Florida
Florida lawyer deported back to US after allegedly paying to sexually abuse children in Cambodia
![Florida lawyer deported back to US after allegedly paying to sexually abuse children in Cambodia](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/07/rapist-florida-lawyer-comp2.jpg?quality=75&strip=all&w=1024)
A Florida attorney has been deported back to the US after spending two and a half years in a Cambodian prison for sexually abusing four kids — and now faces 170 years behind bars in the States if found guilty of child sex crimes.
Rugh James Cline, 40, is currently under house arrest at his Tampa residence after he was indicted by the Department of Justice in February of 2021 — two years after his arrest in Cambodia.
He faces five counts of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place and one count of possession of child exploitation materials, according to the DOJ.
The lawyer is accused of traveling to Cambodia in February and May of 2019 and paying to sexually abuse four children — all under the age of 15 — on multiple occasions.
The alleged child rapist has pleaded not guilty to his charges after his first appearance in federal court in Tampa on June 7 in Tampa.
Cline was released on a $100,000 bond last Monday under the condition he would be on 24-hour home detention with GPS monitoring, given the severity of his accused crimes.
He is also forbidden from using the internet and cannot have any contact with minors while under home detention, according to the DOJ.
If found guilty, Cline could be sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for each count of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, as well as an additional 20 years for possession of child pornography.
Cline graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 2010 but has not been eligible to practice law in Florida due to “delinquent fees,” according to The Florida Bar.
It is unclear when he last practiced law in the Sunshine State, but the Florida Bar said in 2021 that the DOJ charges stemming from his actions in Cambodia did not affect “his status,” and a separate “disciplinary file” was opened into the matter, Law & Crime reported.
Cline was identified back in 2019 by Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE) — a non-governmental organization that investigates suspected foreign pedophiles in Cambodia — after the victims revealed to Cambodian law enforcement that the lawyer had paid $120 to each of them for the multiple acts of abuse, WFLA reported back in 2019.
The disgraced lawyer was convicted in 2021 for paying to abuse the underage girls and served two and half years in a Cambodian prison.
He was also ordered to pay a $200 fine to the court and $3,750 in compensation to each of the victims — all of whom were under the age of 15 at the time of the abuse.
“I welcome the verdict, however, the crime of purchase of child prostitution should have been charged as the offender took advantage of the victims, coercing them with money,” APLE’s executive director, Seila Samleang, told the Associated Press in 2019. “This would’ve represented a longer jail sentence.”
Those caught and convicted of purchasing child prostitutes in Cambodia can face seven to 15 years of imprisonment when the child is under 15.
His deportation back to the US was prompted after a joint FBI investigation with the State Department and the Cambodian National Police determined they had enough evidence to prosecute Cline in the States.
Assistant United States Attorney Frank Murray, the prosecutor for the US trial, will have to prove Cline traveled to Cambodia in February and May of 2019 to “engaged in illicit sexual conduct” with the minors — while knowingly traveling with and in possession of “materials depicting the sexual abuse of young children.”
For decades, Cambodia has been a draw for foreign pedophiles, given the country’s rampant poverty and its poorly trained law enforcement.
In recent years, authorities in Cambodia have ramped up efforts to crack down on child sex crimes by visitors after mounting pressure from various anti-trafficking agencies around the globe.
102 cases exist of foreign tourists suspected of pedophilia in 2017, with an additional 89 cases in 2018, according to findings by APLE in 2022.
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Florida
Central Florida Haiti organization watches as Beryl skirts past island nation
![Central Florida Haiti organization watches as Beryl skirts past island nation](https://res.cloudinary.com/graham-media-group/image/upload/f_auto/q_auto/c_thumb,w_700/v1/media/anyclip/YIBpcZABQZTe_c4-OldK/1719889963241_1920x1080_thumbnail.jpg?_a=ATAPphC0)
A local organization said it is prepared to help bring supplies to Haiti if needed following Hurricane Beryl.
Maggie Saint Jean, who runs the Daily Bread Distribution Center in Central Florida, is urging the community to donate items to help both Haiti and local residents.
