Camp Dora Golding counselor arrested for sexual abuse

Chisdai Ben-Porat

State police charged a Smithfield Township camp counselor Friday with inappropriately touching a minor.

Chisdai Ben-Porat, 19, of Canada, a counselor at Camp Dora Golding on Craigs Meadow Road, is charged with indecent assault, unlawful contact with a minor and corrupting a minor.

Ben-Porat posted bail as of Friday and will appear at a future date in district court.

Children sold for $2.00 in 1948, reunite!

Original caption: August 4, 1948 - Chicago, Illinois: They're on the auction block. These small children of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Chalifoux of Chicago, Illinois. For long months 40 year old Ray and his wife, Lucille, 24, waged a desperate but losing battle to keep food in the mouth and a roof over their heads. Now jobless and facing eviction from their near barren flat, the Chalifoux have surrendered to their heart breaking decision. Photo shows mother sobbing as the children pose wonderingly on the steps. Left to right: Lana,6. Rae, 5. Milton, 4. Sue Ellen, 2 years old. --- Image by Bettmann/CORBIS

RaeAnn Mills bobbed a brush in a bottle of nail polish the color of a Barbie doll box. She took her sister’s hand and smoothed a thin layer of “pink forever” over each nail.

Mills is 70. Her sister Sue Ellen Chalifoux is 67.

It was the first time they bonded over painting nails, a moment sisters usually share as teens. But the women never had the chance. They were 7 and 4 when life pulled them apart, and they say their reunion at Chalifoux’s home in Hessville, Ind., last month was only their second interaction since they were children.

A picture that made its way into newspapers in 1948 tells a piece of their story. In the image, four small children sit huddled on steps outside a home in Chicago, behind a sign that reads “4 Children For Sale Inquire Within.”

Jonathan Miano, The Times of North Northwest Indiana

After being sold as children, Sue Ellen Chalifouxis (left) and RaeAnn Mills finally reunited this year before Chalifouxis’ death.

Their mother — pregnant at the time and wearing a floral dress — turns her head and shields her face from the camera. Mills and Chalifoux are two of the girls in the picture.

One weekend in early May, Mills and her son Lance Gray traveled 200 miles from their home in Washington, Ind., to visit Chalifoux at the Hessville home she shares with her son, Timothy Charnote. They arrived with dozens of old photos and trinkets, fodder for storytelling.

“It’s one of the happiest days of my life,” Mills said.

The reunion was bittersweet, as Mills figured it would be her last time with Chalifoux. Chalifoux is dying from lung disease. She cannot swallow food or talk. She has spent all of June hospitalized and is on a ventilator.

Before she dies, she wants people to know the story behind the photo, Charnote said.

THE PHOTO

When Charnote was a child and acted up, his mother would warn him to be good or she would sell him, just like her mother sold her. He thought she was being facetious. Then he saw the photo.

It was published in The Vidette-Messenger of Valparaiso, Ind., on Aug. 5, 1948, with the caption, “A big ‘For Sale’ sign in a Chicago yard mutely tells the tragic story of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Chalifoux, who face eviction from their apartment. With no place to turn, the jobless coal truck driver and his wife decide to sell their four children. Mrs. Lucille Chalifoux turns her head from camera above while her children stare wonderingly. On the top step are Lana, 6, and Rae, 5. Below are Milton, 4, and Sue Ellen, 2.”

No one knows how long the sign stood in the yard, whether it was long enough for the camera shutter to close or whether it was years. Some family members claim the mother was paid to stage the photo.

The photo was also published in newspapers in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Texas, among others, said Linda Herrick Swisher, public information coordinator for the Hammond Public Library. A story several days later in the Chicago Heights Star stated a Chicago Heights woman offered to open her home to the children and that offers of jobs, homes and financial assistance poured in.

Two years after it appeared, the children went in different directions.

RAEANN

Mills’ birth certificate shows she was born at her mother’s residence near 91st Street and South Commercial Avenue in South Chicago. She still has the brown-and-white checkered dress she wore and the torn green corduroy pants Milton Chalifoux wore the day they went to live with John and Ruth Zoeteman on their farm in DeMotte.

