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Family: Pedophile Cousin Took Haleigh Cummings...

The family of a little Florida girl who apparently vanished while she was sleeping is afraid she was taken by a pedophile cousin. Fox News story here

The mother and paternal grandmother of 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings said the man in question is a cousin of Misty Croslin, the teenage girlfriend of Haleigh's father, Ronald Cummings.

Police are questioning the cousin, who is from Tennessee and was visiting when Haleigh disappeared before dawn February 10, according to MyFOXOrlando.com.

"What we've been told is that he's a sexual pedophile," said Haleigh's mother Crystal Sheffield. The child's grandmother, Teresa Neves, said Croslin described him as a "jerk" and she was worried.

"I couldn't tell you anything about him," a distraught Neves told reporters Friday, adding that she only knew of the cousin by his first name Joe. "I can't tell you how they could have taken her from a family that absolutely adores her."

The family's plea for the child's return came as news emerged about a tip from Tennessee called in by a woman claiming to have seen a man in a restaurant with a little girl resembling Haleigh, according to MyFOXOrlando.com.

Authorities have been investigating a tip that casts doubt on a story told by Croslin that she was home when she discovered the child missing. The source said she wasn't in the trailer when Haleigh vanished last Tuesday. Investigators say they're looking into the report.

They're also studying inconsistencies in descriptions of what the girl was last seen wearing. Croslin told them Haleigh had a pink shirt on the night she vanished, but police said this week they have that item of clothing in their possession.

The girlfriend has also reportedly told different stories to cops and the media about the timing of her discovery that Haleigh was gone and where she and the child were that night.

Cummings and Croslin have both taken lie detector tests. They told FOX News they "passed" the polygraphs. Police haven't released the results.

Meanwhile, in a contentious, exclusive interview outside his Florida home, Ronald Cummings, the father of missing 5-year-old Haleigh Cummings, blasted new abuse allegations and told FOX News "never, ever have I ever hit my child." Fox News story here

"Me and my child have an agreement. Daddy, daughter. She has been spanked on her behind the way DCF (Florida Department of Children and Families) says that you can take care of disciplining your children," Cummings told FOX News' Geraldo Rivera. A complete transcript of the interview is available online at Fox News story here.

For more on this story see vol7_iss11 and vol7_iss12.

Feds seek John Doe #17...

A federal grand jury in Maryland has indicted a man known only as "John Doe #17" on child pornography charges, and the Justice Department has released photos of the suspect in an attempt to identify him. ABC News story here

The indictment charges that on or about May 5, 2007, "John Doe #17," described as "a white male, approximately 210-250 pounds, with curly brown hair" and appearing in images accompanying the documents, "did knowingly transport and ship in interstate and foreign commerce, specifically by means of a computer, child pornography."

The indictment, announced today, refers to a video file named "DV Out Tear - 02[177432]," which "contain[s] visual depictions of a pre-pubescent female posed nude and exposing her genitalia."

"We are confident if a relative or friend sees this picture of 'John Doe #17,' they may recognize him, and we're hoping the local police will contact federal authorities, then we'll be able to prosecute" the suspect, said U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein.

The Justice Department said the case stemmed from the investigation into a global child porn operation. A user of the service uploaded "two videos of a perpetrator, John Doe #17, engaged in the sexual exploitation of a pre-pubescent female," a department statement said.

In other news...

The FBI has rescued more than 45 suspected teenage prostitutes, some as young as 13, in a nationwide sweep to remove kids from the illegal sex trade and punish their accused pimps. FindLaw news story here Over a three-night initiative called Operation Cross Country, federal agents working with local law enforcement also arrested more than 50 alleged pimps, according to preliminary bureau data. The teenage prostitutes found in the investigation ranged in age from 13 to 17. Historically, federal authorities rarely play a role in anti-prostitution crackdowns, but the FBI is becoming more involved as it tries to rescue children caught up in the business. "The goal is to recover kids. We consider them the child victims of prostitution," said FBI Deputy Assistant Director Daniel Roberts. "Unfortunately, the vast majority of these kids are what they term 'throwaway kids,' with no family support, no friends. They're kids that nobody wants, they're loners. Many are runaways," Roberts said. The weekend's roundup marked the third such Operation Cross Country, and is part of a broader federal program launched in 2003 to crack down on the sexual exploitation of children. More information, including a list of FBI offices that participated in the crackdown, is available online at FBI press release here.

A 15-year-old girl from central Pennsylvania faces child pornography charges after police say she sent nude pictures of herself over the Internet. CBS News story here Clearfield County District Attorney William Shaw says the girl has been charged as a juvenile with possessing, distributing and creating child pornography. The girl is living with her mother. Authorities say the girl sent the pictures after communicating in June 2007 with a 27-year-old man over the MySpace networking Web site. The practice has been called "sexting" for the prevalence of teens to transmit images via a cell phone. Shaw says the man has also been charged with unlawful sexual activity. State police found the images on the man's computer. For more on cell phone safety see eGuide/vol1_iss44.

