Children for Sale - Guatemalan pedo-paradise

If Dateline NBC's exposé on Guatemalan children sold for adoption can't convince people that there is a pedophile adoption play book then nothing will.

Using hidden cameras, NBC solicited a child from a Guatemalan baby broker for an American man with a history of sex crimes against children. The broker tells the undercover reporter that the easiest way to get the adoption approved is to either bribe the police for a clean background check or just remove this information from the adoption home study.

When we first discovered that Masha Allen was adopted by a pedophile, we called one agency responsible for her adoption, Reaching Out Thru International Adoption [ROTIA] (now known as Child Promise). When confronted with the reality of Matthew Mancuso's crimes, a ROTIA director told us that Mancuso didn't invent the pedophile adoption play book, but that he was just borrowing it: "After all, anyone can adopt anywhere anytime. There are lots of Mancusos out there, but what can we do about it. It would be a shame if one agency had to take the fall."

Consider that fact that renowned naturist leader Toni Egbert was the sister of ROTIA's executive director when Mancuso adopted, the prevalence of Russian and Ukrainian children in naturist videos (click at your own risk), and the accepted practice of supplying nude pre-adoption videos of East European children, and the question becomes why WOULDN'T pedophiles adopt?

On August 24, 2005, the Joint Cabal on International Children's Services [JCICS] held a secret meeting in Washington, DC to discuss child abuse cases of Russian adopted children. The participant list is a veritable who's who of international adoption which included Lee Allen and Chuck Johnson, lobbyists for the National Council for Adoption [NCFA], Ernie Jones of Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption [FRUA], and Debbie Spivack and Sonia Baxter of ROTIA.

The notes of this meeting, which were provided by a confidential source, reveal that Masha's story, which was already widely publicized, was not even discussed. Instead there were some important revelations about what the industry did know:

"We need to think about the financial piece of adoption. So many people's revenues are generated by accepting families and facilitating adoptions. Unless there are some standards that US government or Russian government set, why would agencies abide by them? Sadly there are some agencies that would look at the money being offered and don't have children's interest on the forefront. Money drives this field just like so many others."

"Political reality is that we are being forced to face this due to the fact that Russia does find it significant."

"Parents agency shop until they find an agency they think will be able to meet their expectations."

One participant suggested "a waiver in which parents might allow agencies access to information that would be needed in protecting the child." The group quickly recommended that this idea "be discussed with the American Bar Association for legal ramifications."

"Participants expressed the importance of us stating that this roundtable is a proactive self-regulation effort to collaborate with Russia on how we can best continue to practice in the US and in Russia."

Masha didn't even make the JCICS list of documented cases of child abuse or neglect in US children adopted from Russia, despite the presence of at least three people who knew all about her rape and exploitation.

Can we really tolerate such a "self-regulating" industry which acts so clueless and yet appears so proactive? Aren't they most concerned with their ability to "continue to practice in the US and in Russia" while clearing their ass-covering efforts with the American Bar Association?

Which leads me to Guatemala. With little need for further editorializing (just watch the show) it doesn't take much to imagine, in either my mind or in the mind of the many Mancusos out there, that Guatemala is a virtual childrens bazaar for pedophiles.

I guess we should all rest a little bit safer knowing that the National Cabal for Missing and Exploited Children [NCMEC], with their squad of crack rent-a-cop investigators and generou$ tech indu$try backing (no more milk cartons for them!) are finally on the job, but sadly my upcoming exposé on them will leave little room for reassurance.

Folks we all need to wake up and realize that the pedophile adoption play book is real, it's being used and children all over the world are at risk. Combine Dateline with to Catch a Predator and you get a pretty good idea of the danger. If only the "proactive" "self-regulating" "money-drives-this-field-like-so-many-other" "just-think-of-the-children-that's-what-it's-all-about" apologists just understood. I'm still waiting.

Ethics in Adoption - what about the judges?

Judicial ethics typically require judges to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary, avoid even the appearance of impropriety, and perform their duties impartially.

