The Child Porn Pipeline

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A six-day series from the Buffalo News.

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Day One: Russia and U.S. are bound in the illegal cyber-trafficking of child pornography

'What we have is a catastrophic human rights crisis going on. The magnitude would shock everybody.' - Children's advocate Grier Weeks

By Lou Michel and Susan Schulman - News Staff Reporters
Updated: 10/15/07 7:24 AM

Editor's Note: A spike in the number of Buffalo-area men charged with child pornography caught the attention of Buffalo News reporters who, upon investigating the trend, were led on a trail taking them to Russia. The result was a four-part series by reporters Lou Michel, Susan Schulman and Dan Herbeck and photographer Derek Gee that uncovers one of the most troubling phenomena of the Internet age.


MOSCOW — A sickness is sweeping the world since the Internet made it easy for child pornography to be viewed and shared. The thousandfold increase in the number of photos of naked and sexually abused children available on the Internet is staggering. But it doesn’t stop there. The images are getting worse.

The children are younger. The sex is more violent, more hard-core. Pictures on the Internet show toddlers being raped. They show a young girl hanging upside down and gagged while being sexually abused. Children are forced to perform sex acts in “real time” — including one case in Western New York — while their live images are transmitted around the world via Web cams.

It is a catastrophic human rights crisis with thousands of children — some estimate as many as 100,000 — being victimized.

Virtually no country is exempt from this ugliness. But two nations — Russia and the United States — shoulder much of the blame, The Buffalo News found in a year-long investigation.

Here in Russia, where possessing child pornography is legal, no child is too far from the pornographer’s clutches.

Dmitry Burlak was just 13, hanging out with friends in front of an apartment building, when a dog bit his leg.

It wasn’t a particularly bad bite. It barely broke the skin.

Still, dog owner Valera Kovalev insisted the boys come back to his nearby apartment.

“He treated us to candies, chocolate and drinks,” Dmitry recalled. “And he asked us not to tell anything to our parents because he would have problems otherwise.”

Kovalev spent weeks luring the cute 13-year-old boy into his trap before slipping Dmitry and one of his friends, Misha, some kind of pills. After that, the boys agreed to pose nude for pictures that the 57-year-old man took and then sold and shared with the world.

That’s where the United States fits in.

No country has a bigger cyber network than the United States. And right now, it’s barely regulated. So it’s easy for child pornographers to rent space on American computer servers with no questions asked. And that’s what’s happening.

Russia produces the child pornography, and Web servers in the United States host the disgusting images so anyone — with Americans being the single biggest market — can see them for a price. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all commercial child pornography on the Internet — including images produced in Russia — is transmitted to the world through Web servers owned and operated in the United States, one study found.

A Web server is similar to a bookstore, but instead of selling books with hundreds or thousands of printed pages, it offers Web space that customers rent to post page after page of their material on the Internet.

“The backbone of the Internet is [in the United States], and it’s being exploited,” said John F. Shehan, with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

“Both our countries look very badly,” said Maya Rusakova, director of Stellit, a Russian agency here fighting child exploitation.

For the United States, it gets worse.

America is also the biggest consumer of the illegal images that Russia and other Eastern European countries produce for sale, officials said.

“Russia argues that the American market drives the demand,” said Arnold E. Bell, chief of the FBI’s Innocent Images Unit in the Washington, D.C. area. “They’re right.”

Tens of thousands of American men from all walks of life — doctors, teachers and police officers, as well as school bus drivers, laborers and the unemployed — purchase child pornography made in Russia and elsewhere, recent Internet investigations have disclosed.

The numbers of those viewing paid or free child pornography are so huge that the U.S. criminal justice system isn’t equipped to handle all the cases.

“The feds are essentially triaging,” said Grier Weeks, executive director of the North Carolina-based National Association to Protect Children. “They are so overwhelmed. They are barely investigating a token percentage. They simply can’t even begin to investigate [all] the cases. It’s like asking the Mayberry Police Department to police all of us.”

Flint Waters, a U.S. law enforcement official tracking child pornography cases worldwide, agreed. “We are generating more leads than any existing law enforcement structure can respond to,” he said. “There’s just not the resources. We don’t have enough trained investigators.”

“What we have is a catastrophic human rights crisis going on,” Weeks added. “The magnitude would shock everybody.”

Continued...

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Explosion of child porn in the Internet Age

Child pornography used to be a dirty little secret that closet pedophiles shared with each other through the mail. But it exploded with the easy access and anonymity of the Internet, turning a small underground photo-swapping community into what authorities now say is likely a multibillion-dollar a-year industry.

Fifteen years ago, before the Internet, there were perhaps a few hundred children around the world victimized by child pornographers, said Stephan P. Lear, a postal inspector working with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Today, Lear said, there are thousands of children — upwards of 100,000 — preyed upon by pornographers trading images on as many as 20,000 different Web sites. Some 1,700 of these sites sell the pornography, with monthly subscriptions costing as much as $100, according to the National Center. “There are more people making money off it than ever before,” said Don Daufenbach, national manager of undercover cyber operations for U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement. “Vast sums of money are to be made.”

In cases he’s investigated, Daufenbach said, as much as $1 million a month was being made. So who makes the money?

Russian officials acknowledge their country is the commercial center for this illegal activity, with organized crime behind some of the operations, but with individual freelancers also getting into the action. “After the collapse of the Soviet Union, everything changed in Russia,” said Senior Investigator Yuri Ponomarenko, whose office with the Moscow police handles child pornography cases. “Certain moral values were lost.”

The evidence — and the scars — of this burgeoning black market are easy to find here in Russia, where child exploitation appears rampant.

On a recent trip, a Buffalo News reporter and photographer visited a loading dock behind the cafeteria of Medicinsky College in St. Petersburg and saw dirty-faced youngsters — many 13 or 14 years old — arriving at lunchtime, gulping down free hot dogs and noodles provided by the Red Cross.

These ragtag kids are Russia’s street children, most of them abandoned by alcoholic or drug-addicted parents. Many, proudly holding up the glue pots they sniff to get high, are drug addicts themselves. Some support their addictions by working for child pornographers, said Katharine Zaretskaja, a social worker with Stellit, the Russian organization fighting child exploitation.

“We can see cars where the adults are sitting and the children will go to the cars,” Zaretskaja said. A few miles away, at the Child Infectional Hospital, Zaretskaja introduces Natasha, 14, a waif of a girl living on the streets before being brought to the hospital.

Yes, she says through an interpreter, she knows children who pose for pornographers. For herself, she says: “The main thing is, I avoid it.”
It’s a similar scene in Moscow, where city police point to a group of youths hanging out at the Metro train station at Ilyinsky Square. They wait for the pornographers the same way the prostitutes wait for johns.

“It’s a popular spot,” Police Investigator Sergei Sokolov said.

Not all the victims, however, are abandoned street children.

Dmitry Burlak is one example.

Weeks after first meeting Kovalev — the man with the dog — Dmitry and his friend Misha were headed to a nearby river for a swim one hot summer day. Kovalev suddenly appeared. He insisted on joining them, Dmitry recalled.

