Mineola TX Swingers Club child sexual abuse convictions
Greegor
prompted by foster parents who face their own abuse allegations
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6533973.html
Trial delayed in Texas child swingers club case
© 2009 The Associated Press July 17, 2009, 9:18AM
TYLER, Texas — The aggravated sexual assault trial of a fourth person
charged in an East Texas swingers club linked to children has been
delayed.
A judge in Tyler on Thursday agreed to continue the case of 46-year-
old Dennis Boyd Pittman, who had faced trial Monday. Pittman's trial
was reset for Aug. 3.
Prosecutors say children as young as 5 were groomed to perform in sex
shows.
The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports defense attorney Jason Cassel is
seeking taped interviews, by Child Protective Services caseworkers, in
which an alleged victim denies abuse.
Pittman was among six people indicted over the so-called Mineola
Swinger's Club. Three defendants were convicted earlier and sentenced
to life in prison.
Pittman was arrested in July 2007 leaving his apartment in
Sevierville, Tenn.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/080308dnmetmineola.4109607.html
Third trial begins Monday in Mineola swingers club, child-sex ring
case
12:00 PM CDT on Monday, August 4, 2008
By LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News
lhan...@dallasnews.com
TYLER – It's a tale made for tabloids – an East Texas swingers club at
a former day-care center, characters with nicknames like "Booger Red"
and legal brawling nasty enough to slime local media and Smith
County's staid legal community.
But what makes the state criminal trial starting today horrific are
its star witnesses. Four girls and a boy, now ages 7 to 15, say their
parents, grandparents and family friends – seven defendants in all –
made them take "silly pills" and learn sex acts in what the adults
dubbed "kindergarten." When they got good enough, the children say,
they were forced to strip-dance for strangers at a Mineola sex club.
Two of the defendants – including three of the children's cocaine- and
meth-using mother – were convicted of sexual abuse last spring and
sentenced to life in prison. In each case, the jury took less than
five minutes to convict.
The third defendant, a 41-year-old auto-body worker named Patrick
"Booger Red" Kelly, goes on trial today at the Smith County
Courthouse.
All the defendants deny wrongdoing.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys declined interviews about the case,
citing a gag order by State District Judge Jack Skeen.
Mr. Kelly's attorney, Thad Davidson of Tyler, contends in court
filings that the kids fabricated stories, prompted by foster parents
who face their own abuse allegations. He and other defense attorneys
have also noted that the case – which has more than 11,000 pages of
prosecution documents – includes no physical evidence or adult
eyewitnesses.
Allegations surface
A foster mom for three of the children, Margie Cantrell of Mineola,
first brought the sex-abuse allegations to police and Texas Child
Protective Services in 2005.
Ms. Cantrell's husband, John, was arrested in June after being charged
in California with felony sex abuse of a child. The charge, which Mr.
Cantrell has denied, dates back 18 years and allegedly happened in a
Bay Area town where the Cantrells once lived with other foster
children. According to Tyler court testimony, the Cantrells have been
foster parents for 36 years and have adopted 27 kids, including the
three siblings in the sex-ring case.
The couple could not be reached for comment.
The defense team in Tyler case has complained that two defendants
tried in March and May could have been wrongly convicted because their
attorneys weren't given Texas CPS records documenting complaints about
the Cantrells.
At least some of those complaints came from a Mineola neighbor who
acknowledges that she's had run-ins with the Cantrells. The neighbor,
Diane Keener, said she reported the Cantrells to an abuse hotline for
problems such as making little boys carry too-heavy stones in their
garden. She also said she's heard of mistreatment from a foster child
who left the home.
Ms. Keener said she and the former foster child have been subpoenaed
as defense witnesses.
Prosecutors have maintained that they handed over all they had to
defense attorneys, adding that whatever happened in California has
nothing to do with the Texas case.
"It doesn't have anything to do with the case at hand," Smith County
District Attorney Matt Bingham said in a hearing in late June. "None
of the children that are victims in this case have ever implicated
John or Margie Cantrell."
Prosecutors said in a recent hearing that they don't need Ms.
Cantrell's testimony to prove that children were threatened with
beatings, hanging and starvation by Mr. Kelly and others if they
didn't perform sex acts and lewd dances.
The Texas Ranger who investigated the Tyler case, Ms. Cantrell and
three CPS workers all denied in earlier trials that the kids' stories
were coached.
"I have seen a lot and never in my wildest dreams imagined this," one
CPS worker testified. "They were preyed upon in probably one of the
most heinous ways possible."
Bolstering the children's stories is the fact that a swingers club
operated in 2004 in a one-time day-care center where the kids said
they danced and performed sex acts as strangers watched.
