Former Disney Employees Among the 17 Arrested in Florida Child Pornography Bust
Two former Disney employees have reportedly been arrested in a Florida child pornography sting.
Donald Durr Jr., 52, and Brett Kinney, 40, were both arrested after they were found in possession of child pornography. Kinney reportedly told detectives that he had an addiction to child pornography and has been viewing it for 22 years and had been searching for pornography involving boys from toddlers to 10 years old.
Durr was a custodial worker for Walt Disney World Resorts, while Kinney was a guest experience manager at Disney World who had been employed by the company for 15 years.
FBI arrests Tx. man in connection to website that traffics in child sex abuse stories
BREWSTER COUNTY, Tx. (KOSA) -- The FBI has arrested a man in Terlingua who they say owned and operated a website that trafficked in text stories about the sexual abuse of children.
Thomas Alan Arthur has been charged with importation or transportation of obscene matters, engaging in the business or selling or transferring obscene matter and obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.
According to a criminal complaint, the FBI believes that from January 2005 through November 7, 2019 Alan was the owner and operator of an unnamed website that trafficked in text stories about the sexual abuse of children.
The website charged subscribers to access more than 25,000 stories written by more than 2,200 authors. The complaint states that the website's copyright indicated that it had been active since 1996.
Subscriptions of $10 per month, $25 for three months, $50 for six months and $90 per year were advertised. Free or reduced-price subscriptions were offered for anyone who submitted stories.
FBI agents were able to access the website using credentials of a paid subscriber. All of the stories they saw reportedly involved sexual abuse of a child. The website's stories reportedly were accompanied by disclaimers stating that "they are fictional, they are frequently written in the first person and depict acts of child sex abuse that are within the realm of possibility."
The FBI was able to identify multiple subscribers to the website who had prior convictions for sex crimes against children using bank records and FBI databases. They also found usernames that were the same or similar to usernames that had appeared in unrelated FBI investigations into child pornography and child sex abuse on other internet forums or peer-to-peer networks.
On October 23 an FBI agent accessed the website and submitted a question about account access. The agent then received a reply from Thomas Arthur's IP address at his home in Terlingua. The FBI found that the address had been used in 2005 and 2006. Emails sent from the address included information that matched with Arthur's age, marriage and property.
The FBI also found that Arthur received between $10,000 and $13,000 each month between 2018 and 2019 in card sales from a company that processed credit and debit card transactions.
The FBI, DPS and Homeland Security executed a search warrant at Arthur's home on November 7. Later that day in an interview Arthur admitted to running the website in question and another and stated that they were his sole sources of income.
The complain states that Arthur acknowledged that the subscribers to the website may have drawings on their author pages depicting children engaging in sexual acts, but he claimed these images were art.
Arthur was then charged with three offenses.
Former Neb. daycare employee to appear in federal court on child porn charges
by KHGILINCOLN, Neb. — A former Nebraska daycare employee is set to appear in federal court Wednesday on child pornography charges.
"Today’s indictment is evidence of our continued resolve to find those that prey on children in our community," said Special Agent in Charge Kristi Johnson. "We appreciate our partnership with the United States Attorney’s Office, the Lincoln Police Department, and the Lancaster County Attorney in this very important investigation."
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Omaha said the charges stem from the sexual exploitation of five children between Aug. 17 and Oct. 15.
United States Attorney Joe Kelly said each of porn production offenses are punishable by a mandatory minimum term of 15 years’ and a maximum of 30 years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to $250,000, and a mandatory assessment of $50,000. After release from any imprisonment, Miller would be subject to a term of supervised release of not less than five years and up to life. Both porn distribution counts are punishable by a mandatory minimum of five years’ and a maximum of 20 years’ imprisonment, a fine not to exceed $250,000, and a term of supervised release of not less than five years and up to life.
Kelly said Miller will appear before Magistrate Judge Cheryl R. Zwart in Lincoln. A preliminary examination will not be held as the Grand Jury has found of probable cause in returning the Indictment. A finding of probable cause is not a finding of guilt and Miller is presumed innocent of these charges.
Kelly expressed his appreciation to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Lincoln Police Department for their quick actions in obtaining a criminal complaint and search warrant immediately upon receiving notification of children being placed at risk of being sexually abused.
He said the case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Miller also faces state charges in Lancaster County: two counts of first degree sexual assault of a child and two counts of third degree sexual assault of a child.