A man pleaded guilty to seven sex-related charges for molesting children as young as an infant at a small day care business his wife operated out of their home. AP News story here William Huck, 62, entered the plea Friday to seven charges, softly detailing his crimes in court. He had been scheduled for trial next month but agreed to plead guilty instead. The victims included five boys and two girls, ranging in age from an infant to a 5-year-old between 1998 and 2007, but authorities have said Huck admitted to molesting up to 40 children over the past three decades. Huck could be sentenced to life in prison as a sexual predator. His sentencing is set for April 17. The victims attended the day care operated by his wife at the family's home in Ste. Genevieve, a historic French settlement about 50 miles south of St. Louis. The business did not require a license because of the small number of children there at any particular time.

Republican politicians called for a sweeping new federal law that would require all Internet providers and operators of millions of Wi-Fi access points-even hotels, local coffee shops and home users-to keep records about users for two years to aid police investigations. CBS News story here The legislation echoes a measure proposed by one of their Democratic colleagues three years ago. "While the Internet has generated many positive changes in the way we communicate and do business, its limitless nature offers anonymity that has opened the door to criminals looking to harm innocent children," U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said at a press conference. "Keeping our children safe requires cooperation on the local, state, federal, and family level." Joining Cornyn was Texas Representative Lamar Smith, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who said such a measure would let "law enforcement stay ahead of the criminals." Two bills have been introduced so far-S.436 in the Senate and H.R.1076 in the House. Each of the companion bills is titled "Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act," or Internet Safety Act. Each contains the same language: "A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user."

Facebook has removed more than 5,500 convicted sex offenders from its social networking Web site since May, Connecticut's attorney general said. Fox News story here Richard Blumenthal said the world's largest social networking site, which claims to have more than 175 million active members, reported to his office that 5,585 convicted sex offenders were found on the Web site and removed between May 1, 2008, and January 31, 2009. "The message in this number is Facebook has an equal stake in solving this problem of protecting children," said Blumenthal, who along with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has led an effort remove sex offenders from the social networking Web sites. Earlier this month MySpace announced the removal of 90,000 sex offenders from its website. vol7_iss9 MSNBC has an article on Facebook safety at MSNBC story here. For more on protecting children on social networking sites, see eGuide.org/vol2_iss2. Also, a British neuroscientist has warned social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users. The Daily Mail news story here Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centered.

A 9-year-old Arizona boy accused of shooting his father and another man to death pleaded guilty Thursday to a single count of negligent homicide. Fox News story here Two premeditated murder charges for the deaths of the father and the other man, who rented a room in the family's home, were dropped as part of the plea deal. The boy entered the plea before Apache County Superior Court Judge Michael Roca in St. Johns, sparing the rural community of about 4,000 from what would have been an emotional trial. The plea deal prevents the boy from serving any time in the state juvenile corrections system, but Roca still could sentence him to time in a county facility. For more on this story see vol6_iss72. Meanwhile, an 11-year-old Pennsylvania boy who shot his father's pregnant girlfriend with a gun he received as a Christmas present will be charged as an adult. MSNBC News story here

Hundreds of pages of newly released evidence from prosecutors in the investigation into the murder of Florida toddler Caylee Anthony contribute to a growing body of circumstantial evidence against the child's mother, but reports on a key detail against Casey Anthony are being vigorously challenged by representatives of the jailed mom. ABC News story here Anthony's representatives insisted that a seemingly damning diary entry prosecutors allege she penned was written before the child was even born-not in 2008, as has been reported. Calls to the prosecutor's office were not immediately returned. In a diary passage entered into the case file and released this week, Caylee's mother wrote that she had, "no regrets ... just a bit worried ... I just hope that the end justifies the means." A representative for Casey Anthony, Marti Mackenzie, told ABC News that the entry was written in 2003, before the Caylee was born. That entry was among 500 pages of evidence Florida prosecutors released Wednesday in the case against Casey Anthony, who is accused of killing her daughter, 2-year-old Caylee.

Maine's former top drug prosecutor pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to child pornography charges. http://www.bangornews.com/detail/99706.html James M. Cameron, 46, formerly of Hallowell, was indicted February 11 by a federal grand jury in Bangor on 16 counts of transporting, receiving and possessing child pornography between July 10, 2006, and January 26, 2008. He allegedly uploaded images of child pornography to an Internet-based Yahoo photo album using five different screen names. Cameron, according to the indictment, also transmitted digital images of child pornography using Google Hello, an Internet-based chat and file-sharing service.

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