Paulding County, Ga., Sheriff's Office

Paul and Sheila Comer in undated sheriff's photos.

The mother and stepfather of an 18-year-old Georgia boy who was found gaunt and severely malnourished last year across the country in Los Angeles were each sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday.

Paul Comer, 48, and Sheila Comer, 40, of Dallas, Ga., pleaded guilty in Paulding County Superior Court to cruelty to children and false imprisonment.

As part of the plea deal, the Comers agreed to forfeit all of their assets, which will be sold and put into a trust to care for their son, Mitch Comer, 18, and his two sisters, ages 13 and 11.

A security guard discovered Mitch Comer starving and shivering at a bus station in Los Angeles on Sept. 11. He was 5 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed 87 pounds; he was so undernourished that authorities at first thought he was 12 years old.

The young man told police that his parents had given him $200 on his 18th birthday, put him on a bus in Mississippi and ordered him to never return to their home in Dallas, about 40 miles northwest of Atlanta.

What he then told investigators was even more shocking.

Investigators said the young man was locked in a bedroom for a year and then locked in a bathroom for another year, with the fixtures removed so he couldn't turn on the lights or the water. Two of the initial charges against Paul Comer alleged that he kicked his stepson in the groin and punched him in the face.

The young man's sisters told police they didn't even know what color their brother's hair was because they hadn't seen him for two years, even though he was living with them.

Paul and Sheila Comer contended that Mitch was a troubled child and that the treatment was for his own good. But faced with what could have been more than 100 years in prison, they pleaded guilty Thursday.

"What we did was we avoided the necessity of putting either Mitch or his two sisters through a two-week trial which would have been incredibly emotionally draining for them and probably more detrimental than it would have been worth it," Paulding County District Attorney Dick Donovan told NBC station WXIA of Atlanta.

The Comers' daughters remain in protective custody. Mitch Comer is living with a foster family at an undisclosed location while he attends private school.

He wasn't in court for his parents' sentencing Thursday. WXIA said it was told that he preferred to go to class.

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Scientists have found 19 previously unknown grave shafts on the grounds of a notorious Florida reform school, suggesting that many more boys died there amid brutal conditions than had previously been known, the researchers said Monday.

The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, which was also known as the Florida State Reform School, closed in June 2011 after state investigators and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division confirmed widespread abuse over many decades.

The state attributed its decision to close the school to budgetary reasons. Yet long before then, the institution had been the target of investigations and lawsuits alleging not only physical and mental abuse but also forced labor, rape and even murder of the young charges sent to its care since it opened in 1900.

The prominent writer Roger Dean Kiser, author of "The White House Boys — An American Tragedy," about the horrors he experienced while incarcerated there in the 1950s as a child, has called the school a "concentration camp for little boys." He wrote that "a devil was hiding behind every tree, every building and even behind every blade of manicured grass."

They're called the White House Boys because much of the abuse occurred in an 11-room building on the school grounds known as the White House, where former students say they were beaten with leather straps. A group of the former students sued the state in 2010, but the case was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.

Previous investigations and records had reported that 31 boys were buried on school grounds, and that most of them died in a fire and an influenza outbreak at the school in the early 1900s. But researchers at the University of South Florida, in Tampa, say they now estimate there are at least 50 grave shafts in the area of the school's cemetery and the surrounding woods. Some graves may have been the final resting place for more than one boy, the researchers said in an interim report released Monday.

Records recovered and examined by the researchers indicate that at least 96 boys and two adults died at the school from 1914 to 1973. Most of boys who were committed to the school and died there were African-American.

Read the full report (.pdf — contents may be distressing for some readers)

But that may be only the tip of the iceberg: The researchers didn't have access to student records after 1960, when such documents became subject to privacy laws. Moreover, researchers couldn't test the entire area because of overgrowth and vegetative conditions, they said.

And more chillingly, there may be other, secret graveyards somewhere on the grounds, given the number of still-unaccounted-for cases and the practice of segregating cemeteries during the first half of the last century, Erin Kimmerle, an assistant professor of anthropology at the university, said on a conference call with reporters. It's highly unlikely that white boys were buried with black boys during those decades, but as yet, the researchers haven't found a previously hidden whites-only cemetery.

"I didn't realize going in how much of a story of civil rights it was," Kimmerle said.

The research team used ground-penetrating radar and other methods to map the school's cemetery and chemically analyzed the soil to identify the number of graves.

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"We anticipated finding about 25 to 30 grave shafts," said Christian Wells, an assistant professor of anthropology who led the anthropological work at the site, "but in fact we found a minimum of 50" — all of them on the north side of the campus, called Boot Hill, where African-American boys were segregated.

A full picture of the sheer scale of the abuses remains difficult to paint, because there are significant gaps and discrepancies in the records, "and the cause and manner of death for the majority of cases are unknown," the report said.