The organization also said it’s challenging to send supplies to Haiti, but they are determined to help.
“Just because it’s difficult, doesn’t mean people aren’t in need. We still have to make our efforts,” Saint Jean said.
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Saint Jean said whether it’s gang violence or storm damage, their mission doesn’t change.
“The focus has to be the same,” Saint Jean said. Whether it’s one issue or five issues, it’s the people. Once you can see the people and their needs, then your focus doesn’t change. Things will come and things will go, but our focus will never change.”
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Florida
NASA Returns to the Beach: Bright Beaches in Florida
![NASA Returns to the Beach: Bright Beaches in Florida](https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/153000/153006/iss069e039255.jpg)
Since publishing NASA Earth Observatory Goes to the Beach in July 2017, we have explored even more of the planet’s coasts via satellite images and astronaut photographs. This week, we return to the beach with a look back at some of our favorite seaside stories published in recent years. The images and text on this page first appeared on November 19, 2023.
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of Destin, Florida, a beach city situated on the Gulf of Mexico coastline.
The city is built on a peninsula that separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Choctawhatchee Bay. Ship transport between the Gulf of Mexico and the bay is possible via the East Pass, while a bridge connects Destin to Santa Rosa Island. The thin white streaks seen in the water are wakes from boats.
Destin is part of Florida’s Emerald Coast, an area that spans about 100 miles (160 kilometers) of the Florida Panhandle. The beaches in this area are known for their “sugary white” sand and green-toned waters. The white sand is comprised primarily of quartz grains that were transported from the southern Appalachian Mountains by the Apalachicola River system. Sunlight interacting with algae in the water produces the emerald color.
Destin’s white sandy beaches, emerald waters, and proximity to the Gulf of Mexico make the town a popular tourist destination. Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection reports an estimated total of 4.5 million annual visitors to Florida’s Emerald Coast. Many tourists visit the area because Destin is a major fishing destination.
This peninsula was initially a barrier island. Over time, coastal processes including hurricanes, sand transport, and changing sea levels connected the peninsula to mainland Florida.
The astronaut used a high-focal-length lens to capture this shot. High-focal-length lenses make it possible for space station crew to take high-resolution photographs of the surface with handheld digital cameras while in a low Earth orbit of approximately 254 miles (400 kilometers).
Astronaut photograph ISS069-E-39255 was acquired on July 30, 2023, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a focal length of 1150 millimeters. The image was provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 69 crew. It has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Minna Adel Rubio, GeoControl Systems, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC.
Florida
The Supreme Court keeps on hold efforts in Texas and Florida to regulate social media platforms
![The Supreme Court keeps on hold efforts in Texas and Florida to regulate social media platforms](https://whyy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/supreme-court-abortion-pill.jpg)
The Supreme Court on Monday kept a hold on efforts in Texas and Florida to limit how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users.
The justices returned the cases to lower courts in challenges from trade associations for the companies.
While the details vary, both laws aimed to address conservative complaints that the social media companies were liberal-leaning and censored users based on their viewpoints, especially on the political right. The cases are among several this term in which the justices are wrestling with standards for free speech in the digital age.
The Florida and Texas laws were signed by Republican governors in the months following decisions by Facebook and Twitter, now X, to cut then-President Donald Trump off over his posts related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
Trade associations representing the companies sued in federal court, claiming that the laws violated the platforms’ speech rights. One federal appeals court struck down Florida’s statute, while another upheld the Texas law. But both were on hold pending the outcome at the Supreme Court.
In a statement when he signed the Florida measure into law, Gov. Ron DeSantis said it would be “protection against the Silicon Valley elites.”
When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the Texas law, he said it was needed to protect free speech in what he termed the new public square. Social media platforms “are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas,” Abbott said. “That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas.”
But much has changed since then. Elon Musk purchased Twitter and, besides changing its name, eliminated teams focused on content moderation, welcomed back many users previously banned for hate speech and used the site to spread conspiracy theories.
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