Parkville man pleads guilty to receipt of child pornography, filming girls at swim meets

For some time I have looked for a description of what is considered CP, this blows my mind. Parents need to be especially careful of their choice of clothing for all family members. You never know who is out there taking pictures or videos.

8-31-16 Maryland:

Baltimore, Maryland – Ruben Uy Lim, age 53, of Parkville, Maryland, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to receipt of child pornography.

Lim also admitted taking hundreds of videos of underage girls at swim meets, using a filter that allowed the camera to see through certain fabrics, including bathing suits.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Kevin Perkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Baltimore Field Office; Special Agent in Charge Andre R. Watson of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department; and Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger.

According to his plea agreement, on November 17, 2015, Baltimore County Police detectives executed a search warrant at Lim’s residence and recovered electronic devices, including a hard drive. A subsequent forensic examination of the hard drive revealed images and video files depicting prepubescent girls engaged in sexual acts, which had been received over the internet.

In addition, law enforcement recovered six video cameras and computer discs which contained hundreds of homemade videos dating back to 2004, which were taken at swim meets, on beaches and at water parks. Lim took the videos using a filter that attached to the camera’s lens and allowed the camera to see through certain fabrics, including bathing suits.

Lim filmed middle and high school aged girls in such a way that their breasts and vaginal areas were visible in the recordings. In the majority of the videos, Lim focused on the pubic area of the female swimmers. Lim admitted that he traveled to swim meets around the country for the sole purpose of recording children using the special camera lens, which Lim referred to as the “X-Ray lens.”

As part of his plea agreement, Lim must register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

Lim and the government have agreed that if the Court accepts the plea agreement Lim will be sentenced to at least 10 years in prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release. U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III has scheduled sentencing for December 9, 2016 at 9:30 a.m. ..Source.. by Source: justice.gov

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Lawmaker: Child porn law misused against sexting teens, but tools needed to fight predators

9-13-15 North Carolina:

The North Carolina legislator who passed a law 25 years ago that made it a felony to possess pornographic images of minors said he would not have used it to prosecute two sexting Fayetteville teenagers who were charged with that crime this year.

“I would think normally as a matter of prosecutorial discretion you would not charge a minor with sending a minor — having her own picture or sending to another minor — (that) would seem to me not the thing that most prosecutors are elected to do,” said state Rep. Paul “Skip” Stam of Wake County, who also is a lawyer.

Stam's legislation in 1990 created the felony offense of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. It was intended to crack down on people who sexually abuse and sexually exploit children, he said.

Both Fayetteville teenagers faced this charge for possessing sexually explicit pictures of themselves. They also were charged with creating child porn, which is second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. The law against creating child porn was already on the books when Stam's law on possession of child porn was passed.

Stam said his legislation was needed because the law against the creation of child porn was sometimes problematic to enforce. The victims, some of them traumatized young children, had to testify about how the pornography was created, Stam said. They often were reluctant.

Stam's law against possession of child porn doesn't require the victims' testimony to enforce. The pictures or videos speak for themselves. It made it easier to obtain guilty pleas and convictions, Stam said.

Although the sexual exploitation laws have been tweaked over the years, most recently in 2008 to toughen their punishments and reinforce that exposure of the genitals can be prosecuted, they were on the books long before cellphones equipped with cameras became ubiquitous. They were in place long before large numbers of people began making nude photos of themselves to instantly share with their romantic interests.

The decisions by the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office to charge the teens and the District Attorney Office to prosecute the teens for sexting outraged many people, who commented on the charges in social media and elsewhere. The case made national news in the past few weeks and generated headlines as far away as Russia.

On Tuesday, Cumberland County Sheriff Moose Butler said he didn't necessarily agree with the use of felony charges against these two teens, but his deputies have to enforce the law as it's written.

District Attorney Billy West has the authority to reduce or dismiss criminal charges. He said Friday that his office made the right decisions in this case. His assistant reduced the charges to misdemeanors in plea bargains with the two teens. The arrangement holds the teens responsible and punishes them for their acts, but should ultimately leave them with no convictions on their records.

"The legislature has obviously criminalized the conduct, arguably at a more serious level than we resolved the case at," West said Friday. "Seemingly it would be that they did not think it was good public policy for these young people to be exchanging these sort of photographs with their phone."

West wouldn't debate the policy. "The legislature makes the law; I enforce it," he said.

Some in the legal system are puzzled that the teens were charged with committing crimes against themselves.

"That doesn't make a lot of sense," said former N.C. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ed Brady, who practices law in Fayetteville.

Brianna Denson, 16, was charged with second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor for making a sexually explicit photo of herself and third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor for possession of her photo.

Similarly, 17-year-old Cormega Zyon Copening faced two counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor for making two sexually explicit photos of himself, and two counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor for possessing the photos.

Copening had an additional charge of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor for possession of a copy of Denson's photo.

Felony convictions could have put the youths behind bars, although a judge would have had the option to give them probation instead. But even if the teens were to avoid prison, a felony criminal record would have haunted them for the rest of their lives. Sex crime convictions would have required them to register as sex offenders for at least 10 years and possibly as long as 30 years.

Both teens agreed to plea bargains. Their charges were reduced to misdemeanors of disseminating harmful material to minors, and the two are serving 12-month sentences of probation.

Those charges are to be dropped when they complete their probation sentences next summer. They do not have to register as sex offenders.

If the teens had chosen to fight the charges of exploiting themselves, former state Supreme Court Associate Justice Brady said, their lawyers could have argued that taking a photo of yourself naked is no different than looking at yourself in a mirror.

"The facts make no sense - could the boy look in a mirror at himself? What's the difference? He's just recording his looking into the mirror," Brady said. "That would be my argument to a trial judge."

A defense lawyer could challenge the charges on constitutional grounds, said LaToya B. Powell, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Government. She is a former prosecutor and former state assistant attorney general.

The U.S. Supreme Court in recent years has said it violates the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment to impose the death penalty or mandatory sentences of life without parole on youth under age 18. This shows that the high court decided it's wrong to automatically treat youth under age 18 the same as adults in the criminal justice system, Powell said.

The teens' dual status as minor victim and adult criminal in the sexting case could violate the 14th Amendment's provision that every person must be treated equally under the law, Powell said.

If the teens are legally minors, their prosecutions as adults shows they are not being treated the same as other minors who happen to be younger than 16, Powell said. If the teens are legally adults, she said, then it's unfair to use the law to prosecute them for making pictures of themselves when adults older than 18 may legally take sexually explicit photos of themselves, she said.

At least 20 other states have modified their laws since 2009 to account for teen sexting, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported in 2013.

Stam, the state lawmaker who passed the 1990 child porn law, wasn't prepared to say whether North Carolina needs to change its law in light of the prosecution of the two teens in Fayetteville.

"I don't know. I've gotten the information from you on one side, and not from other folks, so I will think about that," he said.

Nonetheless, teens shouldn't get carte blanche to make sexually explicit photos of themselves, Stam said.

