The Child Protection eNewsletter

Dad finds man daughter met on MySpace in 13-year-old’s room… 

Cobb County police say an Atlanta man sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl he met on MySpace.com.  READ MORE  Police say 22-year-old Nehemiah Musa Wells was arrested after the girl's father found him hiding in her bedroom.

"The relationship progressed.  It's my understanding that the father of the 13-year-old victim came home yesterday and found the 22-year-old male hiding in her bedroom," Cassie Reece with the Cobb County Police Department told Channel 2's Ross Cavitt.

The Cobb County Sheriff's Office says Wells was charged yesterday with aggravated sexual battery, child molestation and sexual battery.  Officer Reece says Wells started the relationship with the girl on the social-networking Web site last fall.

MySpace supposedly limits membership to people over the age of 14 but investigators say there are few checks and balances built in to the system.

The arrest warrant says Wells first met the girl at her home on November 1st and engaged in sexual intercourse with the girl without her consent at the time.

"It's very important if your children have a MySpace account to monitor it.  Go in and see the photos they're putting up on the space.  See what kind of contacts their making and the messages back and forth," said Reece.

For more information on what you need to about teens and online safety in general, visit  vol1_iss1  and for safety with teens on MySpace visit  vol1_iss2

Child abuse scandal on UK Island of Jersey widens as cover-up alleged… 

The bricked-up cellar of the Haut de la Garenne children's home was being excavated last night amid fears it could be a mass grave.  READ MORE

The basement where youngsters were once held in solitary confinement as punishment may hold the bodies of six children, police believe.  Specialist teams using sniffer dogs and ground radar equipment have identified a number of suspicious sites around the cellar.

A skull and the partial remains of a child's skeleton were found under the concrete grounds of the home at the weekend following the launch of a major inquiry into abuse there over half a century.

The NSPCC (British National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) has received 63 calls from adults reporting allegations of childhood physical, sexual and emotional abuse.  Those who grew up at the care home have spoken out about the regime of fear and ritual punishments by staff.

Historical documents show that children were regularly locked in cells for 24 hours in solitary confinement and flogged until they bled.  On one occasion a boy had his finger cut off during a lashing with a sharp cane.

Police started investigating the site, which also used to be an orphanage, after tip offs.  The inquiry began in secret and was made public only in November last year.

Officers are investigating 40 suspects and are questioning care home staff.  They are also looking at several cases of missing children.

Meanwhile, a former Jersey government minister today released what he claimed was a secret report detailing child abuse allegations at a second institution on the island, as searches continued at a former children's home where human remains have been found.  READ MORE

Senator Stuart Syvret, the Health Minister until last summer, announced what he said was evidence of a "disgraceful" culture of cover-up, which saw the damning independent report, published in 2000, kept secret.

"People must not necessarily, as bad as it is, be distracted by the Haut de la Garenne story because the real issue here is we are looking at multiple examples of abuse at multiple institutions over a period of decades and decades," he said.  "It's a continuum that we see.  It's a culture of cover-up and concealment and, tragically, the recent evidence is just the latest manifestation of that."

It has emerged that notorious Jersey pedophile Edward Paisnel used to visit the Haut de la Garenne center dressed as Father Christmas to give the children toys and sweets.  Paisnel, dubbed the Beast of Jersey, was jailed for 30 years in 1971 after being convicted of 13 counts of assault, rape and sodomy.

He lived in St Martin, close to Haut de la Garenne and, after the trial, his wife Joan wrote a book claiming Paisnel used to visit the care home to take gifts to the children, who he asked to call him “Uncle Ted”.  Court reports from the time revealed that Paisnel, who died 13 years ago, avoided capture despite committing his crimes over ten years because he was a respected businessman, husband, and guardian of several foster children.

Realistic fake photos challenge child porn prosecutors… 

Each week, about 100,000 sexually explicit images of children arrive on CDs or portable disk drives at Michelle Collins' office.  READ MORE

They are sent by police and prosecutors who hope Collins and her 11 analysts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can verify that the graphic pictures are real, not computer-generated. When they can't, officials sometimes turn to outside experts.

All this is being done -- at an annual cost in the millions of dollars collectively in child-pornography cases alone -- as software like Photoshop makes it easier to fake photos and as juries become more skeptical about what they see.

