The Child Protection eNewsletter

Caught in the act…

A 42-year-old Michigan man faced child pornography charges after police say they caught him in the act of downloading child pornography off the Internet during a search of his home. Read More A flier circulated in the neighborhood where James P. Finn lived identifying him as a "pedophile activist" that included his name and photograph led police to investigate Finn, Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said.

During a search of Finn's home, police said they found about 30 digital movies and nearly 600 photos showing children in sexual situations. They said Finn was downloading child pornography when investigators entered his home.

"That's the investigative equivalent of lightning striking when and where you want it to," Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans said in a statement. He said the flier brought Finn to the attention of investigators. Finn was arraigned in 25th District Court on three counts of using the Internet to download child pornography and three counts of possession of child pornography, the Wayne County sheriff's department said.

Cardinal Mahony still on hot seat…

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony approved a record clergy abuse payout, opened the files of the Roman Catholic priests involved and looked into the cameras and apologized for the victims' treatment. And it still might not be enough to satisfy some. Read More To fund the archdiocese's share of the $660 million settlement, the cardinal will have to sell property, liquidate investments and cut spending, dismantling part of what he built in more than two decades as the city's archbishop.

Even so, critics question whether the cardinal should have done more to rein in predatory priests in the nation's largest archdiocese. Bishops answer only to the Vatican, which had to sign off on some funding of the settlement, but every church leader needs the trust of the parishioners.

"He acknowledged he made some mistakes, he apologized," said the Reverend Thomas Reese, a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "Now the people of Los Angeles are going to have to weigh the good that he's done over the last 22 years versus the bad things he did and decide whether they can continue to accept him as their bishop."

Last week's deal was made on the eve of a civil trial in which Mahony would have been grilled about why he left some abusive priests in churches without telling parents or police. As part of the settlement, the archdiocese agreed to release the personnel files of accused clergymen, which could reveal any direct links between Mahony and the guilty priests he supervised. But each priest tied to the 508 Los Angeles cases can challenge his records' release -- another potential obstacle to full disclosure.

U.N. suspends peacekeepers amid sex abuse charges…

The United Nations said that it had suspended a Moroccan military contingent from its peacekeeping mission in Cote d'Ivoire while it investigated allegations of widespread sexual abuse. http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/ "It means they don't participate in our operations," said Hamadoun Toure, spokesman for the U.N. mission in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI). "Those who are found guilty will be sent back home."

The world body said the measure was in addition to a decision to confine the entire battalion of 734 soldiers to barracks. U.N. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the investigation involved Moroccan soldiers having sex with a large number of underage girls in the West African country's northern rebel stronghold of Bouake.

Toure said the allegations had come to light after the mission ran a campaign against sexual exploitation in which it asked local people to inform it about abuses. It then sent a team to carry out interviews and gather information.

In other news… 

A federal judge on Long Island ordered a hearing to determine if hypnosis may have played a role in persuading children to testify against Jesse Friedman, who served 13 years in prison for sexually abusing children in a 1980s case later made famous by the documentary “Capturing the Friedmans.” Read More For nearly 20 years, Mr. Friedman -- 17 when he was charged and now 38 -- has sought to exonerate himself, claiming that he pleaded guilty in 1988 to abusing 13 children during after-school computer classes at his family’s home in Great Neck only because he felt a successful defense would have been impossible to mount at the time.

The father of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann has traveled to America to discuss the country's policies on child abduction with the US attorney general, Alberto Gonzales. http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/ Gerry McCann is on a four-day visit to learn about the work of specialist agencies in preventing child trafficking and sexual abuse.

Washington prosecutors formally charged a convicted sex offender with kidnapping, raping and killing Zina Linnik, a 12-year-old girl who was snatched from an alley behind her family's home during a July 4th fireworks celebration. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/ According to the charging documents, Terapon Dang Adhahn led investigators to the girl's body. During their investigation, detectives said they uncovered two other victims: one who was kidnapped on her way to school in 2000 and another who lived with Adhahn as a teen. Adhahn is charged with rape in those cases, as well as failing to register as a sex offender. http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol5_iss45.html http://www.childprotectionprogram.org/newsletter/vol5_iss44.html

Polk County, Florida deputies and state investigators arrested 22 men for allegedly using the Internet to solicit sex with children. http://www.wftv.com/news/13733654/detail.html Among those arrested in the undercover sting were a youth hockey coach and a former Marion County deputy. The sting was called "Operation Guardian." Polk County investigators, pretending to be girls between the ages of 13 and 15, began a series of online chats with numerous men. With surveillance cameras rolling, deputies watched as suspect after suspect arrived, thinking they were going to have sex with children.

A national organization whose mission is to prevent child sexual exploitation is critical of the federal prison system's refusal to release a psychological study of offenders serving time for sexual abuse of children. Read More The results of the study, leaked to The New York Times last week, found 85 percent of those serving time in a federal treatment program for abusing minors had downloaded child pornography from the Internet and that their offenses may have been a direct result of looking at the material. (Read More) Michelle Collins of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says the Federal Bureau of Prisons needs to release the study so it can get into the hands of prosecutors and judges hearing thousands of cases of child pornography possession each year:

A 7-year-old girl said she had been raped and repeatedly molested over the course of a year. Police in Montgomery County, Maryland acting on information from a relative, soon arrested a Liberian immigrant living in Gaithersburg. Read More They marshaled witnesses and DNA evidence to prepare for trial. What was missing -- for much of the nearly three years that followed -- was an interpreter fluent in the suspect's native language. A judge recently dropped the charges, not because she found that Mahamu Kanneh had been wrongly accused but because repeated delays in the case had, in her view, violated his right to a speedy trial.

A foundation named for a child who was found four years after he vanished while riding his bike has announced a partnership with stock car drivers to feature age-progressed photos of missing children on their cars. Read More The Shawn Hornbeck Foundation and drivers hope having the photos in such a visible spot could lead to new breaks in unsolved cases.

A Michigan man who had sex with a 14-year-old girl with her mother's permission was sentenced Monday to up to 15 years in prison. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290408,00.html Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Matthew Switalski sentenced 21-year-old Christopher M. Garcia to six to 15 years on each of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Garcia also was sentenced to two to four years for failing to register as a sex offender. The girl is pregnant for a third time and living in foster care. Police said she had two earlier miscarriages. When a child 14 or under is pregnant, there is a 53% statistical likelihood that the unborn baby’s father is an adult. The younger the pregnant girl, the higher the likelihood.

*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org"