Posted on September 11, 2007

Center City Lawyer Pleads “No Contest” To Rape Charges

Dwight Ott, Philadelphia Inquirer, September 10, 2007

Center City criminal defense lawyer Larry Charles, found naked with a partially dressed 14-year-old girl at the Criminal Justice Center this year, plead no contest this afternoon to charges that he sexually assaulting six young girls.

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“The offenses occurred in this courthouse where justice was supposed to be dispensed, instead he was raping some of the most vulnerable people. . . there’s no telling the trauma they faced,” said Carpenter.

Charles had been charged with rape and related offenses in the case of the 14-year-old. A sheriff’s deputy found him with the girl in the lawyer’s lounge of the Criminal Justice Center on Jan. 15, Martin Luther King’s Birthday. The girl has testified in earlier court proceedings this year that Charles fondled her breasts and she touched his genitals.

After news of Charles’ January arrest, five other girls, ages 11 to 17, came forward and testified that Charles assaulted them, in some cases over the course of five years.

The girls testified the incidents occurred in motels in New Jersey, the Criminal Justice Center, Charles’ office on Woodland Avenue and a room at the Criminal Justice Center.

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