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Tuesday, 20 March 2007 16:20 |
Castration ring participants
all will be free from jail soon
WAYNESVILLE ó Three members of a voluntary-castration ring that was raided by police last year will soon be released ó one on house arrest and the others for time served.
The men were convicted of felony castration without malice and felony maiming without malice, for performing castrations on six men in 2004 and 2005. The surgeries took place in a sadomasochistic dungeon fashioned from a carport at a home on Peace Mountain Road.
When police raided the house, they found a scrotum and a testicle in the freezer, among other evidence.
Superior Court Judge Dennis Winner sentenced the groupís ringleader,
Richard Peter ìMaster Rickî Sciara, 62, to one year in prison, but
deducted the 350 days he had spent in prison since his arrest. Sciara
will be released in two more weeks.
Winner also released Michael Mendez, 61, Sciaraís lover of 20 years,
after sentencing him to four months in jail, but deducting the six
months he had served since the arrests.
The third man, Danny Carroll Reeves, 50, who was identified as the
coupleís ìslave,î was sentenced to six monthsí electronic house arrest
following his release on March 29.
Furthermore, the men will have to pay for court costs and are prohibited from owning surgical equipment.
Though the castrations were voluntary and the men who underwent the
operations all reportedly told prosecutors that the trio should not be
jailed, Winner said that the castrations were an unacceptable form of
perversion.
The sentences were the result of plea bargains, whereby the three men
pled guilty in exchange for the state dropping charges of conspiracy
and misdemeanor practicing medicine without a license.
During the trial and sentencing, only one witness was called, Sciaraís brother Anthony Sciara.
Although he is a clinical psychologist and has testified in other
criminal trials, Anthony Sciara was testifying as a family member, not
as an expert witness.
He said that his brother was never violent growing up, although he was different from other boys.
He also spoke of Sciaraís service in Vietnam, for which he received a
Bronze Star, and his career as a physicianís assistant at the Veterans
Affairs hospital in Topeka, Kan., where he reportedly learned to
perform castrations.
However, he also expressed disgust at his brotherís involvement in
body-modification surgery and sadomasochism, which, he said, prompted
him to stop speaking to Sciara in 2002.
Assistant District Attorney Jim Moore claimed that Sciara and his
assistants performed the castrations in the nude and that, at least
once, he had performed an operation while drinking a beer and smoking a
cigarette ó claims Sciaraís lawyer disputed.
At least one pair of men who came to Sciaraís dungeon were denied their
requests for body modifications, according to court transcripts. The
men wanted their legs amputated above the knees and had already each
cut off one finger as a sign of their affection for each other.
Sciara reportedly turned the men away.
Several of the men who came to Sciara claimed that they suffered from
pain in their testicles. One had his penis removed and another had the
head of his penis cut off.
Others had fake testicles, known as ìnuteciles,î implanted.
None of the three men had any previous criminal histories, which,
combined with the lack of aggravating factors, contributed to the
relatively lenient sentences. If such factors had been found, they
could have faced significantly longer prison terms, officials said.
Baptist minister arrested,
charged with molestation
A Baptist minister was released from the Buncombe County jail last
Wednesday after being arrested March 13 on charges of sex crimes
against children that allegedly took place over a span of more than 30
years.
Buncombe County sheriffís investigators charged the Rev. Roy Mace
Honeycutt II, 63, with two counts of first-degree sex offense with a
boy younger than 13, as well as six counts of taking indecent liberties
with two other boys who were under 16, warrants said.
Officials claim the offenses took place in 1967, 1974 and 1986. The
Gorman Bridge Road resident was being held in the Buncombe County jail
in lieu of a $200,000 bond.
Honeycutt had been a pastor at several area churches, including Bethel
Baptist Church in Asheville and Trinity Baptist Church in Mars Hill.
The grandmother of one of the victims reportedly told investigators
that her grandson was younger than 10 when the abuse took place, but
that he did not reveal the abuse until he was an adult. He and the
other two victims reportedly went to authorities in November.
Arden woman faces charge
of killing husband in fight
ARDEN ó A 44-year-old Postal Service employee faces charges of
first-degree murder after police say she shot her husband during an
argument at their home.
Debra Madeo Clark reportedly called police last Wednesday to say that
she had shot her husband, 36-year-old Stephen Thomas Clark.
Neighbor Cissie Thompson reportedly told police she heard six gunshots
in succession coming from the Clarksí house. When Thompson came outside
to see what had happened, she saw Steve Clark lying in the front yard
of his house.
This was not the first time the household had erupted in violence,
according to Sheriff Van Duncan. Officers had previously been sent to
deal with domestic disturbances at the Graceland Place house.
However, there was no indication the day before that the couple was fighting, according to neighbors.
The Clarks had moved in a few months ago with their 6-year-old
daughter. The child was in the house during the incident, but was not
hurt.
An officer brought the sleeping child in a blanket to a neighborís
house where she slept until her sister, a high-school student, came to
pick her up.
Neither of the Clarks has any significant criminal record in Buncombe
County. There also are no domestic-violence protective orders on file
against them, officials said.
Deputy shot, injured during
domestic-disturbance call
A Buncombe County sheriffís deputy was injured last Thursday when he
suffered a minor gunshot wound during a domestic-disturbance call,
authorities said.
Lt. Dale DenOuden was injured about 4:15 p.m. when Billy Ray Surrett,
28, allegedly fired several shots from his Bear Creek Road mobile home.
The shotgun was loaded with birdshot, one piece of which hit DenOuden, the sheriffís department said.
Deputies had responded to a call about a domestic disturbance between
Surrett and his wife. She had filed charges against him earlier that
day at the magistrateís office, claiming that he had fired a gun at her.
After surrounding the house, deputies attempted to convince Surrett to
come out. Eventually, family members persuaded him to surrender.
He had previously served time in North Carolina prisons for breaking
and entering vehicles and burglary in Yancey County, as well as for
assault on a public official in Mitchell County.
Surrett now faces two charges of attempted murder, as well as charges
of injury to personal property, discharging a firearm into occupied
property and discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle. He is
being held on a $500,000 bond.
DenOudenís injuries were not life-threatening and he was able to work
an accident on Leicester Highway on his way back from the incident.
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