As the boys swam, Kovalev snapped photographs. It all seemed innocent, Dmitry said.

But on the way home, Kovalev mentioned he packed a picnic lunch and suggested the three stop to eat. He then told the boys that, if they took off their bathing suits, they would tan evenly and their suits would dry faster, Dmitry said.

Kovalev, according to Dmitry, then gave the boys some pills. Misha and Dmitry didn’t know what the drug was but swallowed the pills anyway.

After that, it was as if the boys were being directed in a movie.

Kovalev told them to romp around. They complied.

He told them to perform sex acts upon each other. They did.

“It started as a game,” Dmitry recalled. “He kept taking shots and filming us. He gave us some tablets … and started taking more shots. He asked us to perform some [sexual] acts with each other. He filmed all of it.”

Continued...

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Economic desperation leads to child exploitation

Many point to the economic desperation that initially followed the collapse of the Soviet Union for fermenting the rise of child pornography in Russia and other former Soviet bloc nations.

Others point to the country’s weak child exploitation laws.

Until recently, the age of sexual consent in Russia was 14 — meaning adults could legally have sex with someone as young as 14.

Four years ago, Russian authorities raised the age of consent to 16, following a public outcry after police uncovered on the Internet a Russian-made sex video entitled “The Punisher.” In it, a man whips young boys and sexually abuses them.

The age of consent is still 14 in some other former Soviet bloc republics.
What’s more, it is still legal to own or share child pornography in Russia. “If you keep it in your house and show it to your pal or neighbor, it’s not a crime,” Senior Investigator Yuri Ponomarenko said.

Also, critics say, the penalty for distribution and production of child pornography is weak, with many offenders getting less than the maximum eight-year prison sentence. In addition, it’s unclear whether Internet distribution of child pornography is even covered under the law.

“It’s not enough,” said Larisa Efimova, head of the ArkCenter Safer Internet Program in Moscow. “The adults who perform [child pornography production] need to be punished in a stronger way,” Ponomarenko agreed.

But Russians point out pornography producers aren’t the only ones making money from the perverted images. Also profiting are the American Internet service providers and other Web servers hosting the material, as well as American companies administering subscription fees for these Web sites.

Sixty-two percent of child pornography — including material produced in Russia and other former Eastern bloc countries — was put on the Internet using Web servers in the United States in 2006, according to Internet Watch Foundation, an organization in the United Kingdom that tracks child pornography worldwide.

The United States, in fact, is the biggest host country, with Russia a distant second, the British study found, although many of the Web sites float back and forth between the two countries.

American officials say the United Kingdom numbers are somewhat inflated because of different definitions of child pornography, but the Internet Watch Foundation said its definitions are now in line with the U.S.

Regardless, the United States acknowledges the role its Internet industry serves in hosting worldwide child pornography.

“It’s well-documented that the reason the U.S. servers are being used is the broadband width and the high capacity,” said Claude Davenport, a supervising agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Some countries in Eastern Europe just don’t have the [computerized] infrastructure.” Just as upsetting to some Russians, however, are the large numbers of Americans purchasing the images.

“There are few consumers within Russia,” said Ponomarenko, the Moscow police official. “This material, which probably is produced in Russia, is oriented toward Western consumers. There is a demand for it over there. If there is no demand, there will be no production,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who use child pornography in the U.S.,” added Rusakova.

Recent investigations bear that out. In one case, for example, authorities busted an Eastern European child pornography operation, known as Regpay, and found up to half the company’s 90,000 customers were from the United States.

U.S. officials, recognizing the role America plays in the Russian problem, help Eastern European law enforcement stamp out production mills such as Regpay.

“We have a responsibility for combating and eradicating it,” said Marshall Heeger, a federal investigator with the American Embassy in Moscow.

Russia appreciates the U.S. assistance, but suggests America do a better job attacking the problem on its own ground as well.

The moral issues creating the demand for child pornography in the United States must be addressed, said Pavel N. Gusev, editor-in-chief of a major Russian newspaper chain, who also serves on a panel studying Russia’s pornography laws.

“I think you should make the nation more healthy. It’s a problem of the nation,” he said of the United States.

Buffalo News reporter Dan Herbeck contributed to this report

e-mail: lmichel@buffnews.com and sschulman@buffnews.com



Day 2 coming...

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Day 2-

Follow the money: Making a million a month from the suffering of children

'As soon as one site goes down, they move the site to another computer in a another country' - Federal agent Dan Daufenbach

By Lou Michel and Susan Schulman - News Staff Reporters
Updated: 10/13/07 9:49 PM

Dressed in khaki pants and a summery silk, button-down shirt, Yahor Zalatarou entered the Paris hotel accompanied by a burly business partner who handled his company’s security. Another man served as his interpreter.

At 25, Zalatarou looked every bit the successful businessman he was — the head of a multimillion-dollar Internet company in Minsk, Belarus, in Eastern Europe. The Paris meeting with an American associate would, he hoped, clear up a banking glitch and allow Zalatarou to expand his business.
The meeting went well. It lasted less than an hour, ending with plans to resume talks the next day. But just as the American stepped away, a team of French police pinned Zalatarou and his companions to the floor and handcuffed them.

Zalatarou was one of the world’s biggest commercial child pornographers, producing, selling and transmitting child pornography for people around the globe.

And his laptop computer that police seized provided a treasure trove of information for U.S. law enforcement.

“It was disturbing how blatant it was,” said Carlos Ortiz, who helped prosecute Zalatarou. “It was like they were selling cars on the Internet.”

Regpay, the Internet pornography company Zalatarou headed, is now shut down, but the fallout from his arrest four years ago continues.

Zalatarou’s rapid rise and high-flying lifestyle are over. He and two of his business partners — believed to be fronts for the Russian mob — were extradited to the United States where they pleaded guilty to peddling child pornography and were sentenced to federal prison.

Meanwhile, about 1,200 men have been arrested worldwide — including some 600 in the United States and 16 so far in Western New York — for purchasing the images Regpay sold.

Those numbers only scratch the surface. In Regpay records, investigators discovered the names of some 90,000 users — between one-third and one-half of them Americans — who downloaded images of child sex abuse from sites the company owned or managed.

So the arrests continue in a four-year-old case that offered the first up-close examination into one of the most lucrative money trails of child pornography.

A chunk of the upwards of $7 million Regpay took in during the 18 months it operated ended up in the United States.

At least three businesses that shepherded subscription fees from credit card companies to Regpay shared at least $432,000 — possibly closer to $1 million — over a 12-month period, according to court records and Buffalo News calculations.

A smaller chunk went to five American computer server companies that hosted Regpay’s many Web pages and business records. It’s unknown how much these companies earned in total, but federal court records indicate it was in the tens of thousands.

The companies involved, when contacted by The Buffalo News, all said they did not know Regpay was in the child pornography business.

Flourishing business

The run-down commercial district of Minsk where Regpay was located is in one of the poorest sections of the city, and the brown brick Regpay building looks more like an old military barracks than a 21st century dot-com business.