It was Aug. 27, 1950, and Mills claims she was sold for $2 so her mother could have bingo money and because the man her mother was dating did not want anything to do with the children.

Her brother was crying nearby, so the couple took him, too, Mills said.

She has no documents to prove she was sold and no adoption papers to prove she was adopted.

However, school yearbook pictures from DeMotte and later family obituaries support her claim that the couple changed RaeAnn’s name to Beverly Zoeteman and Milton’s name to Kenneth Zoeteman.

With the help of her son, Mills has been using social media to reconnect with siblings and build new connections with extended kin. “I want to find family before I die,” she said.

During that search, the photo surfaced. “My brother (Milton Chalifoux) in Tucson somehow sent it to my e-mail,” she said. “I got on there and said, ‘Good God. That’s me.’ ”

She doesn’t remember the picture being taken and has no recollection of her birth father. She said the Zoetemans raised her in an abusive, loveless home. “They used to chain us up all the time,” she said. “When I was a little child, we were field workers.”

Mills said when she was in her late teens, she was kidnapped, raped and got pregnant. She was sent to Michigan to a home for unwed mothers and brought the baby girl back to DeMotte, but the baby was taken from her and adopted.

“At 17, I left home and I never looked back,” Mills said.

She deals with health problems now but focuses on the blessings, such as being thankful for the family she has and connecting with family she never knew.

Her son Lance Gray said his mother’s life is like a horror story.

“No one believes it,” he said.

Despite being raised in a home with no love or compassion, she turned out to be loving and compassionate, he said. “They don’t make ’em like her no more,” he said. “Tough as nails.”

Mills said she reunited with her birth mother when she was 21, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Her mother expressed no remorse or regret — and expressed no love, Mills said.

Mills felt one expression of love from John Zoeteman. It came on his deathbed. He asked her for a hug, the only one she ever got from him. Then he told her, “I really did love you.”

DAVID

David McDaniel was in his mother’s womb when the photo was taken. Now 63, he is organizing a sibling reunion in the fall in Washington state, where he lives and works as a semitrailer driver.

He was born Sept. 26, 1949, as Bedford Chalifoux. Records he released show he was legally adopted by Harry and Luella McDaniel, who changed his name to David McDaniel.

“They couldn’t have children,” he said.

The records show the McDaniels had custody of him since July 16, 1950. When he was taken from his birth mother, he was in bad shape.

“I had bed bug bites all over my body,” he said. “I guess it was a pretty bad environment.”

According to the records, his birth mother was on public relief for several years and her husband abandoned her and their children. His birth father had seen him only once, his whereabouts were unknown and he “does not return to his home because of a criminal record against him in Cook County, Illinois,” the records state.

McDaniel grew up in Wheatfield, a couple miles away from his siblings RaeAnn Mills and Milton Chalifoux. From time to time he would ride over on a bike or horse to visit.

“They’d be tied up in the barn,” McDaniel said. “They were badly abused.”

He would untie them and leave before he was caught, he said.

McDaniel said he was a rebellious teen, despite living a pretty good life. His adoptive parents taught him good morals and values. It was a strict Christian home, and he ran away at 16 1/2, spent 20 years in the military and has been driving a semitrailer in Washington ever since.

On leave from the Vietnam War in 1969, he reunited with Mills and did so again in 1982. Their birth mother had remarried.

“She got rid of all us children, married someone else, had four more daughters,” he said. “She kept them. She didn’t keep us.”

Phone calls placed to the youngest four daughters, seeking comment for this story, were not returned.

McDaniel said he saw his birth mother after he became an adult.

“As soon as my mom seen me, she said, ‘You look just like your father,’” McDaniel said.

“She never apologized. Back then, it was survival. Who are we to judge?”

He doesn’t harbor bitterness.

“We’re all human beings. We all make mistakes,” he said. “She could’ve been thinking about the children. Didn’t want them to die.”

