Jason Alexander – not to be mistaken with the famous Seinfeld cast member – pleaded guilty on Tuesday to possessing and promoting child pornography, according to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.
Law & Order director Jason “Jace” Alexander could possibly face seven years imprisonment for child pornography charges.
The 51-year-old native of Dobbs Ferry, New York, entered guilty pleas to one count of promoting sexual performance and one count of possessing an obscene sexual performance by a child. The charges against the director stemmed from possessing and file-sharing illicit and obscene performances of sexual conduct by children less than 17 years old.
He is set to be sentenced on May 3, and he could face a maximum jail time of seven years.
Jason Alexander was arrested in July 2015 after an investigator from the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office downloaded child porn from a suspicious IP address in Dobbs Ferry. Investigators traced the location of the IP address and it was revealed to be assigned to the director’s home. A search warrant was then issued.
Jason Alexander known for working on Law & Order, Blacklist & Rescue Me arrested on allegations of child porn charges pic.twitter.com/aVGkzYNExY
The District Attorney’s Office was able to collect strong evidence against the TV director during the forensic examination of his computer and hard drives that were confiscated from his residence. Illegal digital files of minors engaged in sexual acts were discovered on his personal computer and external hard drives, Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore said.
Assistant District Attorney Laura Forbes of the High Technology Crime Bureau is prosecuting the 51-year-old director’s child porn case.
Alexander, who remains out on bail, directed a number of Law & Order episodes since mid ‘90s. His other TV projects include The Practice, Rescue Me, and The Blacklist. Jason Alexander has reportedly served as second vice president of the Directors Guild of America.
Katie Fogle is determined to end her marriage to former Subway spokesman, Jared Fogle. The divorce case which Mrs. Fogle filed on Wednesday, Aug. 19, states the reason for breaking up: “an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.”
Katie requested that the court determine all child related issues for their family which include child custody, child support, parenting time and expenses for education. Furthermore, the divorce file “requests a custody order that serves the best interests of the parties’ children.”
The couple married in 2010. They have two kids; a son named Brady, who was born in 2011 and a daughter named Quinn, born in 2013.
Katie said she was “extremely shocked and disappointed” by the scandal regarding her husband. She stressed that her children’s well-being is the most important thing to her right now.
As for their property, the wife is letting the court of law decide. According to RadarOnline, the petition states, “The wife requests that the court enter appropriate orders to divide and distribute the parties’ marital estate.”
Katie appealed for “dissolution of marriage” after husband Jared Fogle plead guilty to charges related to child pornography and engaging in sexual acts with minors. According to the reports stated in court papers, Jared had arranged a business trip schedule that would be convenient for him to engage in sexual acts with young prostitutes.
As per the decision of the court, the 37-year-old former Subway spokesman has been prohibited from owning pornographic material. The court also banned him from owning a computer or accessing the internet. He was also ordered not to come in contact with children other than his own.
Last month, the FBI raided Jared Fogle’s home in Zionsville, Indiana, concerning rumors of child pornorgraphy. The former spokesman for Subway could face up to 12 years in prison for the crimes he has plead guilty to.
Katie Fogle, the wife of former Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, announced on Wednesday she filed for divorce from her husband.
On the same day Jared Fogle agreed to plead guilty to charges that he traveled across state lines to have sex with minors as well as possessed and distributed child pornography, Katie Fogle issued a statement to the press.
“Obviously, I am extremely shocked and disappointed by the recent developments involving Jared. I am in the process of seeking a dissolution of the marriage. My focus is exclusively on the well-being of my children. Neither I nor my family will have any further comment on the matter. I appreciate respect for my family’s privacy during this difficult time.”
Jared and Katie Fogle are the parents of two girls. Since he will soon face up to 12 1/2 years in prison, she will get full custody of their children. As part of Jared Fogle’s plea deal, he will only be allowed supervised visitation once he is freed from prison–and only if Katie Fogle agrees.
It’s uncertain if Katie Fogle was there when Jared Fogle’s Zionsville, Indiana home was raided back in July by authorities who removed both computers and video tapes.
Jared Fogle became famous after losing lots of weighted–claiming Subway sandwiches were the basis of the loss. He went to work for the company as their spokesperson shortly thereafter.
Katie Fogle is no doubt livid–as well as humiliated–about her soon-to-be ex-husband’s heinous actions.
Jared Fogle, the former spokesperson for Subway, is expected to plead guilty to possession of child porn in a plea deal it is believed he will accept on Wednesday, August 19.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office will hold a press conference on Wednesday to outline both the charges against Jared Fogle and the terms of the plea deal.