But inside, the Regpay office was a hive of activity. More than a dozen employees used computers to reach a steady stream of customers worldwide.

A complaint department fielded e-mails from customers, some grousing that children in the photographs were too old, or that the sexual images weren’t “hard-core” enough.

A billing department handled problems from customers. An advertising department sold space on Regpay Web sites — sometimes to competing Internet pornographers.

Down the hall was a studio, complete with special lighting, digital cameras and backdrops, used to photograph children whose pictures, officials believe, were uploaded to Regpay computers and then to Web servers that Regpay rented, including several in the United States.

“There were computers everywhere,” one U.S. official said of the Regpay office.

Zalatarou, the company president, was Regpay’s computer guru. Using his computer skills, Zalatarou developed a password-protected third-party billing system that put distance between Regpay and its Web sites.

Regpay, using Zalatarou’s system, was managing more than 400 Web sites, almost all featuring child pornography.

Most of the sites were owned by other people, who hired Regpay to sell the pornography for them. Regpay also operated at least five child pornography sites of its own.

Sometimes Regpay took its own pictures. Other times, company workers would data mine — taking pornographic images of youngsters already on the Internet, repackaging the photos as their own, then posting them for sale on Regpay sites.

There were lots of sales — upwards of 350,000 transactions from December 2001 to July 2003 — with each costing as much as $70 per subscription.


Continued...

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Investigation begins

For law enforcement, the road to Regpay began in Newark, N.J., during 2003, when members of a small federal task force — representing the Postal Service, Internal Revenue Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — expressed concern over an increase in child pornography on the Internet. They decided to see who was behind it.

Without any specific target, task force members Googled words like “Lolita” and “preteen.” “There were hundreds of sites accepting credit cards,” said Ortiz, a former prosecutor. “It was the blatant commercialization of child pornography.”

As they delved further, task force members identified common threads among the images. Many carried “.ru” tags, indicating the pictures originated in Russia and other Eastern European countries. Also, the billing for many of the sites was routed through a credit card processing company in Florida.

After sifting through a string of aliases, phony e-mail accounts and fake mailing addresses from Afghanistan to Africa, investigators followed a money trail that led them to Arthur P. Levinson in Fort Lauderdale.

Levinson owned Connections USA, which hired different companies to handle the credit card transactions. The money trail continued, ending in Eastern Europe, at Regpay.

Regpay processed as much as $7 million in sales over its 18-month lifetime, and took in $1 million a month in its final months of operation, investigators found.

In one 10-month period, Connections processed more than $3.6 million for Regpay, with help from companies Levinson hired in Colorado and Rhode Island. The three U.S. companies got a total of 12 percent of credit card transactions they handled, according to court papers.

That left 88 percent for Regpay.

Investigators in June 2003 found $1.3 million in Levinson’s Morgan Stanley account ready to be transferred to Regpay. They froze the money and confronted Levinson, who began cooperating.

Setting up contact

An agent, pretending to be Levinson, contacted Zalatarou and suggested a meeting to iron out problems holding up payments.

Zalatarou took the bait.

“I really believe a meeting is necessary because there’re a lot of other business opportunities above and beyond what we are doing now,” Zalatarou e-mailed back.

Zalatarou and his colleagues met their American business associate about 1:30 p.m. July 30, 2003, in the lobby bar at the Hotel Concorde La Fayette in Paris.

The meeting continued the ruse.

The agent posing as Levinson told Zalatarou that because business was so robust, one of the processing companies was holding large amounts of Regpay cash in escrow. Also, he told Zalatarou, the IRS was suspicious over the large amounts of money leaving the United States.

Zalatarou offered a solution. Regpay would open a bank account of its own in the United States. With that problem ostensibly solved, the meeting ended for the day. That’s when the agent left the bar, and French authorities entered to arrest Zalatarou and the translator, Alexei Buchnev. A third man, Aliaksandr Boika, Regpay’s technical administrator, was arrested in Spain a few days later.

Zalatarou and Boika were taken to the United States, and in a New Jersey federal court, they pleaded guilty and were sentenced in 2006 for money laundering and conspiring to distribute and advertise child pornography.

Both are serving 25-year prison terms.

Buchnev pleaded guilty to child pornography. He was sentenced to three years.

Before his sentencing, Zalatarou told authorities he was the public face of Regpay but that the company was actually run by organized crime and government officials in Belarus.

Zalatarou later told the federal judge he “tried to get out of the business, but his bosses would not let him.

“When I was arrested, the owners of Regpay contacted me and they warned me one more time that I should never make public their names, and the names of the people who are behind them,” he said. “And they told me if I don’t comply, my life and the life of my wife and my child would be under threat.” Zalatarou told authorities he wasn’t sure of the owners’ names.

Authorities worldwide believe much — but not all — of commercial child pornography is backed by criminal organizations.

“Organized crime is finding more money in child exploitation than in drugs,” said Claude Davenport, an agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It’s estimated there are some 1,700 commercial child pornography sites — containing thousands of Web pages — operating worldwide. It’s likely though, that less than 300 businesses operate all the sites, authorities said.

“Some of the guys who run these sites have multiple locations because the government keeps shutting them down,” said Don Daufenbach, a federal agent who works with Davenport. “As soon as one site goes down, they move the site to another computer in another country. They’re like cockroaches scurrying around the floor when the lights come on.”

In Zalatarou’s case, federal agents agree the Russian mob as well as corrupt government officials in Belarus received most of the Regpay profits.

Zalatarou’s attorney agreed.

“The reason I think there are people above him is the bank accounts were in his name, but he doesn’t seem to end up with a whole lot of money,” said Zalatarou’s attorney, Robert Little.

“He was indigent. My appointment to represent him was made by the court.”

e-mail: lmichel@buffnews.com and sschulman@buffnews.com

Continued tomorrow...

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Here are some very good links to supplement this series...

http://media.buffalonews.com/smedia/2007/10/12/14/day1charts.source.prod_affiliate.50.pdf

http://www.buffalonews.com/339/story/182918.html

http://www.buffalonews.com/339/story/182919.html

http://www.buffalonews.com/339/story/182826.html

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More links that supplement the series-

http://www.buffalonews.com/339/story/183726.html

http://www.buffalonews.com/339/story/183724.html

http://www.buffalonews.com/247/story/184191.html

[wind149]

