By Dee Henry, The Hickory Daily Record (online). May 20, 2008

HICKORY, North Carolina - Every law enforcement officer has a sore spot. For some it’s abusive husbands or people who take advantage of the elderly.

For State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Christopher Haas, it’s Internet predators, and his work with the North Carolina Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force gets personal.

“I have 6-year-old and 12-year-old daughters, so it certainly brings it home,” said Haas, 43. “When I talk to parents, I’m one of them. I’m having to learn as I go just like they do.”

Haas, along with Special Agents James Lewis and Alexis Carpinteri of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in North Miami Beach, were recognized earlier this month by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Fraternal Order of Police and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for shutting down a child pornography ring.

Kenneth Rich, the ringleader of the child pornography ring, was sentenced to jail time this month as Haas, Lewis and Carpinteri were receiving their award.

The three were guests of honor at the 13th Congressional Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on May 7. They received plaques commemorating their recognition afterward by John Walsh, co-founder of NCMEC and host of “America’s Most Wanted,” at the NCMEC headquarters in Arlington, Va.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who has been proactive in the fight against crimes against children, praised Haas and the task force for their continuous effort to find and arrest Internet predators.

“Our agents are dedicated to protecting children and I’m proud of the work they’re doing to make our communities safer,” Cooper said. “This award is well deserved.”

The child pornography ring at the center of the investigation used the Internet to share Web casts of children as young as 5 years old being sexually abused.

Haas began his side of the sting by chatting with Rich in what he calls an “incest chat room.” Officers with the Hickory Police Department, who, like Haas, are on the North Carolina Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, helped Haas. Lewis and Carpinteri were the links on the Miami end.

“Rich distributed numerous movies and images of child pornography to me and also displayed his 5-year-old daughter on Web cam,” Haas said. “Literally, within a day, I flew down and a search warrant was issued on his residence.”

From the first communication with Rich, the sting progressed like dominoes falling, police said. Rich told agents about a father in Texas whom he had watched molest his two daughters over a Web cam, which led to that man’s arrest. That man, in turn, gave up two more people involved in the ring of abusive fathers.

In total, the FBI has saved 12 children who were victims of the pornography ring.

Haas is one of 10 law enforcement officials on the state’s ICAC. ICAC is a nationwide network of law enforcement officials and prosecutors working to protect children from Internet predators.

Retrieved May 21, 2008 from http://www.hickoryrecord.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=HDR/MGArticle/HDR_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173355534750

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:08 PM | Permalink

Supporting the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007

Dr. Frank Kardasz, May 17, 2008

The Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007 will provide funding to fight Internet sex offenders in areas where support is desperately needed.  Historically, the success of the DOJ, OJP, ICAC Task Force program was due in part to the abilities of personnel at the local, state and federal levels to overcome egoism, empire-building, and jealousy in order to organize and cooperate towards the common goal of apprehending deviant offenders.  Since the programs' inception, some quietly dedicated and talented people who possess steadfast resolve to protect children have done some amazing work, mostly in the shadows of cyberspace and largely unnoticed by the community. Administrators at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention played an important role in these efforts.

My thoughts about the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007 are mixed.  It represents bright hope towards progress in our difficult endeavors against clandestine cyber-sex enemies, foreign and domestic.  If implemented, the Act will seek justice for those invisible child and teen victims who are marginalized; who have no political voice and who are unrecognized by traditional community based policing efforts.  The addition of more federal agents dedicated specifically to this battle is sorely needed.  Increased funding to the local ICAC Task Forces nationwide promises to permit more personnel, training and equipment to our understaffed, under trained and under equipped colleagues.

When the US Attorneys Office created Project Safe Childhood  a couple years ago, I was pleased to see that added attention was being given to the problem of Internet crimes against children. The predictable result of the increased attention included some inter agency jockeying, bruised feelings, and political maneuvering - that happens at every level of government. After the fallout, the law enforcement soldiers in this battle will regroup and press forward.

The fine work of local, state and federal law enforcement over the past ten years has resulted in enough attention being drawn to the subject that serious consideration is finally being given to horrible cybercrimes involving children. Although our numbers and resources are still far fewer that those of the criminals, the present initiative, the Combating Child Exploitation Act (S.1738), offers our best hope to date of progressing from the stone-age to the horse-drawn-carriage age of cybercrime enforcement.

Assuming that the bill passes the house and is approved, I hope that whoever is chosen as special counsel will be a non-partisan supporter of local, state and federal efforts. The position requires a person of high character and determined resolve.  The appointee should transcend political ladder-climbing ambitions and be someone deeply rooted in law enforcement.  The appointee should remember that although the power-base will be Washington DC, some of the most effective law enforcement efforts are still being made at the state and local levels nationwide.

It is important to remember that federal law does not grant enforcement responsibility for "hands-on" contact sex offenses to federal agents unless there is some interstate nexus.  Because many cyber criminals are also contact offenders the investigations must often be worked cooperatively between federal agents and local law enforcement.  The important local, state and federal partnerships established through the DOJ OJJDP ICAC Task Force Program must continue.