Last month, the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board dismissed a complaint in Masha's domestic adoption where the jurist who decided the adoption, Judge Cheryl Lynn Allen, was the adoptive parent, Faith Allen's, former roommate.

In addition, prior to finalization, the single adoptive parent changed her last name from Lynn Ginn to the judge's last name (becoming Faith Allen) with the judge's court attorney representing Lynn/Faith in the name change proceeding.

Finally, Judge Allen wasn't even assigned to the family court when the adoption was finalized.

A detailed newspaper story about the adoption--complete with the judge's picture--which ran on the day of the adoption in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette formed the basis for the complaint.

The Pennsylvania Code of Judicial Conduct states that "judges should participate in establishing, maintaining, and enforcing, and should themselves observe, high standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved." Canon 1

Judges must "avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all their activities" and " should not allow their family, social, or other relationships to influence their judicial conduct or judgment." Canon 2

Judges should not knowingly permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge and "should not testify voluntarily as a character witness." Canon 2

Judges should perform the duties of their office impartially and diligently. They should abstain from public comment about a pending proceeding in any court. Canon 3(A)(6)

Finally, judges should disqualify themselves in a proceeding in which their impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances where they have a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding. Canon 3(C)(1)(a)

After spending almost a year investigating, the Board determined that there was "insufficient indication of judicial misconduct to justify further inquiry" and dismissed the complaint.

Did the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board get it right? What do you think?

Child Rape = Death

Last week the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the Constitution allows the death penalty for child rape. Sadly, this may be one case where bad facts make bad law. Although the rape in question caused horrific injuries to an 8 year old girl, there was no physical evidence linking defendant Patrick Kennedy to the crime. The conviction was based on largely circumstantial evidence and the victim's changed testimony which only fingered the defendant 20 months after the crime.

In reality Kennedy, who is girl's stepfather, is probably guilty and should be killed. Unfortunately the lack of hard evidence might give even the most seasoned conservative jurist pause.

In a world where pedophiles like Matthew Mancuso* and countless others revel in photographing and videoing their depraved crimes, it should be easy to find a child rapist who is unequivocally guilty and unconditionally worthy of the death penalty. Many of these guys even boast about their "preference" for little girls or boys, as if it were a lifestyle choice. The Kennedy v. Louisiana case, lacking pictorial zing documenting what really happened, might not spark enough calculated reflection that the seriousness of the crime does indeed merit death.

Background

In 1977 the Supreme Court, in a case involving the rape of a 16 year old married woman, declared that regardless of whether state law makes capital punishment mandatory or discretionary, it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment for a state to impose the death penalty for the crime of aggravated rape not resulting in death. In response to these decisions, Louisiana and the handful of other states in the country with similar laws ceased seeking death sentences in rape cases. As a result, no person has been executed in this country for rape in over 40 years.

In recent years a handful of states, responding to public outcries about sex crimes against children, have amended their death penalty statutes to make child rape a capital offense. Louisiana was the first to do so, amending its death-penalty law in 1995 to apply to the rape of a child under age 12. Other states with similar provisions are Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas.

Currently just two men sit on death row in the United States for child rape. Patrick Kennedy is one of them. After the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld his death penalty, Kennedy appealed to the United States Supreme Court which agreed to hear his case.

NASW Coddles Child Rapists

The briefs are filed and the Court will likely hear the case in April. By far the best brief, required reading in fact, is by the National Association of Social Workers as amici curiae (Latin for "friend of the court"). As friendly as they are to the Court, NASW is clearly not a friend of child victims.

NASW begins their brief by reminding us that "as part of its mission to improve the quality and effectiveness of social work practice—including with respect to the detection, treatment, and prevention of child sexual abuse—NASW promulgates professional standards and the NASW Code of Ethics, conducts research, provides continuing education, and advocates for sound public policies." Given the state of social work practice in the country, this all sounds like a breath of fresh air.

NASW then claims that it has "particular insight into the degree to which child rape is a terrible crime that greatly harms its victims." Undoubtedly NASW is on the front lines in the war against child abuse and exploitation.