The swingers club lost its lease and closed after Mineola's weekly
newspaper, housed next door, ran two front-page exposés titled "Sex
and the City." The club's landlord later said she rented the building
to the operator only because he claimed to be running a support group
to help families bond with mentally disabled children.
The children in the kiddie-sex case first appeared on law
enforcement's radar in November 2004, when someone called a state
child-abuse hotline to report that Shauntel Mayo's oldest daughter and
son were being locked out of their home as late as midnight while
adults inside had sex and used drugs. CPS tried to work with Ms. Mayo
but in March 2005 removed the two kids, then 5 and 6, from a dingy
trailer in Tyler with no electricity, little food and a yard prowled
by pit bulls.
CPS workers testified that the sister and brother began hinting of bad
family secrets the night they were taken into foster care. The sister
also seemed obsessed with getting CPS to take custody of their baby
sister, then 4 and living with Ms. Mayo's mother and 5-year-old
sister. The two older children behaved strangely after being taken
into custody – one attacking a teacher and both acting out sexually.
The boy and girl ended up being shuffled through three other foster
homes because of behavior problems before being placed with the
Cantrells.
Kids come forward
The Cantrells took the girl and boy to police in Mineola in August
2005, three months after they joined the family. The Cantrells told
police that the kids had just identified the vacant building that once
housed the Mineola swingers club as the place where they'd been taken
to dance for strangers.
But the children denied being abused when interviewed at Wood County
's Northeast Texas Child Advocacy Center, a facility with trained
interviewers who talk to child-abuse victims in a kid-friendly
atmosphere.
Months later, a child-abuse prosecutor in Tyler heard about the case
from CPS and brought in a Texas Ranger. The Ranger's investigation led
to sex-abuse indictments of Mr. Kelly and six other defendants in June
2007.
CPS workers testified that several child victims – Ms. Mayo's sister,
now 9, and another defendant's daughter, now 15 – had no contact with
the Cantrells or other children involved when they told authorities
about the sex ring. Yet all gave similar details, down to the name
adults gave Vicodin pain pills doled out to relax the children: silly
pills. All said they were taken to several defendants' trailer homes
to be taught sex acts and dancing, lessons that their adult tutors
always called "kindergarten."
Another prosecution witness, a Baptist church secretary, went to Child
Protective Services independent of the Cantrells. She testified that
she called CPS after her granddaughter – Ms. Mayo's youngest daughter
– talked to her about donning costumes and dancing with other children
for money. CPS then took custody of that girl, too, who was placed
with the Cantrells, and the child detailed being trained and forced
into sexual performances.
Courting combat
Other Tyler attorneys won't talk publicly about the case because of
the gag order and the animosity. But some say the ire is unusual for a
place that favors collegiality in courthouse combat.
Veteran criminal defense attorney F.R. "Buck" Files Jr. said that Mr.
Davidson, "seems to approach things differently than most experienced
lawyers would. I heard him talking recently in a legal seminar about
how to avoid a gag order and his success in using spies in practice of
law. Mr. Davidson appears to be obsessed with trying his cases in the
media."
As the latest trial neared, Mr. Davidson went after prosecutors so
intensely and publicly that some local lawyers thought he was over the
edge. He subpoenaed phone records and e-mails between the case
prosecutor, Joe Murphy, and a local newspaper reporter and a TV
reporter. And he gave an interview on a competing TV station,
contending that the prosecutor's romances with reporters was biasing
coverage and preventing a fair trial. The reporters acknowledged once
dating the prosecutor. Their news organizations disputed bias claims.
Prosecutors returned fire. They subpoenaed more of the TV reporter's
phone and e-mail records and subpoenaed another newspaper reporter,
too. In bizarre hearings in late June and early July, Mr. Bingham, the
DA, noted that Mr. Davidson had tried to date reporters and so
aggressively pursued the TV reporter that her news station kept
records of the lawyer's "creepy" messages. The TV reporter once even
sought a police escort earlier this year to avoid Mr. Davidson,
prompting sheriff's deputies to write an incident report.
Judge Skeen reviewed messages Mr. Davidson had sent to the TV reporter
but refused the prosecutors' subpoena, too – saying dryly that the
media coverage was fair and wasn't going to be on trial. He also
refused to move the kiddie-sex-ring trial out of Tyler.
Mr. Davidson, a former Marine who has practiced law in Tyler since
2000 and briefly worked for the district attorney's office when Judge
Skeen was DA, acknowledges he has a grudge.
He tried unsuccessfully last week to delay the trial and get Judge
Skeen off the case, contending that the judge conspired with
prosecutors and issued a gag order to keep him from defending his
client.