Ron Elberger is the attorney representing Jared Fogle. He had no comment on the matter when approached by an Indianapolis Fox News station. He directed the media to Wednesday’s press conference, saying they would learn everything about the situation at that time.
Federal agents raided Jared Fogle’s Indiana home in early July. During the raid, computers and DVDs were removed from the home.
Jared Fogle gained national attention when he lost a significant amount of weight as a college freshman. He attributed his weight loss to eating Subway sandwiches. Subway ended their relationship with Fogle after the raid on his home in July.
When asked to comment on the most recent developments in the Jared Fogle case, a rep for Subway had little to say.
“We have already ended our relationship with Jared and have no further comment.”
Possession of child pornography is a serious crime, punishable by prison time. It is uncertain how much time Jared Fogle could spend incarcerated as a result of his crimes.
It will be interested to learn via Wednesday’s press conference exactly what the deal is with the former Subway spokesperson.
Jared Fogle is a hot topic lately. America is a strange place in this regard. Americans love to see someone rise from obscurity to become famous and rewarded. It’s why we like talent show like American Idol. It’s why Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame stretched on and on.
Subway restaurants used that part of the American collective psyche to sell sandwiches. They took a guy who had lost 200 lbs by eating just Subway sandwiches twice a day and made him the face of their brand.
Jared Fogle went on to be worth millions. He started a foundation to fight childhood obesity. He wrote a book. He ran a marathon. He had a filmed cameo in the upcoming Sharknado installment. For years he was a wholesome, goofy face selling a product that his own experience said worked. It was a fresh alternative to celebrity endorsements. It was the reverse of that.
Then Jared Fogle answered the door at his home to have a search warrant handed to him. To date, there are no charges filed against Jared Fogle. His neighbors say he left his house wearing a hoodie as FBI agents looked on, and has never returned to the home.
Apparently, Russell Taylor, a former employee of the foundation Fogle started was arrested on child pornography charges. The man attempted suicide in jail. Fogle has not been charged with anything, but FBI agents spent 11 hours going through his home.
Subway issued a statement saying that they had a mutual agreement with Fogle to part ways.
Subway & Jared Fogle have agreed to suspend their relationship due to the current investigation. Jared is cooperating with authorities.
The digging into Fogle’s past began in earnest, but this time it was not for inspirational material. Stories surfaced that Fogle ran an “adult video rental service” from his dorm room in college.
One reporter claims that Fogle told her that “middle school girls are hot.” His lawyers laughed at that one outright, since there is no record or proof that it ever happened.
Some have said they will not eat at Subway because they think Fogle is suspected of child pornography. Some say they will not eat at Subway because they canned Fogle without his ever having been charged with anything.
The producers of Sharknado 3 pulled the Jared Fogle cameo from their upcoming airing of the movie.
A man accused of housing child pornography on multiple hard drives will not be forced to give authorities access, after a Wisconsin judge rules that doing so would violate his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The case involves Jeffrey Feldman, a software engineer with a degree in computer science from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Suspected of possessing child pornography, FBI agents raided his home and seized 16 storage devices, 9 of which were encrypted.
The FBI filed an order to compel Feldman to decrypt his devices, and order which has been shot down by Judge William Callahan.
“This is a close call, but I conclude that Feldman’s act of production, which would necessarily require his using a password of some type to decrypt the storage device, would be tantamount to telling the government something it does not already know with “reasonably particularity” – namely, that Feldman has personal access to and control over the encrypted storage devices. Accordingly, in my opinion, Fifth Amendment protection is available to Feldman. Stated another way, ordering Feldman to decrypt the storage devices would be in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination,” said Judge William E. Callahan Jr.
The Judge concedes that the state knows the encrypted devices contain data, and that they already know the names of the files and that they probably exist on said devices. He also concedes that the state has shown that Feldman is surely capable of decrypting the devices.
But the following question remains: Is it reasonably clear, in the absence of compelled decryption, that Feldman actually has access to and control over the encrypted storage devices and, therefore, the files contained therein? To be sure, the storage devices were all found in Feldman’s residence, where he has admittedly lived alone for the past 15 years. In addition, the unencrypted Dell computer, which showed connections to the encrypted storage devices, has a login screen with only one username, “Jeff.” Nevertheless, unlike in Boucher and Fricosu, here, Feldman has not admitted access and control.