MILTON

“There’s a lot of things in my childhood I can’t remember,” Milton Chalifoux said. And much of what he does, he’d rather forget.

He joined his sister Mills living on a DeMotte farm with John and Ruth Zoeteman, who changed his name to Kenneth David Zoeteman.

The first day on the farm, he was tied up and beaten by his adoptive father, who told Milton he expected him to serve as a slave on the farm.

“I said I’d go along with that,” Milton recalled. “I didn’t know what a slave was. I was only a kid.”

After that first encounter, Ruth Zoeteman cleaned Milton’s wounds and told him, “I love you, and from now on, you’re going to be my little boy,” he recalled.

But his adoptive father continued the abuse, Milton said.

He was beaten, kicked, left alone for days tied up in a barn and fed only some milk and peanut butter. Milton used a corn knife to fight off the rats in the barn.

“I asked why,” Milton said. “He said he had to keep me in line. ‘If you’re afraid, you’ll listen to me.’ ”

Abuse continued, and Milton went to live with an aunt and uncle, helping with their egg delivery business. Meanwhile, he attended DeMotte High School.

A case worker later placed him in the care of a friend’s family. It was then he learned the Zoetemans were considered foster parents, he said.

“I thought I had been adopted,” Milton said. “I don’t know how they got away with it.”

Police were called to another altercation, and Milton threw an officer into a tree. He ended up in front of a judge, who called him a menace to society and told him he could enter a mental hospital or a reformatory. After hearing horror stories about the reformatory, he chose the mental hospital.

He said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and having fits of rage. In June 1967, he was released.

Milton Chalifoux eventually moved to Chicago and got married.

A doctor told him the polluted air was bad for his heart and he needed fresh air.

“My in-laws gave us $500, and we moved to Arizona,” he said.

Now 69, Milton Chalifoux still lives in Tucson and no longer is married.

He met his birth mother only once as an adult, staying with her for a month in 1970. She threw him out when he got into a fight with her second husband, and the police arrested the husband.

“My birth mother, she never did love me,” he said. “She didn’t apologize for selling me. She hated me so much that she didn’t care.”

LANA and SUE ELLEN

The siblings don’t know much about their sister Lana’s upbringing, but they are connecting via social media to her family. They want to learn more about her life.

“I never even got to know my sister Lana because she died in 1998 of cancer,” Mills said.

Timothy Charnote said his mother had adoption records, but they were lost in a fire.

Sue Ellen Chalifoux believes she was legitimately adopted by a couple with the last name Johnson.

She was raised not far from her original home, growing up in Chicago’s East Side neighborhood, attending St. Francis de Sales High School, Charnote said.

Last week, Chalifoux died of lung disease. In May, too sick to talk, Chalifoux scribbled answers on paper during an interview. She was grateful to be reunited with Mills.

“It’s fabulous. I love her,” she wrote.

Moments later, Chalifoux shared her opinion of her birth mother.

“She needs to be in hell burning,” she wrote.

From The Times of Northwest Indiana.

Zimmerman NOT GUILTY

George Zimmerman is not guilty of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin, a Florida jury decided late Saturday.

 The fact that Zimmerman fired the bullet that killed Martin was never in question, but the verdict means the six-person jury had reasonable doubt that the shooting amounted to a criminal act. The verdict caps a case that has inflamed passions for well over a year, much of it focused on race and gun rights. 

The six-person jury -- all women -- had three choices: to find Zimmerman guilty of second-degree murder; to find him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter; or to find him not guilty. The jurors deliberated for 16½ hours total, including 13 on Saturday alone, before delivering their verdict. 

When he learned his fate, a subdued Zimmerman had little visible reaction. His face was mostly expressionless. He turned and shook one of his attorney's hand before sitting back down. His parents, Robert and Gladys Zimmerman, were seated nearby, but Martin's parents were not in the courtroom. 

