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Hawthorne Cedar Knolls
Rape
"If they
were supervised the proper way, this would have never happened," she
said.
"Where is the
supervision?"
ARTICLES:
3/1/07 -
Sex was consensual, says mother of Cedar
Knolls gang rape suspect
2/28/07 -
Police: School Mishandled Rape Report
2/28/07 -
School foul-up in rape: Delay telling cops
2/28/07 -
3 Teenagers Are Accused of Raping Girl, 13, at
School 2/27/07 -
3 Charged With Raping
13-Year-Old Girl At School Image
Sex was consensual, says mother
of Cedar Knolls gang rape suspect
March 1, 2007
By Shawn Cohen
MOUNT PLEASANT - One of three teens
accused of raping a 13-year-old Hawthorne Cedar Knolls resident told
his mother the sex was consensual.
Margaret Beaulieu, the mother of
suspect Stanford Beaulieu, said yesterday that her son told her the
girl willingly climbed with them through a window into an abandoned
building, where the alleged rape took place Monday night.
Her son called her Tuesday night
from Woodfield Cottage, a juvenile detention center in Valhalla
where he and one of the other suspects is being held.
"He kept telling me, 'I didn't rape
her. I didn't rape her, Mommy,' " she told The Journal News. "I
asked him if he had sex with her, and he said, 'Yes.' "
Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis
Alagno disputed her son's account and said yesterday, "Everything
we've found so far in our investigation indicates this was a
forcible rape."
Under state law, a person cannot
consent to sex when he or she is younger than 17.
The boys, who are due in Mount
Pleasant Town Court today, are accused of forcing the girl into a
vacant building on the campus of the Hawthorne Cedar Knolls
Residential Treatment Center, dragging, punching and slapping her,
pulling off her clothes and raping her about 7:30 p.m. Monday.
Beaulieu, 15, of the Bronx, Mario
Rivera, 15, of Brooklyn and Gyale Taylor, 16, of Yonkers were
charged as adults with first-degree rape, a felony.
Margaret Beaulieu directed her
anger at staff members of the residential treatment center for
failing to monitor the residents.
"If they were supervised the proper
way, this would have never happened," she said. "Where is the
supervision?"
Beaulieu was also upset to learn
that the center's staff collected forensic evidence at the scene
before calling police.
"Somebody needs to speak up for
these little boys or else they're going to railroad them with
tainted evidence and accusations by adults not being responsible for
what they're supposed to be responsible for," she said.
Westchester County police returned
to the campus yesterday to complete their collection of evidence.
Officials at the Jewish Board of
Family and Children's Services, which runs Cedar Knolls, did not
return calls seeking comment yesterday. They have said they are
cooperating with police in the investigation.
Reach Shawn Cohen at 914-694-5046
or
spcohen@lohud.com.
3 Teenagers Are Accused of
Raping Girl, 13, at School
February 28, 2007
By Anahad O'Connor
MOUNT PLEASANT, N.Y., Feb. 27 —
Three teenagers were arraigned in court here on Tuesday on charges
that they gang raped a 13-year-old classmate at a school for
troubled students.
The police said that the rape
occurred about 7:30 p.m. Monday after the three male students forced
the girl into a vacant building on the campus of the Cedar Knolls
School, a wooded 30-acre campus in Hawthorne about 30 miles north of
Manhattan. Although the girl told counselors at the school about the
attack immediately, they did not report it to the authorities for
nearly four hours, potentially compromising the investigation, the
police said.
At a news conference on Tuesday,
Louis Alagno, the Mount Pleasant chief of police, said it was
unclear whether the school or its employees would face charges for
failing immediately to notify the police that a crime had occurred.
He said school officials who knew about the attack said they had
delayed reporting it because they were conducting their own
investigation, even trying “to collect forensic evidence.”
“I’m not certain it’s criminal, but
it’s certainly not advisable,” Chief Alagno said of the delay. “They
should have been notifying the police and calling in the
professionals.”
A phone call to directors of Cedar
Knolls on Tuesday afternoon was not immediately returned. The school
is owned and operated by the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s
Services, an agency affiliated with the UJA-Federation of New York.
Mindy Liss, a spokeswoman for the board, declined to answer
questions about the case, but said in a statement that the
organization was “conducting an investigation and cooperating fully
with the police.”
“We have informed them of a
disturbing incident involving residents at one of our facilities,”
the statement read. “However, it is our longstanding policy not to
discuss individual children in our programs as a matter of privacy.”
According to its Web site, the
school has about 300 adolescent and teenage students who have
“social, emotional, psychological and academic disabilities.” Chief
Alagno identified the suspects as Mario Rivera, 15, of Brooklyn;
Stanford Beaulieu, 15, of the Bronx; and Gyale Taylor, 16, of
Yonkers. He said that each would be charged as adults with rape in
the first degree, a charge that carries up to 25 years in prison.
He described the attack as violent
and said the girl was being monitored by counselors at a hospital.
