates involved in this unique NASA-San Quentin partnership seem to break most of the stereotypes society has about men behind bars. Not only do they study chemistry, calculus, and trigonometry, they look forward to their work every day. Never mind that their wages are limited to between 35 and 85 cents an hour. There's a waiting list for this prison job. Out of a general population of more than 3,800 prisoners, machine shop instructor Richard Saenz has accepted just 27 men in his vocational education program; only five on the highly technical NASA project. A veteran government contractor on such aerospace projects as the space shuttle and the ICBM missile, Saenz is a stickler for precision. And he calls this job, training inmates to become skilled machinists, the best he has ever had. "They have to be better than the average guy," Saenz said in describing the felons under his watch. "It's all about education, making them job worthy." Inmates punch a time clock and learn work ethics. No attitude, no discrimination allowed. Saenz knows how hard it is to convince employers to hire an ex-felon. He's been at it for 12 years and when not working one-on-one with students in the prison shop, he's on the phone recruiting companies to sponsor the program, donate machines, and hire the men who are eventually released. When challenged by critics who complain inmates don't deserve this kind of privilege, one felon, asking to remain anonymous, replied, "I understand where they're coming from but… I'm a human too and I think I have a second chance of deserving to go get a job as well… I've made lots of mistakes in my life. Everybody makes mistakes but I think the difference is I've been able to learn from my mistakes, realize where I went wrong in the first place and change myself in a way through positive acts… to become marketable as a citizen in society." Except for one "lifer," all of the inmates working in the NASA directed P-POD production unit will eventually be released. Supporters of the partnership, including NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden, share the perspective that inmates have a much better chance of succeeding in the outside world if, while incarcerated, they learn skills that will help them transition to an honest living upon their release. Wainzinger has earned two NIMS (National Institute for Metalworking Skills) certificates during his time at San Quentin, which he proudly describes as the gold standard for the industry. He argues that inmates "must be given a chance to reintegrate themselves into society" and for that, they need to develop skill sets. "It's places like this that keep the recidivism rate down", he says, "and without them, I don't know how much worse off we'd be." |
Cops: 2 intruders shot dead at pot-growing house
| By NBC News staff A Washington state homeowner on Thursday shot and killed two people who may have been trying to steal marijuana from a large pot-growing operation at the home, a sheriff's official said. The shooting happened at a house in the Summit area of rural Pierce County, about 10 miles southeast of Tacoma. Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said the homeowner and the intruders both had weapons and got into a shootout. The two intruders were killed; the homeowner and his 9-year-old son, who was also in the home at the time, were not hurt. "This is not a random residential robbery," Troyer told reporters at the scene. "This is a cultivating operation that somebody came and tried to take away from the homeowner." He described the pot-growing operation as "fairly substantial." "It could have went the other way. We could have had a dead 9-year-old and a dead homeowner," Troyer said. It was unclear whether the homeowner would face charges. The shooting happened on the same day that a new law went into effect took effect in Washington decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana. It is still a federal crime to grow or sell marijuana. More content from NBCNews.com: |
Buzzkill: Feds fire warning shot over pot legalization
| By Elizabeth Chuck, NBC News With marijuana possession now legal in Washington state, and soon in Colorado too, residents face a confusing mishmash of federal and state laws when it comes to whether and where they can get high. That's because the federal government still bans pot growing and possession, regardless of what state laws say. Last night, just hours before legislation legalizing pot in her state went into effect, U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan of Washington warned residents that "growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law." Her words could be a buzzkill for Washington's pot-lovers, yet at midnight -- the moment Washington's law went into effect -- marijuana smokers lit up beneath Seattle's Space Needle, reveling in the joy of living in a state that allows possession of pot, even if state law still says it is illegal to smoke it in public. "It's too good to be just for the young," Pat Edmonson, 67, of Whidbey Island, Wash., said as she smoked marijuana in Seattle's City Center with a crowd of about 100 others who were lighting up, flaunting the no-pot-in-public rule. State leaders have appealed to the Justice Department for guidance.  Jim Seida / NBC News Pat Edmonson, 67, of Whidbey Island, Wash., was in Seattle with her daughter to celebrate the legalization of the possession of marijuana. Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes encouraged celebrants to enjoy their highs inside closed doors. "I think that they should acknowledge this newfound right," he told NPR station KUOW. "I think they should celebrate in the privacy of their homes if they choose to do so. And be thankful that we're no longer arresting some 10,000 Washingtonians a year in the state of Washington and spending well over $100 million in law enforcement resources on that." In Colorado, a measuring legalizing marijuana use and possession for those over 21 will go into effect next month. But one place where federal laws will have an impact: college campuses. "In order not to lose federal funds, we need to comply with federal law," University of Colorado at Boulder spokeswoman Malinda Hiller-Huey told The Denver Post. College students on campuses across the state will be issued criminal tickets if they are found with marijuana, The Post reported. Off-campus, however, students of legal age will be able to grow and use small amounts of marijuana, per the new amendment, according to the University of Colorado. While Colorado's new weed measure doesn't have any provisions about driving under the influence built into it, Washington state will have a zero-tolerance policy. "We've had decades of studies and experience with alcohol," Washington State Patrol spokesman Dan Coon told The Associated Press. "Marijuana is new, so it's going to take some time to figure out how the courts and prosecutors are going to handle it. But the key is impairment: We will arrest drivers who drive impaired, whether it be drugs or alcohol." It's unclear whether the Justice Department will try to stop the decriminalization of pot in Washington and Colorado. The laws in both states allow adults 21 and older to possess a small amount of marijuana, which will be sold in state-licensed stores and taxed heavily, potentially bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars a year for school, health care and government needs. Before the vote passed in his state, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper acknowledged the legal challenges his state would face. "It's probably going to pass, but it's still illegal on a federal basis. If we can't make it legal here because of federal laws, we certainly want to decriminalize it," he told NBC's Brian Williams. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia already have laws allowing for the medical use of marijuana, according to the National Council of Legislatures. The measures in Washington and Colorado go a step further, explicitly allowing people to smoke pot for more than just medicinal purposes. NBC News' Pete Williams, Isolde Raftery and Jim Seida contributed to this report. More content from NBCNews.com:
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