"Many questions persist about who is buried at the school and the circumstances surrounding their deaths," the report said. But Kimmerle said the team had determined that at least 20 boys died within the first three months of having been remanded to the school's custody — probably because they were unable to cope with the crowding and the conditions — and that burial locations were unspecified for nearly three times more African-American boys than for white boys.

University of South Florida

Anthropologists from the University of South Florida marked previously undiscovered graves at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Fla., during field work in May 2012.

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A 35-year-old Texas woman accused of having sex with a 14-year-old boy and then claiming to be pregnant from the relationship may have worked as a substitute teacher at least once in the boy’s classroom, a school official said.

Bexar County Sheriff's Office

Amanda Sotelo, 35.

Amanda Sotelo, a resident of Von Ormy, was booked into a Bexar County jail on Nov. 1 on a charge of indecency with a child, Louis J. Antu, spokesman with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, told NBC News. Bond was set at $75,000.

School district officials learned of the allegations Oct. 31 after the boy's mother alerted them of the relationship, Anne Marie Espinoza, spokeswoman for the Southwest Independent School District in San Antonio, told KSAT-TV.

Excerpts from the affidavit:

Sotelo stated that the relationship developed over time. She and the victim were both going through problems and confided in each other. It wasn’t until the end of this last school year that they began having a sexual relationship, ‘like grown-ups’ … She further admitted that she and the victim had sex about once a week. Sotelo further stated that she found out she is pregnant when she went to the emergency room the first week of September.

Sotelo further stated she loves the victim and he loves her.

"She's in jail but that's about the only thing we've heard. We've got a lot of family problems going on right now," Johnny Lopez, Sotelo’s son-in-law, told KSAT.com.

Lopez said Sotelo is married, and her husband was out of town. They have other children.

Espinoza confirmed that Sotelo had worked as a substitute in several of the district’s schools, and possibly, substituted at least once in the boy’s classroom, KSAT.com reported.

Esponiza told NBC News district officials refused to further comment.

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“The district learned of an allegation of inappropriate behavior of a substitute with a high school student,” said the district in a emailed statement. “The district immediately took appropriate actions to ensure the substitute was not on any campus pending an investigation. The district made contact with appropriate agencies including law enforcement. The substitute is no longer employed by the district.”

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Courtesy of John Mark Buckland

John Mark Buckland, 42, of Huntington, W. Va., said he was sexually abused by a Boy Scout leader at Travis Air Force Base when he was 12 years old in 1982. The Boy Scouts' secret file documenting that abuse will be made public under a court order on Thursday, along with more than 14,500 pages of previously confidential documents detailing accusations of child sex abuse within the organization.

Updated at 2:35 pm ET to reflect release of the report:
John Buckland was 12 years old when an assistant Scoutmaster sexually abused him on an Air Force base in California. He has been waiting years for the day when a secret Boy Scouts file documenting that abuse three decades ago would be made public.

That day came Thursday, when more than 14,500 pages of previously confidential documents created by the Boy Scouts of America detailing accusations of child sex abuse within the organization were released under an Oregon Supreme Court order.

“It unveils all the secrecy, or at least a good portion of it, and the secrecy is the biggest demon there is when it comes to things like this, because it’s by being hidden that it basically just eats people away like a cancer,” Buckland, 42, of Huntington, W. Va., told NBC News.

“I think the release of the files will be instrumental as far as victims are concerned in being able to see that the dialogue is out there, and what I’m hoping to see is that there will be some really good self discovery of other people who haven’t come forward, people who will get a chance to see the files and actually being able to start processing it and getting their experience out in the open. But as long as the files were hidden that would never happen," he added.

The court ordered the Boy Scouts to release the “ineligible volunteer” files from 1965 to 1985 that chronicle suspected or confirmed instances of child sex abuse. Media organizations had sued for the release of the files, part of a 2010 case in which a jury decided that the Scouts were negligent in allowing a former assistant Scoutmaster to associate with the organization's youth after he admitted molesting 17 boys in 1983.

Lawyers for victims of the abuse say that the files, which they have dubbed the “perversion files,” represent reports of Scouts allegedly abused by more than 1,200 different Scoutmasters and other adult volunteers. The files, which includes Buckland’s abuser, were released Thursday on www.kellyclarkattorney.com.

A report by the Boy Scouts in September said that 829 of the files from Jan. 1, 1965, to June 30, 1984, involved suspicions or confirmations of inappropriate sexual behavior with 1,622 youth. The report was done for the organization by Dr. Janet Warren, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia.

At the time, the Boy Scouts said in a letter that they would review their files created from 1965 to the present “and ensure that all good-faith suspicion of abuse has been reported to law enforcement.” They also said that there “have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong.”