So given everything—their professional standards, Code of Ethics, research, and front line experience—why does the NASW believe that the death penalty for child rape "undermines that quest" of "ending the scourge of sexual violence against children and aiding its victims?"

Their rationale: the "statute provides that any act of oral-genital contact or anal or vaginal penetration of a child under the age of 13 years is a capital offense. By permitting the execution of perpetrators of child sexual abuse, the statute will likely have exactly the wrong effect: rather than protecting children, this statute will increase the number of victimized children, encourage offenders to kill their victims, and interfere with victims’ healing process."

Brief Excerpts

Readers of this blog are encouraged to read the brief and help me understand the following statements [my inflammatory responses are highlighted below each statement]:

1. Victims and other family members may fear the consequences of the abuser’s prosecution and incarceration. Louisiana’s capital rape statute dramatically aggravates this problem. pp. 3-4
   [Perhaps the victim's greatest fear is that the abuser will someday go free, having "paid his debt to society," or escape conviction altogether due to a "legal technicality."]



2. Because Louisiana’s penalty scheme does away with the marginal deterrence that is a central
   feature of punishment theory, the scheme will also encourage abusers to kill their victims. p. 4
   [Punishment theory? Sounds like undefined-apologist-pseudo-social-science. How about this as a punishment theory almost everyone can understand: rape a child and you die, rape a child and kill a child and you die.]



3. Even were Louisiana’s penalty scheme to function as the legislature presumably hoped—i.e.,
   with abusers brought to trial and child victims testifying against them—Louisiana’s law would magnify the trauma that child victims experience in the criminal justice process. p. 4
   [See my comment to #1. See my comments about Matthew Mancuso and the photo-happy pedophiles unabashed candidates for the death penalty [2007 Pedophile Roundup - the Year in Review is a good start]. The worldwide exposure from the child pornography produced by many of these rapists will have a much more devastating long term effect on victims than testifying for an hour or two. And if the current criminal justice process is so bad then FIX THE PROCESS instead of coddling the perpetrators.]



4. Not only is increased exposure to trials known to hinder child victims’ healing process, but the imposition of a death sentence will add to the guilt child victims sometimes feel and may preclude the possibility of a future therapeutic meeting between the victim and his or her abuser. p. 5
   [The possibility of a "future therapeutic meeting between the victim and abuser" is not only an absurd reason to oppose the death penalty, but it is totally devoid of even pseudo-science references by the ever liberally-citing NASW. Where's the beef on this one folks? If the victim wants a therapeutic meeting they can hold a séance which might actually prove more therapeutic than many of the healing processes currently employed.]



5. Victims are inhibited from coming forward out of shame, fear of being punished, and fear that the abuser will retaliate against the victim or other family members. p. 8
   [Abusers who are dead can't retaliate against the victim or anyone else. Let Satan handle the retaliation and victims and their families will all sleep a lot better]



6. Other relatives may also be reluctant to disclose abuse for related reasons: because of their positive feelings for the abuser or because they fear the collateral consequences to themselves or the family if they disclose the abuse. p. 9
   [The simple solution to this problem is to give these aiders and abettors the death penalty too as accomplices to the crime. That should ease their "reluctance to disclose" and turn any "positive feelings for the abuser" into an us versus them mentality. Clearly this is punishment theory at its finest.]



7. As states have enacting statutes mandating that health professionals report child abuse, the actual number of reports has declined, apparently because families decide not to go to professionals when they know that doing so will mean that the abuse will be reported to authorities. p. 9
   [NASW logic at its finest: the solution to the underreporting of child rape is to repeal the mandatory child abuse reporting laws and eliminate punishment for perpetrators so social workers can implement family preservation on wayward but well-meaning clients whose only sin is making bad choices and exhibiting poor impulse control . . . . If the séance doesn't work then perhaps an exorcism will!]



8. Likewise, a non-offending family member, already facing “a difficult decision to make,” will face an even harder choice. Instead of encouraging the best positioned witnesses—the victim and other family members—to report abuse, Louisiana’s law will reinforce the internal constraints that victims and their family members may already feel. p. 10
   [See my comment to #6 about killing the aiders and abettors.]



