Category Archive for : ‘INTERNET OFFENDER CASES’

A group of cyber-vigilantes has turned the tables on sexual predators who use the Internet to lure underage victims.  The operators of the Web site perverted-justice.com pose as kids on the Internet, then expose any men who attempt to engage in online sexual activity.  They pretend to be young girls or boys, and when adult men initiate inappropriate conversations with them, they bait them along, soliciting e-mail pictures and phone numbers and keeping transcripts of their entire online conversations.  Then they post the information on their Web site – transcript,

A new effort to disseminate photographs of unidentified child pornographers on television and the Internet in hopes they will be recognized was announced by the FBI yesterday.  They will also post images on it Web site and possibly through other TV and print media.  The initiative is part of the FBI’s Innocent Images program, based in the Baltimore FBI office, intended to combat sexual exploitation of children on the Internet.

The first two such suspects handled this way were identified and arrested after their photos aired recently on Fox TV’s

The US Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a federal law that makes it a crime to put on the Internet sexually explicit material that can be viewed by minors was not unconstitutional just because it relied on community standards.

(Washington)

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a federal pornography law that makes it a crime to have computer-generated pictures that look like real children engaged in sexual acts, ruling the law violates free-speech rights.

(Washington)

Times Herald-Record/Paul Brooks

Donald E. Wilhelm, a 45 year old umpire and coach in the Ellenville Little League for 20 years,has been charged with receiving child pornography over the Internet. He downloaded computer imagesof minors in sexually explicit conduct onto his home computer and computer disks. The images werecollected from various Internet sites between August 1999 and January 4, 2002. He was arraigned andreleased on $10,000 bond.

According to Newsday, when experts speak of making the Internet safe for youngsters, they are often warning parents about the usual suspect: the adult male pedophile who lurks in chat rooms and lures children into meeting offline.  A new federally funded study finds the threat is real.  Your child stand a nearly one in five chance of being approached for cybersex, but the culprit will likely turn out to be one that hasn’t gotten much media attention: another young person.  The study, Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation’s Youth