This is a good article describing a new trend of Child Predators.
By Charles Wilson, The Associated Press, Published Saturday, August 14, 2010 at 2:51 PM
http://news.yahoo.com
INDIANAPOLIS — The nightmare began with a party: three teenagers with a webcam, visiting an Internet chat room and yielding to requests to flash their breasts.
A week later, one of the girls, a 17-year-old from Indiana, started getting threatening e-mails. A stranger said he had captured her image on the webcam and would post the pictures to her MySpace friends unless she posed for more explicit pictures and videos for him. At least twice, the teen did what her blackmailer demanded. Finally, police and federal authorities became involved and indicted a 19-year-old Maryland man in June on charges of sexual exploitation.
One federal affidavit includes a special term for the crime: “sextortion.”
Federal prosecutors and child-safety advocates say they’re seeing an increase in such cases of online-sexual extortion. They say teens who text nude cellphone photos of themselves or show off their bodies on the Internet are being contacted by pornographers who threaten to expose their behavior to friends and family unless they pose for more explicit porn, creating a cycle of exploitation.
The cases have prompted law-enforcement officials and advocates to caution teens. Privacy is nonexistent on the Internet, and once indiscretions appear online, they are virtually impossible to take back.
Teens can be more vulnerable to blackmail because they’re easy to intimidate and embarrassed to seek help. And the extortionists are often willing to make good on their threats, said Steve DeBrota, an assistant U.S. attorney in Indianapolis who has been involved in sextortion investigations.
This article is in reference to a Local Molestation Investigation. It is not SDICAC related.
By Kristina Davis, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER, Published August 13, 2010 at 6:07 p.m.
www.signonsandiego.com
LA MESA — The owner of a martial arts school has been arrested on suspicion of repeatedly molesting one of his 13-year-old students, La Mesa police said Friday.
Eric Protas, 38, was arrested Thursday morning on numerous counts of child molestation. He is being held on $1 million bail.
Protas, who is also an instructor at the Allied Gardens School of Martial Arts, is accused of abusing the boy over a one-year period.
The school, on Waring Road, also supports after-school martial arts programs offered in elementary schools throughout the county, according to the studio’s website.
Detectives are still working on developing leads on any other potential victims or witnesses to this case. Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Jason Sieckman at (619) 667-1439.
The Wrestling Coach’s Sentencing was the result of a SDICAC Investigation.
By Dana Littlefield, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER, Published Friday, August 13, 2010
www.signonsandiego.com
San Diego — A former volunteer wrestling coach at Westview High School who admitted he inappropriately touched one teenage girl and sent a pornographic photo of himself to another, was placed Friday on probation for five years and ordered to spend a year and a half in jail.
Ryan Paul Carnell, 29, of Rancho Bernardo also was ordered to register as a sex offender for life. He pleaded guilty April 30 to committing a lewd act on a child more than 10 years younger than himself. In a separate case, he pleaded no contest to sending harmful matter — a photo of his genitals — to a minor.
He faced a possible sentence of up to three years and eight months in prison for both offenses.
Defense attorney David Cohen had argued for probation, saying his client was amenable to treatment and that jail was a sufficient punishment. The prosecutor argued unsuccessfully for a prison term of two years and eight months.
Deputy District Attorney Dan Link said in court Friday that Carnell deserved prison because he abused his position of authority with 15- and 16-year-old girls who trusted him. The prosecutor said Carnell told the victims stories about his troubled family life so they would feel sorry for him.
Police have said the 15-year-old was a student at Westview in Rancho Pen~asquitos, where Carnell volunteered, but the offense did not occur on school grounds. Authorities began investigating after the girl came forward in November.
Poway Unified School District officials have said Carnell coached at Westview from November 2007 until March. He was not a member of the regular staff.
Our Task Force recently participated in a multi-agency Operation targeting registered sex offenders.
By Kristina Davis, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER, Published July 15, 2010 at 10:14 a.m.
www.signonsandiego.com
SAN DIEGO — Registered sex offenders got an early-morning wake-up call Wednesday as 110 local, state and federal law enforcement officers knocked on doors throughout the county in a surprise compliance sweep, officials announced at a news conference Thursday.The sweep, dubbed “Operation Watchdog,” was done to see if registrants were living where they said they were and to make sure they were following the law.
