Operation Laminar

According to the New Zealand Herald, New Zealand took the lead in an international operation that led to the arrest of 55 people for using Facebook, grou.ps and Socialgo to trade child pornography.  Well done!  Although none of the defendants were identified, I have noticed the absence of some of the worst users associated with some of the countries listed in the stories.

Soldier Arrested for Blackmail and Child Pornography

According to the Trib, a Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier currently serving in Afghanistan has been arrested for using Facebook to solicit and distribute child pornography.

A Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldier is under investigation for using Facebook to allegedly solicit photos and videos of 10 Pierce County teenage girls in various stages of undress, then threatening to blackmail the girls if they didn't send more images. 

The 24-year-old soldier, who has not been identified by law-enforcement officials, allegedly began his activities some 10 months ago while stationed at Lewis-McChord and continued them in Afghanistan, where he is currently deployed. 

The soldier allegedly released some of the images online. The investigation, headed by the Washington State Patrol Missing and Exploited Children's Task Force, is focused on distribution of child pornography, blackmail and extortion, said Lt. Ron Mead of the State Patrol.

As the story says, it seems like a lot of problem soldiers have been associated with JBLM.  It's not clear whether there's something about the base itself, problems with recycling soldiers through too many deployments, or maybe some combination.

Shane Goes to Prison?

Shane Dale Pattison, also known as "Shane Ispedo," may be headed to prison.  Canadian news stories described him as one of the worst child pornography offenders in Saskatchewan history.  Some of his trading buddies are already locked up.

Bad Librarian

Richard Wareham had a number of accounts, including "Nobby Nobson" and "Richard Valentine."   He was recently convicted of viewing child pornography at Paddington Children's Library, where he worked as a librarian.  Below is a screencap of a pedophile group on Facebook that included the "Nobby Nobson" account.

More arrests

According to CTV Calgary, Clement John Murray was arrested for sharing child pornography via Facebook.  I vaguely remember a middle-aged Canadian white guy who went by "Clem Murray" and had some obvious pedos on his friends list.  One anonymous source said that he was in a "nepi" group, which apparently involved babies.

Another Canadian, Alexander James Kennedy, has been arraigned on charges of posting 10 child pornography images to his Facebook page.

In Australia, John Raymond Zimmerman was sentenced to up to 16 years on charges of manipulating a number of underage girls into sending him explicit photos of themselves.

Shane Pleads Guilty

According to the Lloydminster Meridian Booster , Shane Pattison, formerly known as "Shane Ispedo" has pleaded guilty to 53 counts related to child pornography.  Robert Hull had sent Pattison some of his handiwork, and Pattison's arrest led to Hull also getting caught.

Paolo Ghelardini Gets 12 Years

According to translated news stories, Paolo Ghelardini was sentenced to 12 years for his extensive collection of child pornography.  Although he'd also bragged about sexually assaulting children, it was apparently impossible to prosecute him for that.  Nevertheless, he's apparently claiming that 12 years is too harsh and filing an appeal.  I wonder if they could reconsider and give him a longer sentence?

Paolo Ghelardini Indicted

Paolo Ghelardini, who was arrested this spring, has been formally indicted in Romania.  According to news accounts, he had over 9500 child pornography images and 1000 videos.  At this point, he has not been charged with production.

He allegedly had 19 different Facebook accounts, and was apparently active between January 2010 and May 2011.

He had also used the alias "Paul Grechiadan" among others.

Robert Hull Sentenced to 15 Years

Last week, Robert Hull was sentenced to 15 years for producing child pornography.  It's a relatively light sentence, but he got a break for pleading guilty and cooperating in an investigation that led to another arrest.  The investigation is continuing, and there may be more.

This man from Prince George, BC, who was arrested for using his 7-year-old daughter to make child pornography, sounds a lot like Hull's trading buddy.

A Prince George man accused of taking photos and video of his seven-year-old daughter and sharing them over the Internet faces child pornography charges. 

The 41-year-old man was arrested in Prince George on Saturday, RCMP said, after police executed a search warrant and uncovered hundreds of child pornography files.

Robin Pagoria and LDD

According to the affidavit, Robin Pagoria met her boyfriend on a site called spankfinder.com .  This looks a lot like her profile.

Given her current legal problems, she probably won't be in a position to tell us about her "other kinky interests" any time soon.  But her other profile provides ... well, probably way too much information.

"LDD" stands for "loving domestic discipline," which seems to be a combination of sadomasochism and bizarre headgames.  One partner, usually the man, "disciplines" the other partner to enforce rules.  There's an even stranger variation for fundies called "Christian domestic discipline" that allows them to claim that this lifestyle is "Biblical."  Presumably Pagoria's boyfriend would have been the partner who was (ostensibly) in charge.  It would be interesting to know whether he had found any other women on the spankfinder website who had access to children.  Is this really the first time something like this has happened?  It's not clear whether Robin Pagoria would have done something like this under her own steam.