"This is not a good use of the prosecutor's time, or discretion, but you can't make it so that it's totally legal for 16- and 17-year-olds to do this because then the criminal gangs that are primarily involved in trafficking would just use 16- and 17-year-olds as their disseminators or as part of their operation," Stam said. ..Source.. by Paul Woolverton

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Va. House backs state subpoenas to combat child porn

2-25-15 Virginia:

By a 97-1 vote, the House of Delegates on Wednesday passed a Senate measure allowing the state to issue administrative subpoenas - which may be sealed if necessary - to obtain records from computer service service providers as part of child pornography, abduction and prostitution crime investigations.

"We've prosecuted or investigated hundreds of these cases and nearly all of them start with an administrative subpoena to find out who is distributing or producing the child pornography and to direct the investigation," said Michael Kelly, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, the driving force behind Senate Bill 919.

Kelly said some Internet companies alert customers when a subpoena comes in, allowing the person distributing the material to destroy the evidence or flee.

"We wrote (the measure), ran it by the governor's Cyber Security Commission, and worked with the legislators to make sure they understood it and were comfortable with it," Kelly said.

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, unsuccessfully asked the House to amend the measure to include that a judge sign off on such subpoenas.

"I can't think of a punishment adequate enough to these sort of crimes. But it is our job to protect the Constitution," said Marshall, asserting that the legislation violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.

But Del. Jackson H. Miller, R-Manassas, said the measure is constitutional, "and it protects children and helps put away some of these scumbags" suspected of child pornography crimes.

Lawmakers asked the House pages to leave the chamber as lawmakers debated the proposal, which included discussion in graphic detail of sex crimes involving children. ..Source.. by MARKUS SCHMIDT

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Former-state Rep. Keith Farnham pleads guilty to child porn

UPDATE: Keith Farnham now registered as sex offender

See Also: Ex-State Rep. Keith Farnham pleads guilty in child porn case

12-6-2014 Illinois:

Former state Rep. Keith Farnham faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison after pleading guilty Friday to online trading of thousands of images and videos of child pornography depicting victims as young as toddlers.

Federal prosecutors sought to take Farnham into custody after his guilty plea to a single count of distributing child porn. But U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang allowed him to remain confined at home on electronic monitors, citing serious health problems that include a terminal lung disease, bladder cancer and hepatitis.

Farnham, 67, must register Monday with federal authorities as a sex offender.

Farnham's attorney, Terry Ekl, said his client hopes to begin taking an experimental drug to treat his pulmonary fibrosis — a condition that causes lung tissue to scar — but still would need a lung transplant for any hope of long-term survival. He was scheduled to be sentenced March 19 and could face up to about 15 years in prison under federal guidelines.

"Without a lung transplant, it's likely he's going to die in the penitentiary," Elk told reporters in the courthouse lobby.

Farnham, an Elgin Democrat who resigned his seat in March days after federal agents seized computers from his state office and home, appeared in court with an oxygen tube hooked up to his nose. When the judge asked him what he did for a living, Farnham said quietly, "I was a state representative."

Ekl said he would seek the minimum five-year prison term for Farnham, a Navy veteran who ran an Elgin printing business before running for office in 2009.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Storino said that investigators found more than 2,750 images of child pornography on Farnham's computers as well as two graphic videos showing victims as young as 2 or 3.

According to Farnham's plea agreement, the pornography was found on computers and electronic storage devices that were seized from his state office, home and car. Authorities also linked a Yahoo email account used by Farnham to an online trading forum in which he chatted with other users about his sexual preferences, according to the charges.

"12 is about as old as i can handle," Farnham allegedly said in one online chat in November 2013, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in April. "i love them at 6 7 8."

In another chat, Farnham allegedly described in detail a sexual encounter he had with a 6-year-old girl, the complaint alleged.

Ekl said the encounter was fictional. While Farnham's "sickness" was disturbing, Ekl said, he "has never, never abused any child, never had any physical contact with a child."

As part of his home confinement, Farnham must to stay off the patio of his condominium because a young child lives nearby. Farnham's wife, Susan, also was ordered to keep her cellphone and computer password protected from Farnham, lock up her iPad and laptop when she's not home, and notify court officials if her husband tried to use any device that could potentially connect to the Internet. ..Source.. by Jason Meisner

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Police: Mother knew child performed sex act on sibling

Why would a mother allow this? Is this report the whole story?

1-7-2011 Iowa:

An Iowa City woman has been arrested for child endangerment.

Police said the woman knew one of her children had performed sex acts on another one of her children in a bedroom while others watched on a webcam. Despite this, police said the woman continued to allow her children to be unsupervised in a closed room with a computer and webcam.

The woman’s actions were discovered when police were investigating the alleged victim’s 15-year-old sister for sexual abuse. As a result of that investigation, the older sister has been charged with second-degree sexual abuse.

Because the Press-Citizen does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault, it is not identifying the woman or her two children. The mother has been charged with endangerment, an aggravated misdemeanor. She was released from the Johnson County Jail on her own recognizance.

The alleged victim’s father is currently incarcerated. ..Source.. by the Press-Citizen

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Huron Township cops probe second sex complaint after teen's suicide

11-13-2010 Michigan:

Huron Township— A new sexual assault complaint is surfacing against 18-year-old Joseph Tarnopolski, who escaped prosecution for an encounter with a 14-year-old girl who later committed suicide.

Police are investigating a second "similar" complaint against the Huron High School senior, who saw felony charges against him for allegedly having sex with Samantha Kelly dismissed Wednesday after she hanged herself.


"We are doing our interviews. It is under investigation and will probably be presented to the prosecutor next week," said Huron Township Police Lt. Scott Carey. "It is a criminal sexual conduct report. It is of similar circumstances."

Meanwhile, fallout from the suicide of 14-year-old Samantha Kelly took new, sometimes vicious, twists Thursday, with hateful messages posted on social media sites meant to support her.

The new complaint against Tarnopolski was made Oct. 22. A day earlier, Huron High School students started taunting Kelly, a freshman, because she and her mother had given an interview that aired Oct. 20 on WJBK-TV (Channel 2). In the interview, the girl's story about having consensual sex was changed to accusing Tarnopolski of rape, school officials and police said.

Tarnopolski told television reporters that he had heard rumors of a possible second case but didn't know anything about it. His lawyer didn't return calls. ..Source.. by George Hunter and Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News

eAdvocate Note: You can read the whole story above, but what is important is the very last sentence, it reads:

"An outpouring of grief and Facebook pages supporting Samantha popped up on the social network.

Then the Internet trolls started posting.

Facebook moderators have deleted a number of hateful messages and pictures of naked children posted to a page entitled, "R.I.P., Samantha Kelly. You will be missed. We love you."

Other posts threatened Tarnopolski and his family. "

I would hope the police are following up on the Child Porn posted as well as the Threats! Has Facebook even reported it?