It’s clear that the Judge thinks that this is a very tricky case, and his decision toes the line.
In the end, however, the conclusion is that the state simply doesn’t know enough already about the contents of the drives and the defendant’s ties to them to compel him to access them.
An attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Wired that “this isn’t just about child porn. It’s about anything on your computer that prosecutors or government officials may want.”
Don’t think that encrypting your data shields you from the long reach of the law, however. Not only is encryption less than 100% effective, but this is simply one ruling. In the past, we’ve seen courts compel decryption – for instance in the aforementioned Boucher case, where a man was forced to unlock his laptop after authorities suspected it contained child pornography.
An 8-year prison sentence for a convicted child pornographer has been vacated and remanded for resentencing following a procedural error that involved the judge in the case going off on a completely unnecessary rant about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. The case is even odder when you understand that the crimes in question had absolutely nothing to do with Facebook.
56-year-old Laura Culver was sentenced on January 30th to 96 months in jail for producing child pornography. Back in 2001 and 2002, Culver collaborated with a man named Edgardo Sensi to film an 8-year-old girl engaged in various sexual acts. Pretty disgusting stuff. So, an 8-year prison sentence is not unreasonable, right?
Well no, but in this specific case the sentence is being thrown out. An appeals court has ruled that the judge’s actions during sentencing demand that the sentence be vacated and reworked.
While explaining Culver’s sentence, U.S. District Judge Warren W. Eginton reportedly went on some sort of unrelated Facebook-bashing tangent where he ended up blaming Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for “hurting a lot of people.”
The records are sealed, but the appeals court, in its decision, paints a pretty clear picture of what the judge was ranting about.
In justifying its decision to impose a sentence of eight years instead of six, the district court referenced “Facebook, and things like it, and society has changed.” … The court speculated that the proliferation of Facebook would facilitate an increase in child pornography cases. The court said it hoped Mark Zuckerberg (who founded Facebook) was “enjoying all his money because…he’s going to hurt a lot of people….”
But Facebook had nothing to do with Culver’s case. In fact, the internet itself didn’t even play a factor in it.
The government argues that the district court was merely concerned about the extent to which various new technologies may facilitate child pornography, rather than Facebook specifically. In that sense, Facebook was a reference to the internet, using synecdoche. But the government does not explain (because it cannot) the role of new technology in this case. Culver did not use the internet to commit her crime, and it should not have played a predominant role in her sentencing.
The appeals court makes a point to say that the ruling in no way suggests that the 8-year sentence for Culver’s crimes is “substantively unreasonable.” In fact, it’s actually well under the recommended guidelines for such a crime.
“Still, that discretion should be exercised without the influence of procedural error.”
A deacon at the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Fullerton, a suburb of Baltimore, has been arrested and charged with multiple child pornography counts after Verizon tipped authorities to materials stored on the company’s online cloud backup system.
67-year-old William Albaugh was arrested and released on $75,000 bond after police found underage porn images and videos on his Verizon cloud backup as well as on numerous thumb drives in his home. Police confiscated two storage units, a laptop, and an iPad as well.
According to police, there is no evidence that any children at St. Joseph’s church were victims.
Albaugh reportedly told police that he has been viewing child pornography since the 1970s, but was in no way involved with any of the porn’s creation.
Albaugh had been a deacon at the church since 1996, but the archdiocese has confirmed that he has been suspended.
The police were first tipped to Albaugh’s child pornography collection when Verizon notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Verizon said that they had detected the images and videos stored on his Verizon Online Backup and Sharing account.
Erika Susan Perdue, a 41 year-old Texas socialite who lives in a $1.4 million home right across the street from a playground, was arrested for sending, receiving and possessing child pornography. According to the NY Daily News, Perdue has been selling such material for almost 12 years. So exhaustive is her collection of child-related pornography that she’s forgotten where the vast majority of it came from, though it would appear that they have been collected from all over the country.
The FBI began investigating Perdue back in January after authorities discovered that she was transmitting images and videos of adults engaging in sexual acts with children to other people online. The Texas housewife is thought to have sold the items in question during the day, while her husband, an attorney, was away at work. Reports indiciate that she has been peddling child pornography on the side since 1999.
Agents raided Perdue’s home on April 10th, during which they seized a computer and a hard drive containing the offending material, including images of adults having sex with toddlers.
Child advocates, meanwhile, are a little taken aback by the fact that this particular predator was, in fact, a woman.