Well here is an article that you could lose sleep over. Child Porn is legal in Russia just like the brothels in Cambodia and Thailand. I posted on another thread my horror at seeing little girls as young as sex being forced into being sexually abused every minute of the day. And some of the ignorant parents actually sell their kids to the brothels so the family can eat. And the prime minister claims she shuts them down when she hears about where they are but half the time the cops lie too as they are getting a cut of the profits. The reporter Chris Hansen was appalled when a child about 5 asked him if he wanted oral sex and the **** wants to sell her to Chris for about $10! And while Chris was there and a watch dog group was in the process of rescuing some of the kids, they were tipped off to the pimps by a police officer. So much for enforcing there. They did save some girls, but a lot of these poor little angels were scared to go with the group as one baby told Chris that if they take her, the **** will kill her family. Now if this does not make you want to scream and hurl things I don't know what does. And Russia needs to get their act together. No wonder there is so many freaks from there. Look at the maggot they are looking for in Thailand. I pray they get him before he harms kids there. In August here, Canada and my local police busted a major child porn ring and the baturd was from here. Another POS named Brian Reardon was actually posting his own children at a major ring. The pictures showed him raping his own son and daughter. Having oral sex and sodomy with them. The piece of scum got 75 years in prison and refused to name the others he was involved with and I want to say they were from Thailand. And this guy looked like the family man, mini-van and all. So I am very upset to read this and see where it is legal in Russia for sex with girls as young as 14, and child porn. Better stay out of my country you scumbags!:flamemad:

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Day 3-A child victim's story of betrayal and despair

'He gave us some tablets, started taking more shots of us ... and asked us to perform sexual acts' - child pornography victim Dmitry Burlak

By Lou Michel - News Staff Reporter
Updated: 10/15/07 12:17 PM

MOSCOW — Dmitry Burlak, at 18, is a lost soul trying to understand who he is and how his past continues to haunt him. A sleek, denim-clad youth, with blond streaks in his shoulder-length brown hair, Dmitry is full of anger when he talks about Valera Kovalev, a 57-year-old man who, five years ago, stole his innocence, recorded it on camera and then showed it for the world to see.

As a 13-year-old boy, Dmitry says, he didn’t understand what Kovalev was up to. But today, the young man says if he ever sees Kovalev again: “We’d be prepared to beat him up.”
Sitting in a secluded booth at a Japanese restaurant in the downtown district of this city, and speaking through an interpreter, Dmitry says he’s telling his story because he wants to prevent other children from experiencing the horrors he endured — and the shame that will never end — after Kovalev befriended him, drugged him, took pornographic photos of him, and then sold the pictures on the Internet.

Dmitry could never bring himself to look at the pictures, but knowing the images exist keeps them fresh in his memory. He recounts the incident as if it happened yesterday.

“Sexual abuse usually has a beginning and an end,” said Elizabeth Donatello, a Niagara County assistant district attorney. “But when you add the component of pictures of the sexual abuse being published to the Internet, the abuse never ends.”

Just days after Dmitry was bitten by Kovalev’s dog in 2002, Dmitry and his friend Misha had a second encounter with Kovalev. The first time the boys met their new adult friend, he offered them candy and sweet drinks. The second time, Kovalev gave them cigarettes.

Misha tried smoking one down to the filter. He felt dizzy from the smoke; Dmitry took a couple of puffs and felt nauseous.

Come back to my apartment so your parents don’t see you red-eyed and smelling of smoke, Kovalev suggested.

When the boys arrived, the photography equipment was already set up.

“Could you help me? I am going to focus my camera,” Dmitry recalled Kovalev asking him.

As Dmitry awkwardly stood in front of the lens, Kovalev reached over, spilling a drink on the boy. Dmitry removed his wet T-shirt so Kovalev could dry it.

“He was showing me some pictures that were not precisely pornography but erotica,” Dmitry recalled. “He offered to make some shots of me. He said he would be happy to buy a cellular phone for each of us if we would come and pose for the pictures naked.”

That night, the boys refused.

"The real thing"

Men caught looking at child pornography often tell authorities that when looking at the images, they don’t view the children in the pictures as actual boys and girls. But they are actual children — like Dmitry and Misha, not computer simulations, or photo composites.

“These guys want the real thing,” said Stephan P. Lear, a postal inspector working with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

“Here at the center we have 1,100 victims identified, but there are easily 100,000 kids — maybe more. We don’t know who they are,” he said.

Statistically, most of the victims are girls, but plenty of boys are targeted also.

A majority of the children are under 13 years old and increasingly include toddlers and infants.

“We are seeing younger and younger [victims],” Lear said. “It’s every age kid you could imagine. Very brutal. That’s very common now.”

“These guys are raping infants and toddlers,” said Flint Waters, an investigator with the federal Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. “You can hear the child crying, pleading for help in the video. It is horrendous.”

Mental health experts say intensive counseling can provide a lifeline for some of the children, but that not all are resilient enough to recover from the sexual abuse and knowledge that their images remain indefinitely on the Internet.

The street children of Russia, already a step removed from society, become hardened by the sexual exploitation, unable to empathize or feel concern for others, or judge right from wrong, child psychology and sociology experts say.

Children like Dmitry, taken advantage of by trusted family members or other adults, suffer moral and emotional damage. “Some kids will recover from this and go on to lead a productive life. If they get appropriate, symptom-specific treatment, they can move on and get through life challenges,” said Stefan G. Perkowski, director of program services with Child and Adolescent Treatment Services in Erie County.

But for others, “intrusive thoughts just torture these kids,” said Kenneth N. Condrell, a clinical psychologist in Williamsville. “A lot of them end up in denial and will tell you nothing happened. They withdraw and become distant. They go into their own world. It is a horrible, horrible experience.

“The children are living in hell. They have all lost a sense that they live in a safe world. They now feel vulnerable. They think that if this could happen, anything could happen.”

Continued...

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"Started out as a game"

Dmitry and Misha’s parents grounded them for coming home late the night of the cigarette smoking incident, so it was about a week before Kovalev ran into the boys again.

That was the day Kovalev suddenly appeared as the boys went for a swim in the river.

Kovalev was ready for the boys that day. He packed a picnic lunch. He had his cameras.

“While we were eating and drinking, he was taking shots of us,” Dmitry recalled. “Then he took out the video camera. He said we should take off the bathing suits if we want the sun tan to be really even and for the bathing suits to dry out faster.

“He kept on making shots and filming us and he remembered that he had promised to present cellular phones to us. And he gave us some tablets, and he started taking more shots of us…and he asked us to perform some sexual acts.”

Looking back on his encounter, Dmitry says he doesn’t know why he and his friend did as Kovalev suggested.

“It started out as a game,” he said, adding that the drugs Kovalev gave them may have had something to do with it. Later that night, Dmitry felt uncomfortable.

“When I was at home, my parents suspected something was wrong. I think they felt my state was different and they started asking me questions. I did not say anything to them. I went to bed.”

The next day, the boys returned to Kovalev’s apartment.

“He said the film was great. He invited us to see, but we were embarrassed to view it,” Dmitry said. “He gave 500 rubles to each of us. He said he had to show the film to someone and if he approved, he could sell it and buy [us] cell phones.” Two days later, Kovalev invited the boys back to his home to pick up their cell phones.

Dmitry’s and Misha’s parents, already suspicious, demanded to know where their 13-year-old sons were getting money and phones. The boys recounted their experiences with Kovalev.

Police were contacted.

Kovalev was arrested.

"My mother told me later the police discovered a lot of child pornography in his apartment and some of it was violent,” Dmitry said.

His mother also told him that police said Kovalev sold their pictures to Internet Web page operators.

