Intro. by Patrick H. Moore
As I knock out my daily quota of stories for the crime blog, it’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that the number one problem facing America may not be gun violence, bad as it is. The number one problem we face is child abuse –sexual, physical and emotional, and although I cannot prove it, child abuse my be the foundation upon which violence of all types festers and grows. A recent story by Amy Pavuk of the Orlando Sentinel hammers this home in the most shocking way imaginable:
There is a man, a former Marine officer named Jonathan Adleta, age 25, whose goal in life — for unknown reasons — was to engage in what is euphemistically called “daddy-daughter” sex. When he and his girlfriend, Sarah Adleta – a University of Central Florida student who has pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor – conceived a child, Jonathan informed her that he would only marry her if she would allow him to rape their child, assuming it was a daughter. If the child was a son, Sarah would be required to have sex with the boy.
This hideous scenario was revealed in an Orlando courtroom where prosecutors and witnesses described in graphic detail the horrible exploitation and abuse the couple’s toddlers endured at the hands of their parents — even after they divorced.
The abuse would still be going on had the FBI not received a tip that Sarah Adleta, now divorced, was in touch with a North Carolina pedophile who was arrested on charges of child sex abuse.
Many of the horrific revelations that came out at the trial were revealed by Sarah Adleta herself on the witness stand. She testified that when she began dating Jonathan in 2008, he began showing and telling her stories about fathers and daughters having sex, to gauge her interest and persuade her to agree to his plan. Sarah, who testified wearing Orange County jail garb, stated that she initially struggled with the idea and and more or less assumed that Jonathan would lose interest in it. Sarah also testified that she “loved” Jonathan, needed the financial security he promised to provide, and was basically willing to do whatever it took to not lose him.
Sarah gave birth to their daughter in March of 2009, and she then became pregnant with their son shortly thereafter. She and Jonathan were married in 2010.
So in effect, as Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gable told the jurors, the couple made raping their children “part of their parenting plan.”
Being a marine, Jonathan Adleta was deployed to Afghanistan. When he returned from his tour of duty, he and the family moved to California, where he was stationed. There, according to Sarah’s testimony, he had sexual contact with the children.
By 2011, Jonathan Adleta was bored with Sarah and filed for divorce. Although she returned to Central Florida, she still allowed Jonathan to continue to prey on their daughter electronically through the videoconference program Skype. Cyber molestation, however, did not long satisfy Jonathan’s aberrant desires and by the spring of 2012, he had found a new girlfriend, 23 year old Samatha Bryant of Texas, who agreed to let him victimize her daughter.
Samantha Bryant also testified at the trial stating that she watched as Jonathan Adleta molested her daughter, and on at least one occasion, took photographs of the assault. In her article in the Orlando Sentinel, Amy Pavuk writes:
Bryant, who was visibly shaken and cried throughout much of her testimony, said Jonathan Adleta asked her to write fantasy-type stories about him having sex with his daughter and her daughter. She did. She also complied when he asked Bryant to perform sex acts on her own daughter.
The culmination of this appalling story took place in over Christmas in Oklahoma where Bryant and her two children met up with Jonathan and Sarah and their two children. On the witness stand, Sarah Adleta told the jurors that in Oklahoma, her former husband sexually abused their daughter in his bedroom with her watching. During this part of her testimony, Sarah — who for the most part was without emotion — got choked up:
“She seemed very resistant,” she said of her daughter, adding that the child was “really upset” and “frightened.”
Sarah did not help her weeping daughter.
There is still more to this horribly dark narrative:
Several weeks later, Jonathan Adleta contacted Sarah who had returned to Florida and told her that she needed to find another man to abuse their daughter so she would become comfortable with the sex acts, which would prevent her from ‘freaking out” in the future.
While this was happening, Sarah Adleta was communicating with Aaron Dixon, a North Carolina man who was later arrested on child-sex charges in an unrelated case. Sarah told the jurors that she performed sex acts on the children while Dixon watched on Skype.
In her closing argument on Thursday, A.U.S.A. Gable told the jury that the last time the Sarah and Jonathan spoke, they discussed Sarah taking their daughter to Dixon so that he could sexually abuse her. That same day, the jurors found Jonathan Adleta guilty of two child-sex charges. He’ll be sentenced in December and faces 10 years to life in prison. Sarah, who faces 15 to 30 years in Federal prison, will be sentenced in October.