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Federal judge shuts down file-sharing site LimeWire

10-27-2010 New York:

A judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] issued a permanent injunction [text, PDF] Tuesday that will prevent music file-sharing website LimeWire [website] from providing online users with the software necessary to share copyrighted files. The injunction shut down the website, which plaintiff Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) [trade website] claimed has allowed for "millions upon millions of users" to illegally access and distribute copyrighted songs. The district court ruled that RIAA has suffered and continues to suffer irreparable harm to its business and that even a permanent injunction will not give RIAA adequate remedy for its potential future injury as a result of continued peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. The court also decided that LimeWire intentionally encouraged copyright infringement, particularly in light of its knowledge of other recent cases involving illegal file-sharing websites, like Grokster and Aimster [EFF materials]. LimeWire could face a minimum of $150,000 in statutory damages per each copyright violation, placing its total damages over $1 billion [PCWorld report]. The court will rule on damages in January. ..Source.. The Jurist

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Man turns Halloween pictures into child porn

10-13-2010 Georgia:

Mr. ___ wasn’t just satisfied with downloading hundreds of images of child porn. He had to get pictures of girls he knew, girls he saw in his neighborhood and put their faces on nude bodies. He had to make it look like these girls, some as young as 10, were having sex with him.

He admitted he is addicted to watching child porn and a judge sentenced the 45-year-old Atlanta man Friday to eight years and 1 month in federal prison for receiving child pornography.

“This case is especially egregious because within the defendant's large collection of child pornography, law enforcement officers discovered pictures of a 10-year old girl living in his neighborhood,” U.S. Attorney Mrs. Sally Quillian Yates said. “The defendant edited the 10-year old girl's pictures to appear as if she was engaging in sexual acts with him. This man's actions show the importance of identifying and prosecuting those individuals who prey on children--in this case, in their own neighborhood.”

Someone tipped off Atlanta police in 2008 that Mr. ___ had images of child pornography on his computer. They found the images, more than a thousand pictures of children being sexually abused.

Then they saw the other pictures, dozens of them. Pictures of young girls photographed during a neighborhood Halloween trick or treat outing, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

The investigators were able to identify one of them, a girl who lived in Mr. ___’s neighborhood, officials said. Investigators said the faces of the young girls, including the 10-year old girl, were cropped onto the bodies of nude children Mr. ___ downloaded from the internet.

He had taken nude photographs of himself posed on a bed in various sexual positions and cropped the edited photographs to appear as if he was engaging in sexual acts with the children, including the 10-year old girl.

Police interviewed the 10-year girl, but received no information that Mr. ___ had abused her, officials said.

Once his sentence his completed, Mr. ___ will have 20 years of supervised release, and pay a $15,000 fine.

Restitution to the victim will be decided at a hearing tentatively scheduled for later this month. ..Source.. Kimathi Lewis

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Pentagon to investigate hundreds of suspected child pornography fans in its ranks

9-17-2010 Washington DC:

In a reversal, the Pentagon says it will reopen hundreds of cases of alleged purchases of child pornography by Department of Defense employees that Pentagon officials previously declined to investigate, The Upshot has learned.

Earlier this month, The Upshot reported exclusively that in 2007, investigators for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service obtained a list of 264 military service members, civilian employees and contractors for the Department of Defense who had used credit cards or PayPal to purchase access to a child pornography website. But the DCIS, citing scarce resources, pursued only 52 of the names before closing the project -- known as Project Flicker -- in 2008. Since no further public information on the cases was made available, it appears that the other people on the list of suspected child-pornography patrons were able to continue their careers without any interruption that stemmed from the investigation.

But today, the Pentagon official in charge of DCIS told The Upshot that he has ordered the remaining cases reopened. "I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense," Deputy Inspector General for Investigations James Burch said in the statement Wednesday.

Burch announced his decision to revisit the cases, which had been abandoned for two years, in response to inquiries from The Upshot.

Project Flicker began in 2006 as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau investigation targeting overseas processing of payments for online subscriptions to child pornography websites. In the course of the inquiry, ICE agents obtained a list of names and account information for more than 5,000 U.S. residents who had purchased subscriptions to such sites using their credit cards or PayPal accounts. Some of them used .mil e-mail addresses, or physical addresses on or near military installations, so in 2007 ICE handed the list to DCIS agents to identify and investigate any military members.

DCIS came up with 264 active-duty and reserve military members, civilian employees and contractors on the list, including more than 70 with security clearances and 22 with Top Secret clearances. Among them were a contractor for the super-secretive National Security Agency, a staffer in Defense Secretary Robert Gates' office, and a program manager for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But DCIS only opened investigations into 52 of the names, according to investigative documents obtained by The Upshot under the Freedom of Information Act, and only 10 were ever charged. According to the documents, the project was closed in 2008 "due to the need to focus more resources on other DCIS investigative priorities." DCIS is primarily concerned with contractor fraud, and generally doesn't pursue child pornography cases.

A source familiar with the investigations confirmed to The Upshot earlier this month that DCIS simply "didn't have the resources to run with it," so the agency picked the most sensitive cases -- individuals with Top Secret clearances, or people who worked at sensitive military installations -- and ignored the rest. According to the documents, there no systematic effort to alert the individual military service branches' criminal investigative commands, or even superiors or commanding officers, to the presence of hundreds of alleged child pornography patrons in the Defense Department. (The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which investigates criminal matters for the Air Force, says it received no referrals from DCIS, but did launch three investigations based on names received from ICE. The Army's Criminal Investigative Division says it doesn't know how many, if any, names DCIS referred. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service did not respond to inquiries.)

Based on the documents released via FOIA, it is impossible for DCIS to have pursued every purchaser with a security clearance -- 76 of the names had Secret clearances or higher, and only 52 were investigated. Kenneth deGraffenreid, one of the nation's top former counterintelligence officials, told The Upshot last week that the Pentagon's failure to run down at the very least every name with a clearance was "absurd," and that foreign intelligence services are actively seeking people who have both access to America's secrets and terrible secrets of their own that make them vulnerable to blackmail.

In his statement, Burch said that even if criminal charges were not pursued against the remaining names on the list, DCIS would take steps to alert their superiors for administrative action. Here's the full statement:

I have tasked Defense Criminal Investigative Service representatives with reviewing each and every Project Flicker and related referral DCIS received so as to ensure action was taken regarding these allegations involving employees of the Department of Defense. If circumstances dictate, additional appropriate steps will be taken to ensure allegations involving DoD employees are thoroughly explored. In situations whereby criminal charges will not be pursued, relevant information will be referred to the leadership of appropriate DoD organizations for administrative action deemed appropriate.

The Boston Globe first reported the existence of Project Flicker in July; The Upshot was the first to report the existence of hundreds of names the Pentagon had declined to investigate. ..Source.. John Cook

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Midlands Voices: Child-porn cases are not all alike

6-30-2010 Nebraska:

The writer, of Omaha, is a lawyer.

Foreign travelers are occasionally bemused after observing our society so obsessed with sex. That goes for pornography, too. If you have cable television, you can dial up soft-core porn any night of the week. For hard-core porn on cable via pay-per-view, you can dial that up readily, too, any time of the day or night.