Dmitry’s relationship with his family, and his view of himself, haven’t been the same since.

Inadequate resources

As Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries try to halt the expansion of Internet child pornography, these countries face a crisis among their abused children.

There is inadequate counseling and no facilities for sexually exploited children, but many of the boys and girls, authorities said, end up in drug treatment wards at local hospitals.

Yet some of the places designed to help children — orphanages and child rehabilitation centers — are among the places where child pornographers stalk.

Children living at a rehabilitation center in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, for example, were approached in the evening by pornographers, who brought them to a studio to be filmed, according to Olha Shved, a sociologist with the child advocacy group ECPAT International’s Eastern European office.

Eight children posed for the pornographer for about a month until the director of the rehabilitation center learned what was going on after questioning where the children were getting money from, Shved said.

In another instance, young girls at a modeling agency were photographed with hidden cameras in changing rooms, showers and bathrooms. The pictures were sold and placed on the Internet, Shved said.

“We don’t know how many will be punished,” she said of the defendants in the modeling agency case, which is making its way through the court system.

Dmitry’s future uncertain

Dmitry’s abuser, Valera Kovalev, was found to be mentally unstable and confined to a psychiatric hospital, according to Senior Investigator Sergei Sokolov with the Moscow Police Department.

Dmitry’s parents were angry at their son for not being “clever enough” to know what Kovalev was up to, the teenager said. And after the neighborhood learned of the incident, the family moved, Dmitry recalled.

He ended up leaving his parents while still a teenager, working in a neighbor’s tavern, and sleeping in a room at the back of the bar.

Today, Dmitry remains estranged from his family. He also remains uncertain about his own sexuality, acknowledging that he felt abused and shamed by his past, and further victimized by the belief that his family lost respect for him. In the void, he said, he became sexually promiscuous.

“This takes a toll on your psyche. It may affect your sexual attitudes,” he said.

As for his friend, Misha attends college and is working, but Dmitry says they are no longer close.

Dmitry went on to study acting at a neighborhood studio theater, and now works for a company that organizes parties for different organizations. He also works as a clerical assistant for a law firm.

He says he’s still confused about his future, but one thing he’s sure of: He hates child pornography. “It can affect the psychology [of a child] and be a bad experience,” he said.

Buffalo News reporter Susan Schulman contributed to this report.

lmichel@buffnews.com (lmichel@buffnews.com)

[samanthajane13]

Abused children get help at Finger Lakes facility

Updated: 10/15/07 12:05 PM

SENECA LAKE — Taylor C. has been through hell, but the 16-year-old is on her way back.


Taylor was just 8 years old when her mother’s boyfriend crept into her bedroom with a video camera, filming and sometimes fondling her while she slept.

A camera he hid in the room filmed her while she dressed for school in the morning.

Authorities don’t know if any of the pictures ended up on the Internet, but when Taylor’s abuser was arrested in Onondaga County, police found pornographic images of other children.

“It stripped away my self confidence,” said Taylor, now receiving therapy at a residential facility near Seneca Lake in Yates County. “I didn’t care about myself. I’d let guys do what they wanted to feel love and acceptance,” she said.

Child pornography isn’t the big moneymaker in the United States that it is in Russia and other former Soviet bloc countries. Instead, it usually takes the form of trusted family acquaintances or neighbors taking advantage of children.

Locally, a 54-year-old Jamestown man was sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl and transmitting images live on an Internet Web cam. Authorities caught up with the man in 2004, but the abuse had already occurred for two years. The girl continues to suffer.

She became violent and suicidal. The abuse erased boundaries, according to her father, who said his daughter behaved inappropriately at school with male teachers and students.

Now 12, the girl is in a home for troubled children. Her father doesn’t think his daughter will ever recover.

In another local case, authorities were investigating the sexual abuse of a Niagara County girl who had been a victim for several years.

Elizabeth Donatello, an assistant district attorney, had the unpleasant task of telling the teenager authorities found photos of her on the Internet.

“You could literally see this child just shrink in front of you,” Donatello said. “You could see the kid … work out what images we were talking about. And then the horror of knowing that everyone in the world now had access to them. The child just … cried and cried.”

Distribution on the Internet magnifies the harm because it allows the images to live on forever. But at its core, the root problem is the sexual abuse, said Williamsville psychologist Kenneth N. Condrell.

“The sexual acts they are made to do, that’s what’s so damaging,” he said.

Today, Taylor is at Freedom Village USA in Lakemont, off Seneca Lake, a home for troubled teenagers, where she, like some 240 other young people, receives counseling and structured living in a religious environment.

Taylor and two other sex abuse victims at the facility spoke to The Buffalo News, wanting to get a message to other victims: What happened to you is not your fault.

It was the abuser who did something wrong.

Understanding that will allow young victims to begin to heal, they said.
Like Taylor, Alaina F., now 20, was raised by a single mother and abused by her mom’s boyfriend.

“I never had a father, and I thought pleasing him would make him my dad,” Alaina said, recalling the sexual abuse she experienced as a child of about 7 or 8 years old.

“It’s so stupid to think you can please people with your body,” she said. “Once you go down that path, it’s so hard to stop. It’s like a snowball going down a mountain.”

— By Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck

[samanthajane13]

Confessions of a child porn addict

'It was a drive, something like a fix. I needed more, and if I didn't get it, I felt empty." - Clarence Johnson, convicted child pornography addict

By Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck - News Staff Reporters
Updated: 10/16/07 2:06 PM

Clarence A. Johnson once enjoyed the adult pornography sites he viewed on the Web.

But after a while, the thrill was gone.
So Johnson started clicking on some of the advertisements that popped up on his computer screen above the naked men and women he was staring at.

He was seeing something new — young teenagers, and even young children, posing in the nude, having sex with each other or being molested by adults. At first, the 49-year-old Batavia man was appalled. But once the shock wore off, Johnson couldn’t get enough. Like thousands of other men throughout the United States, he was hooked.

“It was a drive, something like a fix,” he said. “I needed more, and if I didn’t get it, I felt empty.”

Johnson, a former greenhouse worker, is one of at least 100 Western New Yorkers prosecuted on Internet child pornography charges in the past several years.

Like most charged with this crime, he is a white male, although child pornography cuts cross socioeconomic lines.

“I’ve seen men from many different walks of life,” said David G. Heffler, a Lockport psychotherapist who is appointed by the courts to counsel child pornography offenders.

The men, Heffler said, usually fall into two categories. One group is the hard-core pedophiles and molesters, who use child pornography to indulge their fantasies.

A U.S. Postal Service study in the mid-1990s found 35 percent of men who view child pornography also molested children. A more recent study by the federal Bureau of Prisons found 80 percent acknowledged molesting children, even if never charged with the crime.

The second group Heffler identified are men — such as Johnson — who start looking at adult pornography but then “slide down a slippery slope” toward child pornography.

“Many men told me they started out looking at adult porn and never intended to look at children,” Heffler said. “But after looking at adult porn for a long time, they get bored. They want to try something different. They start looking at children. Then, they can’t get enough of it.”

