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Search for Maddie leads to internet pedophile ring...

Spanish private detectives investigating the 2007 disappearance of a British girl from a resort in Portugal have uncovered an internet pedophile ring. news.com.au story here

Police arrested 13 suspects as a result of the investigation by investigators from the Barcelona-based Metodo-3 agency, who had been hired by Gerry and Kate McCann to trace their daughter Madeleine, El Mundo reported in its online edition.

Madeleine McCann disappeared on May 3, 2007 from their holiday apartment at the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz as they dined with friends at a nearby restaurant. She was three years old at the time.

The agency's investigators were hired six months after her disappearance. Two months into their investigation, they received an email claiming that Madeleine featured in a pedophile video posted on the Internet, El Mundo reported.

Although it turned out that she did not feature in the video, the agency tipped off Spanish police who subsequently arrested the suspects in a series of raids last month.

Spain has staged a series of operations against Internet child pornography in recent years, arresting more than 1200 people over the last five years–of whom 408 were arrested in 2008 alone.

Madeleine McCann's parents have been funding a private investigation to try to find out what happened to their daughter. The Portuguese authorities closed their probe into her disappearance in July 2008. For more on this story see vol5_iss34, vol6_iss47, vol6_iss49, and vol6_iss52.

Portland mayor admits old affair with teen he mentored...

Portland Mayor Sam Adams acknowledged that he had a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old in summer 2005 and, on the eve of his campaign for the city's highest office, lied about it and urged the young man to lie as well. oregonlive.com news story here

Adams said he made a mistake in not admitting the relationship when reporters first asked about it in September 2007. He did not describe the relationship itself as a mistake.

"I should have been honest about what happened, but I was not," he told The Oregonian from Washington, D.C., where he is attending a national mayors conference and the presidential inauguration. "I apologize."

Adams plans to issue a public apology at 1:30 p.m. today in the Rose Room at Portland City Hall, said Wade Nkrumah, the mayor's spokesman.

Adams met Beau Breedlove in April 2005. Breedlove, then 17, was an intern at the Oregon Legislature for then-Rep. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer. Adams, 42 and a city of Portland commissioner, was in Salem on a lobbying trip. They struck up a conversation, and Breedlove called Adams soon after, hoping for both professional and personal advice on coming out of the closet in the political world.

Breedlove had lunch with Adams and visited his City Hall office, and the pair went out for dinner alone at the Lotus Cardroom & Cafe in Portland. In a joking, locker-room manner, aides warned Adams that Breedlove was interested in him romantically. (Even after Breedlove had faded into memory, aides still told Adams to make sure his dates were "older than Beau.")

Adams took a date to Breedlove's 18th birthday party in June 2005 at his parents' home in Salem. Breedlove invited Adams to the family party, both men have said, because he wanted to show his family that it's possible to be gay, successful and happy.

Not long after, Breedlove moved to Hawaii and then Michigan, though he has since returned to Portland.

In fall 2007, as Adams made plans to run for mayor, rumors surfaced that he and Breedlove had a sexual relationship–and that their liaison began when Breedlove was 17. That's a crime–misdemeanor sexual abuse, contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor or sexual misconduct, depending on certain details–under Oregon law.

Adams now says that he and Breedlove dated briefly a few weeks after Breedlove turned 18. He said that he knows the law: "I wouldn't get involved with someone under 17. That's illegal. That's just wrong."

Breedlove, via text message, declined an interview request, but Willamette Week reported that in a text message he told that publication: "I can't say anything. I'm sorry. I'm scared. If the story goes to print with me saying anything, I'm worried I will look like a scumbag. If I do say anything, then Sam's fate is in my hands."

The Portland Police Bureau will not investigate based on Adams' statements that Breedlove was 18 at the time of the sexual relationship, and thus the mayor was not admitting a crime, said Officer Cathe Kent, a police spokeswoman.

In other news...

Racine, Wisconsin Mayor Gary Becker's plans to attend the inauguration have been canceled after he was charged in an Internet sex sting. AP News story here Becker had planned to attend a U.S. Conference of Mayors event in Washington over the weekend and then stay for the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. But that was before he was arrested Tuesday night at a suburban Milwaukee shopping mall. Authorities said he went there to meet what he thought was a 14-year-old girl but actually was a state agent. A criminal complaint filed against him Thursday included sexually explicit chats he had with the other person. He faces six felony charges and has been freed on $165,000 cash bond. Top city officials are planning to discuss Tuesday removing Becker from office if he does not resign.

The mother arrested following an Amber Alert in Seminole County, Florida is out of jail. News13 story here Deputies said Julinia Moreno loaned her car to her friend, Joshua Barnes, early Sunday morning in Altamonte Springs, leaving her 1-year-old son, Jamir Worgs, in the back seat. According to deputies, Barnes drove the car to a known drug house in the area, where he left the car running and the toddler inside. After Barnes left the car, deputies said David Carver, 36, jumped into the driver's seat and took off, with the child still in his car seat. Deputies said Carver dumped the boy in a front yard of a home on Cornwall Court, in Longwood, and then traded the car for drugs. Moreno appeared before a county judge Monday morning. The judge released her on her own recognizance. Her child, Jamir Worgs, will remain in the custody of Department of Children and Families. Moreno has been charged with contributing to the dependency of a minor.

