TX - Congressman Lamar Smith Introduces Bill to Protect Children from Sexual Exploitation

Lamar Smith

Original Article

There are already laws to do what he's talking about. Is he just trying to make himself "look tough" and help his own career? We think so. It's just another law to help someone look good while doing nothing. The law is not yet online, and once it is, we'll add a link to it here.

06/29/2012

By Lamar Smith

Today, I introduced legislation to protect children from sexual exploitation. The Child Protection Act of 2012 (H.R. 6063) increases penalties for the possession of child pornography, raises funding and resources for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces and provides additional protections to child victims and witnesses.

The bill also improves the ability of the U.S. Marshals Service to apprehend fugitive sex offenders by giving them express administrative subpoena authority, however only for fugitive investigations of unregistered sex offenders.

Trafficking of child pornography images was almost completely eradicated in America by the mid-1980s. Purchasing or trading these images was risky and almost impossible to do anonymously. But the advent of the Internet reversed this accomplishment.

Today Internet child pornography may be the fastest growing crime in America, increasing an average of 150% per year. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed more than 51 million child pornography images and videos in the hopes of identifying the victims in them. These images of children being sexually assaulted are crime scene photos – and each face represents a child in desperate need of help.

Every day these online criminals prey on our children with virtual anonymity. The Child Protection Act of 2012 provides law enforcement officials with important tools to combat the growing threat of child exploitation. We must ensure that investigators have every available resource to track down predators and protect the weakest among us. This bill ensures that paperwork does not stand in the way of protecting our kids. It gives the U.S. Marshals tasked with tracking down these predators the legal tools they need, and it helps prevent more victims by raising the penalties for those who hurt our children.

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IL - You can have sex with a 17 year old legally, but photograph them naked and it's child porn?

Original Article

06/21/2012

SPRINGFIELD (CBS) – In a case that highlights one of the unusual incongruities of state laws, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a downstate man didn’t commit a crime when he had sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend, but he did break the law when he took pictures of them in the act.

[name withheld] was arrested in downstate Freeport in March 2009, and charged with three counts of child pornography after photographing himself having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend, but he was not charged with statutory rape, since the age of consent for sex in Illinois is 17. But, in Illinois, it is illegal to photograph anyone under the age of 18 engaged in a sexual act.

After a bench trial later that year, [name withheld] — who was 32 at the time — was convicted and sentenced to 8 years in prison, but he appealed his conviction.

In a 5-2 ruling on Thursday, the high court upheld his conviction and sentence.

Police began investigating [name withheld] after the girl’s mother complained about [name withheld] having sex with the girl. [name withheld] was 32 at the time and already a registered sex offender. She also showed police four or five pictures that [name withheld] had emailed to her daughter, showing them having sex.

[name withheld] admitted taking the pictures of himself having sex with the girl, using his cell phone, and acknowledged he knew the girl was 17 when they had sex.

[name withheld]’ attorneys argued the state’s child pornography statute is unconstitutional, claiming that applying the law to someone old enough to legally consent to sex does nothing to protect them from exploitation or abuse.

But prosecutors argued the child pornography statute was designed to protect children from the psychological and emotional harm that could result from distributing photos of their sexual activity.

Writing for the majority, Justice Rita Garman said the majority of the high court agreed with prosecutors, holding “there are rational, reasonable arguments in support of having a higher age threshold for appearance in pornography than for consent to sexual activity.”

They further argued that the consequences for sex are more concrete and apparent to teenagers than the dangers of appearing in pornographic photos or videos.

“Memorialization of the sexual act makes permanent an intimate encounter that can then be distributed to third parties. These concerns are exacerbated in the modern digital age, where once a picture or video is uploaded to the Internet, it can never be completely erased or eradicated,” the court wrote. “It will always be out there, hanging over the head of the person depicted performing the sexual act.”

[name withheld] had argued the photos were meant to be kept private, but the court noted that there is no guarantee the photos would always remain private.

Two justices – Anne Burke and Charles Freeman – dissented, arguing that, since the sex itself was consensual and legal, the photographs [name withheld] took were also legal.