“It’s not as common,” explained Catherine Smit-Torrez, who has spent over 20 years investigating such cases. “Women don’t have as much interest in child pornography. Generally, we don’t see a lot of that. There are some women who have fascination with different sexes and different age groups. A woman is supposed to be considered a mother who’s nurturing, not someone who is selling images that can literally destroy a child’s life.”
Right now, it’s unclear if Perdue made any money from the sale of such material. Her trial date is currently set for September 10th.
Chris “Birdman” Andersen, reserve center for the Denver Nuggets, had his home searched by Douglas County Sherrif department’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit. As a result, Andersen has been temporarily removed from all team-related activities until the investigation has concluded.
Although representatives for the Nuggets have declined to comment on the situation, they did issue a statement claiming that Andersen was “excused from all team-related activities indefinitely as he deals with the reported investigation”. At the moment, the fan favorite hasn’t been arrested or charged with any crimes.
The Internet Crimes Against Children unit investigates claims of child pornography. The sheriff’s department has revealed that property pertaining to the case was confiscated from Andersen’s home. However, authorities claim that an arrest is not imminent, and declined to comment further on the investigation.
Andersen, who was kicked out of the NBA in 2006 after failing a drug test, has contributed greatly to several children’s charities. In addition to raising a considerable amount of cash for Mount Saint Vincent, a home for troubled and abused children, Andersen has also helped the folks over at Alliance for Choice in Education.
Considering the delicate nature of this subject and my propensity to use snark, this should be an interesting excursion. What we have is, thanks the New York Court of Appeals, the news that browsing for child pornography is no longer illegal in the state of New York.
No, that’s not misprint either. While the court case in question concerns James D. Kent, an assistant college professor whose web cache on his work computer contained over one hundred illegal images of child pornography, the case addresses the apparent difference between accessing and possessing this kind of content.
According the New York Court of Appeals, access is not the same ownership:
“Merely viewing Web images of child pornography does not, absent other proof, constitute either possession or procurement within the meaning of our Penal Law,” Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick wrote for a majority of four of the six judges. “Rather, some affirmative act is required (printing, saving, downloading, etc.) to show that defendant in fact exercised dominion and control over the images that were on his screen,” Ciparick wrote. “To hold otherwise, would extend the reach of (state law) to conduct — viewing — that our Legislature has not deemed criminal.”
Of course, one could argue the fact that someone actually navigated to such a web property, procurement has been accomplished, but apparently, that’s not good enough for the state of New York.
Or, as Gizmodo so eloquently put it, “Simply, you’re not responsible for what you look at anymore.” Ignorance, it seems, is a good excuse if these kinds of images show up in your Internet cache. Not the ignorance of the images themselves, mind you, but the ignorance concerning the existence of browser cache. If, in New York, you get caught with kiddie porn in your Internet cache, the appropriate defense appears to be “I didn’t know my computer would do that.” As long as you don’t have any hard copies of the stuff saved to the hard drive, to the state of New York, you’ve broken no law.
Amazing, isn’t it?
In isolated cases, ignorance does seem to be a legitimate excuse, if, for nothing else, thanks to the existence of Internet porn redirects that send to an entirely different site than the one you started on. This would seem like the only case where ignorance works, because the content being requested is not always the content the web user receives.
In the case of Kent, who had over a hundred child pornography-related images in his cache, the inference being made is he may have accidentally received this content.
Over one hundred times.
As ludicrous as that seems, the ruling reflects a group of people who don’t seem to understand how the Internet works:
All of the judges agreed that child pornography is an abomination, but they disagreed whether it was necessary to “criminalize all use of child pornography to the maximum extent possible,” as Ciparick wrote in the majority opinion. The majority said that was up to the Legislature, not the courts, to decide.
The fact that they disagreed on such a simple concept is also troubling, especially when you consider the absolute mishandling that occurred during previous attempts to regulate the Internet. These are the people the courts are looking to regarding clarification of such an obvious issue.
Who knew child pornography was a “pass the buck” topic, especially for the judicial system?
Warning: This isn’t the sort of article you’ll want to read before lunch. Or after lunch, for that matter. In fact, it’s going to gross you out regardless of what time of day it is.
A seriously freaky individual from Clearwater, Florida was recently arrested on charges of child pornography and bestiality, according to the Tampa Bay Times. To add further embarrassment to an already-humiliating situation, some of the photos allegedly show the individual engaging in sexual contact with his girlfriend’s dog. Insert heaving, raw gags right here. The thought of such a lurid scenario is completely mind-boggling, not to mention entirely nauseating.