9. The damage caused by Louisiana’s statute will not be limited to predators’ current victims. “Sex
   offenders who are not arrested, convicted, and sent to prison remain free to commit more sex crimes.” p. 11
   [Sex offenders who are DEAD will not commit any more sex crimes.]



10. The increasing number of victims mean that more former abuse victims will ultimately leave the state, emigrating with the burdens that Louisiana’s law makes worse. p. 12
    [Given this logic, eventually the State of Louisiana will be populated only by sex offenders. With no further victims to abuse, Louisiana can easily be turned into a pedo-penal colony and, given the frequent hurricanes in the area, the state will be spared the cost of implementing the death penalty when the final big storm wipes everyone out. See my comment to #5 about Satan and retaliation.]



11. It is well established that sexually abused children find the criminal justice process to be highly
    traumatic. Louisiana’s statute will greatly increase the extent of this trauma. p. 14
    [FIX THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. The statute didn't traumatize these kids, the pedo-perpetrators did!]



12. Finally, the fact that the abuser ultimately is executed precludes the option of future healing through a possible structured visit, which provides the victim with the opportunity to confront his or her abuser. pp. 19-20
    [See my comment to #5 concerning séances]

Comments please.

* (Mancuso initially faced eight counts of capital sexual battery which could have made him eligible for the death penalty. Despite the fact that there were pictures of him raping his 10 year old adopted daughter, Mancuso was allowed to plead guilty to attempted sexual battery. According to Florida law, "criminal attempt" means a person who attempts to commit an offense but fails in the perpetration of that offense. Inexplicably, Mancuso was allowed to plead down from a death sentence to just 14 years in prison. Maybe having pictures as evidence doesn't matter after all.)

2007 Pedophile Roundup - the Year in Review

2007 was a banner year for pedophiles. No hyperbolic commentary or incredulous fictionalization can substitute for the raw truth and here it is:

• On January 19, 2007, a 15 year old Bangor Maine boy was charged with a felony for downloading child pornography and became the first juvenile in that city to be charged with a sexual cybercrime.



• On February 20, 2007, 66 year old former Orange County California Superior Court Judge Ronald Kline collapsed in court after learning that he was being sentenced to 27 months in prison for possessing child pornography. He previously plead guilty and acknowledged having more than 100 sexually explicit images of young boys stored on disks and his home computer. Kline's diary entries contained accounts of him following children in shopping malls and being attracted to boys when he worked as a volunteer baseball umpire.



• In March 2007, before he became a California and national sensation, admitted girl lover Jack McClellan was causing quite a stir in Seattle for creating website which was virtual "how-to" pedophile guide, complete with the best places in western Washington state to see little girls, and tips on how to avoid getting caught by the police. McClellan says his purpose is to promote association, friendship and legal, consensual hugging and cuddling between men and pre-pubescent girls. He admitted to FOX News that his "age of attraction" is between 3
  and 11 years old.



• On March 27, 2007, a Carson City, Nevada man was sentenced to prison for possessing more than 800 images of child pornography. That's not really the story though. Carson City District Judge Bill Maddox's views on child sex abuse were much more newsworthy: "These kinds of offenses are problems with impulse control. When I say that, it's my understanding that most men are sexually attracted to young women. When I say young women I don't just mean women that . . . you should be attracted to. I mean women from the time they're 1 all the way up until they're 100." Maddox noted the legal terms malum in se, a Latin phrase meaning an act that is "inherently evil," and malum prohibitum, which means acts that are not necessarily inherently immoral or hurtful, only wrong by statute. He said child pornography could be considered malum prohibitum because in some countries and cultures it is acceptable to engage in sexual conduct with young girls. "As an example, having sex with a girl between 12 and 16 is prohibited because we say it's prohibited. It's because we decided as a civilized society you do not want adults engaging in sexual conduct with children below 16 years of age, which flies in the face of our, I guess for lack of a better description, our normal impulses," he said. "I guess we could just ignore them, say it's just like a traffic ticket, it's malum prohibitum, it's only against the law because it's prohibited. Or we could say that because we're trying to control what's an otherwise natural impulse there has to be consequences. Maddox said he wanted to send a message to others in the community who might possess images of child porn.



