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Sugar Cookie

Veteran Member
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The bizarre case against karate teacher John Smith is summed up quite thoroughly in two sentences written by a judge on the state Superior Court.

“The evidence established that (Smith) had his 9-year-old karate student take his clothes off and kneel over (Smith’s) bent knee,” President Judge Emeritus Correale F. Stevens wrote. “The victim testified that (Smith) hit his bare buttocks, sometimes up to 50 times, causing him to cry.”

So, Stevens and two other state judges concluded, a Lackawanna County judge was justified in sentencing Smith to 6 ½ to 16 years in prison for abusing the boy.

The Superior Court decision sinks an appeal Smith, 33, filed of his convictions on charges of indecent assault, corruption of minors, simple assault and child endangerment. It also nixes Smith’s complaint that his jail term is “manifestly excessive.”

Smith, who has insisted he is innocent, operated the Serenity Martial Arts Studio in Clarks Summit. He was charged in 2017 of abusing the male student. The abuse occurred in late 2016 and early 2017, county detectives said.

Stevens cited claims by investigators that Smith would make the boy play “Truth or Dare” during karate lessons. Sometimes, when the boy chose “dare,” Smith made him strip for spankings, police said. They said Smith also would make the naked boy climb a metal pole during the spankings.

“When (Smith) spanked the child, he gave the child the option of choosing 10 hard or 50 soft spankings, but told him that if he chose hard, it would make him tougher,” county Judge Vito P. Geroulo wrote in a statement cited by Stevens. “This occurred numerous times. (Smith) told the victim not to tell his parents because they were not a part of the karate brotherhood.”
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