29 year-old Eric Antunes is currently facing quite a bit of jail time. In addition to the single count of animal cruelty, Antunes is being charged with 10 counts of possessing child pornography, which should land him behind bars for quite some time. I’m sure all of his rancid activities will make him a very popular person with his fellow inmates. I’ve seen enough “life in prison” movies to know what happens to people like Antunes when they end up behind bars. Yikes.
Police state that the suspect owned up to downloading child pornography onto his personal computer. Additionally, he allowed authorities to search his harddrives for more illegal content. The poor pooch depicted in the photos is now back with its owner.
Disgusted? Let us know what you think of this guy in the comments section.
The FBI is cracking down on child pornographers and those in possession of the material, a spokesman said after the recent addition of 30-year old Eric Toth to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List as number 1, replacing Osama Bin Laden.
“This nomination by us of Eric Toth is a reflection of what the bureau does and our changing mission,” he added.
Toth, who taught third-grade at a Washington D.C. elementary school in 2008, was fired after a coworker found a school camera in his possession containing sexually explicit photographs. He hasn’t been seen since, although his car was found at a local airport afterward containing a suicide note; no body was found.
“We don’t have a belief nor do we have any proof that he committed suicide,” Special Agent Ronald Hosko said.
Officials believe he is working in some teaching capacity–perhaps tutoring, or advertising for those services–and has used the alias David Bussone. They are offering up to $100,000 as a reward for information leading to his capture.
The feds are using Toth as a poster boy for a new, stronger initiative to catch those involved with child pornography; a recent sting in Massachusetts saw 32 men arrested and charged in the past week after targeting porn-sharing sites which have images of children posted. State police superintendent Col. Marian McGovern said the arrests are a “stern message to those who prey on these children and support the evil trade that exploits them.”
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” – The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
Somewhere in a hotel ballroom, a small business seminar begins:
Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for coming today to hear about this extraordinary business opportunity that is exploding globally. We’re glad you made it here today to hear about this amazing way for you to make piles of money, all of it tax-free.
Do we have enough chairs there in the back? Everyone get coffee? Bagels? Good. Let’s get down to business, shall we?
If you will direct your attention to the PowerPoint slides here on the screen, I would like to introduce you to our CEO, Daniel. That is not his real name, of course. I think you will agree that Daniel is a shrewd businessman, a tycoon in the making. Here is what Daniel has done – what you, too, can do if you choose to get in business with us today.
Daniel is a trafficker. He takes women, girls and young boys from impoverished villages and towns and brings them to metropolitan areas for special events. He has underlings who drive his crew from place to place. He has a real gift for spotting talent in the raw. Maybe it’s a runaway girl, a child sold for adoption by poor parents, or unemployed Russian women looking to buy a way to bring their families over. Daniel spends most of this time enlarging his crew and counting his money.
Daniel works in a market that is rich with resources and thin on law enforcement. The non-profit groups that are in the areas working against him are all underfunded and ineffective. He has set up operations in South Africa, in Thailand, in Brazil. Daniel is a world traveller, he drives fine cars, and he makes loads of money, all of it cash, all of it untaxed. During the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, Daniel made more money in two weeks than most people in this room will make in two years. He used to have a regular job, just like most of you. Now, he’s his own boss.
If you choose to take advantage of this opportunity today, we can set you up with a village territory of your own. You can buy as many as you like. Daniel has brothels in all these areas, all servicing customers and in need of kids. Most people who work with us recoup their initial investment within two weeks. After that, you’re making easy money. If you also choose to help Daniel staff global special events like sporting events, international conferences and the Olympics, you can make car loads of money in a short time.
Now, if you’ll open the information packet that was on your seat when you came in, we’ll show you Daniel’s unique system for making the most out of your investments. It is a multi-tiered approach that begins with high-end sex trafficking, progresses through sweatshop labor, drug muling, and finally begging. We’ll show you how to squeeze more money out of each kid than you thought possible. By the time we’re through, you’ll be lining up to purchase regions. For those of you who get in on the ground floor, we’ll even show you how to do this in the United States, right under the nose of the police. Please turn to page three.
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No one builds their sex trafficking business through seminars in hotel conference rooms. But, much of what that pitchman said is true. Sex trafficking is big business. Clients are easy to find. Kids and women are easy to get. Large events are great places for traffickers to make loads of cash. And, those organizations who are fighting against sex trafficking, who are trying to build safehouses for kids and women to go to once freed, are almost all underfunded.
