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Articles about child prostitution and pornography, 1 NASA Computers Used to Download Child Pornography (Florida Today; 08/01/98) A Kennedy Space Center worker and a former NASA employee have pleaded guilty in federal court to downloading child pornography from the Internet onto NASA computers. John Bradley Davis of Rockledge, a former NASA employee at KSC, and Lawrence W. Kerr of Cocoa, a technician for United Space Alliance, pleaded guilty Thursday to possession of child pornography, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida announced Friday. Davis and Kerr each could face up to five years in prison plus fines. They are scheduled to be sentenced in October. "They used the NASA Internet to download child pornography into the NASA computers," said Ralph Hopkins, deputy managing director for the district office in Orlando. "It was for their own lascivious use." Both men, released on signature bonds, declined to comment on their case when reached by telephone Friday afternoon, referring questions to their attorneys. Neither of their attorneys could be reached for comment. "They're really not a danger to anyone," Hopkins said. Kerr, an environmental health and safety technician for United Space Alliance who has worked at KSC since 1991, was given a different job when the crimes were discovered. "When the matter came to light, he was placed in a non-critical position pending determination of the facts," said Jack King, manager of media relations for the alliance. "He doesn't have access to (shuttle) flight information or hardware." King said Friday he had not been formally informed the men had pleaded guilty. "His status will immediately be reviewed," King said. Davis no longer works for NASA, according to a report from the U.S. Attorney's Office. NASA officials declined to talk about the incident or give information about Davis' employment. "We've been asked by the U.S. attorney not to give any information," NASA spokesman Joel Wells said. The case, which surfaced sometime this year, was investigated by special agents from NASA's Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Customs Service and computer security personnel from United Space Alliance. (Copyright 1998) {A5:FloridaToday-0804.00360} 08/01/98 William Toma adopted and then abused his stepdaughter, meticulously documenting pornographic photographs of the girl at 11, then at 12, then 13. By then he had progressed to videotape and sent images of the girl to other countries, including Denmark where she appeared in a magazine for pedophiles. Toma is now in prison and the stepdaughter an adult. The pictures, however, continue to be reproduced again and again. "The magazines are still out there today, and (the stepdaughter) is out there somewhere and continues to be victimized," said Ray Smith, U.S. Postal Service inspector and program manager. The often silent world of pedophilia is much larger than the public may believe, Smith said Tuesday at the 11th annual Conference on Child Abuse and Domestic Violence at Weber State University. The Postal Service is the nation's oldest federal law enforcement agency and has jurisdiction over criminal and civil matters that take place through the country's mail system. But a large portion of the investigations — 2,800 since 1984 — have been on child pornography. This year, 40 percent of the pornographers either had a history of or were currently molesting children. Nearly all those consuming or producing the materials are men, usually white, and from middle or upper class backgrounds. While the medium may have changed from the Scandinavian magazines of the '70s and '80s to the computer images of the '90s, the federal law has kept up, becoming more and more stringent in an effort to eradicate child pornography. The nation didn't have a federal child pornography law until 20 years ago. Since then, the laws have come to prohibit computer downloading and uploading of images and the receipt and production of the pornography. Today, even possessing the materials is against the law. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Recently, Smith's office conducted Project Special Delivery and dismantled the largest child pornography business in U.S. history. More than 90 people have already been convicted. The pornography was made with boys as young as 7 in Mexico. The images were reproduced in a condo in San Diego and shipped across the country. The kingpin of the operation —
47-year-old Troy Anthony Frank — had been convicted of
molesting a child in Greeley, Colo., and fled to the Netherlands
and then Mexico. He committed suicide shortly after In Utah, the crimes are usually turned over to federal agencies because federal law is much more stringent than state law, said Salt Lake Police Sgt. Don Bell, who oversees the city's sex crimes division. Just two weeks ago, a Salt Lake photo lab contacted police when a roll of film they were developing contained questionable nude pictures of a young girl. Bell agreed the pictures were suspicious and turned the case over to law enforcement officials in Tooele, where the family lives. The case is still under investigation. The crime is usually hard to detect, especially because of the prevalence of home computers and video technology, Bell said. About 18 months ago, police arrested a Salt Lake man after they found videos of him molesting his girlfriend's daughter. He is still in prison, Bell said. The child abuse conference continues through Wednesday. More than 700 child protective investigators, medical personnel, court officials and parents from around the country are attending the annual event. Prostitution on the rise in Sudbury, group says: Elizabeth Fry seeks government support to battle the problem, By Star Staff Sudbury Star Aug. 14, 1998 The number of prostitutes working in Sudbury has doubled since the spring despite high-profile efforts by regional police to combat the problem. The Elizabeth Fry Society says 25 known prostitutes were working Sudbury streets in April. Today, there are 50 and half of them are younger than 16. It s getting higher and higher due to summer weather, children not being in school and escort services, which operate underground, says Marianne Zadra, a member of the society s board of directors. Even the police don t know what s happening with the escort services. While prostitutes are not as visible as before, they are still out there, Zadra says. We don t have any hard stats for them. Hopefully the (Unhooked) program will provide that. The society is preparing to step up efforts to get money for Unhooked, a program designed to get child prostitutes off the streets of Sudbury. Zadra says Elizabeth Fry needs $206,000 in federal, provincial and regional money so it can run Unhooked, starting next month. The society has already received about $13,500 in donations for the 18-month program, which has a total cost of $219,349. The bulk of that is expected to come from