This is the second of a two-part list of men in the civil service in the US who have been convicted of child pornography or child sex abuse. It's a lengthy list but I seriously doubt that it's exhaustive.
Please get behind the push for a national inquiry into child sex abuse, it is long overdue and desperately needed.
Dr. Lori Handrahan - Twitter @LoriHandrahan2
US Department of State
• Carl Carey, a 54 year Senior Project Manager in Information Technology (IT) at the US State Department, was arrested on ten counts of child porn possession, April 2012, by the Fairfax County Police.
• Gons Nachman, a 42 year old former US diplomat “admitted taping his sexual encounters with teenage girls while stationed in Brazil and the Congo” was sentenced, August 2008, to 20 years in prison. Nachman also plead guilty to child porn possession. One of his videos was titled “Congo 2004 Sexual Adventures.” His law degree is from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was president of the Naturist Student Association and “led demonstrations involving public nudity in 1995.”
• James Cafferty, 45 year old Special Agent with the US State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, pleaded guilty, 5 January 2012, to child porn charges and was sentenced, 26 April 2012, to 7 years in federal prison. Upon his arrest he had more than 30,000 images of child sex abuse. He “had shipped computer equipment containing many of those images from London to the United States when he returned home from his last official government assignment.”
• Timothy Towell, 75 year old former US Ambassador to Paraguay, was charged with “sex crimes” against an 18 year old in 2009.
• Howard Gutman, former US Ambassador to Belgium was accused of “routinely… soliciting sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children” according to an Office Inspector General (OIG) investigation. Aurelia Fedenisn, a now former OIG investigator said her unit had found widespread evidence of “sex and drug scandals” but “were told not to look into it.” Fedenisn said “investigations into the allegations were called off by senior officials to avoid political embarrassment.”
Who in 'aristocratic' Belgium wasn't (isn't?) involved in child sex abuse? However, no evidence of any impropriety by Ambassador Gutman was ever found, and he was never charged with a crime. Ms Fedenisn obviously made it all up in her head, though she was never charged nor sued for liable.
One might get a tad suspicious if he were heavily involved in the Democratic Party, or if he were a bagman for the Democrats and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Dems elected, or if he donated more than $86,000 to Democratic candidates. Wait a minute...
Homeland Security
• Brian Doyle, Deputy Press Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, was arrested “for trying to seduce online someone he thought was a teenage girl.” Doyle was charged with 23 felony charges related to sexually graphic conversations with a person he thought was a 14 year old girl who, in reality was, an undercover detective. On 17 November 2006, Doyle was sentenced to five years in prison with ten years probation thereafter. He is a registered sex offender and was released from prison on 11 January 2015.
• 31 year old Eric Higgins, a Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agent in Michigan, plead guilty to child porn possession. Over forty images of a child previously identified by law enforcement were found on his laptop.
• Nicholas Bolden, a 40 year old Homeland Security Customs and Border Patrol agent, was sentenced for child porn possession on his government computer. Bolden had accessed a Russian child porn website while at work from his work computer. A child porn CD was also found at his workplace desk.
• Gilbert Lam, a 38 year old Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agent who worked at San Francisco airport, was charged with child porn possession and distribution. Investigators said his electronic resources were “elaborate” and included “a whole closet… independent server, several computers, several hard drives…”
• Robert Rennie, a 43 year old Homeland Security agent who worked in the National Protection and Programs Directorate, was charged with attempting to solicit sexual acts from more than seventy young girls using a fake Facebook account and pretending to be both a male student at a Virginia middle schools as well as a college student at George Mason University.
• An unnamed Homeland Security agent with Customs and Border Protection and Byungki Koo an Air Marshal were arrested for trafficking “young women” from South Korea in a sex-trafficking ring in Queens, New York.
Police Departments & Military Staff
Police officers are, of course, also government employees as are US military staff. The arrests, alone, of both state government employed police officers and federally employed military staff are stunning. These arrests are so numerous, and my record is very incomplete, that it appears trading in child sex rape and torture is almost encouraged within some police departments and military units.
