Thursday, January 04, 2007

Death of Innocence

Child playing in a sandbox
A sunny, cool spring day
Pure aliveness
A miracle of god

A black ominous shadow
Abruptly rips up the child
Thoughtlessly ravaging
Tearing life from innocence

Inflicting bewilderment
Pain guilt and confusion
A child’s soul dies
Four year old remains

Tears in the sandbox
Inner death of the child
A childhood stolen
Aliveness nevermore

-Glenn Baxter

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Former Austin State Hospital employee sentenced to 15 years for child pornography.

(Austin, Texas 11-30-06) Larry Nelson Langley was convicted in the 390th Court in Travis County to serve a total of 15 years in a state penitentiary for possession of child pornography.

This was the 4th day of a jury trial that began on Monday, November 27, 2006.

Initially, Mr. Langley and his attorney pled not guilty to 4 counts consisting of four photos of naked children residing on his workplace computer. Another 71 child pornographic images were found through a forensic investigation of the computer’s hard drive by the Inspector General’s Office and the Austin Police Department.

The prosecutors rested their case on Wednesday after testimony given by a Hutchinson County hospital administrator, his administrative assistant and an investigator from the district attorney’s office in the same county. Hutchinson County is located in the Texas Panhandle 600 miles North of Austin (Travis County).

The story unfolded in 1997 when Langley was hired as chief financial officer at Golden Plains Community Hospital (Hutchinson County Hospital District) in Borger, Texas.
The hospital administrative assistant testified how she found five child pornography photos on Langley’s desk in January 2000.

The hospital administrator testified he contacted the hospital attorney who advised him to seal the photos in an envelope and lock in a cabinet.

It was omitted that on January 28, 2000, Langley received $11,542.86 severance and written resignation in an attempt to silence the crime from the public.

The Hutchinson County investigator testified it was 14 months later when he found out about the child pornography when a group of citizens approached the district attorney’s office to complain about potential malfeasance at the hospital. The investigator went to the hospital administrator and attorney to retrieve the photos. He said the computer hard drive was examined and an additional 60 photos were found.

Langley was returned to Hutchinson County on October 1, 2003, awarded a plea bargain with $1000 fine for misuse of a computer, $287.25 court cost and 3 year probation. He returned to continue working at the Austin State Hospital. ASH is a state mental health facility that serves adults and children up to 12 years of age.

In July, 2005 a fellow employee at the Austin State Hospital reported seeing a photo of a naked underage child on Langley’s office computer. This employee testified that the chief financial officer at ASH who supervised Langley was not acting on the reported crime. The employee is a father of children and did a heroic act when he contacted the Texas Inspector General’s office to conduct an investigation.

The evidence was overwhelming. The defense caved in to a plea bargain of guilty to 2 counts. A ten year sentence was given to Larry Langley on count one and a consecutive 5 year sentence on count two.

The conviction marks the end of a perverted crime repeated and enabled in local and state tax supported hospitals for over 6 years.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Story Behind Child Safe Petition

Child pornographer never listed as a sex offender for over 5 years.

Today he is charged with having 71 child pornography photos on his computer in his office at the Austin State Hospital (Texas Department of Health). The hospital has adolescent patients (boys & girls) up to 12 years old. It would be no surprise if some of the children are psychiatric patients because of abuse from sexual predators.

In 2000, he was found to have 5 photos of child pornography on his computer at a hospital in the Texas Panhandle. He was employed as the Chief Financial Officer and the hospital administration attempted to cover up the crime by sealing the 5 photos in an envelope, allowing a written resignation letter and paying over $11,000 in severance pay.

Fourteen months later, a hospital board member (a licensed family counselor) went with a group of citizens to meet with the District Attorney about malfeasance at the hospital. During the meeting, the DA explained to the board member that he was deceived when the hospital administration said it was "against the law to say anything about the child pornography" because it was told to the board member in an executive session.

The FBI became involved. Finally, the alleged child pornographer appeared in court in Hutchinson County. They located him in Austin where he was employed at the Austin State Hospital. On October 3, 2003, the Hutchinson County court slapped his hand with a $1000 fine for misuse of a computer, $278 court cost and a 3 year probation. He returned to work at Austin State Hospital.

In July 2005, the 71 child pornography photos his office computer at ASH resulted in his arrest. On October 30, 2004 his trial begins in Travis County (Austin, Texas).

There were no criminal consequences for the hospital administrator and attorney for their actions. There is no Texas law that prevents this travesty from happening in the future. The goal of the online petition is to pass a Federal law that will punish individuals who do not disclose crimes against children. Legislators will be contacted with your signatures and actions will continue until a law is in force.

Congressman Mark Foley demonstrates need for new law to protect children from perverts.

The New York Times Article by Jeff Zeleny published on October 12, 2006 stated—"A longtime aide to former Representative Mark Foley testified before the House ethics committee for nearly five hours on Thursday, repeating under oath his account of having explicitly warned Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s office at least three years ago that Mr. Foley should be told to keep his distance from Congressional pages.

The aide, Kirk Fordham, was the first sworn witness to appear before the bipartisan ethics panel, which is investigating whether any Republican leaders knew about Mr. Foley’s conduct, which was ultimately exposed in a series of sexually explicit exchanges with former pages, and whether anything was done about it"

When will government officials learn to stop hiding secrets to protect their cronies. A Federal Law is needed to punish government officials or any individual who attempts to hide crimes against children. It’s horrid to think that Speaker J. Dennis Hastert’s office didn’t act to stop Foley three years ago. What other crimes against children are being kept secret in government, business and communities.

These crimes need to be immediately reported to stop the abuse of perverts on America’s greatest asset…our children. Support a new law by going to www.childsafepetiton.org.