In court records and personal interviews, men convicted of child pornography cited several reasons for their obsession: depression, drunkenness or having been molested as a child.

“In counseling, I constantly remind them that these are not just pictures. They’re human beings, children,” Heffler said. Some men know viewing the images is wrong but can’t stop themselves.

“Many of these men thank our agents for arresting them,” said Special Agent Holly L. Hubert, who leads child pornography investigations for the Buffalo FBI office.

That’s the case with one Buffalo man in his 50s who faces an upcoming prison term for possessing child pornography and also molesting young boys.

“I know it’s wrong, but I can’t stop,” he said. “I wish I knew why I do it. I wish they would examine me when I get to prison and tell me why I do it.”

The man, who gave a jailhouse interview on the condition that he would not be quoted by name, said he was molested by someone he trusted as a child.

“Prison is where I belong,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt any more kids.”

As for Johnson, he said he didn’t realize what was happening to him as he gravitated toward pictures of younger and younger children.

Cloistered in his second-floor computer room — away from his elderly mother on the first floor of their modest home — he prowled the Internet at night, searching for pictures of young children.

In court, Johnson pleaded guilty to a state charge of possessing child pornography and was placed on probation for 10 years. He became a registered sex offender who cannot be around children or have access to the Internet.

Now in mandatory counseling, Johnson says he is learning to overcome his addiction by exploring his own sexuality and by participating in a program requiring him to imagine how the exploited children feel.

In one exercise, he wrote a letter from the perspective of a child in a pornographic image he viewed.

“I did not like the games we played, like touch and feel,” the imaginary little girl stated in the letter Johnson wrote.

“I hate you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” the letter ended.

[samanthajane13]

Wife turns child porn addict over to a system overwhelmed and ill-equipped for the task

'When men get involved in this, you have no idea how it hurts their families." - terri Barber, who turned in her husband for viewing child porn

By Dan Herbeck - News Staff Reporter
Updated: 10/16/07 2:19 PM

Standing outside her Batavia home last year, Terri Barber agonized over the most painful decision of her life. Should she report her husband, Matthew, to police for having child pornography on his computer?


Or should she trust his promise that he would never again look at Internet images of the sexual abuse of young children?

He had made — and broken — the same promise months before.

The woman said a silent prayer, took two deep breaths and then punched the numbers 9-1-1 into her cell phone.

Batavia cops came to the home, seized two computers and called in the FBI. Her husband later pleaded guilty and was sent to prison for six years and two months.

Another child pornography offender caught and put in federal prison.
Statistically speaking, another small victory for the U.S. government in the war against child pornography.

But it’s a war that police and federal agents acknowledge they are losing.
“We are just scratching the surface,” said Stephan Lear, an investigator working with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. “We catch the people we catch, but that’s just a drop in the bucket.”

Terri Barber is also frustrated.

She called police with the hope that her husband — whom she continues to support despite his crimes — would get help in prison. “It’s an addiction. What my husband needs is help and counseling,” said Barber. “At the prison he’s in, he’s not getting it.”

With Internet child pornography racing out of control and law enforcement struggling to keep up, the illegal viewing of sexually molested children is quickly becoming the disgrace of the 21st century.

A yearlong Buffalo News investigation found:

• Law enforcement isn’t coming close to stopping the flood of child abuse images over the Internet, even though cybercops catch and arrest offenders every day.

The FBI arrested or issued summonses for 1,546 child pornography suspects last year compared with 68 a decade earlier. But in New York State alone, an Internet task force identified 426,669 instances of child pornography being offered to undercover officers in just a 30-month period.

• The courts don’t treat all cases equally. Federal judges hand out much tougher sentences than state judges, who handle most of these cases nationally. In Erie and Niagara counties, men sentenced in federal court got an average 6-1/2 years in prison. In state courts, a majority got probation or less than six months in jail, The News’ review of 102 recent cases found.

• Many men sent to prison for child pornography crimes don’t get counseling. The sex offender program within federal prisons has room for fewer than 1 percent of sex offenders.

• The Internet industry isn’t doing enough to halt the flow of child pornography images, claiming that proposed reforms — extending data retention periods, monitoring customer Web sites and knocking child pornography off its computer servers — are too expensive, a violation of privacy, or would open them up to liability.

• The growth of child pornography is likely to get worse, with producers, distributors and consumers taking advantage of technological advances, such as wi-fi, to stay a step ahead of police.

The Justice Department says it devotes “the full force of our nation’s resources” to the fight against child pornography and other cybercrimes against children.

“That’s a joke,” said Andrew Vachss, a New York City attorney and criminologist who has crusaded against child pornography for decades.
“There is no war on child pornography,” he said. “Our government’s approach and the worldwide approach to this problem is pathetic.”

Terri Barber agrees. More must be done to stop the crimes from occurring, she said.

“When men get involved in this, you have no idea how it hurts their families,” she said. “Their wives and children are the victims that you don’t hear about. The looks I get, the remarks people have made since Matt was arrested …”

Offenders overwhelm the legal system

The flood of child pornography is overwhelming police, the courts and the prisons.

When federal agents three years ago busted up the Eastern European child pornography Internet company known as Regpay, they found a customer list of 90,000 — with one-third to one-half from America.

From that list, U.S. agents culled 13,098 “high priority” leads on Americans who subscribed to Regpay.

Less than 5 percent of those leads were turned into criminal cases. To date, 581 arrests have been made nationwide. Federal agents said they didn’t have the staff or resources to pursue all the tips.

“[The] system is designed to handle just so much,” said Claude Davenport, a supervisor with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s cybercrimes center. “There are just so many U.S. or district attorneys, and just so many agents and police officers.” It’s a refrain heard over and over from police officers throughout the country.

“We have the smallest state in the U.S. per capita, and we are behind by checking search warrants,” said Flint Waters, an investigator with Wyoming’s Internet Crimes Against Children’s Task Force. “We have priorities for the cases we work. Our primary focus is children in danger.

One of the things that haunts us, that sends us home every night [is] thinking: ‘Did I pick the right one to go after?’”

“I don’t have the bodies,” he added. “I don’t have enough trained investigators.”

State vs. federal court

In the courts, meanwhile, the federal system hammers offenders.
By comparison, the state system coddles them.

Of 101 recent child pornography cases in Erie and Niagara counties reviewed by The Buffalo News, 79 were handled in federal court, while 22 went to state court.

Generally, cases involving large amounts of pornography or with defendants actively trading child images go to federal court. Cases involving men who work closely with children, or have previous state convictions, also end up in U.S. District Court in Western New York.

Those sentenced federally, in most cases, got at least 3 to 5 years in prison. After leaving prison, many spend years in supervised release — sometimes the rest of their lives.

Most sentenced in state courts in Erie and Niagara counties received probation or no more than six months in jail. It is only after a probation violation that some face the hammer of the federal court system.

Timothy Brenon of North Tonawanda, for example, was sentenced in state court to 10 years probation in 2002 for viewing child pornography.