And, lest we think that this is only a Third World issue, there is trafficking going on right under our noses here in the United States. We’ll tell you where it is. We’ll show you who is doing it. And, we’ll tell you what you can do to help stop it.
What It Is
Sex trafficking is one form of human trafficking. Trafficking in general is simply the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of forcing them to do something that they have not volunteered to do. It can include forced labor, general slavery in the classic sense, or even organ harvesting. When trafficking involves prostitution, stripping, child pornography and the like, it falls under the heading of “sex trafficking”. It is considered organized crime.
There are many ways that victims of sex trafficking come to that life. Women from poorer countries are offered fake jobs as maids or factory workers. Once they arrive in the city they think they will be working legitimately in, saving to bring their family, they are coerced into prostitution. This may be done by threatening their families back home, by drugging them, by claiming they have to work off a debt, or simply through physical beatings.
Children may be bought from poor parents, promising opportunities for them. They may be kidnap victims, runaways, homeless. They are forced to service multiple clients nightly, contracting diseases and wounds. Some reports indicate that this is not an all-girl victim set. About 45% of trafficked children are boys. In a U.S. Department of Justice study [PDF link] conducted in 2007-2008, over 30% of the trafficked victims discovered were children.
Large Event Business
In January 2010, E. Benjamin Skinner did a piece for Time Magazine about the sex trafficking business in South Africa before and during the FIFA World Cup. He spoke with traffickers who were looking forward to the event. Traffickers bought children for as little as $45, but made $600 a night off of them during the games. Even before the event, construction workers prepping the stadium were regular customers.
The Wall Street Journal warned against inflating the numbers of trafficking victims during these events, but acknowledged that the crimes are generally unreported and the victims unknown. Eyewitness reports, like those who serve in rescue organizations, tell the tale.
Unearthed Pictures is an organization based in Lexington, Kentucky that uses ministry contacts and funding to shed a media spotlight on activities like those during the World Cup.
Until governments in areas like this have laws and enforcement that stop this, organizations like those who partner with Unearthed are the first line of defense against the sex trafficking pandemic.
In The United States
While it seems to be tougher for classic methods of exploitation and trafficking to work in the United States, increased awareness of the issue is revealing that trafficking is going on right under the public’s nose here. One scandal that has revealed a lot about this is Backpage.
Backpage is a website maintained by The Village Voice. It is similar to Craigslist in that items for sale, job listings and personal ads are available to peruse. But, Backpage has come under heavy fire as a place for traffickers to pimp out sex slaves with impunity. Their “Escort” and “Body Rub” sections are outright sex solicitation sections, and investigators are saying that some of those are unwilling or even minors.
In January of 2012, The New York Times did an article that featured a girl called Baby Face. That article stirred lots of attention to the problem of trafficking on Backpage. Here is an excerpt from that story:
In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for a phone. She called her mother, and then dialed 911.
The girl, whom I’ll call Baby Face because of her looks, frantically told police that a violent pimp was selling her for sex. He had taken her to the building and ordered her to go to an apartment where a customer was waiting, she said, and now he was waiting downstairs to make sure she did not escape. She had followed the pimp’s directions and gone upstairs, but then had pounded randomly on this door in hopes of getting help.
Baby Face said she hurt too much to endure yet another rape by a john. She told prosecutors later that she was bleeding vaginally and that her pimp had recently kicked her down a stairwell for trying to flee.
That 911 call set in motion the arrest of Kendale Judge, then 21. Judge has pleaded not guilty to charges of sex trafficking, kidnapping, rape and compelling prostitution. He is in jail, and we haven’t heard his side of the events yet.
The episode also shines a spotlight on how the girl was marketed — in ads on Backpage.com, a major national Web site where people place ads to sell all kinds of things, including sex. It is a godsend to pimps, allowing customers to order a girl online as if she were a pizza.
This was not the first time attention had been called to how The Village Voice was profiting from sex trafficking. They reportedly earn $22 million a year from these ads.
There was a time that Craigslist was faced with such adult-services ad scandals, and they have since discontinued those. Backpage is fighting it every step of the way, accusing the attorneys general who have asked them to stop of playing politics [PDF link]. They have gone on a counteroffensive, demonizing investigators and questioning why they are singled out.
The great cause for concern is that The Village Voice is defending its involvement in ruining the lives of children, whether they think those figures are accurate or not, all for the sake of making money. That is like arguing that you pimp fewer kids than some do, so you should not be taken to task. They like to cast the evidence against them as overblown, even made up entirely.
