In the category of - Good Grief!
Not aliens, after all? Mysterious solar observatory closure triggered by FBI child porn probe
© Danita Delimont / Global Look Press
Despite much speculation and conspiracy theories, the reason for the mysterious closure of New Mexico’s Sunspot Solar Observatory by the FBI earlier this month was an ongoing child pornography investigation, court documents show.
The secret behind the 11-day closure of the facility was finally explained in newly unsealed FBI records and its application for a search warrant. According to the court documents, the federal agents were investigating a janitor suspected of using the observatory’s WiFi network to download child pornography.
A janitor, downloading child porn, shuts down a National Observatory for 11 days! That's astonishing!
Authorities launched an investigation after a tip-off from a source within the observatory, who stumbled on a computer with images described as “not good.” After narrowing the list of suspects, the FBI discovered that a personal laptop was used to access prohibited content via the internal network.
The suspect, however, has not yet been detained or charged with anything, even though his name was mentioned on the warrant, according to KTSM.
The Sunspot Solar Observatory, located in the mountains of southern New Mexico, was abruptly shut down on September 6 without any public explanation by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, which runs the facility. The staff of the observatory, a local post office, and those who live on the site were all evacuated. While it was later explained that the facility was shut due to “security concerns,” the vague explanation and cloud of secrecy surrounding the closure led social media users to explore conspiracy theories.
Many wondered if scientists at the astronomical observatory, designed for the study of the Sun, could have found signs of alien life. Others thought that the scientists might have discovered an imminent lethal solar flare. Some even suspected the state of a government cover-up, recalling how the Pentagon finally admitted last year to running a long-secret UFO investigation program, which allegedly ended in 2012.
Utah police officer arrested for child sex abuse
Joe Nelson
ST. GEORGE, Utah (FOX5) - A Mesquite police officer faces charges of sexual abuse and exploitation of a minor after an investigation by St. George, Utah police.
Police said Gary Erickson of Bunkerville "participated in sexual activity" with a boy and exchanged "sexually explicit" photos.
Erickson was arrested on Sept. 12 in Las Vegas as a fugitive. He is charged with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, one count of dealing harmful material to a minor and one count of sexual abuse of a minor, St. George Police said.
Mesquite Police said Erickson was investigated internally and was put on administrative leave. On Wednesday, the Mesquite Police Department said its investigation was complete and Erickson was fired, and is no longer employed by the city.
St. George Police said in Aug., the department was that Erickson and a boy had been communication on social media for several months and had "participated in consensual sexual activities" in St. George.
"Due to the age difference of the suspect and the juvenile; sexual activity between them, even if it is consensual, is unlawful. Any exchange of sexually graphic images is also unlawful," police said.
Police said Wednesday the investigation is active.
Search warrant performed in case of Texas priest
accused of molesting teens
By Marla Carter
SPLENDORA, Texas (KTRK) -- The Montgomery County District Attorney's Office is executing a search warrant related to the investigation of a priest accused of sexually molesting teens.
ABC13 was there last week when Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez was released from the Montgomery County Jail.
La Rosa-Lopez was a former priest at Conroe's Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
He's accused of sexually abusing two children almost 20 years ago. He's charged with four counts of indecency with a child.
Wednesday's search warrant is being executed at the Shalom Center off Morgan Drive in Splendora. The DA's office believes this is where La Rosa-Lopez received mental health treatment in the early to mid-2000s.
According to court documents, in one case, a teen reported abuse after it occurred in 2000.
The victim discovered in 2010 that Lopez had been promoted within the church. She later expressed her concern to Sister Maureen O'Connell and Cardinal DiNardo. The archdiocese says it then reported the incident to CPS.
"Yes, you should call CPS as required. I always wonder why people don't call the police when they believe a child has been sexually abused. It blows my mind that we even have to have that conversation," said Tyler Dunman, assistant district attorney of Montgomery County.
Sister O'Connell has a 13-year relationship with law enforcement, according to the archdiocese website.
She is quoted on the website saying, "As a social worker, I worked primarily with children and families where physical and sexual abuse was the presenting problem."
Yet, there's nothing stating that police were notified after the abuse came to light in the early 2000s.
