EDITOR’S NOTE: At the conclusion of James Bogush’s trial in December 2009, the Court ruled to seal the case file relating to the charges and arrest of Bogush. This case was charged a violation rather than a criminal offense.
A Boston University student will appear in court today facing charges of sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl he met through Facebook.com, according to police.
James Bogush, 20, drove from BU to Scarsdale, N.Y. to meet the girl Oct. 7 after he told her he was a 16-year-old high school student, police said in media reports.
Bogush inappropriately touched the girl in his car that weekend, the reports state. The girl had snuck out of her house twice to meet him; they had kissed the night before the alleged incident, police say.
“He forcibly touched her private areas,” Lt. Bryant Clark, of the Scarsdale Police Department, said in a WCBS report.
Bogush, from Ridgewood, N.J., faces charges of second-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a minor. He will appear in Scarsdale Village Court today.
A Scarsdale judge has ordered Bogush from contacting the girl.
Bogush and the girl also allegedly interacted on another website – Espinthebottle.com, which in a take on a popular party game, lets users click on a bottle that points to others’ profiles. The minimum age for users is 13, according to the site, which claims to be “fun, safe and free.”
Yesterday, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo made a deal with Facebook stating it will respond to complaints within 24 hours. The social networking site will also investigate the complaints and report on them within three days. If necessary, an outside group may monitor the process.
“When you put the disclosures together with the new complaint review process, together with the independent safety examiner, I think it’s fair to say that Facebook will have the safest interaction of its kind on the Internet,” Cuomo said at a press conference.
The incident involving Bogush is the latest in a string of sexual assault reports involving BU students. The BU Police Department is investigating a report of a sexual assault in a Warren Towers bathroom from early Sunday, Sept. 30, though no suspect has been identified.
In September, a student believed by police and school officials to attend BU reported five or six white men held her down and sexually assaulted her at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus. Two other female students reported to the BUPD they were sexually assaulted in September – one after drinking at fraternity parties and one in her Kenmore Square dorm room.