the feds, Zadra says. Three people will be hired, one full- and two part-time, to run Unhooked. What we need is money for salaries, which is always a hard thing to raise. We need to get the salaries to be able to hire the people and make the program run efficiently. Marianne Zadra, a member of the society s board of directors Program supporters will make their case for money to regional council s health and social services committee next Tuesday. Unhooked will address the basic needs of prostitutes and will assist them in getting off the streets, the society says. It expects to do this by providing immediate outreach and safety interventions, offering a comprehensive four-week program on a repeat basis to assist teens to build life skills, and to support teens who are living on the street and prostituting for survival. Other components of the program include public education and parent/guardian support. The question of prostitution -- especially in the city s downtown core -- has received a lot of attention this year. In April, Sudbury Regional Police launched the DISC (deter, identify, sex trade, consumers) program. The program targets the anonymity of the johns who buy sex from hookers. The operation has focused on Elgin and Durham streets, and the Medina Lane area, after regular business hours. People who speak to, stand with, or continually drive by the prostitutes can be stopped, watched or be asked to provide identification by the police. To date, police have charged 16 men and seven women with prostitution-related offences through the DISC program. Two of the cases involved prostitutes younger than 16 years of age. And in May, Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci introduced a private members bill, now known as Bill 18, the Protection of Children Involved in Prostitution Act. The bill is designed to crack down on those who prey on under-18 prostitutes. Bill 18 would give police officers the power to apprehend a child involved in teen prostitution without a warrant and return the child either to his or her family or to a safe house. As well, the bill would allow a child, parent or child protection worker to apply for a restraining order against a person who has involved the child in prostitution. Under the bill, it would become an offence for a person to encourage a child to engage in prostitution, with a penalty of up to $25,000 or two years in prison, or both. Although it s rare for private members bills to become law, the provincial government did agree to hold public hearings. Two meetings will be held next week, and two more in September. Kohl urges fight against on-line child pornography, By Reuters, 07/19/98 ONN - German Chancellor Helmut Kohl called yesterday for stronger international cooperation in the struggle against child pornography, following the discovery in the Netherlands of a suspected Internet child abuse ring. In an interview with the newspaper Welt am Sonntag that was made available ahead of publication today, Kohl said the Netherlands case showed that the international community needed to intensify its efforts to protect children from such abuses. ''The scandal in the Netherlands concerns us all.... Possibly German children were among the victims and German men among the protagonists,'' the newspaper quoted him as saying. Dutch police are sifting through thousands of potentially pornographic computer files discovered in a flat in the seaside town of Zandvoort. The deceased owner of the flat is thought to have been a central figure in an international network distributing pornographic material involving children. ''What shocks me the most is that these criminals were also able to make a profit out of their disgraceful deeds,'' the chancellor said. Dutch investigators said Friday they were maintaining close contact with Belgian and German colleagues, but that it was too early to comment on the extent of the suspected porn operation. German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel also called for stepping up antiporn activity in Europe. ''The criminals are operating across Europe, as the case of Amsterdam shows.... Therefore, we need European counter-strategies,'' he told Welt am Sonntag. Allegations that child abusers worldwide were linking through the Internet have sparked demands in Germany and Austria for tighter regulation of the World Wide Web. German Interior Minister Manfred Kanther told Welt am Sonntag he had asked for the development of software to help police uncover such illegal material on the Internet. This story ran on page A21 of the Boston Globe on 07/19/98. Britain is to stage an international conference aimed at stamping out child prostitutes and the paedophile tourists who prey on them, Foreign Office Minister Derek Fatchett said on Monday. "We need a real international programme to tackle the dreadful problem of child abuse -- a problem than knows no borders," he said. Children's charities say that one million children enter the global sex market every year and that in Asia alone, more than 650,000 children under the age of 16 work as prostitutes. Fatchett, returning from a visit to the Philippines and South Korea, announced that Britain was bringing together health, social welfare and police experts from 25 countries for the conference from October 6-8. He stressed the need for police forces both to deter and detect the "sex tourists" who go abroad specifically to pick up and abuse children driven into prostitution by poverty. "We need to remember that this is a problem we have in the West and also export," he said in a statement. The conference is intended to put in place schemes to allow police forces in Europe and Asia to share more intelligence. British police have already provided training for Filipino officers in Manila in identifying and countering child prostitution and pornography and have run similar courses in Thailand and Sri Lanka. After the conference, it is intended that a website for prosecuting authorities and police will include a quick guide on Asian and European child sex crime legislation. Social welfare workers from Europe and Asia will also go on exchange programmes and share much more information on preventing abuse and rehabilitating victims. A horrified Fatchett saw at first hand what the international paedophile trade can do to its victims when he visited the Manila Children's Hospital. "Many of the people using these young children are now from Western Europe and that is why we have the responsibility. Seeing that problem brings it home to you in a very shocking way," Fatchett told BBC Radio. "Working together across the boundaries of our regions, we can contend with these problems and make a real difference to children and their families," he added. The conference will bring together the 15 member states of the European Union with Brunei, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. {Reuters:International-0803.00093} 08/03/98 |
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