Dressed in baggy jumpsuits with
their hands cuffed to their waists, the teenagers were escorted into
the Mount Pleasant town court on Tuesday afternoon by two police
officers. They said nothing as the charges were read. A lawyer for
one of them asked that the court proceedings be closed to the public
because of their ages, and the request was denied. They did not
enter pleas.
Eugene Traynor, Mr. Taylor’s
lawyer, would not comment on his client’s defense, but complained as
he was swarmed by a crush of television cameras outside the
courtroom that the three young defendants had already been
condemned.
“It’s sensationalism from Day 1,”
he said.
School foul-up in rape: Delay
telling cops
February 28, 2007
By Lorena Mongelli and Andy Geller
Staffers at a Westchester school
for disturbed kids waited four hours to report the beating and rape
of a 13-year-old girl - holding their own probe and even collecting
forensic evidence, a furious police chief said yesterday.
Chief Louis Alagno declined to say
that workers at the Hawthorne Cedar Knolls residential school in
Hawthorne tried to cover up the rape, for which three boys in the
program were charged.
But he fumed, "It was poor practice
on their part. It complicated our investigation and made it more
difficult . . . It's obvious we should have been notified sooner.
"I'm not certain it's criminal but
it's certainly not advisable."
Court papers said the attack
occurred at 7:30 p.m. Monday, when the boys, ages 15 and 16, dragged
the girl into a vacant building while punching and slapping her.
Then they ripped off her clothes and raped her, the papers said.
The three boys were later arrested
and charged as adults with first-degree rape.
Alagno said the victim reported the
rape to staffers immediately, but the school waited four hours -
until 11:30 p.m. - while employees conducted their own
investigation.
"When we got to the crime scene,
they had forensic evidence packaged for us," the angry chief said.
Asked if evidence had been
compromised, he said, "I hope not, but that is a possibility."
The school, which houses 104 boys
and girls ages 8 to 18, is run by the Jewish Board of Family and
Children's Services, a social-services agency.
The board later issued a statement
that did not address the four-hour delay in notifying cops. It said:
"We have informed the police of a disturbing incident involving
residents at one of our facilities. We are conducting an
investigation and cooperating fully with the police."
The suspects - Mario Rivera, 15, of
Brooklyn; Stanford Beaulieu, 15, of The Bronx; and Gyale Taylor, 16,
of Yonkers - were held without bail at their arraignment yesterday.
lorena.mongelli@nypost.com
Police: School Mishandled Rape Report
February 28, 2007
HAWTHORNE, N.Y. (AP) - Staffers at
a school for the emotionally disturbed conducted their own
investigation of a 13-year-old girl's rape claim and even tried to
collect evidence before calling authorities, a police chief said
Tuesday.
``I'm not certain it's criminal,
but it's certainly not advisable,'' Mount Pleasant Police Chief
Louis Alagno said. ``They should be calling, notifying the police
and calling in the professionals.''
He said the school delayed calling
police for nearly four hours after the Monday night attack at the
Hawthorne-Cedar Knolls School in Hawthorne, about 25 miles north of
New York City. Three teenage boys living at the school were charged
as adults.
The Jewish Board of Family and
Children's Services, which operates the school, issued a statement
saying it was investigating and cooperating with police, but it did
not address the allegation of the delayed call. It said it would not
discuss individual children.
Alagno, whose jurisdiction includes
Hawthorne, said the girl was forced into a vacant school building
about 7:30 p.m. She reported the attack to school staff right away,
but police were not called until 11:30 p.m., he said.
``Staff members actually commenced
their own investigation, including attempting to collect forensic
evidence,'' Alagno said.
He did not say whether the delay or
the staff investigation harmed the police investigation, but said he
would take up the issue with school officials.
The Jewish Board's Web site says
the school houses 104 boys and girls ages 8 to 18 who receive
treatment, education and supervision for emotional problems.
Children are referred by New York City and state agencies.
WCBS 13 TV
3 Charged With Raping
13-Year-Old Girl At School Image
February 27, 2007
Tony Aiello Reporting
(CBS) HAWHORNE, N.Y. Three teenage
boys were arrested and charged with raping a 13-year-old girl at the
Hawthorne Cedar Knolls school for troubled students in Westchester
County, authorities announced Tuesday.
The boys forced the girl into a
vacant building on the school's campus where they raped her,
according to Mount Pleasant Police Chief Louis Alagno. The suspects
were identified as Mario Rivera, 15, of Brooklyn; Stanford Beaulieu,
15, of the Bronx; and Gyale Taylor, 16, of Yonkers. Each was charged
as an adult with rape in the first degree, Alagno said.
Police indicated the rape occurred
at approximately 7:30 p.m. Monday. The girl then notified school
counselors.
Rather than call the authorities
immediately, Alagno said, staff members tried to conduct their own
investigation, "including attempting to collect forensic evidence."
Police weren't notified until about 11:30 p.m.
"I'm not certain it's criminal but
it's certainly not advisable," he said. "They should be calling,
notifying the police and calling in the professionals."
Hawthorne Cedar Knolls school for
emotionally disturbed young people ages 8 to 21, according to its
Web site. Most are from New York City.
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