Everyone knows the joke about the hapless fellow who sits alone in his basement at night in his underwear dialing up dirty pictures on the Internet.

What most people don’t realize is that you can go to federal prison, for a minimum of five years, if you’re looking at the wrong type of dirty pictures on the Internet.

Let’s call this person “Arthur.” He’s a 55-year-old white male. He’s in a long-term marriage. He has a good job. His kids are grown and gone.

In recent years, Arthur has developed a bad habit. After his wife goes to bed, he goes down to the basement, sits in front of his computer and dials up dirty pictures on the Internet. Arthur has developed a fetish for viewing pictures of naked children.

Now, nobody defends this. Arthur’s images come from out of state. He doesn’t distribute them, sell them, share them on any file-sharing program or display them to any other person. He tells nobody. It’s his secret. He realizes that he should seek professional help but doesn’t.

Arthur is probably not aware that he has violated a federal law prohibiting the reception of child pornography. If a zealous FBI agent (who may be surfing the Internet for real sexual predators) discovers Arthur’s habit, and he is indicted in federal court, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison (with no parole).

This kind of situation has sparked controversy. Not because anyone defends the principle of watching child porn, but because many people, including federal judges, believe people like Arthur don’t deserve to spend five or more years in jail. In other words, people like Arthur need treatment, not imprisonment.

Recently, Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Brooklyn, one of the nation’s most distinguished and longest-serving federal trial judges, was profiled in the New York Times. Judge Weinstein is grappling with this very issue.

The case before Judge Weinstein involved Pietro Polizzi, a married father of five, who kept a collection of 5,000 graphic pictures in his garage. In federal court, Mr. Polizzi, if convicted, faced a minimum of five years in federal prison.

Judge Weinstein stated: “I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously.” But he added that those who merely view the images but do not purchase or sell them present, in his view, no threat to children. Said the judge: “We’re destroying lives unnecessarily. At the most, they should be receiving treatment and supervision.”

The article itself noted:

There is little public sympathy for collectors of child pornography. Yet across the country, an increasing number of federal judges have come to their defense, criticizing changes to sentencing laws that have effectively quadrupled their average prison term in the past decade.

A recent federal appeals court observed that federal sentencing guidelines “actually punish some forms of direct sexual contact with minors more leniently than possession or distribution of child pornography.”

Child protection advocates would argue that those like Arthur or Polizzi who merely view these images nevertheless fuel the child pornography industry. That view is worthy of due consideration.

Polizzi went to trial and was convicted. Then Judge Weinstein did a very unusual thing. He asked the 12 jurors if their verdict would have been different if they had known before the verdict that the punishment was a minimum of five years in jail. (Federal jurors are not told about possible penalties.) Five jurors “spoke up against imprisonment. Two said they would have changed their votes.”

The Polizzi case remains ongoing.

It is unclear whether “sexting” (teens passing around sexy pictures of themselves on cell phones) will eventually be prosecuted under this federal statute.

Whether Arthur is a criminal or not, we can and should, as thoughtful citizens, make the distinction between someone who belongs in a federal prison and someone who belongs in a psychiatrist’s office. ..Source.. Mike Nelsen

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Midlands Voices: Danger inherent in all child porn

6-30-2010 Nebraska:

The writer is a retired Nebraska State Patrol sergeant and creator of the Nebraska State Patrol’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit.

I am writing in response to a June 20 Midlands Voices article, “Child-porn cases are not all alike.” As a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, I take exception to most of the statements by the writer — Mike Nelsen, a defense attorney.

From 1999 until my retirement last summer, I led the efforts against online child exploitation in Nebraska, including the manufacture, distribution and possession of child pornography. In addition, I am a past chairman of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force. In this capacity, I have worked with many subject matter experts in this field.

Mr. Nelsen referred to “Arthur, a 55-year-old white male. He’s in a long-term marriage. He has a good job. His kids are grown and gone.” He described someone who matches the statistics of people I arrested in my 10 years of conducting and supervising these investigations.

The typical person we arrested for these crimes ranged from age 19 to 60, someone with good job, who was educated, etc. These people were not what we wanted them to be — a creepy, scary individual who fit a societal picture of a predator.

Mr. Nelsen then stated, “Arthur is probably not aware that he has violated a federal law prohibiting the reception of child pornography. If a zealous FBI agent (who may be surfing the Internet for real sexual predators) discovers Arthur’s habit, and he is indicted in federal court, he faces a mandatory minimum of five years in federal prison (with no parole).”

Mr. Nelsen thus excuses the behavior of Arthur as ignorance of the law and being the “victim” of an overzealous FBI agent. He minimizes the possession of “images” of children as young as newborns engaged in sexual acts with adults as a “habit.”

I doubt that Mr. Nelsen has interviewed children who have been molested and had their innocence ripped from them by a predator who did it for the “images.” “Arthur” chose to participate in this behavior while consciously knowing the ramifications if he were caught and convicted.

Mr. Nelsen cites one judge’s opinion. In it, Judge Jack B. Weinstein stated: “I don’t approve of child pornography, obviously.” But he added that those who merely view the images but do not purchase or sell them present, in his view, no threat to children. Said the judge: “We’re destroying lives unnecessarily. At the most, they (these offenders) should be receiving treatment and supervision.”

I vehemently disagree with this opinion, as do experts in this field. In November 2000, Dr. Andres E. Hernandez, director of the Sex Offender Treatment Program for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, presented the results of his study of child pornography offenders. This study, among other things, explored the correlation between child pornography offenses and child molestation.

Dr. Hernandez’s data indicate that the majority of the people in his study who were convicted of child pornography offenses actually molested significant numbers of children without detection by the criminal justice system.

I don’t believe that all people who possess child pornography are molesters. However, more and more children in our state have been victimized by people who also possess these horrendous memorials to the rape of a child.

Attorneys like Mr. Nelsen are quick to describe child pornography as “images.” This lessens the impact on the judge and jury of what their client really was searching for and downloading from the Internet.

Child pornography is not innocent images. It is the documentation and memorialization of the rape of a child. It is posted on the Internet for all to see and to endure for all time. These violent rape “images” are not of a child in a foreign land or a “virtual” child but a child we know — a neighbor, niece or nephew, our son or daughter!

Are these offenders our neighbors, co-workers and friends? Absolutely, and we give them free reign to our children while we’re unaware that they get sexual gratification, in the privacy of their own home, in watching five-minute videos of a 4-year-old being sodomized.

The views of people like Mr. Nelsen and Judge Weinstein are the reason I toiled over retiring and not keeping up the fight to protect our kids. One statistic Mr. Nelsen didn’t present is that the majority of child pornography in the world consists of unidentified children who have not been rescued from this abuse.

