Crimes against Children 7-18-12

Wichita, KS
A Wichita man has been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today.

Matthew Alter, 47, Wichita, Kansas, pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography. At an earlier plea hearing, prosecutors told the court that Alter became the subject of an investigation after Italian State Police provided information that a computer user in Kansas was accessing a child porn Web site.

Investigators followed an electronic trail to Alter’s home in Wichita, where they served a search warrant and seized computer hard drives containing of child pornography. The children photographed ranged from 1 to 12 years old. Investigators learned Alter had been collecting child pornography for 11 years.

At sentencing, Alter disputed prosecutors’ contention that he possessed approximately 1 million images of child pornography, saying the number probably was between 300,000 and 400,000.

Examiner.com
Once again a convicted sex offender found his way onto Facebook (FB). This time the offender is Rabbi Aryeh Blaut, who plead guilty to charges of possession of child pornography back in 2004, and spent two years in a federal prison. What’s concerning is the fact that several of Rabbi Blaut’s FB friends appear to be high school and college aged students from around the globe.

The truth is that it is nearly impossible for Facebook to insure that their social media site is sex offenders free, even though their policy is in place. There is no realistic way to keep convicted sex offenders off. The pattern tends to be that as soon as a convicted sex offenders account is closed –– they wait a few days and then open up another one using a different identity. What complicates matters even more is the fact that Rabbi Blaut’s name does NOT appear on the National Sex Offender’s registry, making it nearly impossible to protect unsuspecting children from him. The same thing has happened with the case of Rabbi Michael Ozair. His name was removed from the California registry when he relocated to Thailand.

Greenfield, MA
A 57-year-old Greenfield man was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to possessing a collection child pornography videos that showed children being raped and tortured, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Wieprecht pleaded guilty on Jan. 17 to a charge of possession of material involving the sexual exploitation of minors and receiving material involving the sexual exploitation of minors. He was arrested in October 2010 after authorities executed a search warrant of his residence.

Wieprecht came under suspicion two years ago as part of “Operation Predator,” an ongoing investigation in international child sexual exploitation that is being conduced by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations.

During the execution of the search warrant, Wieprecht admitted that he used his computer to collect videos of child pornography over peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and that he gave other peer-to-peer users access to his child pornography files, according to information from the Department of Justice.

Seattle, WA
An investigation into a Redmond man suspected of uploading child pornography to an Internet chat group has led to his arrest and the conviction of a Pennsylvania man accused of drugging and raping little girls.

Benjamin Jay Thompson, 45, of Redmond, was charged in King County Superior Court last week with three counts of possessing child pornography and one count of dealing in depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Redmond police allegedly found more than 7,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children stored on Thompson's laptop computer, thumbdrives and other storage devices, court documents say.

Some of the children in the images found in Thompson's possession appear to be toddlers as young as 3 years old, according to the documents.

The investigation began last year when the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was alerted that someone going by the user name of "pantyboy3966" had uploaded 141 images of child pornography to a particular Yahoo! Group. Police obtained a warrant and learned the account was registered to Thompson, the charges say.

Los Angeles, CA
A fugitive wanted by Santa Barbara County authorities and the FBI for approximately 18 years was returned to the United States on Saturday, announced Timothy Delaney, Acting Assistant Director of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Jeffrey Reed Parish, 65, who was wanted for multiple state violations, was taken into custody by police in Guatemala who were acting on information developed by investigators assigned to the case.

Parish was charged by the Santa Barbara District Attorney in 1994 with lewd and lascivious acts with a child; oral copulation with a child; and failure to appear, based on an investigation by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.

Parish had been scheduled for trial in Santa Barbara Municipal Court on March 31, 1994. An arrest warrant was issued by the court when Parish failed to appear for his scheduled trial. When it had been established that Parish had fled the jurisdiction of California, the FBI initiated a federal fugitive investigation, and Parish was charged federally with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution (UFAP). A federal warrant for his arrest was issued by the United States District Court, Central District of California, in June 1994.

Albuquerque, NM
This morning in federal court in Albuquerque, Samuel Jackson, 55, an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who resides in Shiprock, New Mexico, pleaded guilty to an information charging him with abusive sexual contact under a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

During his plea hearing, Jackson admitted sexually assaulting a 14-year-old Navajo girl in a residence in Shiprock on August 5, 2011. At the time of the offense and until his arrest in January 2012, Jackson was employed as a back-up bus driver at Shiprock division of the Central Consolidated School District No. 22.

U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales said that the plea agreement requires that Jackson serve a 16-year prison sentence, to be followed by a term of supervised release to be determined by the court. Jackson also will have to register as a sex offender. Jackson has been in custody since his arrest on January 24, 2012, and remains detained pending his sentencing hearing, which has not yet been scheduled.

Louisville, KY
A Louisville man was arrested on a federal warrant related to child pornography charges.

Metro police served the warrant just after midnight on 29-year-old Kevin Bowling.

According to court records, Bowling was wanted by the FBI on charges of distribution, transport and receipt of child pornography via computer.

Most Child Abductions Occur During After School Hours

Alexandria, VA
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children commemorated this day by holding a safety and children's ID event with help from the Alexandria Police Department.

Parents left with their children's fingerprints and photos. The center's workers want parents to keep talking to their children about safety.

For Center employee Juriese Colon, her interest in protecting children began close to home. Colon grew up in Spotsylvania County and knew Kristin and Kati Lisk, who were abducted from their front yard in 1997.

"It really had an impact on me at that point. I wanted to do something. I just felt so bad. It really touched my heart," Colon said.

She decided to study criminal justice in college... about the time the Center for missing and exploited children helped solve the Lisk Case. Their killer was sociopath Richard Marc Evonitz who also killed Sofia Silva after abducted(sic) her from her front porch in September of 1996.

The girls' abductions match the most common type. The Center found in a recent study that most abductions occur during the hours of 2:00 -7:00 p.m. when children are often alone.   She says there were 800,000 attempted abductions last year, but thankfully, more than 80% of the children got away.  They ran, kicked, screamed, and in some cases, a bystander intervened.