We saw someone else in an earlier entry who was talking about being in a "domestic discipline" relationship.  Given that she'd also talked about spanking her daughter on the bare butt, I called a social services agency in North Carolina to express concern.  They told me that what the woman was doing was legal, so they wouldn't be taking any action.  It's sort of paradoxical -- getting caught with an image or video depicting a child getting spanked bare could mean a felony conviction and sex offender status.  But actually doing it to a child in real life is legal because it's considered "discipline."

Robin Pagoria

Robin Leigh Oplinger looks a lot like Robin Leigh Pagoria, a former Polk County Sheriff's deputy, was arrested yesterday for aggravated child abuse and production of child pornography.  She allegedly made videos of herself whipping two girls and sent the video to her boyfriend.  The affidavit is here.

We've previously seen people who seemed to be fixated on spanking kids, including a couple who were talking about sharing videos.  This woman is accused of taking it to the next level.

It's probably not too surprising that she'd show up on a site called "spankolife.com."

She expands on her interest in "domestic discipline."

It's sort of ironic that she's complaining about being "violated."  What about the girls who were whipped and videotaped?

She was also seen on launchpad.net asking questions about getting Skype videoconferencing running on Ubuntu Linux.  Do we want to know what she was transmitting via webcam?  Probably not.

Because spanking is considered an acceptable way to discipline children, boundaries can get blurred.  Florida, where Pagoria lives, still permits corporal punishment in schools.  A number of books on child-rearing advocate spanking, and a few of the more extreme "Christian" ones even recommend doing it on the bare butt.  The problem is that for many people, spanking can also be a sexual thing.  For example, Robin Pagoria recalled drawing a picture of "a girl bent over a bed with paddles and belts lying beside here" when she was "about 13."

Update: a video of Grady Judd, Polk County Sheriff, speaking about the case and Pagoria in court.  More information about her online behavior here.

Recent Arrests

Recently, there have been more arrests in the U.S..  Arthur Barnett, Tong Yang, and Stephen Schmid were charged after Facebook reported them to NCMEC for posting child pornography.  This is encouraging; it seems like there's been some real improvement.  Congratulations to Facebook, NCMEC, and the law enforcement agencies involved.

Ben Wwantsit

The poster formerly known as "Ben Wwantsit" and "Barry Wwantsit" pleaded guilty in Glasgow this week. It turned out that he was a Dutch national named John Huitema.  Below is a screenshot of one of his Facebook profiles.  We redacted the profile photo.  He bragged about sexually abusing girls, and some of his like-minded friends encouraged him to do even more.

This is a photo that he said was himself.

Ghelardini Arrested

According to some Romanian news stories, Paolo Ghelardini was arrested a couple of days ago for child pornography, detained for 24 hours, and possibly taken to Bucharest for further proceedings. His house and another building were searched by law enforcement.

The Real McCoy

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Christopher McCoy was arrested Thursday.

A 48-year-old Granite City man was being held without bail Thursday after Madison County prosecutors charged him with 10 counts of aggravated child pornography.

Stephanee Smith, a spokeswoman for the Madison County state's attorney's office, said Christopher H. McCoy of the 2900 block of Willow Avenue had thousands of pornographic images of children on compact discs, memory sticks and a laptop computer. She said the children depicted ranged from toddlers to teen-agers. Smith said there was no indication McCoy knew the children.

We were familiar with Christopher McCoy's Facebook account, which has since been shut down.  Below is the profile photo he used, which is somewhat more flattering than his mugshot.

A couple of people in our group ran "alt" accounts where they posed as high school girls.  McCoy got pretty creepy.  In one message, he said, "I enjoy pthc loli incest favs are 9 and under."  In another, he said, "I live across the river in granite city a steel mill town I wrk across the river in st louis .mmmm 14 is very sexy wher in wi u live [...]  wats the oldest man u been wit and how old were u."  Hopefully, the police are investigating this guy thoroughly.

He also expressed an interest in "nudism" and posted this [NSFW] cellphone photo of himself online.

TSA Screener Arrested

Via Philly.com, a TSA screener at the Philadelphia International Airport has been charged in distributing child pornography.  This coincides with recent controversy about TSA screening procedures, particularly those involving children.

A passenger screener at Philadelphia International Airport is facing charges that he distributed more than 100 images of child pornography via Facebook, records show.

Federal agents also allege that Transportation Safety Administration Officer Thomas Gordon Jr. of Philadelphia, who routinely searched airline passengers, uploaded explicit pictures of young girls to an Internet site on which he also posted a photograph of himself in his TSA uniform.

We were quite familiar with his Facebook accounts.  He showed up as "Tom Gibbons", "Tom Gibson", and "Mark Rogers."  Below is a a screenshot from the Mark Rogers profile.

His wall was not publicly viewable, but sources said that was even grosser.  We were told that he'd expressed interest in sexually abusing young girls as well as looking at their photos.

