September 11, 2011
Michael C. Wenger, 25, a youth hockey coach in Fort Wayne, IN, was arrested this week for possession and distribution of child pornography.
According to officials with Fort Wayne Youth Hockey, Wenger had been an active coach in the Fort Wayne Youth Hockey leagues for several years, leaving this season to coach the Bishop Dwenger High School’s hockey team.
According to court authorities, the FBI’s Indianapolis Cyber Crime Task Force was investigating computer downloads of child pornography on a peer-to-peer file sharing network. The IP address of the computer downloading the images was linked to a house not belonging to Wenger. While watching the house, authorities noticed a dark Pontiac Aztek leaving the house at various times.
Federal agents and local law enforcement officers began watching the house and noticed a dark Pontiac Aztek, registered to Wenger, leaving the house at various times, according to court documents.
Upon executing a search warrant on the home, one of the computers seized belonged to Wenger, on which authorities found approximately 40 videos and 60 still photographs of child sexual abuse.
When questioned, Wenger, told investigators he had been using a peer-to-peer network to share child abuse images for about a year, with approximately 20 friends on the network.
August 30, 2011
Former Delaware pediatrician Earl Bradley, 58, was sentenced by Judge William Carpenter Jr. to 14 life sentences without parole for 14 counts of first-degree rape as well as more than 160 years in prison for multiple counts of assault and sexual exploitation of a child.
Under Delaware state law, any person convicted of rape against three or more separate victims must receive a mandatory life sentence.
“You will never be in a position to harm a child again,” Carpenter told Bradley.
“Earl Bradley committed unspeakable acts upon those who could not speak for themselves,” said prosecutor Paula Ryan. “…. To make indescribable and horrific matters even worse, he videotaped these incidents for his own perverse pleasure, endlessly editing and copying, permanently memorializing his attacks on these children for his own twisted collection.”
Public defender Dean Johnson did not address the court, and Bradley also chose not to speak.
Bradley had escaped prosecution from two previous police investigations from complaints of patients, but finally was arrested in December 2009 after a 2-year-old girl complained to her parents that the doctor had hurt her after several office visits.
Acting upon the 2009 complaint, authorities searched Bradley’s office complex, seizing dozens of homemade videos from an outbuilding where he had lured patients with promises of treats and toys.
Bradley’s public defenders contend that the videos were improperly seized by authorities who acted outside of the scope of their search warrant, and therefore presented no defense at trial, opting for a quick verdict so that they could immediately appeal the judge’s decision to allow the videos as evidence.
Upon the judge’s allowing the video tapes into evidence, Bradley waived his right to a jury trial. Prosecutors presented testimony of two law enforcement investigators and showed Carpenter more than 13 hours of video showing sexual assault against more than 80 victims, most of whom were toddlers.
According to testimony, state police detective Scott Garland described the rapes caught on video as brutal and violent. He explained how some videos showed Bradley with his hands wrapped tightly around the heads of young children, violently forcing them to perform oral sex on him. When Bradley was finished with such assaults, he would lift up the young victims by the head and throw them several feet onto a couch in the rear of the building where investigators found the damning videos, Garland testified. Bradley sometimes would perform “rescue breathing” and chest rubs to revive the semiconscious victims, the detective added.
August 19, 2011
Congratulations to Detective Joyce Williams (pictured right) of the Suffolk Police Department in Suffolk, VA, who won a free Camtasia Studio license by TechSmith at our recent SHIFT mental health & wellness training on August 18, 2011 in Richmond, VA!
The Richmond Regional SHIFT Training, team taught by Scott Hughes, former Commander of the Wyoming Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, and Dr. B. Anne Balboni, state coordinator & clinical director of the state-wide Rhode Island CISM Team, offered professionals who are exposed to child sexual abuse and torture images and who may interact often with child sex offenders (e.g., law enforcement officers, forensic analysts, prosecutors, etc.), the opportunity to learn about the causes and symptoms of the negative effects that may occur as a result of their duties and ways to mitigate them.
Mental health professionals also learned about the challenges faced by professionals exposed to child pornography and other operations involving child sex offenders.
