The Child Protection eNewsletter

Britney Spears loses kids… 

Britney Spears' continuing downward spiral took a devastating turn on Monday when she was ordered to relinquish custody of her children by a judge who had cited a troubling lifestyle fueled by drugs and alcohol. Read More Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon ruled that ex-husband Kevin Federline will take custody of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, beginning Wednesday "until further order of the court."

The order stemmed from an unspecified oral motion made by Federline's attorneys and was handled in a closed-door hearing.  The judge's order didn't state the reason for the change in custody and all transcripts of the proceedings were ordered sealed.

Last month, Gordon said Spears engaged in "habitual, frequent and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol."  He ordered the pop star to undergo random drug and alcohol testing twice a week as part of her ongoing custody dispute with Federline.

Spears also was previously ordered to meet weekly with a "parenting coach" who was to observe and report back to the court about her parenting skills.  Both Spears and Federline must complete the court's "Parenting Without Conflict" class.

TMZ.com claims Spears refused to follow any of the judge’s orders. http://www.tmz.com/

Girl in video found safe, police hunt fugitive abuser… 

When a homemade videotape showing a young girl being sexually assaulted surfaced, authorities took the unusual step of releasing information about the child in hopes that someone would recognize her. Read More They gave the media a first name for the girl, whose haunting face could be seen in the video in which she was raped.  They also released a photograph of her.  The plan worked.  On Friday, the girl was found safe in Las Vegas and a fugitive who knew her family was named a suspect in the case, authorities said. 

The fugitive accused of raping a little girl on videotape was portrayed as a dangerous, knife-wielding survivalist who once vowed never to be taken alive and formerly worked as an animal trainer with Las Vegas illusionists Siegfried & Roy.

The FBI and Las Vegas police pressed a nationwide manhunt for Chester “Chet” Arthur Stiles, 37, who authorities say can be seen molesting a 3-year-old girl in a mysterious video that was recorded four years ago and surfaced last month.  “He’s a survivalist type who isn’t bothered by living without electricity or water, and always carries a fighting-type knife,” said Nye County District Attorney Bob Beckett.

Authorities were seeking Stiles on an unrelated warrant issued last year charging him with fleeing to avoid prosecution on allegations he groped a 6-year-old girl in 2003.

In a related story, ABC News has an interesting piece on how police look for victims and suspects in child pornography tapes.  http://abcnews.go.com/

For the investigators seeking to identify child pornography victims, every little bit of information – from the designer of the clothing worn in the pictures to the type of wallpaper in the background – helps, law enforcement experts told ABCNEWS.com.

"We look at the house and the building and determine whether [the tape was filmed] outside," said Detective Constable Bill McGarry, an image analyst at the child exploitation section of the sex crimes unit at the Toronto Police Department.  "We look for anything that will point us to a geographical location and also try isolate objects in the background – furniture, bedding, clothing – things that we can trace to certain manufacturers.  It's a lead that can make all the difference."

New York Attorney General threatens Facebook with consumer fraud charge… 

The social networking Web site Facebook has been warned that it could face a consumer fraud charge for failing to live up to claims that youngsters there are safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responds to concerns, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. Read More "We expect an immediate correction eliminating the dangers exposed by our investigation," said the spokesman, Jeffrey Lerner.

Cuomo announced last week that he had subpoenaed Facebook after he said the company did not respond to "many" complaints by investigators who were solicited for sex while posing as 12- to 14-year-olds on the site.  Officials from Cuomo's office discussed the issue with Facebook by phone and fax Friday after they said Facebook took three days to answer calls and e-mails from state investigators.

An official in Cuomo's office said he and others are scheduled to meet with Facebook representatives this week and anticipate changes will follow immediately.  "We said, `You have got to make accurate representations on your Web site," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because court filings haven't yet been made.  "What we told them is, `Correct the language describing the site and stop marketing yourself as this pristine Web site ... parents have a misimpression.  You can't mislead people."

