A slice of the New York City area
mainstream — a police officer, a fire department paramedic, a rabbi, a
nurse, a Boy Scout leader — used the Internet to anonymously collect and
trade child pornography, federal officials said Wednesday.
 |
| US Attorney Kenneth Allen Polite Jr., right, accompanied by US Customs
and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Thomas S. Winkowski, left, and
Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson speaks during a news conference
at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in
Washington, |
The six were
among at least 70 men and one woman charged in a five-week operation by
the Homeland Security Investigations arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement. Federal officials, who planned to announce the arrests a
news conference later Wednesday, call it one of the largest local
roundups ever of people who collect images of children having sex — and a
stark reminder that they come from all segments of society.
Consuming
child porn "is not something that is just done by unemployed drifters
who live in their parent's basement," said James Hayes of ICE's New York
office. "If this operation does anything, it puts the lie to the belief
that the people who do this are not productive members of society."
Authorities
say an alarming number of the defendants had access to young children,
though there were no reports of abuse. The Boy Scout leader also coached
a youth baseball team. The rabbi home-schooled his children and others.
Another person had hidden cameras used to secretly film his children's
friends.
One defendant was
already on bail following his arrest last year on charges he used the
Internet to direct women to record sex acts with young children. Court
papers allege he "indicated the last video he had downloaded and viewed
depicted a mother sexually abusing her 3- or 4-year-old child."
Authorities
say advances in technology and computer capacity have allowed
child-porn collectors to more easily amass vast troves of images and to
exchange files with each other directly. The New York effort resulted in
the seizure of nearly 600 desktop and laptop computers, tablets,
smartphones and other devices containing a total of 175 terabytes of
storage.
Agents are still
examining the devices to locate and catalog evidence, an arduous task
that could result in more arrests. The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children also will use its analysts to review the images to
see whether it can identify children using databases of known victims.
"We
refer to each of these images as a crime scene photo because that's
exactly what they are," said John Ryan, the organization's chief
executive officer.
Authorities
decided to launch the operation after the arrest in January of the Mount
Pleasant, New York, police chief, Brian Fanelli, who pleaded not guilty
this week to federal charges of knowingly receiving and distributing
child pornography. Court papers allege that Fanelli told investigators
he began looking at child porn as research before it grew into a
"personal interest."
In May,
agents on computers created a digital dragnet with the same tactics used
in the Fanelli case: Agents posed as collectors of child porn who
wanted to anonymously trade it through file-sharing programs. Once given
access to shared child porn photos and videos, the agents identified
the numeric IP addresses of the sources of the material.
The
next step as was to subpoena Internet service providers to obtain about
1,000 names associated with the IP addresses. The investigators
narrowed the list down to 100 people who were the most active and recent
traders, and obtained search and arrest warrants.
The
agents who fanned out to do the searches claim they encountered many
people who not only offered to show them what was on their computers,
but also seemed eager to admit their guilt. One who had downloaded a
video gave a written statement saying "he knew what he knew he should
not be doing it and he thought no one would know what he was doing,"
court papers said.
"We had
some individuals tell us, 'I know why you're here. I was waiting for
this. I knew this would happen someday,'" Hayes said. "That's not
something you find from someone who's trafficking cocaine or
money-laundering."