The Camtasia Studio software allows you to record anything on your PC screen along with webcam and audio. The product is used by educational and goverment organizations, including the NYPD, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the US Postal Service, and the FBI.
For a list of upcoming SHIFT Trainings, please visit www.shiftwellness.org.
August 3, 2011
At a Justice Department news conference today, Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano discussed the 20-month law enforcement investigation called Operation Delego, which targeted an international child pornography ring that officials say used an online bulletin board called Dreamboard to trade tens of thousands of child sexual abuse images and videos.
According to officials, many participants in the network, which had 600 members, produced images and videos of the sexual abuse of children under the age of 12, and then shared the images and videos with other Dreamboard club members. Attorney General Holder said that some of the children featured in the images and videos were just infants.
In many cases, the children being victimized were in obvious, and intentional, pain – even in distress and crying, just as the rules for one area of the bulletin board mandated, the attorney general said.
Napolitano said the amount of child sexual abuse images and videos traded by members in the network was massive, the equivalent to 16,000 DVDs. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, who heads Justice’s criminal division, called the criminal enterprise “a living horror.”
Of the 72 charged in the United States, 43 have been arrested in this country and nine abroad. Another 20 are known to authorities only by their Internet names and remain at large.
According to authorities, the members used screen names and used proxy servers with Internet traffic routed through other computers to disguise their locations. In order to maintain their membership, members were required to continually upload images of children being sexually abused. Participants who molested children and created new images of child pornography were placed in a “Super VIP” category that gave them access to the entire quantity of child porn on the bulletin board, authorities said.
A “Super Hardcore” section of the bulletin board was limited to posts showing adults having violent sexual intercourse with “very young kids” subjected to physical and sexual abuse.
July 27, 2011
The Innocent Justice Foundation will be giving away one free Camtasia Studio license by TechSmith at our upcoming SHIFT mental health & wellness training on August 4, 2011 in Chicago, IL.
The Chicago Regional SHIFT Training, team taught by Deputy Chief Michael Sullivan, Commander of the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, and Jane Stevenson, a specialist nurse practitioner, offers professionals who are exposed to child sexual abuse and torture images and who may interact often with child sex offenders (e.g., law enforcement officers, forensic analysts, prosecutors, etc.), the opportunity to learn about the causes and symptoms of the negative effects that may occur as a result of their duties and ways to mitigate them.
Mental health professionals will also learn about the challenges faced by professionals exposed to child pornography and other operations involving child sex offenders.
The Camtasia Studio software allows you to record anything on your PC screen along with webcam and audio. The product is used by educational and goverment organizations, including the NYPD, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the US Postal Service, and the FBI.
For a list of upcoming SHIFT Trainings, please visit www.shiftwellness.org.
July 19, 2011
Miami-Dade detectives made a disturbing discovery while conducting a child pornography raid at the home of Randy Jerome Pozdol – several videos of a man who appeared to be Pozdol, sexually assaulting an unidentified woman and her two young children — all of whom were unconscious and apparently drugged.
Following a long investigation, police identified the victims, including the 43-year old woman from Dania Beach, who was also Pozdol’s mistress, and discovered something more startling – the woman died in 2006 of what was, at the time, ruled an accidental drug overdose.
Pozdol, 66, is now awaiting trial on sexual battery and child pornography charges, while Broward sheriff’s deputies are reexamining the woman’s death to determine whether Pozdol might have given her a fatal dose of drugs.
According to authorities, the videos were set in Pozdol’s mistress’ apartment and one of her children later identified himself on the video.
“He also remembered four occasions where he woke up missing his shirt, and also remembered an occasion where he woke up and saw a light from a video camera, heard a beep consistent with a video camera belonging to the suspect,” the warrant stated. “He also remembered four occasions where he woke up with the suspect standing next to him.”
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/07/17/2318599/miami-child-porn-raid-yields-videos.html#ixzz1SZxkbiIl
July 14, 2011
Elizabeth Smart, the Salt Lake City 14-year old who was abducted at knifepoint from her befroom in 2002 and held captive for nine months, has recently joined ABC News as a contributor. Now 23, Smart is raising her voice to advocate for children, through her new role at ABC News, as well as through her foundation, the Elizabeth Smart Foundation.
