If you have been following the story of Nechemya Weberman, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man accused of being a child molester, you might have thought that it sounds all too familiar.

Weberman, 53, had been working as an unlicensed therapist in the uber-insular community. One of his patients, a young girl who attended "sessions intended to promote her religious practice," accused him of sexually assaulting her beginning when she was 12, according to the New York Times. The community has rallied behind him, it seems, with thousands attending a fundraiser for his legal defense Wednesday evening and a mere hundred people protesting in defense of the victim, who has been lambasted as a "liar."

Rewind to May 2011. The Voice detailed a similar saga taking place in El Barrio: Juan Caceres, a prominent leader of the Mexican community, had been convicted of repeatedly raping his own daughter. Instead of rallying behind her, they publicly villified her.

The Voice wanted to get a better understanding of why this shaming takes place. So we reached out to Grace Perez. She has worked as a sex abuse and domestic violence victims advocate in the New York metropolitan area for some 30 years and organizes the annual Brides March. What did she say?

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Time for some good news and some bad news.

The good news? The online video game accounts of 3,500 sex offenders registered in New York have been closed.

The bad news? Apparently, 3,500 registered sex offenders were able to get gaming accounts with platforms frequented by children -- such as Electronic Arts and Disney Interactive -- in the first place.

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Sometime last year, Nancy Schwartzman came across a tech competition -- the 2011 White House "Apps Against Abuse Technology Contest." The Brooklyn filmmaker and founder of The Line Campaign wondered: can a simple app prevent sexual assault and dating violence?

So the Sunset Park resident partnered with Deb Levine, ISIS founder and mobile app expert, to design Circle of 6 -- which sends out a help-seeking text alert to six friends with two taps. The pair submitted their prototype to the contest and won, but the iPhone app just launched several weeks ago. It has already been downloaded some 20,000 times.

Schwartzman tells Runnin' Scared: "We basically just wanted to make it really easy for people to get out of bad situations."

How does it work?

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Police are now looking for a group of vandals that worked Wednesday morning to let subway riders at thee stations across Manhattan and Brooklyn ride free. The group -- wearing masks, hoods and gloves -- chained open emergency gates, taped over the MetroCard readers and posted signs that read, "customers ride for free." According to the New York Times investigators are still trying to determine whether the group acted "as part -- or in sympathy with --" Occupy Wall Street or another protest group. "We don't know who is behind the incidents or what the motivation is," an NYPD spokesman said Saturday. On Thursday, reports emerged that about 20 stations across the city saw gates opened to protest MTA cutbacks. [NYT]

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Aravella Simotas

Following a jury's failure to convict Michael Pena, the NYPD officer on trial for allegedly sexually attacking a teacher at gunpoint while off-duty, of rape, the New York Daily News reports that Queens Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas wants to introduce a bill that would broaden the state's definition of rape and therefore harder for people like Pena to avoid that conviction. Pena was found guilty on Tuesday of criminal sexual assault and predatory sexual assault. That said, the jury could not reach a verdict on two counts of rape, and on Wednesday a judge declared a mistrial.

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The woman who was allegedly raped by Michael Pena, who was an NYPD officer off-duty, in August testified against him yesterday. The 25-year-old teacher explained that Pena asked how to get to the 1 train. After she did so, he still showed her he gun, brought her to an alleyway, forced her to perform oral sex at gunpoint, and raped and sodomized her. Pena's lawyer has said that while his client did assault the woman there was no sexual penetration based on DNA evidence. [NY1, NYT]

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Since it's officially Timothy Cardinal Dolan week, why not keep the celebration going with a little more info on the Catholic leader's legislative positions?

Yesterday, Runnin' Scared wrote about Dolan's opposition to the Reproductive Health Act, which would codify abortion rights in the state, and de-criminalize late-term terminations.

Today, we bring you deets about the Child Victims Act, a pending policy which, if passed, would extend the statute of limitations for victims of sexual abuse.

Dolan has publicly opposed the law, sponsored by Rep. Margaret M. Markey (pictured here).

He says that it would basically bankrupt the church, even calling the proposed measure "unjust" to Catholics.

(Runnin' Scared reached out to the Archdiocese of New York for comment. We'll update when we hear back.)

Click for a brief explanation of this polemic policy.

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Two scumbags attacked a 60-year-old woman on Tuesday -- one of them sexually assaulted her while the other suspect robbed the victim, cops say.

The first slimeball rang the doorbell on a Marine Park, Brooklyn business and asked whether the owner was available, "because he had some papers for him."

While chatting, the second sleaze knocked on the door. The victim let him into the biz, and he immediately put her in a chokehold. The first suspect picked up a box of files and left. He came back twice after that, taking another box of files with him each time. Meanwhile, the pervy perp pushed the victim into the bathroom and sexually assaulted her. The two crims then fled. The victim was hospitalized and released.

Now, cops want your help finding them.

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A 73-year-old woman was out for her morning walk when Kentrel Whitaker shoved her to the ground, beat her, and tried to rape her.

The sex-fiend sicko removed her underwear and straddled her, but a nearby pedestrian saw what was happening and rushed to help. Whitaker also broke several of the victim's bones, and she had to be taken to the hospital.

Whitaker fled, but wasn't able to evade justice for long: Today, a jury convicted the 33-year-old perv of attempted rape in the first degree and assault in the second degree for the brutal August 2010 attack, which took place on the East River promenade, near 111th Street.

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Cops say this creep exposed himself to a woman on the northbound 4 train on February 8, around 12:30 p.m., and they want your help finding him.

The incident took place at the 149th Street/Grand Concourse subway station in the Bronx. After the incident, the perv fled the station on foot.

The 30- to 40-year-old perv is described as 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9 and 175-190 pounds.

The scumbag is said to have a shaved head.

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