Young Boys

MAKOABATING, Lesotho - High in Lesotho's Maluti Mountains, Bokang Letsoela wakes at dawn in a stone hut, pulls a woolen blanket around his shoulders and steps into the thin, frosty morning air to begin another day as a sheepherder. Bokang cannot read or write, add or subtract. He has never set foot in a school. But like any shepherd managing a flock, he has learned how to count. These are some of the numbers his life has taught him: Five: The number of sheep he guards on a windy mountainside, where snow can fall even on summer days, where snakes populate the tall grass and where armed bandits are always a threat.

For some eight years, Sheldon Candis nurtured a dream - to set and make a movie in his native Baltimore, one that reflected the sometimes mean, sometimes wondrous streets where he grew up. It sounds like a long time to dedicate to a single project, but Candis stuck with it. But Friday is the day he always knew would come. Throughout the country, audiences will be watching a film marked with the words, "Directed by Sheldon Candis. " Thanks in large part to a successful screening at last winter's Sundance Film Festival, "LUV" is opening on about 50 theater screens in 15 American cities (including Baltimore)

As a teenager growing up in the shadow of Memorial Stadium, working as a batboy in the clubhouses with the Baltimore Orioles and opposing teams was a dream job for Ronald Shelton. But Shelton said he quietly left the job before he had planned to do so after being twice sexually assaulted in an equipment room in 1990 by a Red Sox clubhouse manager, Donald Fitzpatrick, when the Boston team was in town. Now all these years later, Fitzpatrick has been linked to a growing number of claims of sexual assault.

A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty Thursday to violating federal child pornography laws by videotaping the genitals of unsuspecting young boys earlier this year, as they used urinals in the bathrooms at the I-95 rest stops in Harford and Cecil counties. Brian Matthew Williams, 28, of West Chester, Pa., pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography in Baltimore Federal District County, according to a news release from the office of Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. According to a statement of facts attached to his plea agreement, on May 6, 2012, Williams spent nearly five hours at the Maryland House rest stop near Aberdeen and the Chesapeake House rest stop near North East going in and out of the men's restrooms filming several minor males, most of whom were prepubescent, as they used the urinals.

The young boys involved in the shooting death of Monae Turnage, whose body they hid under trash bags in an East Baltimore alley, were sentenced in juvenile court Wednesday. The 13-year-old who said he pulled the trigger will be committed indefinitely to a treatment facility; the 12-year-old who helped him move the body will be monitored by the Department of Juvenile Services while living with a relative in Harford County. But the family of Monae — the bubbly 13-year-old who wanted to be a pediatrician — sat outside the downtown Juvenile Justice Center after the hearing, stunned at the outcome.

It was sad to note that even though Jerry Sandusky's boss, Joe Paterno, had heard at least one report that his subordinate was sexually abusing young boys, he never told police. Apparently he hoped the problem would just disappear. Messrs. Sandusky and Paterno, along with the president of the university, were all fired when the story came out. But despite the actions taken by the school's board of trustees, there is no way that Mr. Sandusky's alleged sexual attacks on young boys should just disappear.

Los Angeles -- A former maid for Michael Jackson has told authorities that she quit her job with the entertainer after seeing him naked with young boys on a number of occasions, sources close to the Jackson investigation said yesterday."

A former Baltimore man accused of molesting young boys while he was a tourist in Cambodia pleaded not guilty yesterday to federal charges that could bring as many as 60 years in prison. Richard Arthur Schmidt, 61, a one-time teacher with previous arrests for sexually abusing children, is charged under a new law that allows U.S. authorities to pursue American child "sex tourists" overseas. Authorities said Schmidt made efforts to seduce at least four young boys while in Cambodia, including two brothers who shined shoes to support their family.

2 young boys charged in separate knife attacksTwo young boys have been charged as juveniles with assault, battery and assault with a deadly weapon after separate incidents on South Center Street, Westminster police reported yesterday.On Monday, an 11-year-old boy and a 10-year-old boy were wrestling when the younger boy left, ran to his house on South Court Street and returned minutes later with a kitchen knife that he allegedly began swinging at the 11-year-old, police said.The 10-year-old's sister disarmed the boy and took the knife home, police said.

A 36-year-old man from a tiny, unincorporated town in Western Maryland with two prior convictions for sexually abusing children has been sentenced to more than three decades in prison for advertising child pornography on the Internet. Matthew Sluss, of Rawlings, in Allegany County, will be on supervised release for the rest of his life once he serves his 33 year federal prison sentence, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. "Two prior convictions for sexually abusing children did not deter Matthew Sluss from using the Internet to contact other pedophiles and produce child pornography," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.

