The Child Protection eNewsletter

States to MySpace:  hand over names of sex offenders… 

Eight state attorneys general on Monday demanded that MySpace hand over to authorities the names and addresses of thousands of convicted sex offenders they say are using the social networking website to contact children.  Read More Here  Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, along with his counterparts in seven other states, made the demand in a letter to the unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.  He said that he learned of the large number of sex offenders on the site as a result of a company investigation, but did not make clear his source.

"Mixing sex offenders with children on MySpace is a recipe for tragedy," Blumenthal said in a statement.  "MySpace is more than a place for friends to meet.  It's a playground for predators."

The attorneys general of Georgia, Idaho, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Mississippi and New Hampshire also signed a letter to the company asking it to turn over information.  The website has come under criticism for not doing enough to protect young people using the site from adult sexual predators who pose as teens.  (See vol4_iss11,  vol4_iss16,  vol4_iss17,  vol4_iss19,  vol4_iss26,  vol4_iss27,  vol4_iss41,  vol4_iss44,  vol4_iss50,  vol5_iss5  and  vol5_iss8)

MySpace to states:  No… 

Citing federal privacy law, MySpace.com said Tuesday it won't comply with a request by attorneys general from eight states to hand over the names of registered sex offenders who use the social networking Web site.  Read More Here  MySpace's chief security officer said the company regularly discloses information to law enforcement officials but the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act says it can only do so when proper legal processes are followed.  "We're truly disheartened that the AGs chose to send out a letter … when there was an existing legal process that could have been followed," the security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, said in an interview.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday blasted MySpace for refusing to share the information and said no subpoena is needed for MySpace to tell the attorneys general how many registered sex offenders use the site "or other information relating to possible parole violations."  "I am deeply disappointed and troubled by this unreasonable and unfounded rejection of our request for critical information about convicted sex offenders whose profiles are on MySpace," Blumenthal said.  "By refusing this information, MySpace is precluding effective enforcement of parole and probation restrictions that safeguard society."

Nursery abuse case shocks Italy… 

Rignano Flaminio, a sleepy little town around an hour's drive from Rome, has not been the same since police burst into its model nursery school seven months ago seeking evidence of child abuse.  Read More Here  Many of its 7,000 residents fear it never will be.  The arrest last month of three teachers -- women in their fifties and each with at least 20 years' experience -- horrified parents and has sparked lurid headlines about the "school of horrors".

Few Italians had hitherto heard of the moderately prosperous town, set in rolling hills, until the scandal at the Olga Rovere School, named best nursery school in the region in 1999.  Now the affair, which has yet to come to trial, has split the town between those who fiercely defend the teachers and those convinced they headed a pedophile ring which systematically abused up to 20 pupils aged three or four.  "The situation is devastating.  I hurt for the children, the families, the whole community," said 65-year-old mayor Ottavio Coletta.

Few prominent child abuse scandals have come to light in Catholic Italy, which some psychologists and support groups say reflects an inability to face up to the existence of pedophilia.  The prosecutors' allegations are chilling.  They say children were regularly driven in small groups from the school to teachers' houses.  There they were drugged and filmed while performing sex acts with adults, then driven back to the school.  In their case against the six suspects, including a school caretaker and the husband of one of the teachers, the prosecutors also cite evidence they may have performed satanic rites while abusing the children.

In other news… 

U.S. law enforcement calls it a loophole big enough to throw a desktop through, and about as frustrating.  Read More Here  But some free speech advocates say the issue is overblown, because no actual crime is being committed, at least according to U.S. law.  They're talking about "virtual child porn," the computer depiction of adults having sex with children.  It has found a home at places like the popular Second Life game, which is available online.  Many child advocates see it as the most troubling manifestation of child sex abuse that's come along in years.

A judge threw out convictions against a New Jersey man who served more than two decades in prison for the rape and murder of two children after a DNA test showed a neighbor may have committed the crimes.  Read More Here  The new DNA evidence would probably have changed the verdict against Byron Halsey, said Superior Court Judge Stuart L. Peim, who vacated the verdict and granted a new trial.

The nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese will sell its administrative headquarters to raise money to settle hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits against it, Cardinal Roger Mahony said Tuesday.  Read More Here  In a statement posted on the Web site of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Mahony also said a special working group has identified about 50 nonessential church properties that could be sold.  The cardinal did not specify how much the archdiocese expected to raise by selling the properties.  He also did not give a timetable for settlement, but said he hoped the cases could be resolved in the “near future.”

More than 300 children are physically, sexually and emotionally abused in Bahrain each year, a top official revealed yesterday.  Read More Here  But the country's top anti-child abuse campaigner and family physician, Dr Somaya Al Jowder, said only about 40 are actually reported to the authorities through hospitals.  "About 60 per cent of cases reported relate to sexual abuse of young children, particularly boys," she told the GDN.

Portuguese police have pinpointed a suspect in the disappearance of 4-year old Madeleine McCann.  Read More Here  On Monday, the search for the British girl extended to Robert Murat and the villa he shares with his mother 100 yards from the Portuguese resort where McCann was taken 12 days ago.  vol5_iss34

The Texas juvenile prison system has suspended four more officials in a probe that began after allegations surfaced of sexual abuse of inmates.  Read More Here  The officials were suspended with pay until the outcome of the investigation, according to the Texas Youth Commission.  The allegations ranged from failing to follow agency policy to notify law enforcers and parents of an accusation of sexual assault to inappropriate use of state resources.

Planned Parenthood is under fire after one of its employees was recorded encouraging a student -- who was posing as a pregnant minor -- to lie about her age in order to obtain an abortion without the abortion provider having to report the "statutory rape" to the police.  Read More Here  Meanwhile, an Ohio girl says in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that in November 2004, when she was 16, the girl was forced by her father to have an abortion.  Read More Here  She reported the abuse at the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Cincinnati, her lawyer says.  State law requires teachers, clinic workers and others to report suspected abuse to police.

A victims' rights group released documents Thursday that showed the Jehovah's Witnesses recently settled civil suits with 16 people who claimed they were sexually abused by church elders or that church officials failed to act on abuse allegations.  Read More Here  The group, called silentlambs, (see http://www.silentlambs.org/) held a news conference in Nashville to demand that the denomination change its policy for responding to sex abuse reports.

A Tennessee grand jury indicted a man accused of killing his wife's teenage lover on a murder charge, but not the first-degree count prosecutors had sought, according to court documents.  Read More Here  The second-degree murder count against Eric McLean carries a 25-year maximum sentence, instead of the life term the higher-level charge carries.

A 62-year-old woman was sentenced to three years in prison for locking her grandson inside a dog kennel every night for three years while she went to work as a jail counselor.  Read More Here  June Candelario, a former state trooper, put the boy in a 4 foot by 3 foot kennel each day at 4 p.m. and let him out hours later when she returned from work, authorities said.

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