Earlier in the day, the jury had asked the court for clarification on its instructions regarding manslaughter. The jury couldn't have even posed such a query a few days ago: 
Judge Debra Nelson ruled Thursday, over the defense's vehement objection, to include manslaughter as an option for jurors, in addition to a second-degree murder charge. 

To convict Zimmerman of manslaughter, the jurors would have had to believe that he "intentionally committed an act or acts that caused the death of Trayvon Martin." That charge could have carried a sentence of up to 30 years in prison, though the jury was not told of that possible sentence. For second-degree murder, the jurors would have had to believe that Martin's unlawful killing was "done from ill will, hatred, spite or an evil intent" and would be "of such a nature that the act itself indicates an indifference to human life." Ultimately, they believed neither. And that means Zimmerman can walk free. 

How long other juries deliberated for in other high-profile cases The fateful night The story starts the night of February 26, 2012, as Martin walked back to his father's fiancee's house through the rain from a Sanford convenience store, where he'd bought Skittles and a drink. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, spotted him and called police. A 911 dispatcher told Zimmerman that officers were on the way and not to follow the allegedly suspicious person. Nonetheless, Zimmerman got out of his car, later telling police he just wanted to get a definitive address to relay to authorities. Sometime after that, Zimmerman and Martin got into a physical altercation. Some neighbors took notice: On one 911 call, anguished cries for help can be heard. Who was yelling? Martin's mother testified she's "absolutely" sure it was her son; Zimmerman's parents said, with as much conviction, that it was their own child. 
There are also disputes about who was the aggressor, about whether or not Martin may have seen or reached for Zimmerman's gun, about whether Zimmerman should have had more injuries if he was pummeled, as he claims. And some accused Zimmerman -- who identifies himself as Hispanic -- of racially profiling the black teenager, a claim the defense camp flatly denies. 
About the only thing not in dispute is that the now 29-year-old Zimmerman shot and killed Martin. Nelson acknowledged this week that jurors have a lot of evidence, and competing arguments, to consider. She told them that, even as they pay close attention to the law and the facts, they should also "use your common sense." Police: Sanford 'a peaceful location' Zimmerman trial roils social media How a sequestered jury deliberates Zimmerman trial roils social media Witness: Zimmerman had no choice "All of us are depending on you to make a wise and legal decision," she said. Prosecution: 'He shot him because he wanted to' In his closing argument, Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda noted that -- for all the evidence presented -- the case boils down to two men. One of them, Martin, is dead and can't give his side of the story. The other, according to the prosecutor, cannot be trusted. 
De la Rionda asked: Why would a scared man get out of his car and walk around after being told not to? Shouldn't Zimmerman have had more than a bloody nose and scratches on his head given the beating he allegedly took? And did he have an agenda -- to do whatever necessary to stop one of those "f***ing punks," as he's heard saying under his breath in his call to police, from getting away? 
Get caught up: 
The Zimmerman trial in 3 minutes Assistant State Attorney John Guy made the prosecution's final pitch, during the rebuttal phase of closing arguments Friday. He echoed many points de la Rionda had made earlier, portraying Zimmerman as a frustrated wannabe police officer who took the law into his own hands. He had decided Martin was one of the criminals who had been victimizing his neighborhood, he said, then trailed him against the advice of police dispatchers. "The defendant didn't shoot Trayvon Martin because he had to," Guy said. "He shot him because he wanted to. That's the bottom line." Zimmerman, the prosecution said, had a powerful determination not to allow someone he had already decided was a criminal to escape. "What is that when a grown man, frustrated, angry, with hate in his heart, gets out of his car with a loaded gun and follows a child? A stranger? In the dark? And shoots him through his heart? What is that?" Guy asked. 