'He was tormented': Trial begins for nanny accused of sexually abusing Utah rabbi when he was a child
By Annie Knox, KSL
SALT LAKE CITY — Betrayal was the theme in a Salt Lake City courtroom Monday, where prosecutors said the former nanny for an Orthodox Jewish family dragged its eldest son into a “warped world” in which the caretaker he loved encouraged him to do things he knew were not right in secluded rooms of his childhood home.
On the first day of the trial for 70-year-old Alavina Fungaihea Florreich, prosecutors emphasized the faith’s prohibition on physical contact between the genders from about age 8 or 9. Yet they described in their opening statement how the nanny allegedly groomed and abused Avrohom (5th story on link) “Avremi” Zippel, now a Utah rabbi, over roughly a decade.
“He was tormented by what was happening,” said Donna Kelly, a deputy Salt Lake County district attorney. “The family welcomed her with open arms. They loved her. They trusted her. And Ms. Florreich betrayed that trust.”
Florreich’s defense attorneys acknowledge she made some admissions to police but said she denies further allegations. They asked nine jurors to consider whether she had sought sexual gratification at 50 years old or simply tried to appease the boy, who they said had once threatened her in order to maintain her silence about the sexual encounters.
“There was betrayal in this case, but it’s not from the source that the state is trying to tell you,” her attorney Jonathan Nish said. “Alavina is nothing more than a target, an object, something that can be used.”
Rabbi Zippel, now 28, came forward as a victim in a February article in the Deseret News, spurring greater recognition of sexual misconduct and a #MeToo movement within Orthodox Jewish communities. KSL typically does not identify victims, but he agreed to be identified, saying he believed his decision to come forward could help others who have been victimized.
He testified Tuesday that as back and foot rubs for his onetime nanny progressed to alleged inappropriate touching and Florreich allowing him to see her in just her underwear, he was “equal parts horrified and intrigued. I knew that something’s really not OK, and it felt kind of cool to have this secret thing going on with an adult who I trusted implicitly, who knew what was right and wrong for me. So I lived in that continuum between those two emotions.”
As the sexual relationship developed, the young Rabbi Zippel would sometimes seek out the encounters, Kelly noted, but she emphasized that in Utah, children under the age of 14 cannot legally consent to sex with an adult.
After he turned 14, prosecutors said Florreich’s role of special trust allowed her to groom and coerce him into further illegal sexual conduct.
The rabbi, now 28 years old, first realized he had been abused at about age 20, while watching an episode of Law and Order that featured a child sexual abuse case, Kelly said.
“For the first time, he realized, ‘Wait a minute. I wasn’t the one responsible for that.’ From there, his journey took him to where we are today,” Kelly said.
Florreich’s defense attorneys painted a different picture. They said the rabbi has wielded the #MeToo movement “to very rapidly rise to celebrity status.”
Their client, in contrast, is a former school teacher from Tonga, immigrated to Utah in 1979 where she has worked as a day care employee, nannied for several families, and has “lived a very simple life,” Nish said.
Florreich, wearing a red jacket and hairband with a purple flower, at times dabbed her eyes with a tissue Monday. She wore headphones, listening to the testimony through a Tongan interpreter.
Rabbi Benny Zippel talks to his son, Rabbi Avremi Zippel, during a break in the trial of Alavina Fungaihea Florreich, who is accused of sexually abusing Avremi Zippel when he was a child and she was his nanny, at the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2019. (Photo: Kristin Murphy, KSL)
Her accuser said Monday in court that he was 8 years old when Florreich first moved his hand to touch her inappropriately while they watched movies with his siblings in the playroom of their Salt Lake home.
The sexual encounters continued regularly, mostly in a guest bathroom, where Florreich appeared naked, encouraging the boy to take off his clothes and touching him or having him touch her, authorities say. Prosecutors say she later said she was teaching him to be a good husband.
His mother Sharonne Zippel testified Tuesday that from 1999 until her kids were old enough to forgo a nanny in 2009, Florreich watched them in the afternoons after a morning of home school lessons, largely in a basement playroom while their mother was upstairs or meeting with others in the Jewish community.
“We were very close. We loved her. She was part of the family. We had a very good relationship,” she said.
In 2016, when Rabbi Zippel sat down with her and his father, Rabbi Benny Zippel, and told them he had begun to realize Florreich had abused him for years, she said she was overcome with shock as her husband rushed to make phone calls and find a therapist.
“I just couldn’t imagine that she would have done something like that to any of my kids,” she said.
Florreich has pleaded not guilty to five criminal counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, a first-degree felony, and two counts of forcible sex abuse, a second-degree felony. The trial continues Wednesday, when Rabbi Zippel is expected to take the stand to finish his own testimony.