• In early April 2007, renowned child psychiatrist, Dr. William Ayres, 75, a former president of the
  American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, was booked in San Mateo, California and charged with lewd and lascivious acts involving multiple child victims under 14.



• On April 18, 2007, a former St. Joseph, Kansas pharmacist was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for possessing and distributing Masha Allen's images. After Masha's victim impact statement was read in court, Walter Sewell, 42, apologized to the children whose pictures he collected. "When I started looking at these images, I never thought there was a victim," Sewell said. "It was only after I stopped looking at them did I realize there were. . . . I apologize to all the children."



• On April 24, 2007, a visiting law professor at California's Santa Clara University School of Law, Murdaugh Stuart Madden, was arrested by the feds for having child pornography on his school-issued laptop computer and on another computer issued to him by the Pace University School of Law in White Plains, New York where he previously taught.



• On April 30, 2007, a Jersey City, New Jersey father who raped his teenage daughter over several years and ordered her to throw two newborns he had fathered with her down an air shaft was sentenced to 35 years in prison. One of the infants survived and is in foster care, the other one died after being thrown down the shaft. The 45 year old man told a psychologist that he didn't view the teenager as his daughter, but "as a person I'm in love with," adding, "I would not have sex with her if she had not seduced me."



• On May 1, 2007, former Albemarle, Virginia girl's soccer coach Raja Charles Jabbour, a Lebanese citizen, was sentenced to nine years in prison for soliciting sex with a minor online and for possessing hundreds of sexually explicit images of children, some involving bestiality.



• In early May 2007, an 11-year old boy said he saw Florida resident William Arthur Bishop molesting an
  8-year-old girl behind bushes near the pool at the Walt Disney Swan hotel. Bishop has a long record of sex offenses against children.



• In May 2007, German television ran an expose which revealed that the virtual world Second Life is becoming a platform for real and virtual child pornography. A German, whose avatar - or online character - is a 13-year-old girl has been offering to provide real photos that contain child pornography to
  other denizens of the online service. Beside the offer of real child porn, German television also documented that online characters depicting children were being virtually raped and abused. Child pornography using computer-generated images is illegal in Germany, punishable from between three months to five years in jail. Virtual child pornography is legal in the United States.



• In late May 2007, a 31-year-old Portland, Oregon man was sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison for posing online as a teenage boy dying of leukemia in an effort to coerce young girls into sending him sexually explicit images. Joshua Kistler chatted regularly with at least nine girls nationwide who ranged in age from 12 to 14. He even sent them pictures of his stepson, an actual 15-year old, to further his story. Several victims said they loved and trusted Kistler, who asked them to send photos of them nude or perform sexual acts for him in front of Web cameras. Kistler, who pleaded guilty to charges of producing child pornography, apologized saying "I'm sorry for the harm I've caused, I wasn't aware I was causing any harm." The victim whose case led to Kistler's arrest was a Utah girl who started chatting online with him when she was 12. According to DOJ, Kistler told the victim that he cut off contact with another girl because of the Utah girl's jealousy and that the other girl killed herself. Overcome with guilt, the Utah girl attempted suicide and then attempted suicide a second time after her mother tried to stop the relationship. Kistler told agents that he knew what he was doing was wrong and that he had always "been a collector."



• On June 1, 2007, a former Arlington County, Virginia youth sports coach who once headed the Virginia ACLU pleaded guilty to charges that he purchased sadistic child pornography. Charles Rust-Tierney, 51, admitted that he accessed more than 850 pornographic images of children as young as 4, including a six-minute video depicting the sexual torture of children set to a song by the band Nine Inch Nails. Rust-Tierney used a computer in his 10-year-old son's bedroom to view the files, some of which were contained on CDs bearing an American flag logo. Judge Theresa C. Buchanan, who declined to release Rust-Tierney at his initial hearing in March, described the material on the computer as "the most perverted and nauseating and sickening type of child pornography" she had seen in 10 years on the bench. The sentencing judge later added that "the term 'child pornography' does not convey the depravity" of the images that were downloaded. Rust-Tierney told the court that he viewed child porn as a way to escape "despair" in his personal life.