As I mentioned, I have listed recent arrests of Police Arrested for Trading in Child Rape & Torture and Military Staff Trading in Child Rape & Torture in separate postings.
These lists will follow shortly as Part 3 in this series.
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
• 48 year old Scott Whitcomb, a former police officer, at the time of his arrest a Drug Enforcement Agent, was sentenced for child porn production. He had been producing and distributing sex abuse of boys under sixteen years old since 2007. Whitcomb lured boys to his house with video games and porn magazines and would turn violent if the boys didn’t submit to the sex abuse. He had been an Air Marshal and a prison guard.
• DEA agent Darren Argento was arrested for possession and distribution of child sex abuse of girls between seven and fourteen years old his work laptop.
Department of Agriculture
• James Spargo, a 66 year old employee with the Department of Agriculture in Florida, plead no contest plea to 20 felonies child porn counts and was sentenced, February 2015, to 10 years in prison. Spargo was arrested when investigators found child sex abuse images/videos on his government computer. Most of the children in the images/videos were infants and toddlers. “The activity we uncovered here was just was just horrible,” said Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson Erin Gillespie. “It was horrifying, it was disgusting, and we gathered all the evidence we could to make sure that this arrest was going to happen.”
Forest and Park Rangers
• Bobby Kelly, a 31 year old US Forest Ranger was sentenced to five years for more than two dozen child porn related charges.
• Derek Alan Lee, a 44 year old US Forest Service employee, was sentenced for child porn. Lee was sentenced with his 21 year old step-son Jeffrey McMillan. Their computers were found sending “several hundred files” of child sex abuse on the internet. Lee said he had been downloading child porn for ten years. At the time of his arrest his computer had 111 videos and 116 images of child sex abuse. He also had a collection of “incest stories.”
Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS)
• William Shaffer, a Child Protection Services (CPS) staff was arrested, July 2013, after he purchased nearly $7,000 of child rape and torture, aka child porn. According Shaffer’s criminal complaint “a 1987 police report alleged Shaffer sexually molested a boy between the ages of 8 and 9. The police report alleged the incident happened while Shaffer was a Child Protective Services employee.” Investigators also seized “sexual stories” from Shaffer’s home. “One of them describes a seventh grade boy being abducted, molested and sodomized. It is not clear if Shaffer wrote the story — but refers to Michigan State University and 16 Mile Road. Shaffer’s residence is located just south of Maple Road.”
Air Marshals
• Michael McGowan, a 41 year old Air Marshal, was convicted for molesting three young boys, age eleven to thirteen, and child porn possession. He had 1,300 videos and images, along with fake FBI and CIA badges.
• Richard Castillo, a Houston Air Marshal, was indicted for indecency with a child after his daughter’s fourteen year old friend said he sexually assaulted her during a sleepover.
• Air Marshal Byungki Koo, who was mentioned under the Homeland Security section, received four years probation for participating in the sex trafficking of young women from Korea in Queens.
Transportation Security Agency (TSA)
• 59 year old Boston TSA agent Jose Salgado, charged with possession and distribution of child porn. As of this arrest April 2012, it was reported that a total of twelve child sex crimes in the previous sixteen months had been brought against TSA agents across America.
• Michael Wilson, 41 year old Baltimore TSA agent was indicated for child porn possession including videos “depicting a prepubescent female engaged in masturbation and anal sex with an adult male.”
• Andrew Smeal, 39 year old Florida TSA agent, was charged with twenty-five counts of child porn possession. An investigator said “…the living room was loaded with electronics, storage devices, hard drives.” I couldn’t locate information on how much child porn he had or what it was depicting; however, given he was charged with twenty-five counts, one can assume he had a large amount of child sex abuse videos and images.
• Thomas Gordon, a 46 year old TSA agent in Philadelphia, was sentenced for possession and distribution of child porn. He had over 600 images and videos of child sex abuse including children as young as six years old which were described as “horrific.” He had as many as six fake Facebook accounts he was using to distribute child porn.