$5 million settlement reached in Colorado's
Adams 14 school district sex abuse case
BY ROB LOW,COMMERCE CITY, Colo. -- Adams County School District 14 has agreed to a $5 million settlement with a former student who was sexually abused by her teacher.
Gilbert Trujillo was sentenced to 25 years to life in 2017 for sexually abusing two students, though he was originally charged with molesting six girls.
The girl they represent is now 18 years old, but was a 9-year-old fourth grader at Dupont Elementary when she was molested by Trujillo.
In an exclusive interview with the Problem Solvers in 2017, the girl said, "He made me sit on his lap and he would take his penis out and he would have his fun."
The girl, who requested anonymity, also said, "Sometimes I would be crying and he wouldn't care."
The girl's father, who also requested anonymity, told Low that he and his wife made complaints to the principal and school district in 2010 but were ignored.
"We couldn't get a straight answer out of anybody. Whether we called the school board and left messages, whether we called the school itself and left messages. Tried to talk to anybody there, they refused to talk to us," he said.
The Adams 14 school district declined to answer questions about the settlement but shared a letter with FOX31 that it sent to the Adams 14 community:
Sloane told the Problem Solvers that $3.5 million of the settlement will be paid by the Colorado School District Self-Insurance Pool and the remaining $1.5 million will come straight from the Adams 14 district school budget.
Adams Co., Col
Child sex abuse images result in Hinsdale, NH, arrest
By Bob Audette, Brattleboro Reformer
HINSDALE, N.H. — A 54-year-old Hinsdale man was released on his own recognizance on Thursday after being charged with four counts of possessing images of child sexual abuse.
According to documents filed with Cheshire Superior Court in Keene, Richard L. Hunter came to the attention of law enforcement after the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received information on Nov. 28, 2018 from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Det. Erik Johnson, then with the Brattleboro Police Department, filed a subpoena for location information from Comcast on March 3, which identified a computer at 9 Prospect St. in Hinsdale that was used to download illegal images.
Once the location was identified, the case was handed off to the New Hampshire ICAC and on Aug. 1, Hinsdale Police Chief Todd Faulkner took over the investigation as part of his duties with the Cheshire County Sheriff's Office looking into allegations of crimes against children.
Faulkner applied for and received a search warrant for the Prospect Street address, which was served on Nov. 9.
Following the search, Hunter, the sole occupant of the home, was taken to the Hinsdale Police Department where he admitted he had downloaded images of child sexual abuse, according to an affidavit filed by Faulkner. During a search of computer equipment confiscated by police, Faulkner found a number of images of child sexual abuse.
"[H]e admitted the images of the children he saved were unlawful and agreed with the term 'out of bounds,'" states the affidavit.
Hunter also allegedly told another officer "that his life was over and he should go home and 'shoot himself.'" Hunter later told Faulkner that he had said that to the other officer but that "he did not mean it."
Judge sentences Turlock, Cal., man heard on phone calls speaking of child sexual abuse
BY ROSALIO AHUMADAThe Modesto Bee
A Stanislaus County judge has sentenced a 35-year-old Turlock man to 25 years and 8 months to life in prison for sexually abusing two girls, who were 8 and 9 years old when they were victimized.
A jury on Feb. 4 found Christopher Bonander guilty of five felony counts, including oral copulation of a child, committing lewd and lascivious acts upon a child younger than 14 years old and exhibiting harmful material to seduce a child. The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office announced the sentencing Monday in a Facebook post.
Bonander was arrested in July 2016 and has since been in custody awaiting prosecution. He remained at the Stanislaus County Jail Monday, awaiting transfer to a prison.
Turlock police investigators were notified of the abuse in April 2016. A police investigator obtained recorded phone conversations in which Bonander admitted to the girls’ mother that he committed the sexual abuse, according to prosecutors.
In 2014, Bonander started living with his then-girlfriend and her children. Prosecutors said the sexual abuse occurred from December 2015 through April 2016.
Bonander’s two-week trial included testimony from the victims. The jury also heard the recorded phone calls between Bonander and the mother.
Turlock police Detective Tim Redd asked the mother to call Bonander. Prosecutors said Bonander — in those recorded phone calls — admitted to her that he sexually abused one of the girls, and that he showed pornography to both girls.
Bonander testified in his trial, claiming he admitted to the sexual abuse just to appease his girlfriend, so she would agree to a reconciliation and allow him to move back in, according to prosecutors. The defendant refused to admit that he exposed himself to the girls.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Annette Rees prosecuted Bonander. Superior Court Judge Robert Westbrook sentenced Bonander on Nov. 4.
If the defendant is released on parole, Bonander will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, prosecutors have said.
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