Teachers Held in Australian Child Porn Sting July 8, 2008
Posted by isis2020 in California Private Investigator, Computer Forensics, Family, Private Investigator, Relationships, Virginia Private Investigator, child custody, divorce, sex offenders.Tags: arrest, Child Porn, child pornography, Computer Forensics, Private Investigator, top news
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Australian police have arrested 70 people and removed four children from their homes as part of a six-month nationwide investigation of a global child pornography network, police said Thursday.
Twenty other people have been summoned to appear in court. All 90 — including a police officer and several teachers — face charges of accessing images of children being abused on the Internet, police said.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the Interpol-led investigation was conducted simultaneously by law enforcement authorities in 170 countries. Further arrests are expected, he said.
It was one of the largest child pornography investigations in Australian history, police said.
The investigation was triggered after a hacker posted 99 child porn images on a European Web site, which attracted 12 million hits in just 76 hours, including 2,800 from Australian computers, police said.
Federal police assistant commissioner Andrew Colvin said 1,500 people or computers in Australia had been identified so far through their Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses.
Thousands of DVDs of child pornography and dozens of computers have been seized in the investigation, he said.
The children in the images range from babies to those 18 years of age. Some images show rapes and other abuses, Keelty said.
“These are not children in passive positions. These are children who are being abused,” he told reporters. “The real tragedy of this is that we don’t know the origins of a lot of these children. We don’t know whether these children are still being the victims of child abuse.”
Police said four children who are dependents of alleged offenders were removed from their homes for their safety, but could not confirm whether they appeared in any of the seized images.
Possession of child pornography carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
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Computer Evidence Helps Catch Rapist Cop July 8, 2008
Posted by isis2020 in Computer Forensics, Family, Private Investigator, Virginia Private Investigator, sex offenders.Tags: arrest, Computer Forensics, rape
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A former Bloomington police sergeant has been convicted of raping four women and stalking a fifth, ending a trial in which prosecutors said he was driven by pornography-fueled fantasies.
Jeff Pelo, 43, was found guilty on 35 counts, including 25 of aggravated sexual assault. Two other charges were dropped during the trial.
Pelo, who spent much of the trial looking at the table in front of him and taking notes, shook his head and sobbed as the verdict was read. His wife, Rickilee, yelled and ran from the court with the couple’s three teenage children.
She later apologized for her outburst but insisted to reporters that “they’ve got the wrong man.”
“I feel badly for the victims,” she added. “I stand behind my husband. I know my husband is not guilty.”
The rapes took place from 2002 to 2005. Pelo has been jailed since his June 2006 arrest, unable to post $100,000 to cover $1 million bail.
Prosecutor Mark Messman noted that the jurors reached their decision despite a lack of DNA or similar forensic evidence linking Pelo directly to the rapes.
“There was no smoking gun; (but) there were several very strong pieces of evidence,” he said.
Three of the women picked Pelo out of a photo lineup. Messman also laid out evidence that Pelo’s police computer login had been used to access background information about the rape victims before they were attacked.
Defense attorney Michael Rosenblat said he likely would appeal. He plans to argue that the judge shouldn’t have let jurors see pornography found on Pelo’s home computer, and should have let the defense call an expert witness to testify about the reliability of eyewitness identifications.
“I believed before opening statements and I believe today that Jeff is not guilty,” Rosenblat said.
Pelo was arrested when another Bloomington officer spotted him outside a woman’s home after she called to report a prowler. Pelo said he was merely in the neighborhood shopping for a home to buy his mother-in-law.
Messman portrayed Pelo as a man driven on the one hand by violent fantasies, and on the other by a desire to be his victims’ boyfriend. At least one of the women described her attacker as gentle and polite.
But another testified that between what were multiple rapes over two hours, she told her attacker she was pregnant. After seeing an engagement ring on her finger and asking how her fiance and parents would feel knowing she’d been raped while pregnant, she said the attacker was elated.
“He was like a kid at Christmas,” she said while crying.
Investigators found numerous images of violent pornography — some depicting forced sex at gunpoint — on Pelo’s home computer.
Rosenblat said whatever taste Pelo might have for pornography was irrelevant.
