Child Sex Abuse Video Circulating at High School 'Worst Case' of Sex Extortion

by Suzanne Spencer, WSBT 

Photo: Jhaymesisviphotography / CC BY 2.0 via MGN Online

LAPORTE, Ind. — LaPorte County officials are calling the circulation of a video that depicts sexual child abuse, one of the worst cases of "sex extortion" in the area.

Authorities said a LaPorte High School resource officer was informed on Thursday of a video depicting child sexual abuse. LaPorte County law enforcement officials said it was posted to numerous social networking sites, linked to numerous local accounts and was being viewed and distributed across the internet, including Facebook live.

Investigators sent a "robo-call" to high school parents shortly after the discovery. Law enforcement warned that anyone who possessed or distributed the video could face felony child pornography charges.

The FBI, Internet Crimes Against Children Unit and the Indiana ICAC Task Force are investigating alongside the LaPorte County Prosecutor and Sheriff's Department.

A news release said that initial investigatory efforts were to stop further distribution of the video. Now, according to the prosecutor, efforts will change toward tracing the origins of the video to a specific person.

"Investigators believe that this may possibly be one of the worst cases of 'sex-extortion' to be investigated in this area," said a release.

Sheriff John Boyd and the prosecutor said the child and their family "appear to have been victimized by a particularly heinous crime."

Law enforcement officials urged the public "to refrain from jumping to conclusions" and to "avoid the kind of speculation that can only further victimize the family and impede the investigation."

Dark Justice - ‘Pedophile Hunters’ Film Moment They Capture would-be Child Abuser

© Dark Justice / YouTube

A vigilante group of ‘pedophile hunters’ in England have filmed the moment they ensnared a would-be child abuser attempting to meet up with a fictitious 13-year-old girl he had been grooming online.

Simon Bagley, 42, was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence by Newcastle Crown Court and placed on the sex offenders’ register for five years.

Members of child safety group Dark Justice posed as Charlotte, 13, and struck up an online relationship with Bagley on social networking site hi5.

A series of text messages were then exchanged in which Bagley asked the girl, “Would you like me to be your first boyfriend?” and “Would you like [me] to take your virginity?"

When asked by those posing as Charlotte if he would be happy to be her boyfriend despite her being “only 13,” Bagley replied: “If it would be fine with you.”

He arranged to meet with her at Times Square in Newcastle and was confronted by members of the group as he dismounted his bicycle. Bagley was then quoted some of the lines he used to groom the girl in his text messages and shown screenshots of what he had sent.

Two men from Dark Justice appear to be present at the confrontation, with Bagley apparently dazed and dumbfounded in front of the camera.

One of them asks: “You’ve come to meet a 13-year-old girl for sex?" The culprit, however, can manage only the confused response of, “Why would I come on my bike?”

Two police officers then arrive on the scene and listen as members of Dark Justice repeat excerpts from his text conversations with Charlotte. Bagley, whose own lawyer labelled him “pathetic and vulnerable,” later claimed he had set up the meeting to warn the girl about the danger of online predators.

Judge Paul Sloan QC said in his sentencing of Bagley: “You wanted pictures of her in her school uniform. You went to meet the girl at Times Square and were shocked when you were confronted by members of Dark Justice.”

“You then told police that you were only there to teach Charlotte about dangers, something I simply don’t accept,” the judge told the court. "If this was more than an attempt then you would be given an immediate custodial sentence.”

Authorities Remove 5000 URLs Pointing to Child Sex Abuse Material

91 per cent of the content reported to the eSafety hotline 

removed in less than three days

Hamish Barwick 
(Computerworld) 

More than 5000 URLs pointing to websites containing child sexual abuse material were investigated by the Children’s eSafety Commissioner during the 2014/15 calendar year.

Australian law enforcement agencies and the international network of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) worked with the Commissioner to remove 91 per cent of the content reported to the eSafety hotline in less than three days.

“Each image that gets taken down means one less child is re-victimised by the image being viewed and shared”, said Children’s e-Safety Commissioner Alastair MacGibbon.

Well, more than likely it means one child will be victimised one less time. Although children or adults who have been victimised by child-porn perverts are really only victimised when they encounter or think about the images of them being molested. They are most likely completely unaware of how many times their images are seen or when they are seen. Consequently, taking down one URL will have no real effect on the victims because you can be certain that there are thousands of copies of those images still circulating among the perverts.

“As an Office, we aim to make the Internet a safe place for all Australian children, and the work of the e-Safety Hotline is contributing to this goal one image at a time,” he said.

"The removal of this content is a collaborative effort—complaints come in from the public and the e-Safety Hotline works with law enforcement and our global partner network to rapidly eradicate the images,” he added.

According to Nielsen figures, 1.7 million Australian children are using the Internet and spent 5.6 million hours accessing social media and playing online games.

Cyber safety education and engagement with the community is needed to support legislation if e-safety is to succeed, according to MacGibbon.

Speaking at the Australian Internet Governance Forum in Melbourne on Tuesday, he said that if all it is doing is taking down online content, it is playing a “whack a mole game” that it is going to lose. Precisely my thought.

 “My view is that education and engagement with the community is at the forefront. The success of any legislation needs to be well supported by outreach efforts,” said MacGibbon.

In September, the Office supported National Child Protection Week with a series of events for teachers and primary aged students including digital rights and wrongs, secret security business and communicating online.

The Office was established under the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015. Under the new arrangements, social media companies remain the first port of call for children who want cyberbullying material taken down. If the material is not removed within 48 hours, they can come to the Office to complain.