Federal agents rounded up 29 aliens convicted of sex crimes in a sweep across Westchester County yesterday. Most of the convictions were for sex crimes against kids. The arrests occurred in Bedford Hills, Post Chester, Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, Ossining, Mount Vernon, White Plains, Yonkers, New Rochelle and Peekskill. Martin Ficke, special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York said, "We knocked on their doors at about 5 a.m. and surprised them in their beds." All the suspects are resident aliens or illegal aliens who had been sentenced to probation for sex crimes and could face deportation. The suspects ranged in age from 20 to 45 and included a man who had molested his two young nieces, a man who sodomized a 13 year old girl, a man who raped a 14 year old girl and a man who sexually abused his girlfriend's young daughter. The arrests were part of Operation Predator, a federal program aimed at protecting kids from pornographers, child-prostitution rings, Internet predators and human traffickers.
(New York)