Texas man sentenced to 45 years for indecency,
sexual abuse of a child
Kelsey Samuels, ksamuels@starlocalmedia.com
A Collin County jury convicted Augusto Carrera, 45, of McKinney, on eight counts of continuous sexual abuse of a child, indecency with a child and sexual assault of a child. Judge John Roach Jr. sentenced Carrera to 45 years in prison without parole.
Following the conviction, District Attorney Greg Willis said, “This predator will never violate another child again because this courageous teenager spoke out.”
McKinney Police discovered Carrera was routinely sexually assaulting a 14-year-old victim for two years. The victim reportedly has a learning disability. One of the victim’s relatives reported the abuse to local police after finding the victim in a “frantic state” after Carrera abused her in a bathroom.
During the investigation, McKinney PD detectives Jason Pruett and Officer Robert Ensor interviewed Carrera where he said the victim tells the truth and does not lie.
Eli Molina with the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County forensically interviewed the victim who disclosed details about the abuse, how it progressed over the years, and the victim didn’t say anything about the abuse because Carrera told her, “No one will ever believe you.”
The jury returned eight guilty verdicts against Carrera. By law, a sentence for continuous sexual abuse of a child is without eligibility for parole.
Following Judge Roach’s conviction, the victim read her impact statement in court. Assistant Criminal District Attorneys Peter Ganyard and Brandon Wonnacott prosecuted the case, aided by District Attorney Investigator Greg Bowers, Legal Secretary Erin Fontenot, Victim Assistance Coordinator Susanne Riggs and Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County Family Advocates Jennifer Pineda and Myrna Mason.
Iowa man sentenced to 50 years for
sexual exploitation and child porn
He must pay over $32,000 in victim restitution
CEDAR RAPIDS — A Tipton man was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for sexually exploiting a child and distributing and possessing child pornography.
Christian Hansen, 40, was convicted by a jury in March in U.S. District Court of one count of sexual exploitation of a child, one count of sexually exploiting a child while being required to register as a sex offender, one count of distribution of child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography, and five counts of possession of child pornography.
U.S. District Chief Judge Leonard Strand said, based on the number of charges and enhancements, Hansen’s advisory sentencing guideline would have been 240 years. None of the charges carry a life penalty, Strand said, so he found that sentencing would have been excessive.
Strand said Hansen traded two photos of his infant relative with others on the internet to receive child pornography but there was never any accusations of Hansen committing any “hands-on” sexual abuse with that child or any other.
Strand said Hansen’s previous conviction for child pornography in 2011 was an aggravating factor.
Evidence during the trial showed that Hansen took explicit photos of a infant and emailed the photos to others over the internet in July. Hansen also traded child pornography with others and possessed child pornography on multiple electronic devices.
At the time of these offenses, Hansen was required to register as a sex offender based on his 2011 Nebraska convictions for three counts of possession of child pornography.
Hansen, during sentencing, apologized to his family, who attended Wednesday’s hearing, for having to go through the trial with him.
Strand also ordered Hansen to pay $24,560 in restitution for the infant and $8,000 for victims in a known child pornography series.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Tremmel and investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Tipton Police Department, and the Cedar Rapids Police Department.
This case was part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Kansas killer-turned-babysitter admits to sex with child;
blames it on child
cswaim@wichitaeagle.com
Clifford Eugene Cox, a convicted killer once sentenced to life in prison, told investigators that he had sex with a girl he was baby-sitting, but he said the 8-year-old girl took advantage of him, an affidavit says.
Cox, 56, pleaded guilty in 1984 to strangling Cathryn Kessinger, 23, of Winfield, with a rope. He was sentenced to life but was let out of prison on parole in 2006, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records.
In August, he was arrested and charged with child rape, criminal sodomy and aggravated indecencies with a child, Sedgwick County Court records show. The alleged crimes happened in Wichita for two years while he baby-sat a girl, from the time she was 6 to when she was 8.
The probable cause affidavit in Cox’s case, which was made public Tuesday and provides the police department’s reasoning for arresting him, provides new information about the severity and frequency of the alleged sexual abuse and how embarrassment kept it from being reported. It also says on the day he was arrested he admitted to some of the alleged crimes to a KBI investigator.