• TSA hired 65 year old Thomas Harkin, a former Catholic priest who had been removed from the church for the sex abuse of an eleven year old girl, among possible other victims, to work at Philadelphia airport.
• TSA Agent, 38 year old Miguel Angel Quinones, who worked at Manchester airport in New Hampshire, was indicted on twenty counts of child porn possession. He had more than 1,000 child sex abuse images and videos. He kept his child porn in his airport work locker.
Corrections and Probation Officers
• Former West Virginia Corrections Center Officer, 35 year old Joseph Roush, plead guilty to child porn possession and distribution. He had more than 500 image of child sex abuse.
• Leon Perry Brookes, a 39 year old a Corrections Officer for Jacksonville (Florida) Sheriff’s Office was arrested for child porn possession and distribution. Among others, he had child sex abuse files called “pthc- freaky latin parents and 5yr daughter.mpg” and “video-8yr orgasm and anal f___ hard ! new ! (ptch) 2007 new girl img.
• Gerald Silva, a 59 year old Rhode Island State Probation Officer, was convicted of child porn for his $1,589 USD purchase of 22 orders of child sex abuse from Azov Film’s website, spending a total of $1,589 on 75 different videos. He was caught by USPS Inspectors and Toronto Police investigation, Project Spade.
• Stuart Forrest, 62 year old Chief Probation Officer of San Mateo County, California, was sentenced for child porn possession that included the abuse of young bound boys. He had more than 400 images and videos of child sex abuse. This case was also part of Project Spade, run by the USPS and Toronto Police.
• Supervisor of Adult Probation and Parole and Sex Offender Unit in New Mexico, Larry Franco, 56 years old, was charged two counts of fourth-degree felony sexual exploitation of a minor by possession and one count of tampering with evidence. He had originally been charged with 26 new child porn counts. He was producing child porn.
• James Leone, a 50 year old Senior Parole Official in New York who supervised officers who monitored paroled sex offenders, was arrested for child porn possession. He had been downloading child sex abuse images in online searches for “preteen hard-core” including ten or twelve year old girls being sexually abused by their parents and a brother. Leone was a Child Abuse Investigator with New York City Child Welfare Bureau before he became a parole officer.
• Barry Porter Griffith, a 45 year old Parole Officer from Flint Texas, was sentenced for child porn possession after investigators noticed “significant Internet bandwidth being used by a state-owned computer to view pornography” including child sex abuse from his office computer.
• James Kriegner, a 43 year old Corrections Officer with Mercer County, New Jersey, charged with downloading more than 100 child sex abuse images.
Media Coverage of Ryan Loskarn’s Arrest
The media coverage of late Senate staffer Ryan Loskarn’s arrest for graphic and violent child porn, including the rape of a six year old girl in the woods by her father, ignored, entirely, the children in the videos. These are real children suffering real harm. Will the six year old girl raped in the woods by her father be rescued? No one asked. No one wanted to know.
The media is so disgraceful sometimes. Although, my old boss used to say, "never assume malice when stupidity is just as likely". Stupidity is definitely rampant in today's media.
John Harwood, for example, a DC reporter for CNBC and The New York Times, tweeted “Feeling so sad about Ryan Loskarn. Knew him a bit as a reporter and liked him. RIP.” I asked Harwood about the children in Loskarn’s child porn collection. Harwood’s response was “as father of daughters I’m horrified by that violent abuse. But I knew Ryan Loskarn & yes, I am sad for him & his family.” Good grief!
I responded, “I appreciate that. As the father of daughters will you focus media attention on finding the 6 yr girl in Loskarn’s video? That’s all I am asking. It’s a simple & I think appropriate request. Given #Loskarn’s final words were to the children. No?” Harwood never replied.
