here is an article commenting about this subject.http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2003/06/29ky/wir-front-porn0630-12258.html
"Internet's lure leads to increase in arrests
Authorities target image owners, chat-room predators
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By DEBORAH YETTER
The Courier-Journal
Before he was sentenced for receiving child pornography on a computer, former Radcliff Police Chief John Farrelly pleaded for leniency.
"I am not a bad person," Farrelly, 60, said on June16 at his federal court hearing in Louisville. "I've had 40 years of public service that is virtually unblemished."
But Farrelly, also the former coordinator of the Hardin County 911 Center, was sentenced to 57 months in prison with no parole — joining an increasing number of people who have been charged or convicted in Kentucky in federal cases involving child pornography or child sexual exploitation.
Most of those cases involve computers or the Internet. All the cases have been charged under tough federal laws that apply to knowingly possessing or receiving child pornography — explicit, sexual images of children younger than 18 — or using the Internet to entice a minor into sexual activity.
Federal authorities in Kentucky and Southern Indiana said they have prosecuted more than 60 such cases over the past two years, compared with only a handful of such cases per year in the past. And they say the numbers are increasing.
"I could probably give up everything else that I do and work these cases full time," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Wohlander of the Eastern District of Kentucky.
"I think as the Internet gets easier to use, more and more people are going to it and engaging in this type of behavior," said Ray Smith, the national supervisor of child exploitation investigations for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Smith's agency — the law-enforcement arm of the postal service — has arrested about 3,800 people nationally on child pornography charges since 1984, when it began tracking arrests under the federal Child Protection Act, which was enacted that year.
The Postal Inspection Service, the FBI and the U.S. Customs Service are the lead federal law-enforcement agencies responsible for investigating child pornography and exploitation, and they often work together on such cases.
In the past two years in Kentucky, people charged or convicted include a Louisville middle-school teacher, an Army retiree, a Whitley County librarian, the mayor of Ashland and 10 men — most from out of state — who were accused of using the Internet to try to meet girls for sex.
Smith said it should not be a surprise that former police officers and others in responsible positions have been charged.
"These people come from all walks of life," he said. "Some seek occupations that will put them in contact with children. ... They gravitate toward positions of trust."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Ford, who is handling the prosecution of the 10 men charged with trying to meet girls in Louisville for sex, said she has been alarmed at the number of those cases since the FBI began an undercover operation in Louisville two years ago.
The agents who run the undercover investigations handle other cases, too. "I think if we had people devoted solely to this, we would probably have more cases than we could handle," she said.
A 2000 study sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that one out of five youths using the Internet had received a sexual solicitation over the previous year.
Ford said agents conducting the Louisville undercover operation, known as "Innocent Images" — one of a number of such operations around the country — typically enter a teen chat room posing as a 14-year-old girl.
In the 10 cases brought in Louisville, agents were contacted by men interested in sex with girls. Over a period of weeks or months, contact grew from discussion of sex to attempts by the men to arrange a meeting for sex. The men were arrested when they showed up for the meeting.
All but one have pleaded guilty to federal charges. James Chriswell, 52, of Morgantown, Ind., who was arrested Feb.18 in Louisville, has pleaded innocent and is scheduled for trial Tuesday.
Wohlander, the assistant federal prosecutor in Kentucky's Eastern District, estimated he has prosecuted 25 child pornography cases in the past year to 14 months.
The U.S. attorney's office in the Western District of Kentucky has prosecuted about 20 cases over the past two years.
In Indiana's Southern District, federal authorities prosecuted 14 people on child pornography cases last year and expect at least as many this year, said U.S. Attorney Susan Brooks.
"It is a priority of our office and we have seen a growing number of cases," Brooks said.
The cases keep law-enforcement crime labs busy. The Kentucky State Police operate an Electronic Crime unit that analyzes computers seized by local and federal agencies investigating suspected child pornography and exploitation, and the Postal Inspection Service and FBI also run their own computer forensic labs.
Recent federal cases in Kentucky include:
Army retiree Lonnie Andrews of Jessamine County was sentenced on Dec.7, 2002, to 405 years in federal prison for producing sexually explicit images of two girls, ages 7 and 12, with a digital camera and loading them onto his computer. His sentence was the toughest nationwide so far for such offenses, Wohlander said.
Federal sentences are served without possibility of parole.
Dwight Boman, 32, an Elizabeth, Ind., factory worker, was charged on Feb.14, Valentine's Day, with attempting to lure a 14-year-old girl he met in a chat room to meet him for sex in a motel room he had filled with flowers, chocolates and teddy bears. He was arrested when he came to an eastern Jefferson County restaurant to meet her.
Boman has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing.
Former Ashland Mayor Paul Reeves, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography videotapes, is to be sentenced July21. Reeves resigned as mayor last year before he was indicted.
David Meredith, 43, a Louisville middle-school teacher, was arrested May15 at his Crescent Hill apartment after allegedly accepting delivery from an undercover postal investigator of five videotapes of children engaged in explicit sexual activity. He has pleaded innocent and his trial is scheduled for Aug.4.
Federal authorities seized his home computer and images of child pornography that appeared to have been printed out from the computer, according to a search warrant.
Farrelly, who was a police chief for 23 years and 911 coordinator for the past 13 years, was convicted of one count of receiving child pornography on his computer at the 911 office. At his sentencing, Farrelly said: "I am not a child pornographer. I've never been arrested before."
But Federal authorities portrayed a darker side of the respected former chief, saying he received explicit images on his computer of adult males having sex with very young girls. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jo Lawless also introduced testimony from a woman who said Farrelly for several years had sexually abused her as a girl, although he was never charged.
Smith, the Postal Service official, said it's important to aggressively investigate and prosecute child pornography cases because the service's national statistics show that about one-third of those arrested for child pornography also are child molesters.
Some of these offenders sexually abuse children and create photographs or videotapes of the abuse, he said.
Sometimes an investigation will lead authorities to children who are being abused, Smith said.
Postal investigators refer to it as a "rescue" when they identify such abuse victims, he said.
"Since 1997, we have identified and rescued over 700 kids," Smith said.
"Someone had been molesting these kids; we identified them as victims."
Ford said that of the 10 men recently charged in Kentucky with using the Internet to meet girls for sex, one had a child sex abuse conviction and evidence showed another had allegedly been abusing a girl, although charges had not been filed against him.
In 2000, federal authorities broke up an interstate ring of adults — including a Vanceburg, Ky., man — who were videotaping sadistic beatings of nude children and circulating them among themselves via the Internet. Twelve children who had been abused were identified as children or relatives of the defendants.
Among those charged was David Bradner, 38, of Vanceburg, who pleaded guilty to coercing minors to participate in the videos. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year.
Michael Galuppo, in charge of postal inspectors in Kentucky's Eastern District, remembers the case because Bradner — in an attempt to destroy the evidence — fired a shotgun into his computer as police and federal agents arrived at his house.
"He shot two out of three hard drives," Galuppo said. "The one he did not get to had the files."
Smith said even if no abuse victims are found — and the suspect is simply downloading images from a Web site or receiving them through e-mail — the act of creating child pornography involves child abuse.
"These people are not just looking at dirty pictures," he said.
"Every image of a child being sexually abused is a crime scene. It's direct evidence of a crime in progress."
What's more, he said, with more affordable digital video and still cameras, homemade child pornography is becoming more common.
"There are a lot of people out there and some people realize money can be made in dealing in this material," he said."
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