On Aug. 3, a Wichita police detective with the Exploited and Missing Child Unit questioned Cox. He told the detective that he babysat the girl and her siblings for two or three years on weekends and during the week when they were out of school and that he would take the girl into his bedroom to have private talks, but never did anything sexual with her. He said he accidentally touched her genitals once on the outside of her clothes while they were wrestling, but it wasn’t intentional.
He told the Wichita detective that the girl was “flirtatious with him and the other boys in the home so he would take her to the bedroom to talk about her behavior so she didn’t get embarrassed,” according to the affidavit.
But a couple weeks later, on the day Cox was arrested, he told a KBI investigator a different story.
When he was wrestling with the kids, his reached in the girl’s pants while he was picking her up and he fondled her, he said.
Cox told the investigator that the 8-year-old girl “is sexually aggressive and took advantage of him.” He said that happened four different times, and that at least once he had sex with her.
The girl told investigators a different story.
She said that shortly after Cox began baby-sitting her, he began doing sexual things to her. He would take her into his bedroom and shut the door. Once inside, he would make her undress and get on the bed.
When Cox would lead her by the hand to his bedroom, where they would stay for about an hour at a time, the other kids would be in the living room watching TV or outside playing, her brother told investigators.
Her brother, who was also being baby-sat by Cox, would go to the door and try to hear what was going on inside the bedroom, but he said the TV in the bedroom was always on so he couldn’t hear anything.
During the two years that Cox watched the girl, she told police that he performed sexual acts with her every time she was at his house, from the time she was 6 years old until she stopped going to his house in June.
How it started
After the girl didn’t have to see Cox anymore she told someone what had happened.
The girl’s mother told investigators that she met Cox through an acquaintance at work. She started leaving them with Cox when she went to work. The mother would leave them with Cox every other weekend from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. during the school year and every other week during the summer starting in 2016, according to the affidavit.
The mother quit leaving her kids with Cox on June 13 because she could no longer afford to pay him, she told an investigator.
That’s about the time when the girl told her brother that Cox “had been a pervert to her.” The boy told their mother his sister had something to tell her. The girl disclosed the sexual abuse to her mother.
She told her mother that she didn’t tell anyone for two years because she was embarrassed, the mother told investigators.
The mother did not tell the girl’s father, who had primary custody. He found out through a Facebook message from the children’s maternal aunt, he said in a previous interview with The Eagle.
The aunt said the girl’s mother didn’t report the crime to police because she was “afraid she would be in trouble for sending the kids to him (Cox) for child care,” according to the affidavit.
That would seem to indicate that the mother knew Cox was a convicted murderer. Astonishing! Even if she didn't, she should never have sent her children to a male babysitter; it's just not worth the risk. More often than not, there is something wrong with a grown man who wants to look after someone else's children all day.
On July 1, the father reported that his daughter had been sexually abused by her former babysitter.
The father said in August that he doesn’t want people to blame the girl’s mother, and he said he does not hold it against her. He said they did not know about Cox’s criminal past because he gave them a fake name.
Not sure I believe that; but I hope it's true.
“She feels completely betrayed, ashamed and guilty,” he said. “She thought she knew (Cox’s) family and she feels more guilty than anyone. She didn’t know his real name either.”
Cox’s next court appearance is a criminal preliminary hearing on Oct. 4.
Arkansas Man Gets 40 Years For Sexually Abusing
a Little Girl for 7 Years
BY 5NEWS
BENTONVILLE (KFSM) — A Rogers man was sentenced Monday (Sept. 17) to 40 years in prison for abusing an 11-year-old girl.
Christopher Eugene Ennis, 40, pleaded guilty in Benton County Circuit Court to sexual assault and several drug charges, including possession of methamphetamine with purpose to deliver.
The girl told investigators Ennis had been abusing her since she was 4, according to court documents.
She said Ennis also forced her to watch pornography with him and expected sexual favors in return for downloading music and games to her phone.
Ennis will serve a 10-year suspended sentence after he’s released from the state Department of Correction.
He’ll also have to register as a sex offender and pay nearly $2,000 in court fees.
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