About 300 sex offenders — most of whom are not on parole or probation — were contacted by the end of the day, and authorities planned to return Thursday to the homes of an additional 200 or so offenders who couldn’t be reached.
Officials said that 20 people — or 6 percent — were found to be out of compliance, meaning investigators will have to track down those offenders through family, employers and landlords. If they can’t be located, warrants will be issued for their arrests.
Nine others were arrested for various violations of parole and probation conditions. One offender who was arrested had an outstanding felony sex crimes warrant out of Salinas County and another arrest was drug-related.
Drug- and firearm-sniffing dogs accompanied five of the law enforcement teams. Searches of homes turned up a firearm and a laptop computer suspected of containing child pornography.
By Edecio Martinez, CBS News, January 12, 2010
www.cbsnews.com
A Houston mother crossed the line — in fact she crossed the U.S.- Canadian border twice, prosecutors say — to engage in an illegal sexual relationship with a minor. And it all began with the Internet video game “World of Warcraft,” according to authorities.
Lauri Price, a substitute teacher and mother of four, was jailed after allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old boy whom she is said to have lured from his home.
The 42-year-old Houston mother has been charged by prosecutors in Houston with two counts of online solicitation of a minor and one count of enticing a child with the intent to commit a felony.
Authorities say Price started having an online sexual relationship with the boy, then 15, in September 2008 after meeting him via the online video game “World of Warcraft,” said Donna Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
After going to the teen’s home in Barrie, Ontario, in February of 2009, and failing to lure the boy away, Price continued her online relationship with him, said Lt. Matthew Gray with the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce.
“She talked to him about sex and a lot of different stuff. It was a very long, long grooming process. She thought that in February she had him at that time. She continued to work on him until she finally felt she broke through,” he said.
On Dec. 29, Price flew back to Canada and lured the teen from his home, taking him to a hotel in Rosseau, about 70 miles away, and having sex with him, Gray said.
“From our investigation, we have thousands of e-mails and instant messages to go through,” Gray said. “She was very persistent to say the least.”
Price was arrested early Tuesday morning, Jan. 5, at Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport after returning from Canada. She made her initial court appearance Wednesday.
Her attorney, Skip Cornelius, said he finds it both interesting and sad that Texas authorities are prosecuting Price for solicitation even though the boy was old enough in Canada to give consent.
Price is not facing charges in Canada related to sexual assault or other charges because the age of consent in that country is 16. In Texas, it is 17.
“The state authorities are taking the position the solicitation, since it occurred in Texas and in Texas he’s a minor, is a crime. We’ll have to see,” Cornelius said.
Before leaving his home, the teen left a note for his mother saying he was running away with Price. Authorities in Barrie were looking for the two when an off-duty police officer in Rosseau spotted them at the hotel, Gray said.
After releasing Price, Canadian police, knowing she could face possible charges in the United States, told U.S. authorities when she would be returning to Houston, Gray said.
Price has worked as a permanent substitute teacher with the Cypress-Fairbanks school district in suburban Houston, and has four children, Gray said. Prosecutors said after her arrest, Price was fired from her job.
If convicted, she faces from two to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 for each charge, Hawkins said.
By Kristina Davis, San Diego Union Tribune, December 10, 2009
www.signonsandiego.com
A music instructor was arrested at his home Wednesday on suspicion of child abuse and child pornography, the Sheriff’s Department said Thursday. Mark Lewis Kinney, 47, who has a music studio in Ramona and teaches private lessons throughout the county, was booked into jail on eight counts of lewd acts with a child, two counts of manufacturing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. Sheriff’s investigators identified multiple female victims under the age of 14 who were also Kinney’s students, said Sgt. Jim Walker. The exact number of victims and their ages was not released. Walker said the abuse has been going on “for quite sometime.” The parents of one victim reported the allegations to detectives three months ago. In the 1990s, Kinney toured with major bands, including country star Kenny Chesney, as well as with his own band, Mojave River, Kinney wrote on his Web site. He teaches drums and piano. A warrant was issued for his arrest on Monday after an investigation by the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the District Attorney’s Office, sheriff’s officials said.
Authorities fear there may be additional victims. Many of his music students have been children. Anyone with information about Kinney or other victims can call sheriff’s Detective Chris Davis at (858) 974-2310.