Child Porn as a National Security Threat
America has a child porn crisis. The disturbing number of federal and state employees arrested for child porn charges makes this a national security issue. Over the past few years, I’ve been documenting the scope of America’s child porn industry and the apparent level of involvement by America’s national security and federal employees. Forbes, The Washington Times and others have published my research. Fox News and Canadian TV (CTV) invited me for interviews. My CTV interview went mini-viral as did my Forbes article. I was the first to ask, in 2012, if White House staff might have been involved in the Colombia Secret Service scandal.
I am now researching and writing a book: Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden Security Threat. My starting premise is men, and increasingly women, are raping children, very young children, including infants and toddlers, and sharing videos, images, and live-streaming of this abuse at epidemic levels. These criminals are, by and large, getting away with it because America refuses to move beyond our denial.
We are sustaining crisis-level numbers of seemingly normal, often powerful and successful men, and some women, involved in America’s child sex abuse industry; far too many of whom are federal or state employees.
It does not matter if the perpetrator is on the demand-side, with incessant appetites for graphic child abuse to achieve sexual gratification, or the supply-side of abusing children, often their own or children of friends and relatives, and selling this abuse on-line. Both supply and demand, which often cross over, have reached epidemic proportions and no one is talking about it.
My research is intended to be a wake-up call. The problem of child sex abuse, and its cover-up, is real. A generation of American children are being destroyed. If you think this only happens to other children, and your children are safe, you are sadly mistaken. Your children might be enduring sexual abuse right now while you remain dangerously ignorant. Ryan Loskarn’s parents never knew, until they read his suicide note, that he had suffered sex abuse as a child.
America’s appetite for child porn puts all our children at risk. Your children and mine. Whether you acknowledge it or not.
Dr. Paul Farmer, a humanitarian and personal hero, has said we must find the words to talk about the most painful subjects if we hope to have any positive impact on this world of ours. This is my attempt to find those words and open a subject no one wants to discuss.
That is, that while no one was watching, America has become a child porn nation and that puts us all at risk.
###
Dr. Lori Handrahan’s forthcoming book Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk details America’s child sex abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2
Just another thought...Should child pornography users be sentenced for some small degree of complicity in the child abuse performed in the making of the porn they possess? If there was no market, there would be no kiddie porn, so those who compose the market ought to hold some responsibility for the abuse, even just 1% of the sentence deserved by the pornographer/abuser.
So someone with 10,000 images/videos would be sentenced to 1% of 10,000 CSA sentences. Just a thought. What do you think?
 |
| Dr Lori Handrahan |
Dr. Lori Handrahan - Twitter @LoriHandrahan2
US Department of State
• Carl Carey, a 54 year Senior Project Manager in Information Technology (IT) at the US State Department, was arrested on ten counts of child porn possession, April 2012, by the Fairfax County Police.
• Gons Nachman, a 42 year old former US diplomat “admitted taping his sexual encounters with teenage girls while stationed in Brazil and the Congo” was sentenced, August 2008, to 20 years in prison. Nachman also plead guilty to child porn possession. One of his videos was titled “Congo 2004 Sexual Adventures.” His law degree is from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was president of the Naturist Student Association and “led demonstrations involving public nudity in 1995.”• James Cafferty, 45 year old Special Agent with the US State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, pleaded guilty, 5 January 2012, to child porn charges and was sentenced, 26 April 2012, to 7 years in federal prison. Upon his arrest he had more than 30,000 images of child sex abuse. He “had shipped computer equipment containing many of those images from London to the United States when he returned home from his last official government assignment.”
• Timothy Towell, 75 year old former US Ambassador to Paraguay, was charged with “sex crimes” against an 18 year old in 2009.
• Howard Gutman, former US Ambassador to Belgium was accused of “routinely… soliciting sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children” according to an Office Inspector General (OIG) investigation. Aurelia Fedenisn, a now former OIG investigator said her unit had found widespread evidence of “sex and drug scandals” but “were told not to look into it.” Fedenisn said “investigations into the allegations were called off by senior officials to avoid political embarrassment.”Who in 'aristocratic' Belgium wasn't (isn't?) involved in child sex abuse? However, no evidence of any impropriety by Ambassador Gutman was ever found, and he was never charged with a crime. Ms Fedenisn obviously made it all up in her head, though she was never charged nor sued for liable.