Smart’s disappearance in 2002 both disturbed and inspired the nation as people everywhere rallied to support the search to find her. Her discovery 9 months after her kidnapping clearly showed that we should never give up hope in the search for missing and lost children.
Today, Smart uses her voice and visibility to advocate for protecting children from abuse and abduction.
She has been a visible presence on Capitol Hill lobbying for funding and children’s rights issues, something she said” will continue to be a top priority.
“One of the issues I would really like to address today is right now in Washington there is so much talk of funding and cutting funding,” she said. “It is so essential we not cut any funding related to children.” She and her family recently established the Elizabeth Smart Foundation as a platform to use their experiences over the past nine years to focus on protecting children from falling victim to kidnapping and sexual crimes.
One top priority for Smart is to use her visibility to promote the “Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force,” a multi-jurisdictional group helps state and local law enforcement agencies respond to cybercrimes against kids.
“The Foundation is really helping to push and support the Internet Task Force as much as possible,” she said. “It’s really something we just can’t afford to cut.”
June 16, 2011
NYC authorities arrested over two dozen in a child pornography ring bust where the offenders traded child sexual abuse videos and images ”the way others trade baseball cards,” according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
Children as young as one year old were depicted being raped and sexually assaulted in tens of thousands of photographs and videos seized at the end of a five-month investigation, Vance said at a press conference.
“These images are not pornography…These images are babies and children and toddlers being raped and sexually exploited. These images were disseminated on the Internet, feeding the appetites of pedophiles seeking new victims,’ Vance said.
Those arrested range in age from 18 to 63, all reside in NYC and work in various professions, many of which would bring them into close contact with children, including a corporate attorney for a children’s shoe store, a dishwasher for a child focused restaurant, and a substitute teacher.
According to authorities, not only did the defendants trade images and videos of the child abuse, but also sought out advice on how to meet children.
Prosecutors described the contents of a few of the images, which included a three-year-old being raped in a bathtub and an infant being ejaculated upon.
Almost all defendants were charged with both promoting and possessing a sexual performance by a child, each a felony.
June 6, 2011
David R. Bostic of Bloomington, Indiana, has plead guilty to 66 counts of child pornography charges and could be sentenced to more than 1,000 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis.
Bostic produced the images, most involving children under the age of 5, some of whom were from Indiana. The images were traded to people in the United States and around the globe.
“Bostic’s sexual exploitation of children is among the most serious cases ever prosecuted in (the Southern District of Indiana),” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Hogsett. “In fact, no criminal defendant has ever been charged in this district with as many counts of production of child pornography.”
According to authorities, five others have been charged in Indiana, all of whom shared dozens of images and videos of young children and babies being sexually molested since October 2009.
In all, the investigation led to the arrest of more than 20 people.
May 31, 2011
The San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task force and San Diego Police Foundation will kick off National Internet Safety Month with the launch of SafetyNet eLearning, a free online Internet safety guide for parents, educators and concerned adults. The launch event, on Wednesday, June 1, 2011 6:00 – 7:45 p.m at La Jolla Muirlands Middle School, will include a free Internet safety seminar where parents will learn information on cyberbullying as well as other online threats associated with social media outlets and online gaming.
The Safetynet eLearning guide was created by ESET North America as part of its Securing Our eCity initiative, with initial support from the AT&T Foundation. The guide allows busy adults and parents to learn how to keep kids safe online – at their own pace and schedule. The guide is available to all online users at www.smartcyberchoices.org.
Anyone interested in participating in the event can contact Darlene Kanzler with the San Diego Police Foundation at darlene@sdpolicefoundation.org or (858) 453-5066 for additional information.
Individuals who complete the SafetyNet eLearning guide will have an opportunity to win an iTunes gift card.
Michael C. Wenger, 25, a youth hockey coach in Fort Wayne, IN, was arrested this week for possession and distribution of child pornography.