Marshals catch predators in their own ’Net

Original Article

05/25/2012

By O’Ryan Johnson

The Internet has become notorious as a foul playground for child predators, but a top federal sex offender expert said the Web is now an effective if “horrible” tool for law enforcement, helping cops catch suspects who might have once gone undetected.

“There is no doubt that the Internet has facilitated our ability to detect and apprehend sex offenders,” said Michael L. Bourke, chief psychologist of the behavioral analysis unit of the U.S. Marshals Service. “It’s allowed men who believe their actions are anonymous to access material that feeds their fantasies, to engage in chats with like-minded individuals or children, and all these lead to the facilitation of additional crime,” he said. “The Internet has been a tool that helps these men carry out their crime.”
- If a person hasn't been charged with a crime yet, then they are not exactly a "sex offender!"

Sexual violence against children goes unreported by the victim in 84 percent of the cases, making it a difficult crime to prosecute. But predators who view child pornography online leave trails that can help authorities make arrests.

“This allows us to apprehend, through a different medium, actually undetected child molesters,” Bourke said. “It’s a horrible tool in the sense that this material is out there and children are exploited on a daily basis to produce the material, but from a law enforcement context, in an interesting way it’s allowing us to apprehend undetected, hands-on offenders, undetected child molesters.”

Bourke said in 1999, when Internet use was less widespread, there were 3,400 sex offenders in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “Now there’s 18,000,” he said.

The Marshals Service is responsible under the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act for tracking down sex offenders who are unregistered or have violated the terms of their registration. Bourke profiles predators, outlining interrogation techniques and giving marshals a glimpse into their thinking. He co-authored an award-winning study based on 155 sex offenders serving time in North Carolina that revealed 85 percent of the men arrested for possession of child pornography had also victimized a child.
- I personally think, if you want a more accurate representation, you need to check more than 155 sex offenders.

NY - Ex-chief (Thomas Levandowski) listed as sex offender for raping a 10-year-old girl, and child porn

Original Article

05/24/2012

By Bob Gardinier

Cambridge's ex-top cop on sex crimes list after ouster of rape conviction

TROY — A former Washington County town police chief whose 50-year prison term for rape was thrown out by a higher court because of prosecutorial misconduct is now a Level 1 sex offender.

Thomas Levandowski appeared before Judge Robert Jacon for a hearing Wednesday on what sex offender level he will be assigned and was given the lowest level for those deemed least likely to re-offend. He is eligible for parole in February 2014.

Assistant District Attorney Michele Poole argued that the former Cambridge police chief should be given the more stringent Level 2.

William Roberts, Levandowski's attorney, argued that Jacon's ruling should reflect a state review board determination that Levandowski should get Level 1 status. Level 1 offenders are not publicly listed.

Levandowski was convicted by a jury Aug. 23, 2002, of raping a girl between September 1996 and June 2001 when she was between the ages of 10 and 15.

The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court threw out 38 of 43 counts and the sentence and ordered a new trial on the remaining charges. The appellate justices cited several trial errors by the prosecutor, Patricia DeAngelis. DeAngelis prosecuted the case before she became Rensselaer County district attorney.

Levandowski, who also worked as a Hoosick Falls police officer and Washington County sheriff's deputy, pleaded guilty in May 2004 as the new trial date approached. He is serving a four- to 12-year sentence on three counts of possessing Internet photos of a sexual performance of a child under the age of 16. The photos were not of his original victim but came to light during the investigation of that case. He also pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child and four counts of criminal contempt regarding his original victim, charges the higher court left intact. Those counts deal with Levandowski grabbing the girl by the arm and going to her school four times in violation of an order of protection to stay away from her.

The appellate justices faulted DeAngelis for repeatedly questioning a witness after the judge sustained objections by Levandowski's lawyer.

The justices also found improper that family members and friends of the victim as well as employees of the district attorney's office had seated themselves up front by the jury wearing ribbons of support during summations. The justices noted an instance in which DeAngelis had cross-examined the girl's mother, who testified the girl fabricated her accusations. DeAngelis said, ''The grand jury thought otherwise, didn't they?'' With the jury out of the courtroom, the judge ''severely reprimanded the prosecutor for pursuing such a line of questioning,'' the justices wrote.

