Child Sexual Abuse/Pedophilia:
Judge’s Outrageous Decision in Teacher-Sex Case
An Explanation To Parents

view the .pdf | note: all footnotes are included within the .pdf

June 2002

By Susan Brennan, Esq., attorney with the firm Christopher J. Brennan LLC in Spring Lake Heights, NJ and a member of the Legal Resource Council of the NJ Family Policy Council.

A few weeks ago, amidst the myriad of child sex abuse being reported in the news, NJ Superior Court Judge Bruce Gaeta scrapped a possible three year jail sentence for a
43-yr-old teacher from Lyndhurst, who had sex with one of her 13-yr-old students. Instead, he chose to give the convicted woman, Diel-Moore, five years probation for her tryst with the boy. The reasons he gave were Diel-Moore’s history of psychiatric problems, he “didn’t see any harm done ”, “society doesn’t need to be worried”, and “maybe it was a way for him (the boy) to satisfy his sexual needs”. Parents may be asking, how could such a decision be legal, and where does such outrageous rationale come from concerning a 13-yr-old child and an adult?

First, parents need to know 80% of child molesters serve no jail time, under current law, but instead are required to seek therapy according to the American Bar Association. The judge, completely in tune with current law, sees “no harm done” to the 13-yr-old. If you are a parent who thinks 13-yr-old children would be harmed by a sexually abusing
40-something teacher, a short history of New Jersey child sex abuse law is instructive.

The garden state has historically been lenient on sex offenders. In 1950, when 18 states allowed for the death penalty as a possible punishment for this teacher’s act, New Jersey directed a $1,000 fine, or 15 years in prison, or both. Then, rape was the unlawful carnal knowledge of a female under the age of 16 years, with or without her consent.

The outrageous rationale we are hearing nowadays is a result of the American Law Institute embracing the “sex science” of the Kinsey Reports in 1955. They codified Kinsey’s finding that children are sexual from birth, based on human experiments conducted by pedophiles on infants and children. Adopting ALI guidelines, New Jersey law has evolved to the point where: Teacher Moore walks, like 80% of her child molesting kind, and lawyers and judges now question whether children are really asking for it.

Today, New Jersey law has many definitions of what was previously known as the violent crime of rape. The term “rape” was eliminated from New Jersey law and replaced with a variety of terms during the 1978 penal law revision. The charge to which teacher Pamela Diehl-Moore pleaded guilty, is no longer identified as statutory rape, but rather a second tier crime described as “Sexual Assault” – that is sexual contact with a victim less than 13, or sexual penetration where the “actor” uses physical force or coercion, but the victim does not sustain severe personal injury; or the victim is 16 or 17 with aggravating circumstances, or the victim is 13 to 15 and the “actor” is at least 4 years older.

Additionally, New Jersey law, now more concerned with the sex criminal’s “personality” rather than the crime and victim, prescribes therapy. With the help of leading psychiatrists and Kinsey, the New Jersey jury of one’s peers was unseated in favor of therapy as a result of the 1978 criminal law revision. In the current case of the middle school teacher, the state ordered a psychiatric examination, and psychiatrists predicted she would not repeat her crime, nor was she a sexual predator. Teacher Moore was considered less culpable for her crime by the judge due to her “serious psychiatric problems” and the expert’s evaluation of her tendency to harm children.

Bottom Line: Has therapy for the “actor” instead of old-fashioned punishment for the sexual predator, been more successful? Are New Jersey children safer”? In 1996, the Government Accounting Office wanted answers to this question and reviewed over 500 studies on therapy programs, spanning 50 years, and finally concluded therapy offers no proof it can reduce repeat crimes. In passing “Aimee’s Law in 2000 to protect children from freed criminals, Rep. Matt Salmon reported that released murderers, rapists and child molesters are more likely to [reoffend] than the general prison population and rapists are 10.5 times more likely...to subsequently rape.”

So now, New Jersey children are not safer under current NJ law. Which brings us to the final point: the new definition of “harm.” The judge claims, “I really don’t see the harm that was done here…” to a middle school child, under the trusted authority of a teacher and the school. The judge has written off his solemn duty by ignoring the necessity of Law to protect the immature and vulnerable from those, who abuse their authority over the young. If we really wish to protect our children, we must call upon our legislators to restore the laws that once better protected them and held criminals responsible for their actions.

 

 

 

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