I pray that one of the “images” is not someone Mr. Nelsen knows. ..Source.. Scott Christensen

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Lawyer may face sanctions in child pornography case

5-17-2010 Michigan:

Detroit -- A lawyer faces possible sanctions after filing a motion in a child pornography case that a federal judge described as "a blatant attempt to intimidate the minor victim's mother."

But the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has come to the attorney's defense.

U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman said in a May 3 order that a motion from Troy attorney John Freeman seeking formal notice that the victim's mother wished to speak at a sentencing hearing was "unwarranted, baseless and worthy of contempt of court."

Friedman said he will hold a hearing on whether and how Freeman -- a former federal prosecutor -- should be sanctioned. A date has not been set.

On April 15, Friedman sentenced former Walled Lake Schools official Craig Aleo to 60 years in prison -- more than double what prosecutors requested -- for crimes that included manufacturing child pornography in which a 4-year-old girl was victimized.

Aleo, 64, of Davisburg, has filed a notice of appeal.

Prior to the sentencing, Freeman filed a motion citing the Crime Victims' Rights Act. In his motion, he said prosecutors were required to give advance notice of the contents of a victim impact statement from the child's mother so he could appropriately respond.

Friedman said no such requirement exists, and the motion "serves as yet another indication ... of the incredible lack of remorse for the victim in this matter."

In a response filed last week by Freeman and his attorney Martin Crandall, Freeman said his motion was intended to "address a potential conflict between (Aleo's) due process rights and a victim's right to be heard at sentencing" and was "never intended to intimidate a witness, nor prevent a victim from being heard."

Detroit attorney James Feinberg signed on to the response in an amicus filing on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"The possibility of someone being sanctioned or held in contempt for aggressively and properly representing their client is very scary," Feinberg said Friday. The association "needs to make sure lawyers are free to aggressively represent their clients."

Freeman declined comment. ..Source.. Paul Egan / The Detroit News

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Child porn found at sex predator rehab facility in SWFL

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out how CP is getting into a facility that is locked down and detainees have no access to things outside of the gates. Some employee is bringing it in, its that simple.

3-3-2010 Florida:

Desoto County, Fla - Dangerous sex offenders locked up and looking at child porn!

It's a problem right now at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Desoto County.

This is the fifth arrest at the facility in a little more than a month.

29 year-old Robby Burke was arrested after employees at the center found him hiding under a sheet watching child porn.

The center is considered a rehab facility for violent sex predators.

Burke is the now the fifth person in a month to be found with child porn at the facility, which has WINK News demanding answers.

"Problems with contraband is always an issue," said Suzanne Klein, from the Florida Civil Commitment Center.

Klein talked to WINK News by phone on Tuesday.

She tells us it's still unclear how five detainees at the center were able to get a hold of child porn.

"authorities are still investigating how the pornography is getting into the facility," she said.

Robby Burke was arrested last week after employees caught him watching a VHS tape with a Star Trek movie and several sitcoms on it.

But Burke's odd behavior had employees taking a closer look at the video.

That's when they found several images of young boys between the ages of 11 and 12 years-old performing sexual acts.

The tape also had more than 70 images of males engaging in sexually explicit situations.

Burke told authorities he got the tape from another resident.

Klein says they are sneaky when it comes to smuggling in child porn.

"They are very clever. Very bright individuals," she said.

Since January four other men at the facility, Derek Chapman, Fernando Viruet, Robert Grimsley and Ronald Hood have been caught with child porn.

Authorities found the images on Cd's, MP3 players, and flash drives.

"We're very concerned about getting it resolved," Klein said.

The Civil Commitment Center is a state funded but by run by a private company.

Residents at the facility do not have access to the Internet, which adds to the concern as to how they're getting a hold of child porn. ..Source.. Nick Spinetto, WINK News

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

McEntee: Crime and punishment in child pornography, sexual abuse - PART-2

2-24-2010 Utah:

Over the course of a month, Peg McEntee spent days and nights interviewing and riding along with investigators from Utah's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force as they traced, tracked down and confronted suspected producers and consumers of child pornography. She will report on the problem, and law enforcement officers' efforts to stop it, in four columns between today and Feb. 28. A warning: The columns include explicit descriptions of sexual abuse.

Online, he called himself Brents39, and he was very interested in Lindsey. He pursued her, day after day, in August 2006.

Lindsey was a young teenager, chatting with Brent on her computer, her bedroom door closed so her mother wouldn't know.

"I'm excited," Lindsey says.

"Me too, hon," Brent replies.

Lindsey: "Geez let me at least see what u look like."

His image appears on her screen, a naked, middle-aged man with an erection. "Don't let your mom see."

Brent's real. Lindsey is Capt. Rhett McQuiston of the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. He's an acknowledged master of the prepubescent-girl-online ruse that case agents use to track down and arrest men like Brent.

Brent's case file details his obsession with Lindsey, ultimately setting up a meeting behind a church near Riverview Junior High. "I really want you hon," he writes.

Brent shows up, and so does McQuiston and fellow ICAC agents. Brent tells them he only wanted to scare Lindsey, to tell her of the Internet's dangers and that she shouldn't be meeting strangers she encountered online.

Brent is arrested. Agents find some 200 images of child pornography on his home computer. He's still at Utah State Prison.

Chat rooms are just one means of tracking predators down. During ICAC's Operation Frostbite in January, agents used high-powered computers to pinpoint suspects. They deploy for knock-and-talks - preliminary conversations - and serve search warrants, then warrants to seize computers, and arrest warrants.

Here are some examples of what I saw last month:

On one run, case agent Dave Artis and three other officers served a search warrant at a Main Street apartment.

At first, it doesn't go well. The occupant wouldn't open the door, so Artis kicks it in. Another agent videotapes the whole operation, and I watch as soon as they come back to their offices.

Inside, they find filth. Thirty or more empty cans of cat food on the kitchen floor and fast-food bags everywhere. Mold around the toilet. A bare bed; at its foot a computer monitor and three hard-drives full of child pornography. A singular bit of evidence, often found in such homes, are the many bottles full of urine the men use so they don't have to take their eyes off the screen.

"I wish you could put the smell" on the tape, one agent says.

"These guys get so addicted to child porn that every waking moment is spent with it," says McQuiston, then commander of the ICAC unit. "The house goes to garbage. Nothing else matters."



Another night, case agent Steve Gamvroulas leads a team to serve an arrest warrant at a big, newer home in Murray. The suspect is a businessman who has talked on the phone with his daughter's 14-year-old boyfriend, asking about their relationship, if the boy masturbates, the size of his penis.

Gamvroulas takes the man outside and handcuffs him. His bewildered wife comes out, and Farnsworth explains the charges against her husband -- a state count of dealing harmful material to a minor.

As is very often the case, the wife knows nothing about her husband's secret. She cries, and Gamvroulas lets her talk to him in the car. The man tells her to bring the cash he has hidden in his sock drawer to jail.



The exemplar of child pornography and child sexual abuse is a man the task force arrested on Jan. 10. Sometime in the last few years, he befriended a Utah woman and her young son. He recorded himself raping the boy, and distributed the video online and around the world. Then he went on the run. Jeff Ross, an FBI agent working with ICAC, got the case and the cooperation of the mother and her child, who was rescued and now is doing well.