However, in this report from CNN, you can see within the first three minutes an example of a thirteen year-old girl who talks about being sold on Backpage.
Sites like Backpage are making lots of money selling girls. They have been called out about it, but are publicly fighting the pressure to stop using the lives of girls as a way to profit.
Fighting It
There has been a renewed call to fight against Backpage and other entities that profit from sex trafficking. Helping in this fight falls into two categories:
1) Supporting international efforts, via donations and personal involvement
2) Opposing domestic business, via boycotts and name-and-shame campaigns
Earlier, we introduced you to Unearthed Pictures. That is a great place to start in terms of learning more about the international sex trafficking fight and how you can donate and get involved. Many organizations like Unearthed are ministry-based. That is who is doing this work now.
As for Backpage, that is owned by Village Voice Media. Efforts are underway to put an advertiser boycott in place against anyone who advertises anywhere with The Village Voice until they stop using Backpage to sell sex services. A visit to VillageVoice.com shows a few to start with. But, even better than that, the site has an advertiser index, putting all the targets in one place. Note that these people are not advertising on Backpage, but with the parent publication.
A good plan of action would be to look through each ad there. Visit their websites. Find their Twitter feeds – including those of owners, managers, board members and employees. Scout out the company’s About Us pages. And compile lists and contact sheets. Tell your friends. Tweet out notices with their handles in plain view. Many of these companies may be unaware that their ad dollars support a media agency that is also profiting from child sex trafficking. Help them find out. If they don’t respond, tell the public.
Child sex trafficking is not just a Third World problem. And, even to the extent that it is, we all have a responsibility to fight it.
Microsoft announced today that it has partnered with Swedish company NetClean to make its patented PhotoDNA technology available free to law enforcement agencies investigating child sexual abuse cases. The technology will help agencies cull through the overwhelmingly large amount of sexually abusive content that is being shared across the Web.
“Since 2002, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reviewed more than 65 million images and videos of child sexual exploitation reported by law enforcement,” writes Bill Harmon, Associate General Counsel to the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit. Those images include pictures and videos of infants and toddlers who are unable to seek help or tell anyone about their abuse, and not only are these children often repeat victims of direct abuse, they are victimized again every time an image of their abuse is shared. Says Harmon:
The images [of child sexual abuse] continue to grow increasingly violent and the victims younger. … These crimes turn a single horrific moment of sexual abuse of a child into an unending series of violations of that child. We simply cannot allow people to continue trading these horrifying images online when we have the technology to help do something about it. Microsoft is proud to make PhotoDNA available to law enforcement, to help in their battle to quickly identify and rescue these children.
What is PhotoDNA?
PhotoDNA is an image-matching technology developed by Microsoft Research in collaboration with Dartmouth College. It converts images into a unique digital “signature”, a mathematical pattern that can help identify duplicates of the same image, link a modified image to its original form, and track that image to new online locations whenever it is shared.
PhotoDNA is already being used by Facebook, Microsoft, and other online service providers to identify, report, and eliminate images of child pornography being shared across or display through their services. Now the technology will not only help identify and report images, but it will make the processing of those images in criminal investigations faster and easier.
How does this help law enforcement investigate child abuse cases?
Microsoft’s stated goals in providing PhotoDNA to law enforcement are threefold. First, the technology (in collaboration with NetClean Analyze software) enables users to more quickly sort and analyze individual images involved in child pornography investigations. Oftentimes, multiple copies of the same image — or modified versions of the original — are seized or discovered during an investigation. Each of those images must be analyzed and sorted, with duplicates
Second, Microsoft hopes its technology will “limit officer exposure to the corrosive effects of viewing child rape images.” In every investigation, it falls to someone to have to visually analyze all seized images. This is a necessary but difficult job, and the constant review of child abuse images can have significant and lasting psychological effects on the officer doing the work. By sorting and condensing like images, NetClean and PhotoDNA not only saves time and expedites investigations, but also minimizes the amount of time that officers have to be subjected to the unsettling material themselves.
Third, Microsoft its technology will “strengthen law enforcement’s ability to quickly identify and rescue victims and get child abusers off the street.” Primarily through its integration into the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) — another Microsoft software package which helps to manage and link worldwide child abuse cases, track subjects, and share evidence and information across jurisdictions and international borders — PhotoDNA will not only help track and eliminate images on the Web, but can also help agencies collaborate in related investigations and rescue victims sooner before further victimization can occur.