Levandowski's wife, Sharon Levandowski, was charged with endangering for knowing about her husband's alleged abuse but doing nothing to stop it. She also faced additional charges for threatening the girl to keep her quiet and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering and got three years probation.

Interpol targets 55 suspects using social network sites for child sex abuse images

Original Article

05/22/2012

(CNN) - An Interpol investigation into social networking groups exchanging child abuse material has targeted 55 key suspects in 20 countries, including the United States, and 12 children have been identified and removed from harm, the agency said Tuesday.

An unspecified number of the suspects have been arrested, said Interpol, the world's largest international police organization.

The international operation, which targeted child sexual abusers trading online images, identified suspects in 19 other countries: Australia, Bosnia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, England, Finland, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, The Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, and Venezuela, Interpol said.

The covert online investigation began in October 2010 in New Zealand, where authorities alerted Interpol's crimes against children team after discovering Facebook, Socialgo and grou.ps were being used to exchange significant amounts of "abusive and exploitative pictures," Interpol said in a statement.

Working with U.S. authorities, the Interpol inquiry found about 80 groups "engaged in the display or distribution of previously seen and unseen child sexual abuse images," Interpol said.

Facebook officials assisted the investigation after authorities identified key targets and their associated groups, Interpol said.

Maarten Quivooy, general manager of New Zealand's Regulatory Compliance Operations, said the Internet destroys jurisdictional boundaries and that protecting children is now a global responsibility.

"Trading in or viewing these images is ... offending because it involves real children often being abused both in real time and over time, and when these images of children being sexually abused are released onto the Internet, they live on forever," Quivooy said in a statement.

"Terms such as kiddiporn and child pornography make the physical sexual abuse of a child appear consenting. No child is capable of consenting to sexual activity — therefore all sexual depiction of children is abuse," he said.

Mick Moran, the head of Interpol's crimes against children unit, said the operation highlighted international cooperation.

"While disrupting these networks is a significant part of the investigation, what is more important is that innocent children and in some cases babies have been rescued from physical abuse," Moran said in a statement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said his agency will "work tirelessly with our international law enforcement partners to protect children wherever they live and to bring justice to criminals wherever they operate."

The 55 suspects allegedly created groups that posted images of children under age 13 being abused, Interpol said.

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OH - Former officer (David Krego) sentenced for child porn images

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IN - Former FBI Agent (Donald John Sachtleben) Arrested On Child Porn Charges

Donald John Sachtleben

Original Article

05/14/2012

Man Accused Of Possession, Distribution Of Child Porn

INDIANAPOLIS - A former Indianapolis FBI agent has been arrested on federal child pornography charges.

Donald John Sachtleben, 54, of Carmel, who retired from the FBI's Indianapolis office, was arrested Friday on preliminary charges of possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography, RTV6's Jack Rinehart reported.

In September 2010, authorities began investigating a person they believed was trading images of child pornography online, leading to an arrest earlier this year.

According to the criminal complaint, some of the images in that case were traced to Sachtleben's computer at his Carmel home.

Authorities searched Sachtleben's home earlier this month and found 30 image and video files of child pornography, investigators said.

Sachtleben appeared in federal court Monday morning.

If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison on the distribution charge and 10 years on the possession charge.

Sachtleben worked as a bomb expert during his career with the FBI.

According to his LinkedIn page, he managed investigative teams at several major terrorist attack scenes, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Oklahoma City bombing, the bombing of the USS Cole and the crash of United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2011.

Sachtleben was also the lead agent on the search of Ted Kaczynski's cabin in Montana, according to published reports.

"The mission of our Project Safe Childhood initiative is to investigate and prosecute anyone found to engaged in the sexual exploitation of children," U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Hogsett said in a news release. "Today's announcement underscores this serious commitment and should make clear that, no matter who you are, you will be brought to justice if you are found guilty of such criminal behavior."

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