Above NY Post Story: Michigan State physicist accused of having sex with dog.
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We’ll never know whether this would be a national story had Michigan State not had two other recent sex scandals, the Larry Nassar and William Stampel cases. MSU continues to deal with the fallout from these cases. Nassar was sentenced to 175 years behind bars for sexually abusing his patients. Strampel, the former dean, was arrested in March and charged with felony criminal sexual conduct and willful neglect of duty by a public official.
In January I wrote the following on Daily Kos: “ Decades later, illogical as it is, I feel Michigan State has tarnished my degrees “ about how they handled serial molester Larry Nassar. This story has additional relevance to me which I explain on the bottom of the page.
This morning one of my friends sent emailed me the story from the Lansing State Journal:
Attorney General's Office charges Michigan State University physicist with bestiality
EXCERPTS:
The Michigan Attorney General's Office has charged a Michigan State University physicist for allegedly penetrating a dog with both his hand and penis, according to a release.
Joseph Hattey, 51, of Holt, faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. An arrest warrant was approved Monday on two counts of sodomy for committing a crime against nature (bestiality).
The AG's Office said in the release that Hattey, an MSU employee, is not alleged to have conducted the acts on campus or with an animal owned by the university.
The charges stem from an investigation by Ingham County Animal Control in conjunction with the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office, according to the release.
The AG's Office said the dog, a basset hound, has been removed from harm and is currently in the custody of Ingham County Animal Control.
Hattey, according to the university's website, is a health physicist within MSU's Environmental Health and Safety office. He has previously been assigned duties within the university's Veterinarian Diagnostic Laboratory.
Michigan State has been plagued by bad publicity since the Nassar case began to make the national news.
This is not the kind of news (LINKS here) anyone currently or formerly connected with Michigan State wants to see:
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This new story has particular relevance to me, but not only as a graduate of Michigan State.
I was once the director of the Mason Mental Health Center, a town right next to Holt where Hattey lived. The county animal control director was my friend. If this had happened back then he would have been in charge of the investigation. It’s quite possible Hattey himself would have been referred to my clinic for therapy. After all, this publicity could drive him to become suicidal.
In my 20 years working in a rural mental health center where we had numerous farmers as clients, we never knowingly treated a client who was sodomizing animals. A client like this would have been the subject of numerous staff clinical discussions. A little online research turned up the fact that The Humane Society says 900-1,000 bestiality networks are communicating, exchanging tips and trading animals. They call themselves “zoos” and one group has over one million members.
There are intriguing unanswered questions. For example, did Hattey choose to work at the veterinary college so he would have a chance to molest animals? Will the MSU saying that he never had contact with animals on the job hold up? How did this come to light, who reported him, and why?
I don't think the duty to warn mandate for therapists apples to molesting animals they way it does to children, so what would a therapist do if a client revealed this practice?
I can answer a couple of your questions:
- I'm not surprised that you never knowingly treated anyone associated with animal sex abuse during your 20 years at the mental health center. Zoophiles comprise a really small portion of people who sexually abuse animals, and because they typically believe they don't have a problem, they don't seek or get referred for treatment.
- That's changing a little bit as more animal sex abusers (ASA's) are getting arrested. In an extensive study I just completed, fewer than 7% of the offenders who had direct sexual contact with an animal (or who forced someone else to do it) were referred to treatment.
- It's unfortunately also rare for clinicians to report animal sex abuse - barely 5% of suspects were reported by DSHS or mental heath caregivers. What's "worse" is that only fewer than 1% of veterinarians turned someone in. Since social workers and vets are the most likely first point of contact with the animal or the abuser, this is really abysmal.
- I think there's only one state so far that encourages, but doesn't mandate, animal sexual abuse reporting. That definitely needs changing. A lot of the vets I've talked to don't want to do it for fear of losing the client (what?).
- Did Hattey choose to work in animal research? It's likely, if he's actually a zoophile or someone sexually interested in animals (difference being zoos prefer animals as sex partners; everyone else does it out of curiosity, revenge, impairment, or they're just plain deviant or criminal). It's very common for zoos to seek jobs in animal shelters, vet clinics, zoos (the caged animal kind), or have jobs as dog walkers or groomers, etc.
A question you didn't ask, but I'll answer anyway - the most startling finding in my research was that more than a third of ASAs also sexually victimize children and adults. And that doesn't include the ones who use/collect animal pornography to groom kids or have priors for child porn or human sexual offending.
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