The defense attorney seized on discrepancies offered by the victims, particularly one woman’s description of an attacker as young as his early 20s.
“The descriptions of these attacks vary widely,” the attorney told jurors. “They differ because different people committed these attacks.”
The most serious charges against Pelo carry sentences of up to 45 years in prison, and prosecutors have said Pelo could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Sentencing is set for August 12.
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Christie Brinkley Divorce July 8, 2008
Posted by isis2020 in California Private Investigator, Cheating Spouse, Computer Forensics, Family, Private Investigator, Relationships, Virginia Private Investigator, child custody, divorce, sex offenders.Tags: adultery, Cheating Spouse, child custody, christie brinkley, divorce
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Christie Brinkley had everything she wanted: a family and an old Hamptons farmhouse brimming with children’s music and art and beloved pets. But Brinkley testified at her divorce trial Monday that her lifelong dream of a “big, happy family” in a quaint setting was cruelly ripped away when her husband had an affair with a teenager.
“Anyone who would run the risk of destroying this wonderful life, anybody that would chase a teenager — I mean, a young girl — where is his judgment?” she said.
The former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model and architect Peter Cook are arguing over custody of their two children and other issues in a divorce trial that has produced a series of salacious revelations. Brinkley’s trip to the witness stand Monday was not as explosive as some of last week’s testimony, but it did contain some juicy details.
Brinkley portrayed Cook as inflexible about the children, saying he once refused to change his visitation schedule to let their son, now 13, attend a Billy Joel concert last year at the boy’s private East Hampton school. Joel and Brinkley were married in the 1980s and had a daughter together.
But before Cook’s affair burst into the tabloids and sank their marriage, Brinkley described him to an interviewer as “just the greatest father.”
Cook’s lawyer, Norman Sheresky, asked whether she’d meant it.
“Partially,” Brinkley said, explaining that her admiration waned in the latter years of their marriage.
Brinkley emphasized her own hands-on parenting in her testimony Monday. She had a range of household helpers, at times including a nanny, a cook, a groundskeeper and a laundress (because Cook insisted on having his underwear ironed, she said). But Brinkley said she “put in a very full, busy day in an active, wonderful life.”
Her lawyers even introduced some physical evidence: an elaborate dinosaur diorama — complete with a volcano and flying raptors — she said she had helped her son make for a science class.
Last week, Brinkley testified that her world “was completely shattered” by news of the affair. “My life as I knew it had vanished,” she said.
She told the court Monday that after finding out her husband had had an affair with the 18-year-old woman, the model put on a brave face and threw a birthday party with 30 kids.
“That’s the most important thing — to have a big, happy family,” she said.
The court heard testimony last week from Cook, 49, and his former mistress, Diana Bianchi. Cook said he gave Bianchi a $300,000 payoff, had trysts with her in his office and Brinkley’s Hamptons homes and spent thousands of dollars on online pornography.
Brinkley said Monday she tried to spare her two young children the messy details of the breakup, including her discovery of Cook’s Internet porn habits. She told the children: “I think Daddy has fallen out of love with me,” while assuring them they would always be loved.
As the scandal became public, she took the children on a private plane for a vacation in Colorado.
“I took them to the top of a mountain, and we camped out under the stars,” without TV or Internet access, she said.
While they were away, she said, “Ms. Bianchi spilled the beans. She went on TV to get her 15 minutes of fame.”
Under questioning from her lawyer, Brinkley said she had remained faithful to Cook. And, though she’s divorcing, she’s not interested in dating.
“I think the kids have been through a lot of changes,” she said. “I just don’t think this is the time for that.”
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Child Porn Charges Filed Against Former Stepdad July 7, 2008
Posted by isis2020 in California Private Investigator, Child Porn, Computer Forensics, Family, Private Investigator, Virginia Private Investigator, child custody, sex offenders.1 comment so far
Federal authorities in Alabama have filed child pornography charges against the ex-stepfather of a Vermont girl who was found dead last week.
Raymond Gagnon, 40, is charged with having child pornography at his former home in Cullman, Alabama, federal prosecutors said in a statement Monday.
According to the statement, Gagnon also tried to access ex-stepdaughter Brooke Bennett’s MySpace account “on or about” June 26 from a library computer in Cullman.