Although challenges to digital photos come in all types of criminal and civil cases, they are especially pronounced in child-pornography cases because of a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a ban on computer-generated child pornography.  Defense attorneys are trying to use the ruling to introduce reasonable doubt in jurors' minds about the images' authenticity.

Prosecutors still generally prevail, but "this has certainly created an additional burden," said Thomas Kerle of the Massachusetts State Police.  "I can say that unequivocally, it has made the prosecution of these types of cases more difficult.  It takes...resources I think could be better applied to investigating" more cases.

Drew Oosterbaan, who heads the U.S. Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, said prosecutors sometimes submit only photos they can easily verify because outside experts can be expensive -- with travel, hotels and consulting fees, along with possible delays.

"This can affect the sentence the defendant gets," he said.  "Before [the 2002 ruling] we would generally charge all the images."

Oosterbaan added that although defense lawyers have the right -- and duty -- to challenge evidence, they are doing so without "any shred of evidence there are wholly computer-generated images being generally circulated and passed off as real children out there."

And many law-enforcement officials worry that the time and money needed to withstand any challenges will only grow as technology improves and makes it more difficult to tell a computer-generated image from a real one.

In other news… 

A central Illinois couple faces first-degree murder charges in the death of their 5-month-old baby, who was found unresponsive in a car seat that had been placed in a crib.  READ MORE  Both Tracey Hermann, 21, and James Sargent, 23, appeared in Peoria County Circuit Court in the death of Benjamin Sargent.  The charges state the parents' actions or lack thereof, were "brutal and heinous…indicative of wanton cruelty," factors that could mean they face up to 100 years in prison if convicted.  The 5-month-old was dropped off at his parents' house on February 4, strapped into his car seat.  Eight days later, he was found in the same position, said Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons during a bond hearing for the parents.  "He died from starvation due to neglect from these two defendants, his parents," Lyons said.  "It's the worst case of child neglect we have seen since the turn of this century."

A teen Connecticut sex offender is allowed to remain in the Simsbury school system.  READ MORE  Alexander Lubka, 15, was court-ordered to avoid unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 14.  However, due to the presence of some 13-year-old students at Simsbury High, where Lubka attends school, the court modified Lubka's probation terms.  Simsbury Superintendent Diane Ullman said the students at the school can continue on with their education.  An education, which the Simsbury school district told Eyewitness News, is mandated by Connecticut state law to be available to all students, even those classified as sex offenders.  "We have precautions in place that ensure students are safe," said Ullman.  Lubka is required to sign in and out of the school building at all times.  He is also required go to the nurse's office to use the bathroom facilities or change for gym class, Eyewitness News has learned.

Repeat Level 3 Massachusetts sex offender David Flavell made numerous phone calls in 2006 and 2007 declaring he had molested a little girl, according to a police report.  READ MORE  The Boston Herald reported the calls were made after Flavell was declared not “sexually dangerous.”  Flavell, 38, is charged with making obscene or harassing phone calls for calling the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children numerous times to say he had molested a girl, according to the report.  “It’s not only a cry for help, but a cry to be confined,” Northeastern University criminologist Jack Levin told the Herald.  “There are sex offenders who are remorseful, just not remorseful enough to not repeat their criminal behavior.”  Flavell was freed by a Superior Court judge two years ago, despite prosecutor’s objections who wanted him to be committed as a sexually dangerous person.

The parents of murdered 9-year-old Jessica Marie "Jessie" Lunsford have filed a notice to sue the Citrus County Sheriff's Office.  READ MORE  The notice alleges negligence by the sheriff's office, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Citrus County Commission during the investigation into Jessie's disappearance.  Negligence by the sheriff's office and the FDLE "directly and indirectly led to the death of Jessica Lunsford," according to the notice.  Lunsford and Angela Wright, Jessie's biological mother, said they will discuss the pending lawsuit at a press conference tentatively scheduled for Tuesday in Jacksonville.  For the history of this case, see  vol5_iss56 vol3_iss24

Greenwood County, South Carolina deputies say they have charged a bus driver with eight counts of cruelty to children after she admitted she taped their mouths shut with duct tape after they misbehaved.  READ MORE   Investigators say 35-year-old Helen Curry told them she gave the children a choice of putting on the tape or being written up for bad behavior.  Deputies say the students were mostly males and ranged in age from 5 to 12 years old.  Authorities say the students reported the incidents after Curry was fired for unrelated reasons.  School officials refused to say why Curry lost her job.

*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"