Ross worked with the mother to lure the man back to Utah with the promise of a skiing vacation. Agents, awakened early, busted him on Jan. 10. The following Tuesday, Ross and the rest of the team were jubilant.

Ross described how the woman had worked the phone to bring the man to Utah. "She was so nervous she was ready to throw up," he said. "But she was calm when she talked to the guy."

Says Capt. Jessica Farnsworth, the task force's field commander, "I don't know if any of us would be so calm."

Ross describes the arrest: "He was very smug. He was willing to admit what we had him on, but denied everything else. The prosecutor told the mom today he's looking at life in prison."

The man is charged with a federal count of production of child pornography and trafficking it across state and national borders. Since his arrest, agents have identified two more victims.



The criminals - who possess child pornography, who attack children - span the lines of age, race, religion or socioeconomic status. Perpetrators are nearly always men, although some women have been charged with sexual abuse. The criminals can be teachers, cops, clergy, business owners, minimum-wage earners, physicians.

Early in life, many feel a sense of rejection, are socially inept and can't have healthy relationships, says Michael Robinson, director of the Sex Offender Therapy Program at Utah State Prison.

They self-isolate, maybe get into adult porn, and then find the child pornography irresistible. All too often, though, they get bored, and cross the line with live children. They rationalize that they'll never get caught, Robinson says, and convince themselves they're not hurting anyone.

Getting therapy in prison is crucial, he adds. The men are told to be honest about all encounters with children, not just the one they get busted for. (The program protects the men from mandatory reporting to ensure their cooperation.)

Through therapy, and with an emphasis on honesty and accountability, the men are much more likely to make a lasting change -- not least because they don't want to go through the prison system again, Robinson says.

But those who have never been caught, he adds, "are still out there perpetrating."

Another thing that Farnsworth told me was horrifying: Craig Gregerson lived next door to Destiny Norton, the Salt Lake City child who was murdered in 2006. He had taken her into his home, smothered her and then sexually abused her body.

He also had "lots" of child pornography on his home computer, "Farnsworth says. "He wants sex, he gets scared, and he kills her." ..Source..

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

McEntee: Child pornography - A ubiquitous problem with horrific consequences - PART-1

2-24-2010 Utah:

Over the course of a month, Peg McEntee spent days and nights interviewing and riding along with investigators from Utah's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force as they traced, tracked down and confronted suspected producers and consumers of child pornography. She will report on the problem, and law enforcement officers' efforts to stop it, in four columns between today and Feb. 28. A warning: The columns include explicit descriptions of sexual abuse.

The children may be 8, 10, 12 years old. Or they may be infants in car seats, too young even to lift their heads up, being sexually tortured in a variety of ways by grown men.

This is happening right here, right now, all over Utah.

Some force drugs or alcohol on the children. In one case, two six-year-old girls were forced to huff paint before being violated.

"No innocent child should have to deal with that, ever. Ever," says child pornography investigator Coy Acocks. "You see what's causing a child to cry, and this is a young child being penetrated by a large object, and the pain that's going with that, and she's directing that pain with her cries."

A child's physical injuries can be awful -- Capt. Jessica Farnsworth told me she once saw a little girl who'd been ripped open .

On a computer screen, she said, "the visuals are terrible, but the sound is even worse. And their eyes. ..."

I thought I knew something about child pornography when I arranged to shadow Utah's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. After a long conversation with Farnsworth and Capt. Rhett McQuiston, it became clear. I knew nothing.

Nothing about the men -- and most are men -- who watch their computer monitors for hours, days, to feed their addiction to the sexual abuse of children. About the children's faces, contorted with pain and terror and videotaped live.

Most of all, I knew nothing about the smart, unbelievably dedicated cops who track down and arrest those pedophiles.
--
Technology encourages the problem » Photographs of child porn used to be sold through the mail. The Internet changed that. Photos gave way to videos that anyone could produce with a camera, a predator (who may double as the producer) and his prey.

Those who wanted the videos could join chat rooms and later, peer-to-peer networks that didn't need servers or other electronic hosts. And, like lots of stuff on the Internet, most of it can be downloaded for free.

"The real challenge is not the commercial site, but the apparently millions of people around the world who are sexually interested in children," says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. "In peer-to-peer, membership-only groups, one prerequisite is to provide new content that no one has seen before."

Which translates into an ever-growing number of providers constantly searching for new victims and new scenarios.

Their numbers, and the amount of child pornography produced, is nearly impossible to quantify because of the secretive nature of the industry.

Allen offers this: Last year, more than 10.5 million images and videos were reported to Allen's organization, up 22.5 percent from 2008. And there's another problem -- many of those images are duplicates, circulated time after time in what represents the endless re-victimization of the children.

--

Only a fraction are caught » In January, I spent many hours with ICAC leaders and case agents who employ every investigative tool at their disposal to search for users and makers of child pornography, and those who seek their own victims.

Every day, the task force fights a computer-to-computer (some would say mind-to-mind) battle with users who can be found most anywhere, from the most squalid apartment to mansions in the hills.

At best, McQuiston said, law enforcement has located only a tiny fraction of the offenders. They can be intelligent and highly sophisticated with computers; many are just plain careless.

"Every once in a while they beat us," Farnsworth says. "Most of the time we're picking up the fruit that's fallen off the tree."

Meantime, here and around the world, the images and videos have become ever more vile.

The psychological damage can be profound. Still, a surprising number of the victimized children who get the specialized treatment they need do heal enough to live out their lives.

But for many of the men whose lives are consumed by child porn, watching ultimately isn't enough. The porn grows old, even boring. They need live children.

So they go hunting. ..Source..

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

A disturbing legal argument

12-11-2009 New Hampshire:

This week in Portsmouth District Court a man charged with eight felony counts of possessing child pornography made an extremely disturbing argument to Judge Sawako Gardner.

The suspect argued there is no correlation between viewing child pornography and sexual assaults against children.

"I would argue I have no reason not to be around children," Michael Hanson told Gardner. "I'm not at risk of a contact offense. Care and custody of one's child is protected by the First and Ninth Amendments."

Here's what the FBI has to say about the connection between those who view child pornography and those who sexually assault children:

"Today, computer telecommunications have become one of the most prevalent techniques used by pedophiles to share illegal photographic images of minors and to lure children into illicit sexual relationships. The Internet has dramatically increased the access of the preferential sex offenders to the population they seek to victimize and provides them greater access to a community of people who validate their sexual preferences."

All child porn begins with the crime of sexually exploiting a child. Those who view child pornography, as well as those who buy and sell it, are creating a market for this criminal exploitation.

Portsmouth Police and Rockingham County Attorney Jim Reams will tell you they could spend all their time investigating and prosecuting those who prey on children. The crime is growing so fast and the investigatory resources are so thin that only a small fraction of these types of criminals are ever brought to justice.

