WOODBINE, Ga. — The first case filed under Georgia’s Hidden Predator Act is now in the hands of a jury. The jury of eight women and four men must decide whether seven men who testified that they were sexually molested as children by their karate coach deserve compensatory and punitive damages.

After deliberating for three hours, the jury adjourned Wednesday. They told the judge they were stuck, and he suggested they resume deliberations Thursday morning. 

Jurors spent the past six days listening to harrowing allegations of sexual predation by Kingsland, Ga., Pak’s Karate owner Craig Peeples, along with staunch denials by the coach that any abuse occurred. 

A 2014 investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation determined there was “sufficient evidence” of sodomy and sexual abuse to charge him, but the statute of limitations had expired in 2007.

“The expiration of the statute of limitations is an absolute bar to prosecution,” Brunswick Judicial District Attorney Jackie Johnson wrote at the time. “As such, my office is unable to proceed to grand jury on these allegations.”

During closing arguments, Wednesday, the attorney for the plaintiffs, Robert Friedman, reminded jurors of their allegations of sexual abuse and said no one would willingly subject themselves to that humiliation. He called Peeples “a smart sexual predator and a master manipulator.” 

“Most people who molest children go to jail for what he’s done,” Friedman said. “This is the means to punish Craig Peeples for what he’s done. This is how to deter him from harming one more boy.”

Peeples’ attorney, James Durham, countered that the plaintiffs made their allegations because they were seeking money and attention. He discounted their description of hundreds of encounters in Peeples’ bedroom, in hotel rooms during karate tournaments and at the Pak’s Karate studio.

“Ladies and gentlemen, where are the parents?” Durham said. “Where are the other instructors? How does that happen? Somebody has to know. Somebody had to see if it happened.” 

Peoples himself called the plaintiffs — all of whom were elite former karate students of his — “psychotic.”

Deliberations resume on Thursday at 9 a.m. 

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February 25, 2020 at 9:27 PM EST – Updated February 25 at 9:27 PM

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A lawyer says a Utah woman who fought criminal charges after her stepchildren saw her topless in her own home has taken a plea deal to avoid the risk of having to register as a sex offender if convicted.

Tilli Buchanan’s decision Tuesday brings an end to the case that drew attention to a debate over whether it’s unfair to treat men and women differently for baring their chests.

Buchanan and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah had pointed to a court ruling that overturned a topless ban in Colorado and helped fuel a movement.

Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

TROUP COUNTY, Ga. — Authorities in west Georgia are on the lookout for a man who has failed to register as a sex offender and is still on the run.

Police said Lonnel Randolph Harrison is facing charges not only for failing to register but also for felony probation violation.

According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, Harrison has spent most of the last 13 years in prison having been incarcerated in 2007, 2018 and 2019 and released in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively.

He faced charges of rape and robbery after an incident in 2001 in Fulton County and, more recently, first-degree burglary in 2017.

Harrison is described as a black male who is about 6 feet tall and 155 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He is listed as an absconder on the Georgia Bureau of Investigation sex offender registry.

Anyone who knows Harrison’s location is asked to call 706-883-1616 or, to remain anonymous, Crime Stoppers at 706-812-1000.

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February 7, 2020 at 4:32 PM EST – Updated February 9 at 12:38 PM

LONDON (AP) – Britain is set for another royal wedding. Buckingham Palace has announced that Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughter Princess Beatrice will marry in London on May 29.

The palace said Friday that 31-year-old Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, 37, will wed in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace.

The chapel was the location for the wedding of Beatrice’s great-great-great-great grandmother Queen Victoria to Prince Albert in 1840.

The queen will host a reception afterwards at Buckingham Palace.

The father of the bride, Prince Andrew, quit public royal duties in November amid an outcry over his friendship with the convicted U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in August.

The prince denies wrongdoing.

Copyright 2020 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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