• In June 2007, a 16-year-old girl who endured being sold into prostitution by her mother went to Houston police after seeing her younger sister also forced to perform sex acts. The teenager had complied with her mother - who even distributed business cards offering her daughters for sex - but feared that her 14-year-old sister would be hurt.



• In June 2007, British police announced that they smashed a global Internet pedophile ring that broadcast live-streamed videos of children being abused, investigating more than 700 suspects worldwide and rescuing 31 children in a 10-month probe. The ring was traced to an Internet chat room called ''Kids the Light of Our Lives'' that featured images of children being subjected to horrific sexual abuse, including the streaming live videos. Authorities said they used surveillance tactics normally used against terrorism suspects and drug traffickers to infiltrate the pedophile ring at its highest level.



• In Muskegon, Michigan a mother accused of arranging a sex pact to allow her boyfriend to have sex with her 15-year-old daughter while the woman recuperated from surgery was sentenced in June 2007 to 12 to 22 years in prison. The 41-year-old woman pleaded no contest and agreed to the arrangement because she feared losing her boyfriend, Michael Fitzgibbon, while recuperating from the operation on her abdomen. Fitzgibbon, 37, was sentenced in March to up to 15 years on each of four counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct after prosecutors said he, the woman and her daughter signed the contract. In exchange for sex, the 15-year-old testified she was to be paid and receive privileges, such as piercings, hair dyeing and permission to stay overnight with her own boyfriend.



• In June 2007, James Darden, an eighth-grade Teaneck, New Jersey English teacher who had just won a prestigious teaching award, was was charged with aggravated sexual assault after his former student told prosecutors that from the ages of 13 to 15 she and Darden, who is now 36, had sex in his house, his car, his classroom and the men’s bathroom at Thomas Jefferson Middle School.



• In July 2007, federal prosecutors charged that a Philadelphia defense lawyer in a child pornography case allowed his client to view the sexually graphic evidence in such "excruciating detail" that the victims were being abused anew. The feds went to court to ask a judge to limit the discovery process for John Worman, 40, who allegedly filmed himself having sex with girls and infants as young as 3 months old.
  The evidence includes 11,000 videos of Worman having sexual contact with minors.



• In August 2007, a former Army major and a teacher's wife in Britain were exposed as members of a child abuse ring in which young victims were offered for sex on the Internet. The couple subjected two 12-year-olds to an afternoon of abuse which left the youngsters devastated. School governor Archibald Wood, 60, appeared to be a pillar of the community. On the other side of the country, businesswoman Monica McCanch, 55, cut an equally respectable figure as the divorced wife of a grammar school teacher. But behind closed doors the two were involved in an Internet plot to abuse two young children after responding to a chatroom posting by Steven Horton, 44, who was looking for paedophiles who wanted to 'educate' a boy and girl.



• In late August 2007, Polish police arrested 49 people, including teachers and clergy, and seized computers and thousands of CDs and DVDs containing child pornography in early morning raids across Poland. Among those arrested were teachers, a karate teacher, a board member of a major bank and members of the clergy.



• On September 6, 2007, a former Laurens County, South Carolina teacher pleaded guilty to having sex with at least five students. Allenna Williams Ward, 23, a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Bell
  Middle School, had sex with several students in cars, parks, a hotel and at the school. Police said Ward had sex with at least five boys: three 14-year-olds, and two 15-year-olds.