When adults are investigated and charged with crimes against children, we expect our court system to always err on the side of child safety throughout the judicial process. We cannot put our children at risk because some research, that flies in the face of all reason, suggests there is no danger. ..Opinion.. by SeaCoast Online.com

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Carrie Prejean Sex Tape Stream: 1 Amazingly Controversial Sex Tape Stream for Free

11-13-2009 National:

by Meg C.

The Carrie Prejean sex tape stream is hot. The Carrie Prejean sex tape stream is free. Want to see a free Carrie Prejean sex tape stream? You're not alone. Ever since Wednesday, everyone and their brother (and sister) has been frantically searching for a free download of the Carrie Carrie Prejean Sex Tape Stream.

Why do we want to see the sex tape stream so bad? It's not like many individuals haven't seen people performing the very act that Carrie Prejean performs in her solo stream debut. The Carrie Prejean sex tape stream has reached the same level of controversy as the Erin Andrews peephole video.

Intially, Carrie Prejean claimed that the sex tape video stream was taken when she was 17, according to CBS. She had a long distance boyfriend, and sent him the steamy video. Such actions amount to "sexting" today. "Sexting" is a relatively new term, and it's a crime that has landed teenagers in serious trouble - even making them in to registered sex offenders!

If Carrie Prejean was 17 when the sex tape video stream was made, it is child pornography. Viewing the sex tape could land you in a significant amount of trouble. Furthermore, spammers have used the Carrie Prejean sex tape video stream scandal to send viruses, spyware, and spam out in to computers around the world. To me, viewing the sex tape stream isn't worth it.

The "boyfriend" that Carrie Prejean made the sex tape video for debunks Ms. Prejean's claims that the tape was made when she was underage. According to Newser, Prejean's boyfriend received 15-20 racy videos during their relationship, and that she was over 18. She also asked him to lie about the age when the video was sent.

This report can explain some of the reason that Carrie Prejean walked out of the Miss California lawsuit after viewing a snippet of the sex tape video. Chances are, lawyers for Miss California got in touch with Carrie Prejean's ex-boyfriend. Maybe he's got some dirt on her that she really doesn't want getting out. ..Source and more..

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

Framed for child porn _ by a PC virus

11-10-2009 National:

by JORDAN ROBERTSON

Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child pornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by viruses — the malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — and might not realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a PC through a virus. It can cost victims hundreds of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual pedophiles often blame viruses — a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law enforcement.

"It's an example of the old `dog ate my homework' excuse," says Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. "The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework."

The AP's investigation included interviewing people who had been found with child porn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to prosecutors, police and computer examiners.

One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.

In 2007, Fiola's bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his colleagues. A technician found child porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.

Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was shunned by friends.

Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.

An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.

Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped — 11 months after it was filed.

The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but can't get one to sue the state, because of a cap on the amount they can recover.

"It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life," he says.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office, which charged Fiola, declined interview requests.

At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with viruses that could give hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp. Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.

Pedophiles can tap viruses in several ways. The simplest is to force someone else's computer to surf child porn sites, collecting images along the way. Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can be viewed remotely when the PC is online.

"They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield," says Eric Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child pornographers were abusing their legitimate services.

But pedophiles need not be involved: Child porn can land on a computer in a sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.

In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after viruses were shown to have been responsible for the child porn on their PCs.

In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense contractor's PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.

In the other, a virus changed the home page on a man's Web browser to display child porn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and lost custody of his daughter.

Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel manager whose co-workers found child porn on the PC they shared with him.

Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated software. It redirected visitors to child porn sites if they were inactive for a certain period.

In all these cases, the central evidence wasn't in dispute: Pornography was on a computer. But proving how it got there was difficult.

Tami Loehrs, who inspected Fiola's computer, recalls a case in Arizona in which a computer was so "extensively infected" that it would be "virtually impossible" to prove what an indictment alleged: that a 16-year-old who used the PC had uploaded child pornography to a Yahoo group.

Prosecutors dropped the charge and let the boy plead guilty to a separate crime that kept him out of jail, though they say they did it only because of his age and lack of a criminal record.

Many prosecutors say blaming a computer virus for child porn is a new version of an old ploy.

"We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It," says James Anderson, a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.

However, forensic examiners say it would be hard for a pedophile to get away with his crime by using a bogus virus defense.

"I personally would feel more comfortable investing my retirement in the lottery before trying to defend myself with that," says forensics specialist Jeff Fischbach.

Even careful child porn collectors tend to leave incriminating e-mails, DVDs or other clues. Virus defenses are no match for such evidence, says Damon King, trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

But while the virus defense does not appear to be letting real pedophiles out of trouble, there have been cases in which forensic examiners insist that legitimate claims did not get completely aired.

Loehrs points to Ned Solon of Casper, Wyo., who is serving six years for child porn found in a folder used by a file-sharing program on his computer.

Solon admits he used the program to download video games and adult porn — but not child porn. So what could explain that material?

Loehrs testified that Solon's antivirus software wasn't working properly and appeared to have shut off for long stretches, a sign of an infection. She found no evidence the five child porn videos on Solon's computer had been viewed or downloaded fully. The porn was in a folder the file-sharing program labeled as "incomplete" because the downloads were canceled or generated an error.

This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her investigation in a dispute with the judge over her fees. Computer exams can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Defendants can ask the courts to pay, but sometimes judges balk at the price. Although Loehrs stopped working for Solon, she argues he is innocent.

"I don't think it was him, I really don't," Loehrs says. "There was too much evidence that it wasn't him."

The prosecution's forensics expert, Randy Huff, maintains that Solon's antivirus software was working properly. And he says he ran other antivirus programs on the computer and didn't find an infection — although security experts say antivirus scans frequently miss things.

"He actually had a very clean computer compared to some of the other cases I do," Huff says.

The jury took two hours to convict Solon.

"Everybody feels they're innocent in prison. Nobody believes me because that's what everybody says," says Solon, whose case is being appealed. "All I know is I did not do it. I never put the stuff on there. I never saw the stuff on there. I can only hope that someday the truth will come out."

But can it? It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto a PC.

"Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as "painfully simple" to get a computer to download something the owner doesn't want — whether it's a program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures.

It's possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be discovered.

"Just because it's there doesn't mean the person intended for it to be there — whatever it is, child porn included." ..Source..

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

NV- Child Pornography: Does the Punishment Fit the Crime?

10-31-2009 Nevada:

In Nevada, looking at child pornography is a Class B Felony, punishable by one to six years in prison and a five thousand dollar fine. Many experts say a child pornographer will never see a day behind bars, just a mere probation sentence. After that, they’re off “free and clear,” usually with no lifetime supervision.

Child pornography is a three billion dollar industry, that's according to the Internet Filter Review. Some experts are saying that the sentencing for people who look at child pornography is much too lax.

Child pornography is much more pervasive than people might think. And it’s often seen as a victimless crime. But one detective says that couldn't be further from the truth...it can involve children as young as three years old being raped. And often, he says, those who look at child pornography move on to actually touching children.