Last year, the 57-year-old warehouse worker was caught with 87 images of child pornography, and federal prosecutors took over his case. This time, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

“He caught a fabulous break on his state case, getting no jail time. But he couldn’t stop himself from doing it again,” said Brenon’s attorney, David G. Jay. “That’s how strong the compulsion is for these guys.”

Continued...

[samanthajane13]

Focus on addicts

Like Brenon, most arrested for child pornography nationally, as well as in Erie and Niagara counties, were viewing images — not producing or selling.
Seven of the 101 cases reviewed by The Buffalo News involved men who took pictures of children, either for their own use or to trade — but not sell — on the Internet. Two others molested children, but didn’t necessarily photograph the abuse. Two others attempted to meet children to have sex with them.

Concentrating enforcement on child pornography viewers is like running a war on drugs by arresting mostly addicts, and rarely arresting any drug dealers, according to Mark J. Mahoney, a Buffalo defense lawyer.

“This material is so easy to get on the Internet,” said Mahoney, who represents several child pornography defendants. “Why are these guys serving as scapegoats for the problem of child porn in America?”

Federal prosecutors said they try to target producers and sellers, but they defend the practice of arresting addicts.

Studies of federal child pornography convicts show that a large percentage of these men also molest children, Buffalo U.S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn noted.

Prosecutors cite Matthew Barber, 40, who worked as a computer repairman in Batavia. When authorities investigated his use of child pornography, they learned he molested a 5-year-old girl. After his federal prison term, he will spend an additional seven years in state prison for sexual abuse.

“These men also provide the market for child porn. If there’s no market, there’s no need to produce it,” Flynn said. “And when you put one of them in prison, you’re preventing a lot of potential molestations.”

Lack of prison space

This explosion in child pornography arrests, however, threatens to overwhelm the prisons.

“I don’t know where we are going to find the prison space to house all these people,” said Joseph R. Taylor, a sex crimes investigator with the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office.

When U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny sentenced Barber to federal prison in April, the judge asked federal prison officials to assign Barber to its Sex Offender Treatment Program at Butner, N.C.

Barber didn’t get in. Most sex offenders don’t.

The program can accommodate 112 men. There are 12,000 sex offenders in federal prison. Federal prison officials don’t break down how many of these inmates are in prison for child pornography.

Prison officials said they are attempting to provide better treatment programs.

But law enforcement and child advocates say it’s going to take more than incarceration and prison counseling to rein in child pornography.

More efforts are needed, they say, to limit the availability of the material.
“We know we can’t prosecute our way out of this,” said John F. Shehan, CyberTipline manager with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.

Global approach needed

But as law enforcement struggles to cope with the massive child pornography problem, regulators are unable to reach an agreement with the U.S. Internet industry on methods to identify, shut down and block child pornography on its Web sites.

And even if an agreement is reached, the problem is worldwide, and needs a broader approach, law enforcement says.

“People ask, ‘Why don’t you take the sites down?,’” said Davenport, with the U.S. cybercrimes center. “We do take them down, but you can take a site down in Denver today, and it opens in Slovenia tomorrow under a different name.”

“We need help from other countries to chase the money,” added agent Don Daufenbach, who also works with the cybercrimes center. “We’re getting more and more help from other countries, but it’s still like playing ‘whack-a-mole.’ These sites go up and down so fast, it’s unbelievable.”

Every nation, however, doesn’t place the same priority on halting child pornography.

Of 186 countries surveyed by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, more than half lacked any child pornography laws, according to Ernie Allen, president of the U.S. and the international organizations.

“Many countries still do not have legislation on child pornography,” United Nations investigator Juan Miguel Petit wrote in a 2005 report. “This legal vacuum leaves a dangerous gap that exposes children to the risk of abuse.”

Japan, Portugal, the Bahamas and Brazil are among the countries where possesion of child pornography is not illegal, according to the International Centre report. So are China, Russia, Ukraine, Sudan, Singapore and Egypt.

“The only possible way to interdict it is through international treaties and cooperation, and we don’t have any,” said Vachss, the New York City child advocate. “If we don’t raise the stakes, we’re worse than hypocrites.”

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark is afraid of what will happen if we don’t.

“Look at the growth of adult sex on TV and in the movies. Things that were absolutely taboo when I was a kid, you see on TV now every night in prime time,” said the 64-year-old Clark. “Community standards relax over time. Are we ever going to let our guard down? I hope not, but who knows? The thought of that frightens me.”

It all leaves Terri Barber very distraught. She still believes that turning her husband in was the right thing to do, but she wonders what will become of him once he is released from prison.

“I’m angry because our government doesn’t really seem to be doing anything to fight this problem. We need to do more than just putting people in jail. We aren’t doing the things we really need to do.”

Buffalo News reporters Lou Michel and Susan Schulman contributed to this report.

dherbeck@buffnews.com (dherbeck@buffnews.com)

[samanthajane13]

A plea to other addicts: ‘You will regret not paying attention to this message’


Updated: 10/16/07 2:24 PM

The Buffalo News received an anonymous letter written by a man recently convicted and awaiting sentencing for viewing child pornography. The News confirmed the man’s identity before publishing his letter.

As a man who was involved with and ultimately arrested for possessing child pornography I believe I can relate to the roller coaster ride of emotions and pain others will experience if they, too, are compromising their lives and the lives of the innocent in their pernicious pursuit of child pornography.
Last year at 6:00 a.m. my home was raided. There was no mistake as I saw more than 10 agents wearing FBI insignias that were here because I was engaged in child pornography. The event was terrifying. I was taken into a spare bedroom while my wife was taken to a separate area, both to be fully interrogated. I knew, of course, of my wife’s innocence, which brought me instant shame and guilt, as I was responsible for her distress and fear.

I was told I would then be arrested and taken to a court holding center to be charged and appear before a federal judge. I briefly spoke with my wife, we hugged and cried and I was led away.

At the FBI center I was further interrogated, given a lie detector exam and then placed in a cell with a cot and toilet.

I was called before the judge. I would have to retain a lawyer. I was informed of a law that requires all sex offenders to wear an electronic monitoring system.

The last shocking and humiliating event was being photographed and fingerprinted by agents.

•••

My wife picked me up at the courthouse and we drove home in silence. No sooner had we gotten home the telephone rang.

Family members called and friends called. Mostly I said that I was in trouble and that I would share developments with them as soon as I knew more. I called others to share my guilt and humiliation. Friends were shocked. Some angered. Most cried with me as they knew the severity of my crime. Many vowed support. They showed and gave me more empathy than I had given those innocent victims portrayed in child pictures.

Let me briefly add feelings of empathy for the children who are forced or coerced to perform sexual acts or to be photographed for the perverse entertainment of others. This story is about them, but my message goes to those who take advantage of them and to those who contribute to this evil action by going on-line to see this type of perversion.

I called my boss knowing it would be best for him to hear this news from me. We agreed it would be best for me to leave the firm. Reality was setting in! I had lost my income and respect from the business world.