One might get a tad suspicious if he were heavily involved in the Democratic Party, or if he were a bagman for the Democrats and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Dems elected, or if he donated more than $86,000 to Democratic candidates. Wait a minute...
Homeland Security
 |
| Brian Doyle |
• 31 year old Eric Higgins, a Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agent in Michigan, plead guilty to child porn possession. Over forty images of a child previously identified by law enforcement were found on his laptop.
• Nicholas Bolden, a 40 year old Homeland Security Customs and Border Patrol agent, was sentenced for child porn possession on his government computer. Bolden had accessed a Russian child porn website while at work from his work computer. A child porn CD was also found at his workplace desk.
• Gilbert Lam, a 38 year old Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agent who worked at San Francisco airport, was charged with child porn possession and distribution. Investigators said his electronic resources were “elaborate” and included “a whole closet… independent server, several computers, several hard drives…”
• Robert Rennie, a 43 year old Homeland Security agent who worked in the National Protection and Programs Directorate, was charged with attempting to solicit sexual acts from more than seventy young girls using a fake Facebook account and pretending to be both a male student at a Virginia middle schools as well as a college student at George Mason University.• An unnamed Homeland Security agent with Customs and Border Protection and Byungki Koo an Air Marshal were arrested for trafficking “young women” from South Korea in a sex-trafficking ring in Queens, New York.
Police Departments & Military Staff
Police officers are, of course, also government employees as are US military staff. The arrests, alone, of both state government employed police officers and federally employed military staff are stunning. These arrests are so numerous, and my record is very incomplete, that it appears trading in child sex rape and torture is almost encouraged within some police departments and military units.
As I mentioned, I have listed recent arrests of Police Arrested for Trading in Child Rape & Torture and Military Staff Trading in Child Rape & Torture in separate postings.
These lists will follow shortly as Part 3 in this series.
Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
• 48 year old Scott Whitcomb, a former police officer, at the time of his arrest a Drug Enforcement Agent, was sentenced for child porn production. He had been producing and distributing sex abuse of boys under sixteen years old since 2007. Whitcomb lured boys to his house with video games and porn magazines and would turn violent if the boys didn’t submit to the sex abuse. He had been an Air Marshal and a prison guard.• DEA agent Darren Argento was arrested for possession and distribution of child sex abuse of girls between seven and fourteen years old his work laptop.
Department of Agriculture
• James Spargo, a 66 year old employee with the Department of Agriculture in Florida, plead no contest plea to 20 felonies child porn counts and was sentenced, February 2015, to 10 years in prison. Spargo was arrested when investigators found child sex abuse images/videos on his government computer. Most of the children in the images/videos were infants and toddlers. “The activity we uncovered here was just was just horrible,” said Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson Erin Gillespie. “It was horrifying, it was disgusting, and we gathered all the evidence we could to make sure that this arrest was going to happen.”Forest and Park Rangers
• Bobby Kelly, a 31 year old US Forest Ranger was sentenced to five years for more than two dozen child porn related charges.
• Derek Alan Lee, a 44 year old US Forest Service employee, was sentenced for child porn. Lee was sentenced with his 21 year old step-son Jeffrey McMillan. Their computers were found sending “several hundred files” of child sex abuse on the internet. Lee said he had been downloading child porn for ten years. At the time of his arrest his computer had 111 videos and 116 images of child sex abuse. He also had a collection of “incest stories.”
Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS)
• William Shaffer, a Child Protection Services (CPS) staff was arrested, July 2013, after he purchased nearly $7,000 of child rape and torture, aka child porn. According Shaffer’s criminal complaint “a 1987 police report alleged Shaffer sexually molested a boy between the ages of 8 and 9. The police report alleged the incident happened while Shaffer was a Child Protective Services employee.” Investigators also seized “sexual stories” from Shaffer’s home. “One of them describes a seventh grade boy being abducted, molested and sodomized. It is not clear if Shaffer wrote the story — but refers to Michigan State University and 16 Mile Road. Shaffer’s residence is located just south of Maple Road.”Air Marshals
• Michael McGowan, a 41 year old Air Marshal, was convicted for molesting three young boys, age eleven to thirteen, and child porn possession. He had 1,300 videos and images, along with fake FBI and CIA badges.
