The Child Protection eNewsletter

700 plus member global pedophile ring busted… 

Police have smashed a global child abuse network which was coordinated through a UK-based internet site.  Read More Here  Global agencies, led by UK investigators, examined more than 700 suspects, including 200 in the UK.  The ring was run by Timothy David Martyn Cox, 28, of Buxhall, Suffolk, who admitted nine offences and has been handed a sentence which could mean he dies in jail.  A judge at Ipswich Crown Court told Cox: "You are obsessed with images of children being sexually abused."

Cox ran a website called "Kids the Light of Our Lives" which let users exchange abuse images, the court heard.  More than 75,000 indecent and explicit images were found on Cox's computer and there was evidence that he had supplied more than 11,000 images to other site users.  Judge Peter Thompson told Cox:  "These are shocking images which involve very young children -- in the worst cases being subjected to sadistic, painful abuse which you, for some distorted reason, appear to take enjoyment from."

Undercover officers in Britain, the U.S., Canada and Australia busted up the pedophile ring using surveillance techniques more commonly associated with fighting terrorism and organized crime.  Read More Here  The "Kids the Light of Our Lives" chat room featured images, including live videos, of children -- some only months old -- being subjected to horrific sexual abuse, said Jim Gamble, chief executive of Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center.  "You could go and if you were in the club, arrange a time and a place when online you could view a child being raped and brutalized in real time," he said.  Police analyzed images and videos traded by the chat room's members for the smallest clues that could help them identify, locate and rescue the victims.

Describing it as "a massive leap forward," Gamble said the investigation involved agencies from 35 countries.  Investigators made the case public after the sentencing of ringleader Timothy Cox on Monday.  The probe began in Canada in the spring of 2005, then expanded internationally in August 2006 after Canadian officials tipped off authorities in London that they believed the chat room's host was based in Britain.  "Every arrest we make we seize computers and information," said Detective Sergeant Kim Scanlan of the Toronto police sex crimes unit.

L.A. clergy abuse trials loom… 

After years of legal wrangling, the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese may finally move to settle hundreds of clergy sex abuse claims against it following several legal setbacks and the prospect of jury trials in the months ahead.  Read More Here  Fifteen trials involving 172 of the more than 500 alleged victims are scheduled to be heard by juries in a six-month courthouse marathon beginning July 9.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge overseeing the cases recently ruled that Cardinal Roger Mahony must testify in one of those cases, and attorneys for plaintiffs want to call him as a witness in many more.  The same judge also cleared the way for four alleged victims to seek punitive damages from the archdiocese -- something that could open the church to tens of millions of dollars in payouts if the ruling is expanded to other cases.

Archdiocese attorney Michael Hennigan said the archdiocese was eager to settle as soon as possible but the complexity of the situation could make that difficult.  "We work on settlements every day and I've been hoping for a settlement for five years," he said.  "It would be nice if we could get it done before these trials, but I'm not sure we can."

The archdiocese last December reached a $60 million settlement with 45 victims whose claims dated from before the mid-1950s and after 1987 -- periods when the archdiocese had little or no sexual abuse insurance.  Several religious orders in California have also reached multimillion-dollar settlements in recent months, including the Carmelites, the Franciscans and the Jesuits.  That leaves more than 500 lawsuits pending in Los Angeles and plaintiff’s attorneys plan to go to court on each one unless a settlement is reached, said Ray Boucher, the lead plaintiff's attorney.  Boucher said he hoped that a few large jury verdicts in the first batch of trials would motivate the church's insurers -- who have been a longtime stumbling block -- to cooperate more.

Meanwhile, a group that tracks sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy considers a former Marianist brother among the 10 child abusers with the most victims, based on recent accusations.  At least 40 complaints have been filed against William Mueller in Colorado, Texas and Missouri, The Pueblo Chieftain reported Sunday.  Read More Here  "We've only known about this guy for less than three years, and already 40 people have come forward," said David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP.  "Once all is known, and I'm estimating conservatively, I'd guess that the victims number at least in the 60s.  He will probably end up being one of the top 10 worst abusers we've ever seen in terms of sheer numbers."

And a nun accused of sexually assaulting two boys at a Milwaukee school in the 1960s is scheduled to go to trial in August, but one of her attorneys said Friday they may be getting close to a plea deal.  Read More Here

Clergy abuse is not a uniquely Catholic problem.  The three companies that insure the majority of Protestant churches in America say they typically receive upward of 260 reports each year of young people under 18 being sexually abused by clergy, church staff, volunteers or congregation members.  Read More Here

In other news… 

Having already helped police target sexual predators online, Miss America Lauren Nelson now is teaming with a security software company to help educate parents and children about dangers on the Internet.  Read More Here  Nelson, 20, will join officials from Symantec Corp. as a tractor-trailer with the latest in digital technology travels to stores, camps and universities across the country, trying to bring together parents with little Internet familiarity and their cyber-savvy children.  "Hopefully we can help close that gap and create a dialogue with kids and parents about Internet safety," Nelson said.  "We're doing things all over the country and speaking about the issue."  For more on Internet safety, visit http://childprotectionprogram.org/pdf/online_safety.doc

A Washington state woman who posed as a homeless orphaned boy and befriended and abused a teenage girl was sentenced to a year in jail for child molestation.  Read More Here  Lorelei J. Corpuz, 30, apologized Thursday.  She said, "I know this is a big lesson for me, and it is not something I want to do again."  The sentence ordered by Judge Ronald C. Castleberry was the maximum under state guidelines.

A middle school teacher in Prescott, Wisconsin has been fired and the Pierce County Sheriff is investigating claims she had sex with a 13-year-old student.  Read More Here  The student's father said he found the two having a middle of the night rendezvous together at the teacher's home after the boy stole his mother's car.  The boy was the woman’s 13-year-old daughter’s boyfriend.

Three people are in custody after police, acting on a tip, discovered a 2-year-old girl missing from Florida, an apparently tortured 11-year-old boy locked in a closet and the boy's mother buried in the backyard of a Wisconsin home.  Read More Here  Two women living in the home — Candace Clark, 23, and Michaela Clerc, 20 — were arrested on charges of obstruction of justice and physical abuse of a child.

Seven convicted sex offenders with profiles on MySpace.com have been arrested in what Texas officials said was the country's first large-scale crackdown of registered offenders who use the social networking Web site.  Read More Here  The men were arrested in Houston, Austin, Round Rock, and Glenn Heights during a two-week operation by the Texas Attorney General's Cyber Crimes and Fugitive units.  They were picked up after MySpace.com released the names of offenders with online profiles to the state Attorney General's Office, which had issued a subpoena for the site's subscriber information, after MySpace initially refused to provide the information.  vol5_iss35

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