Boy Scouts admit response to sex abuse was 'insufficient' 

On Thursday morning, the organization also noted: “Where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest and sincere apologies to victims and their families.”

“While it is difficult to understand or explain individuals’ actions from many decades ago, today Scouting is a leader among youth-serving organizations in preventing child abuse,” the statement added.

In an interview with NBC DFW, National President Wayne Perry said: "I would ask parents to look at the programs we have and then judge us versus, maybe not the past, but judge where we are today and certainly judge us against any other youth service organization in the world and they will see that your kids are very, very safe."

Buckland said his life spiraled downward after Air Force officials came to his parents’ house on Travis Air Force Base in Vacaville, Calif., with photos depicting his abuse by a Scout leader. He dropped out of high school, got into drugs, attempted suicide twice, had many failed romantic relationships and eventually ended up in prison for two robberies that he confessed to doing.

His abuser was court-martialed and sentenced to hard labor, Buckland said, but it took him decades to figure out the source of what was troubling him since he, like the Boy Scouts, had buried the abuse. He said his life turned around when he got his dream job as a firefighter and then landed a two-year post in Iraq in 2009, where, while online, he came across stories similar to his own.

“That was the first time that I understood the dynamics of what was going on inside of me that flawed my decision-making, that flawed my emotions, that flawed everything and really propelled me in that direction,” he said. “The light bulb goes off and that’s decades later.”

For Buckland, the Boy Scouts’ apologies are insincere and forced. He said they never contacted him since he was abused in 1982 to see if he was okay.

“These files had to be ripped from their hands,” he said, noting that the lawyers who fought the 2010 case, Kelly Clark and Paul Mones, had “taken us from being a piece of paper to being a person that was offended, and that’s a huge difference.”

“This whole thing empowers us,” he said. “We’ve been powerless up to now. We’ve been at the whims of a multibillion-dollar organization that … has all the money to keep us under a desk in a box. And for now, they can’t do it anymore.”

A history teacher for the nation’s largest school district has been banned from teaching in New York City for fondling and forcing a student to pose for explicit photos inside a storage cage, according to authorities.

Special investigators for New York City School District say 57-year-old Raemon Matthews took racy photographs of a 17-year-old girl inside a cage used for storage in a classroom at the Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High School in the Bronx in 2009.

Earlier this year, Matthews pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor sex abuse for fondling the student. He was sentenced in June to serve one year of probation. Matthews resigned in April.

Attempts by NBC News to contact school officials or union officials to request terms of Matthews’ resignation were unsuccessful on Tuesday.   

According to the investigators’ report, Matthews convinced the student to pose for the photos by telling her she needed a portfolio for college recruiters.

Investigators say the student complied with Matthews’s photo sessions because she feared failing the class. She told investigators that when she tried to put a stop to the photo session, Matthews told her “No, boo-boo, we’re just getting started,” The New York Daily News reported.

A custodian found the photos on a CD in 2010 and alerted school officials.

Officials with the New York City Department of Education said Matthews will not be allowed to teach in the district.

Matthews’ lawyer, Jonathan Goltzman, also was unavailable for comment on Tuesday.

He commented earlier that all sides had been satisfied with Matthews' plea. Goltzman told the Daily News: “My client accepted responsibility and he’s moving on with his life.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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State of Oregon via AP file

This undated image made available by the State of Oregon on March 18, 2010 shows Timur Dykes. In April 2010, a jury decided the Boy Scouts were negligent for allowing Dykes, a former assistant scoutmaster, to associate with Scouts after he admitted to a Scouts official in 1983 that he had molested 17 boys, according to court records.

As the Boy Scouts of America prepares for the court-ordered release of records detailing accusations of sex abuse by members and leaders, the organization acknowledged in an open letter this week that its response in some of the cases had been “plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong.”

The letter comes after the Oregon Supreme Court ordered the Boy Scouts to release “ineligible volunteer” files from 1965 to 1985 that chronicle suspected or confirmed instances of child sex abuse. Media organizations had sued for the release of the files, part of a 2010 case in which a jury decided that the Scouts were negligent for allowing a former assistant scoutmaster to associate with the organization's youth after he admitted molesting 17 boys in 1983, court records show, according to The Associated Press.

Some 829 of the files from that time period (Jan. 1, 1965 to June 30, 1984) involve suspicions or confirmations of inappropriate sexual behavior with 1,622 youth, according to a report by Dr. Janet Warren, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia, for the Boy Scouts. The report, released Tuesday, was completed in 2011.

“Dr. Warren’s report shows that, as part of our broader Youth Protection program, the BSA’s system of ineligible volunteer files functions to help protect Scouts,” Wayne Perry, national president, Tico Perez, national commissioner, and Wayne Brock, chief Scout executive, said Tuesday in an open letter to the Scouting community. “However, we also know that in some instances we failed to defend Scouts from those who would do them harm. There have been instances where people misused their positions in Scouting to abuse children, and in certain cases, our response to these incidents and our efforts to protect youth were plainly insufficient, inappropriate, or wrong.