• Richard Castillo, a Houston Air Marshal, was indicted for indecency with a child after his daughter’s fourteen year old friend said he sexually assaulted her during a sleepover.
• Air Marshal Byungki Koo, who was mentioned under the Homeland Security section, received four years probation for participating in the sex trafficking of young women from Korea in Queens.
Transportation Security Agency (TSA)
• 59 year old Boston TSA agent Jose Salgado, charged with possession and distribution of child porn. As of this arrest April 2012, it was reported that a total of twelve child sex crimes in the previous sixteen months had been brought against TSA agents across America.
• Michael Wilson, 41 year old Baltimore TSA agent was indicated for child porn possession including videos “depicting a prepubescent female engaged in masturbation and anal sex with an adult male.”
• Andrew Smeal, 39 year old Florida TSA agent, was charged with twenty-five counts of child porn possession. An investigator said “…the living room was loaded with electronics, storage devices, hard drives.” I couldn’t locate information on how much child porn he had or what it was depicting; however, given he was charged with twenty-five counts, one can assume he had a large amount of child sex abuse videos and images.
• Thomas Gordon, a 46 year old TSA agent in Philadelphia, was sentenced for possession and distribution of child porn. He had over 600 images and videos of child sex abuse including children as young as six years old which were described as “horrific.” He had as many as six fake Facebook accounts he was using to distribute child porn.• TSA hired 65 year old Thomas Harkin, a former Catholic priest who had been removed from the church for the sex abuse of an eleven year old girl, among possible other victims, to work at Philadelphia airport.
• TSA Agent, 38 year old Miguel Angel Quinones, who worked at Manchester airport in New Hampshire, was indicted on twenty counts of child porn possession. He had more than 1,000 child sex abuse images and videos. He kept his child porn in his airport work locker.
Corrections and Probation Officers
• Former West Virginia Corrections Center Officer, 35 year old Joseph Roush, plead guilty to child porn possession and distribution. He had more than 500 image of child sex abuse.
• Leon Perry Brookes, a 39 year old a Corrections Officer for Jacksonville (Florida) Sheriff’s Office was arrested for child porn possession and distribution. Among others, he had child sex abuse files called “pthc- freaky latin parents and 5yr daughter.mpg” and “video-8yr orgasm and anal f___ hard ! new ! (ptch) 2007 new girl img.
• Gerald Silva, a 59 year old Rhode Island State Probation Officer, was convicted of child porn for his $1,589 USD purchase of 22 orders of child sex abuse from Azov Film’s website, spending a total of $1,589 on 75 different videos. He was caught by USPS Inspectors and Toronto Police investigation, Project Spade.
• Stuart Forrest, 62 year old Chief Probation Officer of San Mateo County, California, was sentenced for child porn possession that included the abuse of young bound boys. He had more than 400 images and videos of child sex abuse. This case was also part of Project Spade, run by the USPS and Toronto Police.
• Supervisor of Adult Probation and Parole and Sex Offender Unit in New Mexico, Larry Franco, 56 years old, was charged two counts of fourth-degree felony sexual exploitation of a minor by possession and one count of tampering with evidence. He had originally been charged with 26 new child porn counts. He was producing child porn.
• James Leone, a 50 year old Senior Parole Official in New York who supervised officers who monitored paroled sex offenders, was arrested for child porn possession. He had been downloading child sex abuse images in online searches for “preteen hard-core” including ten or twelve year old girls being sexually abused by their parents and a brother. Leone was a Child Abuse Investigator with New York City Child Welfare Bureau before he became a parole officer.• Barry Porter Griffith, a 45 year old Parole Officer from Flint Texas, was sentenced for child porn possession after investigators noticed “significant Internet bandwidth being used by a state-owned computer to view pornography” including child sex abuse from his office computer.