Defense: 
Zimmerman deserves benefit of the doubt In the opinion of defense attorney Mark O'Mara, what George Zimmerman did was simple: he defended himself. Zimmerman was looking out for those in his neighborhood when he saw someone he felt was suspicious and called police, O'Mara said in his closing argument. The defendant got out of his car, but briefly, and was walking back to it when things got physical. Did investigators blow the Zimmerman case? Martin jumped out of some bushes and pounced, the defense contends. And, O'Mara added, the teen didn't just hold Zimmerman down, but punched and slammed his head repeatedly into the sidewalk. "That was somebody who used the availability of dangerous items, from his fist to the concrete, to cause great bodily injury against George Zimmerman," said O'Mara. The lead defense attorney also criticized the prosecution's case, saying it was full of "coulda beens. How many 'what ifs' have you heard from the state in this case?" There's no merit, he claimed, to the depiction of Zimmerman as a frustrated, spiteful man seeking vengeance. "Do not give anybody the benefit of the doubt except for George Zimmerman," O'Mara said. 
Tensions high ahead of verdict There was a buzz outside the Sanford courtroom Saturday even before the verdict was announced, punctuated by occasional speeches, songs and impassioned words -- at times directed against those on the other side of the debate. 
There were those calling for a guilty verdict who held up a large banner reading "End racial oppression" and who yelled in unison, "We want justice." 
On the other side, Zimmerman backers toted signs saying "Self-defense is a basic human right," "Not enough evidence," and plainly "Not guilty." 'Raise your voice, not your hands,' cops urge as Zimmerman verdict looms Many of these themes have been echoing since the weeks after Martin's death, when tens of thousands attended rallies led by civil rights activists demanding Zimmerman's arrest and chastising authorities for their handling of the case. Zimmerman surmised Martin was a criminal like those who'd struck in his neighborhood before -- at least one of whom was black -- a lawyer for the late teen's family said Friday. But Martin was not a criminal, which Daryl Parks said contributes to the racial tensions that still surround this case. While he wouldn't call Zimmerman a racist, "this case in its totality has a racial undertone to it," Parks told CNN's Anderson Cooper. The defense strongly rejected accusations Zimmerman is racist, with O'Mara citing his client's work as a mentor to black children and his taking a black girl to his prom as evidence of his non-racist beliefs. His defenders have been passionate as well, especially about a person's right to defend himself with a gun when attacked. Debate swirled over Florida's "stand your ground" law, which allows those who believe they are in imminent danger to use deadly force to protect themselves. In light of this ongoing fervor, authorities asked for calm while setting up contingency plans to respond to incidents tied to a verdict. 
The Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. was among those appealing for peace Friday, while Zimmerman's family urged people to "respect the rule of law, which begins with respecting the verdict." 
"Freedom of expression is a constitutional right," said the sheriff's office in Broward County, in the Miami area. "While raising your voice is encouraged, using your hands is not." But O'Mara said that, whatever the outcome, his client will not feel safe. "There are a percentage of the population who are angry, they're upset, and they may well take it out on him," he said. Murder trial jurors can be overwhelmed, traumatized

Is Obama pressuring the Judge in the Zimmerman Trial to get a guilty verdict?

The hostile exchange began when Judge Debra Nelson asked Zimmerman if he planned to testify.

Essentially, Judge Nelson told Zimmerman he had the “absolute right to remain silent” but then proceeded to demand he answer her questions interrogation-style while silencing his lawyers.

Defense attorney Don West twice objected to Nelson’s interrogation, prompting the judge to raised her voice and exclaim, “Your objection is overruled!” in a manner more befitting of an angry parent lecturing a child than a legal professional.

Both of Zimmerman’s lawyers appeared shocked as attorney Mark O’Mara asked under his breath, “what is going on?”

Several legal experts and observers said the outburst was unprecedented.

“I have never seen that in more than 30 years of court reporting,” tweeted journalist Kathi Belich.

Former Senatorial candidate Richard Rivette also expressed his shock at the judge’s behavior.

“This judge is an idiot. I spent five years investigating high profile capital cases defending people from the death penalty, and worked for the Federal judiciary as an independent investigator on other cases. No judge ever inquires as to whether a defendant will testify until the entire defense case is presented. If the defense rests and does not call the defendant then the judge knows there will be no testimony. If the defense calls the defendant then that’s when the judge finds out. They have to get through the entire case first. To see if it is valid after prosecution cross-examines their witnesses and experts as to whether a defendant SHOULD testify, which is decided in private not in public, and NOT on the record. By doing this, the judge has undermined a portion of Zimmerman’s credibility. He looks like he is waffling and this is normal judge/defendant questioning, which it is NOT,” said Rivette.