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“For any episode of abuse, and in any instance where those involved in Scouting failed to protect, or worse, inflicted harm on children, we extend our deepest apologies and sympathies to victims and their families,” according to the letter. “While we believe the files are an inconclusive record, the BSA will undertake a similar review and analysis of the IV (ineligible volunteer) files created from 1965 to present and ensure that all good-faith suspicion of abuse has been reported to law enforcement.”

The developments were first reported by the Los Angeles Times, which noted that Warren’s team was paid $75,000 to complete the study.

Warren’s findings included:

--  The total number of alleged youth victims identified in the files was 1,622. Of these, 1,302 were involved in Scouting, for 112 it was unclear, and for 208, they were not involved in Scouting.
--  486 of the men identified in the files as suspects were arrested at some time for a sex crime. It may have occurred before they got involved with Scouting, as a result of the incident noted in their file or after they left the organization.
--  In 531 of the cases, there was information indicating alleged inappropriate sexual behavior with multiple youths. 
--  In 252 of the cases, the available information indicated alleged inappropriate sexual behavior with only a single victim. 
--  128 of the men in the files had their registration revoked within a year of signing up.
-- Police were involved in the investigation of 523 cases.
-- Six men placed on probation offended against a Scout during their probationary period, while two men were accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with a youth after their probationary period had ended.  
-- After being denied registration by the BSA, 175 men were identified as having sought to re-register with the organization, in some cases under a different name at another location many years after their initial entry into the files. They were denied entry into the Boy Scouts.

“My review of these files indicates that the reported rate of sexual abuse in Scouting has been very low,” Warren wrote in a summary of her report, in which she also said the “files broadly refute the notion that these were ‘secret files’ of hidden abuse.”

“I believe that these files show that children in Scouting were safer and less likely to experience inappropriate sexual behavior in Scouting than in their own families, schools and during other community activities supervised by adults,” she wrote.

But an attorney who has filed several suits for former Scouts said Warren’s review didn’t take into account abuse cases that weren’t in the files.

"Personally I have represented more than a hundred men abused by Scout leaders whose names were never entered in the ... files -- even after BSA paid out substantial settlements on account of these abusers," Timothy Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney, told the Los Angeles Times. "The files are only the tip of the iceberg. Most perpetrators never get caught."

The Boy Scouts said they expect the files from the Oregon case to be released soon. They said that, beginning in 2010, the organization mandated that all suspicions of abuse be reported to law enforcement authorities and that they have always required members to follow local laws on reporting of abuse.

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SEATTLE -- Animal control officers seized 39 emaciated and sickly horses from inhumane conditions in dark stalls filled with feces on a breeding farm outside of Tacoma on Wednesday, authorities said.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents discovered the malnourished animals, many injured and some standing in more than a foot of waste, while serving drug-related warrants on Tuesday at the 99-acre property in Graham, Washington, Pierce County Animal Control supervisor Brian Boman told Reuters.

Animal control officers and sheriff's deputies from Pierce and Kitsap counties returned to the ranch a day later to seize the animals and found many were highly skittish because they had been "stall-bound" in three dark barns, Boman said.

"It was like a puppy mill, only with horses," Boman told Reuters. "The conditions are terrible. There's no telling how long it's been since they've seen daylight."

Read the story on NBC's KING5.com

Pierce County auditor Julie Anderson told NBC station KING 5 in Seattle that the horses had not been handled in a very long time. "They literally have their 'night eyes' on so they're very sun sensitive and are having trouble with depth perception," she said, describing the scene as "wanton criminal neglect."

The horses were receiving veterinary care and were being held for the time being as evidence, KING 5 reported.

No-one has been arrested so far but the owners could face charges of animal cruelty in the second degree, a gross misdemeanor in the state of Washington.

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KING 5 reported that an attorney for the owner said his client "loves these animals" and did not believe the conditions reached a criminal level.

'No lighting or ventilation'
Authorities spent more than nine hours rounding up the horses, which included mostly purebred Arabians as well as Belgian Draft horses and Clydesdales, to take them to nearby fairgrounds. None were race horses.

Some likely would be euthanized, Boman said.

A Pierce County Sheriff's Office news release, describing the roundup as the largest horse seizure the county had ever undertaken, cited the horses' living conditions as deplorable.

"Most of the horses were in barns that had large amounts of urine and feces in the stalls," the release said. "Some of the barns had no lighting or ventilation and the smell of ammonia was very strong."

Because federal and county criminal investigations are ongoing, federal authorities would not immediately release the name of the farm's owner, said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.

NBC News staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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