A man who was sought by police in Texas after four children were burned with sulfuric acid has turned himself in, authorities said. CNN News story here Tracy Lynn Escobedo, 27, called CNN affiliate KXII-TV and asked that a crew videotape him as he turned himself in Sunday. "I would never throw acid at nobody. It was an accident," Escobedo says repeatedly on the video as he surrenders to Cooke County sheriff's deputies. "I ran because I was scared. I hurt my kids. It was an accident....I would never hurt my kids. I love them." Escobedo is charged with four counts of injury to a child, the sheriff's office said. The children involved were ages 14, 7, 4, and 18 months, authorities said. In the incident last week near Gainesville, Texas, a container of sulfuric acid ruptured in a pickup truck, police said. Cynthia Stout–a woman believed to be the mother–and three of the children were left at a cafe by Escobedo, who took the baby with him, authorities said. Escobedo then gave the baby to another woman, believed to be a relative, at a residence, authorities said.

A court may decide this coming week whether to end life support for a 6-month-old Dallas baby who has suffered severe brain damage, dozens of bone fractures and numerous scars, allegedly at the hands of his parents. AP News story here A physician noted that David Coronado Jr. had 42 skeletal injuries. His hands and feet appeared to have been pulled, twisted and crushed. His skin injuries included bruises and human bite marks, The Dallas Morning News reported in Saturday editions. A court-appointed guardian for the boy has filed a motion in Dallas County juvenile court asking that doctors at Children's Medical Center of Dallas be permitted to remove the boy from life support. The motion says the parents have not consented to withdrawing the support, but it argues that the move is in his best interests. His parents, David Cesar Coronado Sr., 23, and Ruthy Marie Chabolla, 22, were arrested December 23 on charges of injury to a child. Bail was set at $500,000 each and they remain in jail. "Both parents are responsible for long-term, extensive physical abuse to their only infant son," a Child Protective Services report alleged.

A Colorado teen has been sentenced to 36 years in prison for his role in the death of a 7-year-old girl during an apparent imitation of the "Mortal Kombat" video game. MSNBC News story here Lamar Roberts was sentenced Friday in Greeley's Weld County District Court. The 18-year-old pleaded guilty last month to knowingly or recklessly causing a death through child abuse. Prosecutors say Roberts and 17-year-old Heather Trujillo were baby-sitting Zoe Garcia on December 6, 2007. They say the two kicked, hit and slammed Trujillo's half-sister [Garcia] to the floor. Trujillo pleaded guilty in July to negligently causing death through child abuse. She must serve six years in Colorado's youth offender system.

Murder charges have been filed against a 22-year-old suburban Chicago day care worker whom police say admitted to throwing a 16-month-old boy in her care to the ground. WLS-TV News story here Benjamin Kingan’s parents had trusted the staff at the Minee Subee Day Care Center, but Wednesday afternoon, police say a teacher's assistant, 22-year-old Melissa Calusinski, became so frustrated she threw him to the ground. "She told investigators she was having issues with children in the room. The children were making noise and things like that. She just lost her temper and threw the child down," said Adam Hyde of the Lincolnshire Police Department. Police say 16-month-old Benjamin of Deerfield, at first, showed no outward signs of injury. He crawled across the room, picking up a blanket and toy along the way, before climbing into a bouncy chair and eventually losing consciousness. "The injuries are not immediately fatal. The injury to the head causes swelling and damage to the brain which takes time to cause the child to become unresponsive," said Lake County Coroner Dr. Richard Keller. An autopsy revealed the child suffered a fractured skull and bleeding near the brain.

Researchers say they found an "alarming" increase in children's ear, nose and throat infections nationwide caused by dangerous drug-resistant staph germs. MSNBC News story here Other studies have shown rising numbers of skin infections in adults and children caused by these germs, nicknamed MRSA, but this is the first nationwide report on how common they are in deeper tissue infections in the head and neck, the study authors said. These include certain ear and sinus infections, and abscesses that can form in the tonsils and throat. The study found a total of 21,009 pediatric head and neck infections caused by staph germs from 2001 through 2006. The percentage caused by hard-to-treat MRSA bacteria more than doubled during that time from almost 12 percent to 28 percent. "In most parts of the United States, there's been an alarming rise," said study author Dr. Steven Sobol, a children's head and neck specialist at Emory University. The study appears in January's Archives of Otolaryngology, released Monday. MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, can cause dangerous, life-threatening invasive infections and doctors believe inappropriate use of antibiotics has contributed to its rise.

Libraries in Queensland, Australia were forced to pull graphic books about incest from their shelves after being caught out failing to get a federal review board to classify them. news.com.au story here Self-published pornographic books by a Queensland author, describing mother-son sex and brother-sister sex, offended residents concerned about child abuse. Brisbane and Logan libraries yanked copies of Sibling Love and Bet and Zak after being alerted by The Courier-Mail. They admitted staff hadn't evaluated them thoroughly. Sibling Love featured more than 20 pornographic vignettes of brother-sister sex with the author concluding "most of them are happy relationships". Bet and Zak graphically described sex between a mother and son. The author, Charles Kevin or Charles Kovacs, a former rural journalist and speechwriter for Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, of Caboolture near Brisbane mailed 530 copies to libraries throughout Australia. Interviewed at his home yesterday, Mr Kevin, 82, was pleased with his work. "Basically there's a lot of perverted sex in them. People love them," he said.

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