The complaint describes some of the images that he uploaded to Photobucket.  One titled "Hehehehehehe.jpg" depicted "a naked prepubescent girl lying on her back with her legs spread apart and her genitalia exposed.  An adult's hand is seen inserting a pink sexual object into the child's genitalia.  The child is holding a pink ball in her mouth that appears to be attached to a strap around the child's face."

According to the indictment, Gordon used at least six different Facebook accounts to post over 100 sexually explicit images of minors.  He also allegedly possessed more than 600 child pornography files, including videos and images.   He was a member of at least one closed group called "PTHC Lovers" on Facebook.  Below is a partial screenshot of the member list.

Since he'd listed Raleigh as his location on his Facebook profiles, we contacted the North Carolina ICAC about him.  Although it turned out that he was actually from Pennsylvania, they were helpful and responsive.  We thank everyone involved in apprehending him.  However, the idea that someone like this was in a position to conduct intensive pat-down searches of children at airports is extremely disturbing.

RIP Trolls for Fun and Profit

"R.I.P. trolls" on Facebook are the unusually mean-spirited people who get a kick out of posting upsetting comments and images on memorial pages.  They tend to get mass-reported and shut down pretty quickly, but usually reappear quickly with new accounts.  One of the worst, an Australian named Bradley Paul Hampson, was recently sentenced to jail time for posting sexually explicit photos and comments on Facebook pages memorializing dead children.  Below is an excerpt from the SMH story:

A man who vandalised Facebook tribute sites for two dead children has been jailed.

Self-confessed "troll" Bradley Paul Hampson, 29, of Tarragindi in Brisbane's south, posted pictures of penises and wrote offensive messages on the two sites in February last year.

On one Facebook tribute site for the 12-year-old boy, he wrote "woot I'm dead" across an image of the dead child.

He also morphed a photo of the boy's face inside a woodchipper and made it appear blood was coming from the machine.

On another, he wrote sexually explicit comments implying he was responsible for raping and killing the eight-year-old girl.

"My definition of pleasure ... listening to her ribs crack," he wrote. "I got mad ... so I murdered her."

 In the U.S., there are a group of real-life R.I.P. trolls known as the Westboro Baptist Church.  Instead of posting foul things on memorial pages, they show up at funerals and picket.  Judging by the results that come back when you search Facebook for "Westboro Baptist", they're also widely hated.  However, some people have suggested that Westboro Baptist Church may be a scam organization that provokes people and then uses lawsuits to generate revenue.  Since they call themselves a "church," they may also be able to avoid paying taxes.

Shane Ispedo

The user previously known as "Shane Ispedo" is currently facing over 50 charges related to possession, distribution, and production of child pornography.  Shane Dale Pattison is a 21-year-old former student from Marshall, Saskatchewan who sometimes used the name "Pokedod."  I believe that this is his DeviantArt site: http://pokedod.deviantart.com/ .  It's strikingly ordinary.

When I was in high school, many of us envisioned pedophiles as dirty old men.  A number of Catholic priests had been charged, including two who had been pastors in the local Catholic Church.  Years later, it's difficult to wrap my head around the idea of people younger than I am now being arrested for sex offenses.  "What made them that way?" I wonder sometimes.  A number of causes have been suggested, e.g., experiencing sexual abuse, exposure to pornography, genetics, and personal choice.  But nobody really knows.

Missouri Arrest

According to the Columbia Tribune, John Kitch was arrested last week for posting child pornography to Facebook.  Congratulations to Facebook, NCMEC, and the Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force.

John W. Kitch of 5809 S. Bethel Church Road was arrested yesterday and was being held in the Boone County Jail with bond set at $100,000.

The Boone County Sheriff Department’s Cyber Crimes Task Force began investigating the incident in December after Facebook employees discovered the child pornography and reported it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 

Another One Bites the Dust

Jerry Cannon, the user we knew as "Terry Lewis" has also been arrested.  He was quite persistent, and more than a little creepy.  This is his profile picture, which was recycled in more than one account.  We were aware of 7 accounts, and the news story said that he had 13.

A lot of the users on his friends list had profile pictures depicting girls and young women, and he was quite chatty.  He kept a collection of child pornography in his private albums and apparently hoped if he granted his friends access, they'd reciprocate by taking "private" pictures of themselves.  Of course, most of his Facebook friends probably weren't the attractive young girls in the Facebook profile photos.  One of them was an author investigating human trafficking, and another turned him into the FBI.  Then again, it's also unlikely that he really owned a "multi-million dollar buisness."

We contacted Kentucky ICAC about him, and they were responsive and professional.  However, the FBI had begun an investigation when the other Facebook user reported him.  It turns out that "Terry Lewis" was actually Jerry L Cannon, formerly the pastor at God's House in Dry Ridge, KY.  The news story is at http://blog.al.com/live/2011/02/kentucky_pastor_facebook_pornography.html and the criminal complaint is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/49175841/tlewis .