Meanwhile, users of six popular Internet social networking sites will soon see a new icon.  http://abcnews.go.com/ It was developed with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office to allow users to quickly report sexual predators and other abuses.

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram announced the safety partnership Thursday, saying she hopes it would spark a new national standard in reporting online threats.  The effort came after the recent discovery that 29,000 sexual predators had accounts with MySpace.com.

The icon will be featured on myYearbook.com, BlackPlanet.com, MiGente.com, AsianAve.com, Faithbase.com and GLEE.com.  Milgram is inviting MySpace and Facebook to support the initiative.

Virginia has gone one step further, and put a prosecutor in the classroom to explain the dangers of social networking sites directly to middle schoolers. Read More So many kids today are so computer savvy that Virginia now requires every public school student get lessons in online safety, starting in kindergarten.  It's the first state law of its kind.  "We realize that it's a public safety issue, because we see the increase in Internet related crimes -- dramatically in Virginia," said Bob McDonnell, Virginia Attorney General.

In other news… 

An apparent stranger to a 6-year-old found hanged in her family's garage (Read More) was charged with capital murder, authorities said, freshly jolting a community that had been told the main suspect knew the girl. Read More Pam Gray, who lives behind Hanna Mack's home, said she had seen Shaun Earl Arender walking around the neighborhood after the first-grader's September 10 death.  She said she "nearly fainted" when police announced his arrest.  Arender, 19, was already in jail on unrelated burglary and drug possession charges.  A DNA sample taken from the shirt the girl was wearing was entered into a Texas Department of Public Safety database, and it indicated Arender was a possible match, according to the arrest affidavit.

By revealing the painful story of her sexual abuse as a seven year old child, actress Teri Hatcher hopes to help other victims.  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ The story runs in the October 8th edition of Newsweek.

Prosecutors in Utah have charged three prep football players with sexually abusing three teammates. Read More The acts occurred before and after football games at East High School, according to charges filed September 19.  The defendants, all 15-year-old sophomores, are charged in juvenile court with attempted forcible sodomy and forcible sexual abuse.  "We had a student come forward and report to us one incident, which initially came in as hazing," said Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City schools spokesman.

A Wisconsin man pleaded guilty to stealing more than 1,500 pairs of girls' shoes from area schools in a deal that calls for prosecutors to recommend probation.  http://abcnews.go.com/ Erik D. Heinrich, 26, of Kenosha pleaded guilty to three counts of burglary and was scheduled for sentencing October 23.  He told police he did it for sexual gratification.

Five Pennsylvania high school students were arrested after threats of violence shut down their school district for most of the week, police said http://abcnews.go.com/ The 15- and 16-year-old students were charged with terroristic threats and creating a risk of catastrophe, police said.  They were being held at a detention center and are due at a hearing Friday in Towanda, officials said.  Meanwhile, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a teenager who authorities say planned with his friends to get revenge on people who picked on them was convicted of plotting a Columbine-style massacre at Marshfield High School.  Tobin Kerns, 19, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and threatening to use deadly weapons.  He was one of four youths charged in 2004 with planning to kill students and school officials.

Daniel Barron, 56, was arrested and charged with solicitation to commit sexual battery on a child under the age of 12. Read More Police said Barron, a CBS sports television producer, chatted on the Internet with an undercover detective who was posing as a father willing to let Barron have sex with his 11-year-old daughter as well as sleep nude with her in exchange for tickets to the Miami Dolphins football game Sunday.  According to a police report, after his arrest, Barron admitted to also using his CBS-owned computer to download and exchange child porn.  He told police his computer could be found in a TV production truck located at Miami Dolphins Stadium, authorities said.

Florida's sex predator penalties became among the nation's toughest Monday as a new law took effect tripling maximum sentences to 15 years for solicitation and child pornography.  Read More It also makes Florida the first state to specifically criminalize trips to meet minors for sex -- regardless of whether a child is actually contacted -- and requires offenders to register e-mail and instant message handles with authorities.  That information will be shared with social networking sites like Myspace.com.

*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"