The young boys involved in the shooting death of Monae Turnage, whose body they hid under trash bags in an East Baltimore alley, were sentenced in juvenile court Wednesday. The 13-year-old who said he pulled the trigger will be committed indefinitely to a treatment facility; the 12-year-old who helped him move the body will be monitored by the Department of Juvenile Services while living with a relative in Harford County. But the family of Monae — the bubbly 13-year-old who wanted to be a pediatrician — sat outside the downtown Juvenile Justice Center after the hearing, stunned at the outcome.

A 36-year-old man from a tiny, unincorporated town in Western Maryland with two prior convictions for sexually abusing children has been sentenced to more than three decades in prison for advertising child pornography on the Internet. Matthew Sluss, of Rawlings, in Allegany County, will be on supervised release for the rest of his life once he serves his 33 year federal prison sentence, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. "Two prior convictions for sexually abusing children did not deter Matthew Sluss from using the Internet to contact other pedophiles and produce child pornography," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.

As a teenager growing up in the shadow of Memorial Stadium, working as a batboy in the clubhouses with the Baltimore Orioles and opposing teams was a dream job for Ronald Shelton. But Shelton said he quietly left the job before he had planned to do so after being twice sexually assaulted in an equipment room in 1990 by a Red Sox clubhouse manager, Donald Fitzpatrick, when the Boston team was in town. Now all these years later, Fitzpatrick has been linked to a growing number of claims of sexual assault.

It was sad to note that even though Jerry Sandusky's boss, Joe Paterno, had heard at least one report that his subordinate was sexually abusing young boys, he never told police. Apparently he hoped the problem would just disappear. Messrs. Sandusky and Paterno, along with the president of the university, were all fired when the story came out. But despite the actions taken by the school's board of trustees, there is no way that Mr. Sandusky's alleged sexual attacks on young boys should just disappear.

So, an elderly man, well-known in his community, heads a charitable organization to serve young boys. Through that organization, he picks out certain boys to serve his sexual interests. His modus operandi is to give special attention to the boys he has chosen, get them alone and contrive a way to get them in a shower. A few people know of his disgraceful activities but don't have the moral backbone to speak up. Sounds exactly like a certain local judge and the Lancers boys club here in Baltimore about a decade ago. In that case, apparently, the elderly man satisfied himself just looking at the naked little boys.

So much of Torrey Smith's life has been defined by his ability to stay calm in moments of chaos. It was true when he was growing up in Colonial Beach, Va., as he helped raise his younger siblings by cooking microwave meals and changing the newborns' diapers, serving as the man of the house while his mother worked multiple jobs and went to school at night. It was true when he arrived at the University of Maryland as a lanky wide receiver who possessed Road Runner speed and was desperate to prove himself.

So, an elderly man, well-known in his community, heads a charitable organization to serve young boys. Through that organization, he picks out certain boys to serve his sexual interests. His modus operandi is to give special attention to the boys he has chosen, get them alone and contrive a way to get them in a shower. A few people know of his disgraceful activities but don't have the moral backbone to speak up. Sounds exactly like a certain local judge and the Lancers boys club here in Baltimore about a decade ago. In that case, apparently, the elderly man satisfied himself just looking at the naked little boys.

IT'S always nice when experts confirm what we mortals have known empirically.Parents of boys, for instance, have known that the cards have been stacked against their sons for a generation. Even semiconscious bystanders may have noticed that boys are in trouble -- socially, emotionally, academically and -- given the high rate of medicinal dosing -- physically.Across the board, they're failing and faltering at higher rates than girls. Lower grades, higher drop-out rates, reduced enrollments in colleges and graduate schools, higher suicide rates.

Nearly 1 percent of children nationwide have autism - with the disorder more than four times more common in boys than girls, according to new figures released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report, which is in keeping with recent studies that tried to put a number on the puzzling neurobiological disorder, finds an average of one out of every 110 8-year-olds showed symptoms of autism, a sharp increase from the widely cited 1 in 150 figure from the CDC's study on autism's prevalence issued two years ago. Another recent report, based on parent surveys, found autism in 1 in every 100 children.

Annie McCann's parents desperately want information about the death of their 16-year-old daughter, whose body was found behind a Baltimore trash bin last year after she ran away from her Alexandria, Va., home. But the father of a teenage boy recently charged with stealing the McCanns' car on the day the girl died says his son can't provide it. "This is a dead end for what they want," Bryant Woodley Sr. said in an interview. "The boys don't know nothing." He asked that his son, 16, not be named.