I support the initiative and hope that it passes.

see also : http://kardasz.org/blog/2008/04/investigating_internet_crimes_2.html

Information about the Child Exploitation Act of 2007: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?tab=main&bill=s110-1738

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 02:47 PM | Permalink

Dr. Frank Kardasz: Misconduct, ethics violations and crimes by public officials often lead us to ask; What was he (or she) thinking?  If the violators in the story below had used some logical decision-making processes beforehand, perhaps the violations would not have occurred. 

Here is a link to a handy list of decision making process gathered from some knowledgeable sources: http://www.kardasz.org/Decision_Making_Tools.html

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Laredo, Texas - Ex-cops now reside in fed prisons 

05/12/2008 By Julian Aguilar, Laredo Morning Times (LMT online)

As Laredo waits to see who is chosen as police chief to bring integrity and unity back to the Laredo Police Department, three men responsible for LPD's recent woes find themselves hundreds of miles from the place they used to call home.Former police chief Agustin Dovalina, Sgt. Alfonso Santos and Lt. Eloy Rodriguez were each sentenced to about three years in federal prison by U.S. District Judge George P. Kazen last February.
 
The trio all pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiring to commit in a scam that saw more than $95,000 in cash wrenched from owners and operators of popular maquinita gambling establishments that were paying out more than state law permits.

The policemen took the cash in exchange for protecting the businesses from law enforcement interference.

Dovalina
Chris Adams, the public information officer for the federal detention center El Reno-FCI in Oklahoma confirmed Dovalina, 52, is currently serving his time at the medium-security facility.
The prison has an adjacent satellite camp on its premises that houses minimum-security inmates. The unit the former chief is serving his time in is not public information, however, according to Adams.

The facility is in Central Oklahoma, about 950 miles away from Laredo. According to the Bureau of Prisons Web site, Dovalina's projected date of release is November 2010. Adams said the date is contingent upon Dovalina steering clear of any trouble while serving his time.

Adams said that according to U.S. Bureau of Prisons policy, information concerning whether an inmate is assigned any work detail or other related information is not made available to the public unless written permission is granted by the inmate.

Santos
Santos, 52, is scheduled to be released from the FPC Duluth detention facility in Minnesota in September 2010, according to T.K. Rhodes, a prison spokeswoman.
The federal prison camp houses minimum-security offenders and is located on what used to be the Duluth Air Force Base near Lake Superior.

The detention center is halfway between Minneapolis and the Canadian border with the U.S. and is about 1,560 miles from Laredo.

Rodriguez
According to the Bureau of Prisons Web site, Rodriguez, 45, is serving his time in the USP Leavenworth detention facility in Leavenworth, Kan.
The facility is a medium-security prison but also has an adjacent satellite camp where minimum-security offenders are housed. Rodriguez's projected release date, according to the Web site, is December 2010. The facility is about 25 miles north of Kansas City, Kan. and 960 miles from Laredo.

Like Dovalina's release date, Santos' and Rodriguez's release dates may also be changed should the inmates run afoul of the rules of their respective facilities.

The bribery deal
Santos and Rodriguez were the first officers arrested in July 2007. The two were charged with accepting the bribes on an almost weekly basis in 2006 until November of that year when the transactions abruptly ended. Linh "Larry" Tuan Do, the former owner of the popular Entertainment World who initially did business with Rodriguez and later Santos, began cooperating with federal authorities and provided the evidence that led to the cops' arrests.
Rodriguez was also charged with multiple counts of cocaine possession but he and Santos agreed to cooperate with authorities and all charges, with the exception of conspiracy to commit extortion, were dropped.

The indictment also mentioned an unnamed co-conspirator that many assumed to be Dovalina because of his close relationship with Santos.

In October, Dovalina abruptly resigned as the chief of the Laredo Police Department. Four days later, the 30-year veteran of the force walked into Judge Kazen's courtroom and pleaded guilty to the same charge.

Restoring integrity
Since the scandal, city leaders have worked in earnest not only to find a new chief, but also to help restore integrity to the force and the city.
During sentencing, Kazen openly admonished all three former cops for smearing the reputation of the entire police force, which he said, was predominantly comprised of legitimate and honest cops.

Months after the scandal broke; the popular game rooms were still operating openly throughout the city.

Crackdown
In January, however, the police department began cracking down on the gambling parlors, seizing machines and cash and making arrests of operators and owners.
Once popular establishments that used to have overflowing parking lots even before nightfall now sit empty and abandoned. Some have fading "For Lease" signs while others have been transformed into restaurants or other businesses.

While Laredoans forget that the buildings were once hotbeds for illegal gambling, city officials undoubtedly hope the memories of the scandal that made headlines statewide will also begin to fade with time.

(Julian Aguilar may be reached at 728-2557 or by e-mail at jaguilar@lmtonline.com)

Retrieved May 12, 2008 from http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19681280&BRD=2290&PAG=461&dept_id=569392&rfi=6
 

Posted by Dr. Kardasz at 07:48 PM | Permalink