The Child Protection eNewsletter

Florida DCF spokesman arrested on child porn and lewd act charges...

A top employee in the Florida Department of Children & Families was arrested Friday on child pornography charges, involving at least one child who is in or has been in DCF care, agency officials said. Read More

Al Zimmerman, 40, the agency's press secretary and an employee since 2005, was charged with eight counts of using a child in a sexual performance, a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years per count, according to a joint statement issued by state and local law enforcement officials.

Zimmerman, a former television reporter, turned himself in to police in Lakeland, said DCF officials, who added that Zimmerman was immediately fired. Authorities planned to book him into the Hillsborough County Jail because Tampa police helped conduct the investigation along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the CyberCrime Unit of the state Attorney General's office.

Investigators determined that at least two victims between the ages of 16 and 17 were solicited by Zimmerman to perform lewd acts, which Zimmerman used to create child pornography, police said.

DCF's communications director Eric Geraghty -- Zimmerman's boss -- said one of the two children had been within the agency's care.

''We can confirm that at least one child was from within the foster care system,'' she said.

Senior DCF staff was briefed about the investigation, said George Sheldon, the agency's deputy secretary and a longtime confidant of DCF chief Bob Butterworth. At 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. Friday, others in the administration were alerted via e-mail, and told that Zimmerman was being fired immediately.

''I can assure you I will not tolerate the integrity of this department being compromised by the actions of one individual,'' Butterworth told The Miami Herald. "Mr. Zimmerman has been terminated.''

The allegations were as untimely as they were lurid.

Butterworth and his staff have been making headway at reforming an agency whose problems, over decades, have come to be viewed as all but intractable. Lawmakers had noticed some of the progress. But DCF is facing serious challenges as the Legislature begins to formulate a spending plan with shrinking revenues.

''We are shocked,'' Butterworth said. "We really feel as if he has betrayed us.''

Zimmerman had an accomplished career as a television newsman before moving into public relations a few years ago, working for a television station in Texas and Bay News 9 in Tampa Bay before accepting a spokesman position with DCF in Wildwood. When the DCF press secretary position became vacant a year or so later, Zimmerman went to work in Tallahassee, earning an annual salary of $75,000.

At a staff meeting of regional administrators and other top managers Friday afternoon, news of the arrest left employees stunned, Sheldon said. ''There was silence; no one asked questions,'' Sheldon said.

In other news…

A convicted sex offender arrested this week in Massachusetts on charges of raping a 6-year-old boy in the public library had been released from prison a year ago, despite the strenuous objections of the district attorney and three psychologists who argued that he posed a serious threat to children. Read More Superior Court Judge Richard Moses denied the prosecutor's motion to keep Corey Saunders in custody indefinitely, arguing that he had a low IQ and had suffered physical and sexual abuse as a child. The judge said Saunders, who was sentenced to four years for the attempted rape of a 7-year-old boy in 1999, had not committed any major sexual offense while he was in prison. Moses released Saunders, ruling that he was not dangerous. Later, Saunders was classified as a Level 3 sex offender, the most dangerous category considered likely to reoffend. Level 3 offenders are required to register with local police, and their photos are posted on a state website.

An American Indian tribe has closed the child-care centers at its two casinos while authorities investigate a reported sexual assault by a child against a 3-year-old boy. Read More Tribal authorities said the suspect is a boy between 8 and 10 years old but wouldn't identify him further or discuss whether he was in custody. The police report will remain confidential at least until the investigation is finished, tribal police Sergeant Justin Churchill said. The 3-year-old was attacked January 23 inside a crawling tube in a play area at Grand Casino Mille Lacs, in the central Minnesota town of Onamia, run by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. A worker noticed bruises on the boy and had his parent paged in the casino, tribal attorney Tadd Johnson said. The next day, the parent noticed more bruising and took the boy to a doctor, who concluded a sexual assault may have happened. Criminal charges against the older boy won't be possible under state law if he is younger than 10, said Mille Lacs County prosecutor Jan Kolb, whose office would handle any resulting criminal case. She said she hadn't yet reviewed the case for possible charges.

A couple out for a wildlife walk along a Texas roadway found a dead infant lying face-down in the grass, wearing only a diaper. A car seat was found about 30 feet from the baby boy, which apparently had been thrown from a vehicle. Read More Galveston police are now hunting for the child's father, 21-year-old Travis Mullis, who was last seen with the baby about three hours before the couple made a frantic 911 call to report their discovery. The state medical examiner's office ruled that the 3-month-old had been killed by blunt force trauma to the head. The child was likely dead prior to being thrown from a vehicle, they said. "We're looking at every place [the father] could possibly be," Lieutenant Jorge Trevino, spokesman for the Galveston police, told ABC News. Trevino says that Mullis, who goes by the nickname "T.J." and recently dyed his hair blond, is likely driving a silver 2002 Hyundai Accent with Texas license plates and duct tape on the passenger-side handle.

New York sex offenders would be required to reveal their online aliases to the state under legislation that aims to protect users of MySpace, FaceBook and other Web hangouts from Internet predators. Read More The identities would then be shared with social-networking sites, according to the bill written by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office. State law already requires offenders to provide Internet screen names, but the new legislation would clarify and expand what they must supply and permit sharing with online services. That would allow the sites to screen or remove offenders and notify authorities about any illegal behavior. MySpace.com recently reached agreement with 49 state attorneys general on safety measures. (See eGuide Volume 6, Issue 4.) For more information on how to protect your child on MySpace, visit eGuide Volume 1, Issue 2.

A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens. Read More Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection. In "Lolita," a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter -- but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it.

Dean Tong, an expert on family rights and domestic violence, was arrested, accused of abusing his wife during an argument a week ago. Read More Tong, 51, of Riverview, Florida who has written books on false accusations of child abuse, was charged with tampering with a witness and battery domestic violence, according to an arrest report. Tong was arguing with his wife January 21 when he grabbed her and slammed her into the bedroom door, according to the report. She attempted to call the sheriff's office but Tong grabbed her cell phone and told her he would ruin her if she called police, the report states. She suffered bruises on her arm and leg. Tong is also a forensic trial consultant. He was accused of sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter by his ex-wife, according to his Web site. He was acquitted but it took 10 years of litigation and $120,000 to receive unsupervised visits with his children, his Web site states.

An Irish judge has been urged to seize confidential church files on child abuse which have led to a dispute between two of Ireland's leading Catholic clerics. Read More Victims of clerical sexual and physical abuse from Ireland's notorious industrial schools urged Mr. Justice Ryan to demand access to 5,000 documents relating to sexual abuse by priests and, crucially, members of the religious orders. Former inmates of the Christian Brothers-run institutions urged the judge to enter the legal row between Cardinal Desmond Connell and his successor as Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin. Archbishop Martin wants to give the files to a separate state inquiry into 147 priests who were abusing children in the Dublin diocese. But Cardinal Connell won a temporary injunction in the Dublin High Court last week to prevent the files being made public, insisting that they were privileged and protected by solicitor-client confidentiality.

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