Here’s a video about Microsoft and NetClean’s partnership with law enforcement agencies:
How can law enforcements get the technology?
According to the Microsoft Blog, PhotoDNA will be available to law enforcement agencies via:
NetClean Analyze, NetClean’s free law enforcement software that helps agencies categorize, analyze, and archive evidence of child sexual abuse, identify victims, and report and administer cases of child rape.
CETS, mentioned above, which is currently used by agencies in Austalia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.
Direct Licensing, primarily for agencies “with the technical capacity and resources required to manage PhotoDNA source code integration themselves.” Agencies already using a direct license of PhotoDNA source code include the Netherlands Forensics Institute and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs.
I’m not a law enforcement agent, but I think this is a great development. Is there any way to show my support?
Yes. “[A]ll parts of society, including the private sector and companies like Microsoft,” writes Harmon, “have an obligation to work together to help protect children and eliminate child pornography.” You can do your part by contacting online service providers that you use and requesting that they employ technology like PhotoDNA to help track and eliminate illegal and abusive content. And if you witness or suspect an incident of child exploitation, report it immediately to your local law enforcement agency. You can also provide an anonymous tip at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline.
Tracking the actions of a group like Anonymous can be a tricky proposition, mainly because Anonymous is less like a “group” and more like a loose coalition of like-minded hackers. But according to the claims of some internet denizens identifying themselves with Anonymous, they have launched a campaign against an online child pornography ring that consists of over 40 different sites.
They are calling this operation #OpDarknet, and apparently have taken down Freedom Hosting, providers of free hidden web hosting. Anonymous found that Freedom Hosting was hosting a variety of child porn sites on the Tor network, a system that is used to enable anonymity online.
Earlier this month, the folks behind #OpDarknet discovered a section on the Hidden Wiki called “Hard Candy,” any found that is was full of links to child pornography. They took down the links, only to find that they had been restored 5 minutes later. They then discovered that 95% of all the child porn on the list could be traced to one provider: Freedom Hosting. Here’s what happened next, as told by Anonymous:
At apprx 9:00pm CST on October 14, 2011 We identified Freedom Hosting as the host of the largest collection of child pornography on the internet. We then issued a warning to remove the illegal content from their server, which they refused to do.
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At apprx 11:30pm CST on October 14, 2011 We infiltrated the shared hosting server of Freedom Hosting and shutdown services to all clients due to their lack of action to remove child pornography from their server.
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At apprx 5:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 Freedom Hosting installed their backups and restored services to their child pornography clients. We then issued multiple warnings to remove all child pornography from their servers, which Freedom Hosting refused to do.
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At apprx 8:00pm CST on October 15, 2011 despite new security features, we once again infiltrated the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting and stopped service to all clients.
Anonymous not only shut down the sites, but exposed login details from more than 1,500 users, many who were tied to the most popular site of the bunch, Lolita City.
Here’s their mission statement, as it pertains to #OpDarknet:
The owners and operators at Freedom Hosting are openly supporting child pornography and enabling pedophiles to view innocent children, fueling their issues and putting children at risk of abduction, molestation, rape, and death.
For this, Freedom Hosting has been declared #OpDarknet Enemy Number One.
By taking down Freedom Hosting, we are eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography.
We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting’s server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography.
That’s the official version of events. Here’s a little more entertaining depiction of how it went down, according to another Anonymous release on pastebin –
We broke down the heavily fortified door of the Pedo fort. We cocked THOR and fired Nyan Nyan bullets in every direction. After a bloody battle with trolls, pedos, and pedo bear, we Anonymous became victorious. What was left of pedo fort, pedo bear, and fellow pedos was a 100 mile hole. Lolita City and it’s neighboring 40+ pedo strongholds were destroyed.
And this video statement takes the same kind of tone, saying that they armed themselves with their “Chris Hansen cannons” to take down the child porn ring.
Anonymous is best known for their attacks on corporations and governmental secrecy, and this is a bit of a departure for the group. If you check the Twitter chatter and YouTube comments for the above video, you’ll see that most people are both impressed and thankful for this operation.
Not everyone thinks it’s a great idea, however. Graham Cluley of Sophos said that “their intentions may have been good, but take-downs of illegal websites and sharing networks should be done by the authorities, not internet vigilantes.”
Maybe Anonymous did something that the authorities were unable to do or they simply did it faster. What do you think? Is this AnonOp something you support? Let us know in the comments.
