Accused Marblehead Child Sex Abuser Back In Jail

MARBLEHEAD, MA — Last week's controversial release of Christopher Prew, 33, formerly of Marblehead, was short-lived, as the former youth hockey coach failed to turn himself into Vermont authorities on a warrant for charges in that state. Massachusetts State Police arrested Prew as a fugitive in Winthrop Friday morning. Prew had until Thursday to turn himself in on a warrant for similar charges in Vermont.

Turning himself in on a Vermont warrant was one of the conditions of release a judge set for Prew when he released him on bail as he awaits trial on charges of one count of aggravated rape of a child, 14 counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and one count of attempted indecent assault and battery on child under 14.

Prew was scheduled to be arragned in Salem Superior Court on fugitive charges Friday.

Essex County prosecutors were expected to issue an arrest warrant for Prew on Friday. His eight victims in the Massachusetts cases are boys between the ages of 7 and 13. Prew was released last week following a pair of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rulings that allowed him to be released. His release prompted Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett to renew calls for changes in state law.

Blodgett has long been warning that the SJC decisions were inevitable, and that the state legislature needs to step in to fix what he sees as a loophole in state law. Gov. Charlie Baker has filed two bills aimed at doing just that. That bill, which has been in the Joint Committee on the Judiciary since January, would add sex offenses involving children to the list of crimes in which a person can be held without bail.

"The law must be changed so that we may protect [children] from predators," Blodgett said after Prew's bail hearing Thursday. "I am asking the Legislature, again, to enact Governor Baker's re-file, 'An Act to Protect the Commonwealth from Dangerous Persons,' immediately to close this gap in the law."