Whether you are young or old you will feel the impact of your own “situation.” Here is a list of life changing losses that I, and you, will experience.

I cannot be alone with my grandchildren. For me this has been the single most devastating impact of my arrest.

I must not travel beyond Western New York and I must be in my home by 9 p.m. each evening.

I must remove all firearms from my home.

I must wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and pay $100 each month for its use.

I must give up my passport. I won’t be able to vote.

I will have to give up my membership to a national charitable club I belong to.

I will not be able to coach any team with children.

It is difficult to express my emotions. There are other reminders of what has changed in my life.

We have a winter home down south. I did not go last winter and have no prospect to visit there and see close friends who live nearby.

We went to Europe two years ago and had planned to take our grandchildren this year or next. There is now no opportunity for that.

Given my curfew of 9 p.m. my wife and I can’t take an evening drive to get an ice cream cone. When we go to parties we are the first to leave. If the grandchildren visit for a sleepover and want a bonfire I make excuses why I must go inside the house. Sometimes they sleep over and breakfast lacks juice or other items requiring a trip to the store. My wife cannot go as I will be left with the kids, and I have to sneak out otherwise the kids would want to go with me — which they can’t.

•••

I choose not to discuss my personal case and what lies immediately ahead. I know the likelihood of going to prison.

A therapist I have been seeing has helped immensely. He has made me mindful that children who may appear in images could very well be someone I know. “What if, he would say, the person you see before you is your granddaughter?” I had never given that any thought — nor seemed to care, possibly.

In closing, have I helped you? Strangely, I have helped myself. I am not proud of what I have done. I hope you have the strength to do what is right and that you have family or friends that can help you. You will regret not paying attention to this message.

[samanthajane13]

Women are seldom consumers of child porn

Updated: 10/16/07 1:36 PM


On March 31, 1998, something happened in a Buffalo courtroom that

almost never happens anywhere in the United States.


A woman was sentenced for a child pornography crime.

Bunthum Grabenstetter, 27, of Switzerland, was sent to federal prison for eight months for selling and possessing child pornography.

Grabenstetter may be the only woman ever convicted of a child pornography crime in Western New York. Authorities said she flew to Buffalo to sell child pornography CD-ROMs at the direction of her dominating husband, John. He was sent away for seven years by the same judge, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara.

Other than that one, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office, Erie County and Niagara County said they cannot recall a single child pornography case against a woman.

Nationwide, experts estimate that far less than 1 percent of the people convicted of possessing or trading child pornography images are women.

"You very rarely find women who are attracted to this kind of material. I've never encountered one yet," said Dr. David G. Heffler, a Lockport psychologist who counsels sex offenders.

There is no simple answer why.

Heffler believes the powerful maternal instinct is one reason why so many women find it impossible to be entertained by child pornography. He said he has also observed that men are far more likely than women to molest children.

"Generally speaking, I find that women are less interested than men in getting gratification from any kind of pornography, including adult porn," Heffler said.

FBI Special Agent Holly L. Hubert and Elizabeth R. Donatello, a Niagara County prosecutor who specializes in sex crimes, agree. The two women said it has been difficult for them to examine thousands of child pornography images in connection with their cases.

"The first time I ever looked at [child pornography images], I literally could not believe what I was seeing...how bad it was," Hubert recalled. "The first thing that comes into your mind is worrying about your own children, your nieces, your nephews. But you have to keep pushing those thoughts away."

After her first viewing of such images, Donatello had to run to the bathroom and throw up. Every time since, she said, "I've felt like I had to vomit. It never gets any easier for me.

"Male prosecutors who work with me generally seem to get very angry when they look at this stuff. I have a more visceral reaction. I want to get sick, or I want to cry."

While she has never had a case of a woman looking at child pornography, Donatello has seen plenty of child porn that was made with the help of women.

"We don't see women as consumers, but I've seen images and videos where the woman is shown molesting a young child sometimes her own child," the prosecutor said. "That disturbs me."

-- Dan Herbeck

[samanthajane13]

EDITORIALS-Buffalo News

Editorial: Target child porn

Aggressive action needed to remove rotten apples from vast Internet barrel

Updated: 10/17/07 8:35 AM

Evil as old as time has metastasized globally in recent years, as the rise of the Internet has intersected with the fall of the Soviet Union. These newfound political and technological freedoms are being horribly abused by a few purveyors of child pornography.

Those purveyors of unspeakable acts should be pursued relentlessly, and punished for the lives they have destroyed. Consumers of evil also should be rooted out, carefully, and either punished for funding this abusive trade or treated for their addiction.

But this week’s eye-opening series of reports in The Buffalo News, starting Sunday and ending today, also leads to a crucial question — how are we to protect little brother from the predations of child pornographers without ourselves becoming Big Brother in the process?

The response must be well-considered, forceful action on many levels, from global cooperation in law enforcement to local efforts to break the cycle of suffering by offering the abused real treatment before they, in turn, become the abusers.

The culture of the Internet rightly resists regulation. The free flow of ideas it enables is overwhelmingly a force for progress. It stands in opposition to all totalitarian regimes, as it did in the old Soviet system, as it may yet in Burma.

Picking the rotten apples from this vast barrel will require not only a lot more manpower but also a new digital standard of what the lawyers call probable cause. Police, based on legally obtained information and with judicial oversight, must be able to pin down the origin and creators of child porn sites, developing methods that are both efficient and respectful of the freedoms of the Internet universe.

The News documents how the remains of the former Soviet Union have become a Petrie dish for photographed child sexual abuse. The grip of the old regime crumbled as economic conditions went to ruin, leaving untold numbers of poor and abandoned children who make easy marks for abusers.

The United States, meanwhile, is home to most of the paying customers for child pornography, as well as the Internet servers and credit card clearinghouses that funnel images one way and money the other. But even though that puts much of the responsibility in American hands, it will be difficult for the United States to lead the effort.

Globally, we would be accused of cyber-hegemony. Domestically, there would be little faith that the search for pornographers, like the search for terrorists, would not be used to justify the digital equivalent of ransacking randomly selected homes. Thus it will be necessary for us to encourage and cajole, not command and control. We need formal treaty obligations, and pressure on those nations that have not yet forbidden trade in child pornography to do so.

But we must also realize that all the shocking arrests and tearful guilty pleas are ultimately pointless unless we do a better job of providing mental health treatment both for those who are the subjects of child pornography and those who risk everything to see just one more picture.

Federal judges are known for cracking down on kiddie porn users who appear before them but, when the federal prison system can provide treatment to only about 1 percent of the inmates who clearly need it, the cycle of abuse is only bound to continue.

More investigators, armed with 21st century warrants specifically aimed at the many leads and tips that are always available to them, must be provided by governments across the globe. Internet providers, though right to stick to their role as the neutral traffic managers of their brave new world, should step forward to help design this new regime, lest the new rules be written without their ethos represented.

There is no need to magnify this evil by burning down the whole house of the Internet in order to get to these vermin. But the merchants of pain who first victimize countless children in making their pornography, then ruin the lives of their own paying customers, deserve no quarter.