June 26 is the day after Brooke, who was 12, was reported missing in Randolph, Vermont. She was found in a shallow grave a week later. Her uncle, Michael Jacques, has been charged with kidnapping her.
The charges in Alabama were announced as Gagnon was in court on another charge, obstructing justice, in federal court in Burlington, Vermont.
Gagnon, 40, did not contest his continued detention during the hearing in U.S. District Court. He is charged with obstructing justice and will be held in custody until his trial.
Gagnon is accused of having someone throw out his laptop computer a week ago while authorities were searching for Brooke Bennett.
Police say Gagnon lives in Texas but often visits Vermont.
ccording to an affidavit, Gagnon told police he accessed his former stepdaughter’s MySpace page from a computer at his San Antonio home after getting login information from the girl’s uncle, Jacques.
A 14-year-old girl reported that she last saw Brooke alive walking upstairs with Jacques in his home in Randolph in central Vermont on June 25, according to court papers.
It was the 14-year-old’s understanding that Brooke was going to be initiated into a “program for sex” — the same one the teenager had been involved with since she was 9, the papers said.
Since then, Brooke has turned up dead near Jacques’ home, prosecutors have charged Jacques with kidnapping her and Gagnon has sat in.
The affidavit says Gagnon acknowledged that he had downloaded child pornography onto a laptop computer and hard drives he kept in a safe. Gagnon’s lawyer did not a return a call Thursday.
Jacques is listed in Vermont’s sex offender registry. He was convicted of rape and kidnapping in 1993.
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Cyberstalking Arrest – Private Investigator Assists Police March 18, 2008
Posted by isis2020 in California Private Investigator, Computer Forensics, Family, Private Investigator, Virginia Private Investigator, sex offenders.Tags: California Private Investigator, computer investigation, Cyberstalker, news, Private Investigator
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FORT MYERS, Fla. – Teens using the Internet are being policed by more than just police. A private investigating firm working across the country helped the Lee County Sheriff’s Office make an arrest here in Southwest Florida.The private investigators are out of California and Detective Chris Shoap says they were on MySpace working on another case.Detective Shoap says they found the page of a Southwest Florida teen who deputies say made some very serious threats. A page put together by a teen that goes by the user name, Bloody Bon3. A teen who is now charged with cyberstalking for using MySpace to threaten other people.”I’m so glad the private investigators found it and let us know about it,” says Detective Shoap.Shoap says the messages are gang related. Because of the tip, The sheriff’s office was able to interrupt a brawl scheduled to go down at a public library in Lehigh Acres.
“His intentions were definitely to make good on his threats, no doubt in my mind” said Shoap. Detective Shoap won’t elaborate on the threats made other than to say the teen wanted to fight.
We went and tracked the teen down, we’re not identifying the teen because he’s underage but he says he was simply retaliating.
“I don’t stalk people.” the teen said. “They told me they were going to kill my mom, I told them to come see me.”
The teen claims he asked the people in so many words (some derogatory words) to come and see him at the library.
“He didn’t show, I got arrested.” says the teen. Now he’s facing cyberstalking charges.
Detective Shoap says this investigation isn’t over. He says they’re working on more leads in the case. Detective Shoap says all of the teens involved have been in trouble with the law before.
Virginia Private Investigator Warns of Sex Offenders February 28, 2008
Posted by isis2020 in Private Investigator, Relationships, Virginia Private Investigator, sex offenders.Tags: Family, Relationships, sex offenders, Virginia Private Investigator
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As a Virginia private investigator I routinely access various statistics during my normal daily operations. Some databases work better than others and not all of them are open to the general public. There is an excellent resource online where anyone can check the status of registered sex offenders in your city. Not only that but it shows you on a map – where you live and where they live.
During my formal education in Criminology and profiling it became a well established fact that deviant sexual behavior in criminals has one of the highest repeat offender statistics. For this reason alone I strongly recommend that EVERYONE with children visit this web site and verify that the local sex offender doesn’t live next door to you!
The web site is http://www.familywatchdog.us/ and covers every state and every city. GO THERE…PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN!
This notice provided as a courtesy by Mr. Edmister, a Virginia private investigator from http://www.isis2020.com