We met with a man who has seen how child pornography and molesting a child overlap.
Ted says his world was shattered three years ago when Richard Raymer took his son's innocence.

“I wanted to kill him I had so much anger."

Washoe County Sheriffs Detective Dennis Carry handled Raymer's case.

Carry says, "Richard Raymer was a two time sex offender he had convictions in Oklahoma and Florida. He moved to this area in 2005.”

That’s when detectives found out that Raymer's addiction went beyond child pornography.

He’s now serving a life sentence. But Detective Carry says if Raymer had received a stronger punishment initially, he may have not had the chance to molest a 10-year-old boy.

"A large percentage of people that get arrested on child pornography cases are receiving probation when its a first offense child pornography charge," according to Carry.

Probation--instead of jail time. Hard for Ted to understand. "I’m really worried because I don't ever want this to happen again."

Former D.A. Dave Clifton says it’s difficult for child sex offenders to change. "These type of criminal offenders are not likely to be rehabilitated, they’re not likely to be safe back in society."

Many child pornographers say their affinity toward child porn is an addiction, an uncontrollable urge.

Raymer was in a sex offender treatment program in prison...yet while he was there he still fantasized about young boys. In his prison diary, he wrote about a young boy that was “ten luscious years old” and how once he gets out, he wants to hook up with a boy named “Ricky.”

"Some have said they want to get rid of it they want to stop and just couldn't they would delete it and then go back for more," says Carry.

Detective Carry says nearly all of those he has arrested first looked at pictures and video.
“We're talking children 5 years old, 6 years old, 7 years old being raped."

And then, like a drug, they need that next fix.

"They want something harder and harder. Research shows the next fix at some point down the road is touching a child.”

He says studies show that more than 85 percent of those who look at child porn move on to molest a child.

In Nevada, looking at child pornography is a Class B Felony, punishable by one to six years in prison and a five thousand dollar fine. Many experts say a child pornographer will never see a day behind bars, just a mere probation sentence. After that, they’re off “free and clear,” usually with no lifetime supervision.

Clifton says the likelihood of a child pornographer re-offending or moving on to molest a child hasn't been enough to change the law. "So do we want them running around in our streets? No. But because constitution doesn't allow us to put them in prison for the rest of their life for a crime they may commit…”

Detective Dennis Carry handled the investigation of William McCaffrey, who had one million pornographic images of children on his computer. When detectives asked him if he would ever touch a child he responded--"I really can't predict the future."

We may not be able to predict a person's future behavior, but maybe the future is closer than we think. According to the Butner study, two psychologists studied 155 child pornographers. When these offenders faced the court, they admitted to molesting a total of 75 victims. But after sentencing, these men were treated for their addiction and took polygraph tests, and the number of victims went from 75 to an astounding 1,777 victims (The Butner Study Redux).

And that disparity is why experts like Detective Carry say stronger sentencing is imperative. The current court system has offenders take a psycho-analysis test to determine whether they're a high risk to society. An exam both Clifton and Carry say is not reliable

“The psychosexual exam, I have to admit, most people pass because they’re only considered a moderate risk, and the expert would say this person's eligible for probation,” asserts Clifton.

Although, they must register as sex offenders.

“That allows government to monitor people and where they're living for the rest of their life.”

However, since most child pornographers are considered low risk by the courts, Tier 0 or 1, they won’t be listed on sex offender location web sites. Only Tier 2 and Tier 3 sex offenders are listed.

And even Clifton says programs like lifetime supervision and sex offender registration aren't fool proof. Phillip Garrido was a registered sex offender and on lifetime supervision when he allegedly abducted Jaycee Dugard.

So if all signs point to the fact that child pornographers are likely to re-offend, should state law change to give these offenders stronger sentences?

Clifton: “It may be the legislature increases sentences for these crimes some day, we'll see...I don’t know if the public outcry is going to be enough to make that happen.”

If that day comes, it will come too late for Ted and his family.

Ted remembers the fear in his son’s eyes when he was molested. "He come out crying to me and said ‘dad, I’m scared.’ I said what are you scared about?

He said, ‘I’m scared he might get me.’"

What, if anything, would you think should be done when it comes to child pornographers? You can post your comments below. ..Source.. by Christina Pascucci

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...

NY- Data in child porn case trashed

9-25-2009 New York:

The FBI has destroyed evidence that federal authorities allege could help prove a Henrietta man traded child pornography online and induced a teenager to take sexually explicit photographs of herself.

The Henrietta man, Jeffrey Swartz, did in fact plead guilty to trying to induce a 15-year-old girl to photograph herself in "sexually explicit conduct."

However, U.S. District Judge David Larimer in August allowed Swartz, 27, to withdraw the plea after questions arose about whether Swartz truly admitted guilt at his October 2008 plea hearing.

In the interim between the 2008 plea and Larimer's August decision to allow Swartz to back out of the agreement, the FBI destroyed a computer tower and two hard drives containing the evidence in the case, according to court papers.

Now, federal authorities are asking Larimer to reconsider his decision to let Swartz withdraw his plea.

Otherwise, Swartz's defense could challenge at trial the destruction of evidence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Lee wrote in a court filing.

She wrote that "defense counsel will likely raise this issue during the trial to challenge the investigation and procedures used to preserve the evidence."

Federal authorities say they have a replica image of the evidence, but they would be hamstrung at trial if they must concede they destroyed the original proof.

Prosecutors would be restricted at trial from mentioning that Swartz once did plead guilty to the charges.

"There will be a stilted explanation to the jury" about the destruction, said Acting U.S. Attorney Kathleen Mehltretter.

The evidence was destroyed more than six months after Swartz's guilty plea and after Larimer initially denied a request to withdraw the plea. Mehltretter said authorities commonly destroy evidence once cases appear resolved.

"We cannot hang onto everything," she said. "Pornographic images are contraband, like drugs.'

Typically, she said, evidence destruction "would be done after sentencing," Mehltretter said. "In this case it appears to have been done a little bit earlier."

Maureen Dempsey, spokeswoman for the Buffalo FBI office, declined to comment "because it is a pending matter before the courts."

Swartz's current lawyer for the federal case, Jeffrey Wicks, also declined to comment. Wicks is Swartz's fifth lawyer for the federal case and successfully argued in August that Swartz should be permitted to withdraw the plea.

Federal authorities allege they have proof that Swartz exchanged child pornography online with an FBI agent who was working undercover. They say they also have evidence through e-mail exchanges of the interaction between Swartz and the teenage girl.

Swartz claims in court papers that the evidence has been tampered with and fabricated to make it appear he looks guilty.

Swartz also has pleaded guilty to a rape charge in Monroe County Court — admitting that, in an act separate from the federal charge, he had sex with a teenager younger than 17. He also is seeking to withdraw that guilty plea.

Swartz is now in federal custody awaiting trial.

A conference about the federal case will be held Monday before Larimer. ..Source.. by Gary Craig • Staff writer

Read More of Article...

Article Summary only...