Adopted and Abused: How Many More?

Teen kept in Florida bathroom, beaten by adoptive mother, Tai-Ling Gigliotti and boyfriend

2009. For three years, neighbors in a quaint, middle-class community scarcely saw the lanky 16-year-old boy who lived with his adoptive mother and her boyfriend.

Now, they know why: According to authorities, the teen was brutally abused and held captive in his own home. Most recently, he'd been confined to a bathroom, locked from the outside and sealed with a piece of plywood over the window.

By the time he escaped last week, the Florida boy had a broken forearm and scars, scabs and oozing wounds that investigators say mark years of abuse.

Retired hero cop William Fox busted in Pennsylvania on sex-abuse charges

A former hero NYPD cop who became a father to a troubled teen he coaxed out of jumping from a downtown flophouse 30 years ago was arrested in Pennsylvania on charges of molesting three boys.

William Fox, 65, was collared Monday at his Liberty Township home and accused of sexually abusing the juveniles between 1996 and 2009, the Sun Gazette newspaper reported Thursday.

Fox later adopted the boy and wrote a book about his experience. He also received the National Father of the Year Award. William Fox adopted 10 boys in total, three of whom filed complaints about sexual abuse.

Florida woman charged with murder of adopted daughter

The adoptive mother of a Florida girl found dead in a plastic bag in her husband's truck has been charged with first-degree murder, police said Saturday.
Carmen Barahona also faces seven counts of aggravated child abuse and seven counts of child neglect, the Miami-Dade Police Department said in a press release.
Authorities have said Jorge Barahona -- the 10-year-old girl's adoptive father and Carmen's husband -- parked his pest control truck alongside I-95 on February 14. A roadside ranger said he found Barahona beside the truck and his adopted son ill inside the vehicle, which was filled with toxic chemicals. The boy was taken to a hospital to be treated for severe burns.

The body of his adopted daughter, Nubia -- who is the boy's twin sister -- was later discovered in the back of the truck in a plastic bag.

Four days later, Jorge Barahona pleaded not guilty on charges of attempted first-degree murder with a weapon and aggravated child abuse with a weapon in the case.

At least two people tried to warn authorities about alleged abuse of the twins.

Teen kept in Florida bathroom, beaten by adoptive mother, Tai-Ling Gigliotti and boyfriend

2009. SPRING HILL, Fla. - For three years, neighbors in a quaint, middle-class community scarcely saw the lanky 16-year-old boy who lived with his adoptive mother and her boyfriend.

Now, they know why: According to authorities, the teen was brutally abused and held captive in his own home. Most recently, he'd been confined to a bathroom, locked from the outside and sealed with a piece of plywood over the window.

By the time he escaped last week, the Florida boy had a broken forearm and scars, scabs and oozing wounds that investigators say mark years of abuse.

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Father Predatory monster who was allowed to adopt sentenced to 119 years for 'horrific' beatings of adopted son

An El Paso County man was sentenced Monday to 119½ years to possibly life in prison for what a prosecutor called “horrific” beatings of his adopted son that spanned two years.

Jeremiah Lovato, 41, showed little emotion as 4th Judicial District Judge Robert L. Lowrey rattled off the maximum penalty for many of the 18 counts of which Lovato was convicted in February.
Under Colorado law, one of the felonies, sexual assault, carries an indeterminate sentence of six years to life, based on the judgment of the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Before delivering the sentence, Lowrey described the abuse as “extraordinary” and mentioned the graphic photographs that depicted the boy’s infected wounds from being beaten with a stick.
Prosecutors said Lovato also hit him in the head with a meat tenderizer, punched and strangled him, and stomped on his testicles when the boy attempted to roll over or otherwise deflect the blows.
“I’ve never seen anything like this, Mr. Lovato,” Lowrey said.

The victim – now 16 – is living with a foster family. Lovato’s parental rights were terminated before his trial in February, authorities said.

The Gazette generally withholds the names of juvenile victims, particularly in cases involving sexual assault.

The abuse came to light in January 2010, when the boy jumped a fence and ran for help rather than submit to another beating by Lovato. Prosecutors alleged the abuse began shortly after the boy went to live with Lovato in Craig in 2008 and escalated after they moved to a subdivision east of Colorado Springs.

Addressing the court in a black striped shirt and dark tie, the teenager pushed for a stiff sentence against the man prosecutors described as his captor.

“I’d like to see Jeremiah Lovato locked away for a long time because of all the things he ended up doing to me,” he said.

Others were more strident in characterizing the abuse.

“Mr. Lovato earned every year that he received,” said Diana May, the chief deputy district attorney who led the prosecution. “The abuse he inflicted, both mentally and physically, is the worst I’ve seen in my 17 years as a prosecutor.”

Janae Houser, a mother of three who sat on the jury that convicted Lovato on 18 of 21 counts in February, said she wept throughout the trial as prosecutors described the cruelties inflicted on the boy.

“You just wanted to hug him when he was giving his testimony – to let him know that there are people out there who are ready to love him,” she said.

Of Lovato’s stiff sentence, she said, “Justice was served.”

Lovato’s attorney, Shimon Kohn, said he was disappointed by the severity of the sentence. He had argued that imposing the maximum on each of the counts, would push his client’s sentence beyond what some have received for cases involving a death.

He asked that a public defender be appointed to lead Lovato’s appeal because the former Colorado Department of Transportation worker is now “indigent.”