Respondents to the story at the National Review Online also expressed their view that Zimmerman was being railroaded.

“A fix is in from the administration to find Zimmerman guilty regardless of what it takes,” commented one.

“By demanding that Zimmerman respond to a question, after she has assured him that he has the right to remain silent, she is undermining his right to remain silent and making it appear as though he and his attorneys are not firm in their convictions. This judge is shameless,” added another.

Judge Nelson also ruled this week that Trayvon Martin’s text messages, which showed that Martin had been involved in fights before and was trying to buy or sell a gun, cannot be shown to the jury, which some suggested was another indication of an anti-Zimmerman bias.

Nelson also granted a request by prosecutors to block the defense’s attempt to show the jury a computer-animated depiction of the fight between Martin and Zimmerman.

She is also likely to allow the jury to consider lesser charges against Zimmerman in light of the prosecution’s probable failure to prove its case for second-degree murder, another indication that the state is desperate to avoid him walking free.

Judge Nelson has been very careful at every stage of the trial to dismiss evidence or testimony that could convince the jury in favor of acquitting Zimmerman.

Now some are asking the question – did Nelson’s aggressive outburst represent an attempt to prejudice the jury against Zimmerman?

Given the likelihood that Zimmerman will be acquitted, has Judge Nelson been put under pressure by the federal government to aggressively advocate for the prosecution, just as Supreme Court Justice John Roberts was apparently pressured to vote to uphold Obamacare?

Ever since President Barack Obama personally inserted himself into the controversy by declaring Trayvon Martin to be akin to the son he never had, higher-ups have constantly meddled in the case in an effort to secure a murder charge for a scenario that Zimmerman would not normally have even been arrested for under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

Indeed, ex-Sanford police chief Bill Lee told CNN yesterday that “he felt pressure from city officials to arrest Zimmerman to placate the public rather than as a matter of justice,” and that his investigation “provided no probable cause to arrest Zimmerman at the scene.”

It also emerged this week that the federal government encouraged and funded last year’s protests demanding the arrest of Zimmerman via the Community Relations Service, a division of the Department of Justice. Documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that the CRS was “deployed to Sanford, FL, following the Trayvon Martin shooting to help organize and manage rallies and protests against George Zimmerman,” spending millions of dollars in the process.

Given the plethora of threats by Trayvon supporters to stage violent riots if Zimmerman is acquitted, could Nelson be under pressure to secure a charge of at least manslaughter in order to avoid nationwide civil disorder?

If that’s the case, her apparent effort to prejudice the jury clearly suggests that a mistrial has taken place.

Another Frum IDF soldier attacked, Where are the "Gedolim" and Rosh Yeshivas!

We send our children to learn in Israel, why don't we  call the Yeshivas that our children attend and tell them that we demand that the Rosh Yeshiva speak out against these atrocities perpetrated against Judaism? How much longer are we going to tolerate this?

Ultra Orthdox Jewish man walks next to a sign against ultra orthodox soldiers, in the ultra orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood in Jerusalem, on July 11, 2013.  Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

 Israeli police say an ultra-Orthodox soldier has been accosted in a religious Jerusalem neighborhood - in a sign of anger over plans to begin drafting religious men into the army.

Ultra-Orthodox men are exempt from military service. Men who choose to serve in the army are frequently shunned by their communities. In Thursday’s incident, police say a vehicle full of ultra-Orthodox men yelled curses and threw objects at the soldier as he was walking on Shmuel Hanavi Street.

Anger has been rising as the Israeli government prepares to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men. Israel’s Channel 2 reported that 80 such attacks have taken place in the last few months. Neither army nor police spokesmen could confirm that number.

The soldier was not injured and was rescued by the police. 

A similar incident occurred in the capital on Tuesday.