• James Kriegner, a 43 year old Corrections Officer with Mercer County, New Jersey, charged with downloading more than 100 child sex abuse images.
Media Coverage of Ryan Loskarn’s Arrest
The media coverage of late Senate staffer Ryan Loskarn’s arrest for graphic and violent child porn, including the rape of a six year old girl in the woods by her father, ignored, entirely, the children in the videos. These are real children suffering real harm. Will the six year old girl raped in the woods by her father be rescued? No one asked. No one wanted to know.
The media is so disgraceful sometimes. Although, my old boss used to say, "never assume malice when stupidity is just as likely". Stupidity is definitely rampant in today's media.
John Harwood, for example, a DC reporter for CNBC and The New York Times, tweeted “Feeling so sad about Ryan Loskarn. Knew him a bit as a reporter and liked him. RIP.” I asked Harwood about the children in Loskarn’s child porn collection. Harwood’s response was “as father of daughters I’m horrified by that violent abuse. But I knew Ryan Loskarn & yes, I am sad for him & his family.” Good grief!
I responded, “I appreciate that. As the father of daughters will you focus media attention on finding the 6 yr girl in Loskarn’s video? That’s all I am asking. It’s a simple & I think appropriate request. Given #Loskarn’s final words were to the children. No?” Harwood never replied.
Child Porn as a National Security Threat
America has a child porn crisis. The disturbing number of federal and state employees arrested for child porn charges makes this a national security issue. Over the past few years, I’ve been documenting the scope of America’s child porn industry and the apparent level of involvement by America’s national security and federal employees. Forbes, The Washington Times and others have published my research. Fox News and Canadian TV (CTV) invited me for interviews. My CTV interview went mini-viral as did my Forbes article. I was the first to ask, in 2012, if White House staff might have been involved in the Colombia Secret Service scandal.
I am now researching and writing a book: Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden Security Threat. My starting premise is men, and increasingly women, are raping children, very young children, including infants and toddlers, and sharing videos, images, and live-streaming of this abuse at epidemic levels. These criminals are, by and large, getting away with it because America refuses to move beyond our denial.
We are sustaining crisis-level numbers of seemingly normal, often powerful and successful men, and some women, involved in America’s child sex abuse industry; far too many of whom are federal or state employees.
It does not matter if the perpetrator is on the demand-side, with incessant appetites for graphic child abuse to achieve sexual gratification, or the supply-side of abusing children, often their own or children of friends and relatives, and selling this abuse on-line. Both supply and demand, which often cross over, have reached epidemic proportions and no one is talking about it.
My research is intended to be a wake-up call. The problem of child sex abuse, and its cover-up, is real. A generation of American children are being destroyed. If you think this only happens to other children, and your children are safe, you are sadly mistaken. Your children might be enduring sexual abuse right now while you remain dangerously ignorant. Ryan Loskarn’s parents never knew, until they read his suicide note, that he had suffered sex abuse as a child.
America’s appetite for child porn puts all our children at risk. Your children and mine. Whether you acknowledge it or not.
Dr. Paul Farmer, a humanitarian and personal hero, has said we must find the words to talk about the most painful subjects if we hope to have any positive impact on this world of ours. This is my attempt to find those words and open a subject no one wants to discuss.
That is, that while no one was watching, America has become a child porn nation and that puts us all at risk.
###
Dr. Lori Handrahan’s forthcoming book Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk details America’s child sex abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2
Just another thought...Should child pornography users be sentenced for some small degree of complicity in the child abuse performed in the making of the porn they possess? If there was no market, there would be no kiddie porn, so those who compose the market ought to hold some responsibility for the abuse, even just 1% of the sentence deserved by the pornographer/abuser.
So someone with 10,000 images/videos would be sentenced to 1% of 10,000 CSA sentences. Just a thought. What do you think?
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