"I believe the DA's office has engaged in and is engaging in
prosecution of innocent people," Mr. Davidson said Thursday. "I
believe Jack Skeen is too closely aligned with the DA's office."
Puzzling case for ex-DA
Another wrinkle is where the trial isn't: 28 miles north in Mineola.
Mark Taylor, Wood County's district attorney when the swingers club
was in Mineola, says he remains puzzled by it all.
The retired prosecutor said he got a call after the swingers club
opened in 2004 but found nothing illegal.
"I didn't hear anything about any kids. If I had, I'd a been on 'em
like stink on a skunk," he said. "About two months ago, I was watching
the 10 o'clock news, and they were talking about the Mineola sex club
with children. And I almost fell out of my chair."
Mr. Taylor, who was DA for 28 years, said he's since found nothing
Wood County authorities might have done differently.
"From all appearances, everything really blew up or they really had a
case when the kids started talking to the Ranger," Mr. Taylor said. "I
don't know what to make of that. It's kind of unusual normally for a
Ranger to be interviewing children, but they do it every once in a
while. It never happened in my county. If it was a case that I had any
knowledge about, I always wanted interviews done by the child advocacy
center.
"I just have questions about what actually transpired," he said.
Trying times for town
This much is clear: The children endured something terrible.
The youngest regularly masturbated until she bled after being taken
into state custody. Her older brother and sister masturbated regularly
at school and even in the aisles of Wal-Mart. The boy also defecated
on himself when angry or scared and soiled himself the day he first
had to testify against his mother in the Tyler trials. Behavior
experts say that is common in sexually abused boys.
The case particularly bothers residents of Mineola, a faded railroad
town of 5,100 that likes to be known for antiques and tourism.
They say it's not fair to dub another town's trailer-park-gothic
trials the "Mineola Swingers Club case." They note that the swingers
club operators were from the next county, and the children and most of
the defendants were from Tyler. Most of what the children described
took place in Tyler trailer parks.
This week's trial won't be the end; four more defendants remain to be
tried.
"It's really sad for our town," said Doris Newman, publisher of the
Mineola Monitor. "We're kind of wincing from all of this."
THE DEFENDANTS TRIAL BEGINS MONDAY
Patrick "Booger Red" Kelly, 41
Tyler resident
Relationship to victims and other defendants: none; he's a family
friend.
Five charges:
•Three counts of aggravated sex assault of a child
•Tampering with physical evidence
•Engaging in organized criminal activity
PREVIOUSLY TRIED
Shauntel Mayo, 29
Tyler resident
Relationship to victims and other defendants: mother of three of the
children, now ages 10, 9 and 7. Sister of another child, now age 9,
and daughter of defendant Sheila Sones.
Convicted in May of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of sexual
performance by a child. Sentenced to life in prison.
Still faces four charges:
•Two counts of indecency with a child
•Two counts aggravated sexual assault of a child
Jamie Pittman, 36
Tyler resident
Relationship to other defendants: live-in boyfriend of Shauntel Mayo.
Convicted in March of aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Sentenced to life in prison.
Eight pending charges:
•Aggravated sexual assault of a child
•Three counts of indecency with a child
•Three counts of sexual performance by a child
•Engaging in organized criminal activity
AWAITING TRIAL
Sheila Darlene Sones, 48
Mineola resident
Relationship to victims or other defendants: Mother of defendant
Shauntel Mayo and one of the victims, now age 9. Grandmother of three
other victims.
Two charges:
•Engaging in organized criminal activity
•Sexual performance by a child
Jimmy Dale Sones, 34
Brownsboro resident
Relationship to victims or other defendants: ex-husband of Sheila
Sones
Two charges:
•Engaging in organized criminal activity
•Indecency with a child
Rebecca Lynn Pittman, 32
Former Tyler resident arrested in Washington state
Relationship to victims or other defendants: mother of a victim, now
age 15, and ex-wife
of Dennis Pittman
One charge:
•Aggravated sexual assault of a child
Dennis Boyd Pittman, 45
Former Tyler resident arrested in Tennessee
Relationship to victims or other defendants: ex-husband of Rebecca
Lynn Pittman, stepfather of a victim, now 15.
Eight charges:
•Two counts aggravated sexual assault of a child
•Two counts of indecency with a child
•Two counts sexual performance by a child
•Injury to a child
•Engaging in organized criminal activity
SOURCE: Smith County District Court records
THE CHILDREN Where the five victims in the sex-ring case are today:
•A 15-year-old girl lives with her father in Wisconsin.
•Three siblings, two girls, 10 and 7, and a boy, 9, were adopted by
Margie and John Cantrell and are living with them in Mineola.
•A 9-year-old girl – aunt of the three siblings – is still in foster
care in Whitehouse.
SOURCE: Smith County District Court records