• On September 10, 2007, Kenneth John Freeman, a former deputy sheriff on the Marshals Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's most-wanted list, agreed to be extradited from Hong Kong to the United States. Freeman, 44, a computer adviser and bodybuilder, fled his home in Seattle last year after his 17-year-old daughter told her mother that he assaulted her four years earlier. Authorities charge that Freeman raped his daughter over a two-year period, starting when she was 10 years old. He videotaped the scenes and posted them online in "one of the most widely downloaded child pornography videos" in recent history, seen by millions. Freeman has not directly addressed the sexual abuse allegations against him but said "he never physically hurt or threatened" his daughter. "I'm not nearly as bad as they say and I'm not as good as I wish I was," Freeman said in a statement. The statement ended with a message apparently addressed to his daughter. "Pretty little tiger, please try to remember me well. I will always love you. Goodbye."



• On September 17, 2007, John David R. Atchison, 53, an Assistant United States Attorney from the northern
  district of Florida, was arraigned in U.S. District Court on suspicion of traveling to Detroit to have sex with a minor. Atchison flew from Pensacola, Florida to Detroit intending to have sex with a 5-year-old girl. He was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. A detective, acting as the child's mother, arranged a sexual encounter between Atchison and her 5-year-old daughter. Detectives said Atchison suggested the mother tell her
  daughter that "you found her a sweet boyfriend who will bring her presents." When the undercover detective expressed concern about physical injury to the 5-year-old girl as a result of the sexual activity, Atchison responded, "I am always gentle and loving; not to worry, no damage ever, no rough stuff ever. I only like it soft and nice." When the undercover detective asked how Atchison can be certain of no injury, he responded, "Just gotta go slow and very easy. I've done it plenty." Atchison, who later committed suicide in jail, was president of a youth athletics organization. He described himself online as a family man. His wife is a science teacher at Gulf Breeze High School. Gregory R. Miller, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, stated that he was "deeply saddened by the arrest" adding "we are, of course, concerned about the welfare of Mr. Atchison's family. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them." There was no mention of any concern for Atchison's "plenty" of presumed victims.



• A man honored as among the best teachers in Utah pleaded guilty on September 20, 2007 to felony sex charges involving 11 students at his suburban classroom. Frank Laine Hall, 37, who taught first grade in the Salt Lake City suburb of Riverton until his arrest is facing up to 30 years to life in prison. Hall pleaded guilty to 10 counts of attempted aggravated sex abuse of a child and one count of sex abuse of a child in a plea agreement. Hall was initially accused of putting his hand inside the pants of three girls at Rosamond Elementary School when eight other students came forward with similar accounts.



• On October 3, 2007, former Cravath, Swaine & Moore associate James P. Colliton plead guilty to rape
  charges stemming from his sexual relationships with three underage girls. He agreed to one-year prison sentences on each charge, to be served concurrently and also agreed to register as a sex offender. Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office alleged that Colliton, a former tax lawyer, paid the mother of a 15-year-old girl and her 13-year-old sister to have sex with the teens, allowing the latter to move into a midtown Manhattan apartment he maintained while living primarily in Poughkeepsie with his wife and five children. He also admitted to paying a third under-aged girl for sex.



• In October 2007, presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani refused to strike a blow against child sex abuse by firing his lifelong friend Alan Placa who is employed by Giuliani Partners. Placa was accused in 2003 by a Suffolk County, New York grand jury of both molesting boys and covering up others' abuse. Placa is on an apparently unlimited administrative leave from the Rockville Center Diocese and has been ever since Newsday named him as a child abuser in 2002. Placa was the legal advisor in the 1980s to the House of Affirmation which provided psychological counseling services to priests accused of sex abuse. The grand jury report includes excerpts from a letter in which Placa brags about his ability to settle multi-million dollar clergy abuse claims for "$20,000 to $100,000." One person who worked at the facility called it a "pedophile boot camp," while an abuse survivor called it a "breeding ground for sexual predators."



• In late October 2007, a Naples, Florida woman who discovered her young daughter having sex - including with the mother's own boyfriend - went on trial for hiring someone to forcibly pierce the girl's genitalia to make sex uncomfortable. The girl who was 13 at the time testified that her mother asked a tattoo artist to shave her head to make her unattractive to boys and later held her down during the piercing. "She was trying to protect me, but it hurt me," the girl testified. "It not only hurt me physically, but it hurt me mentally. That's emotionally scarring. That's physical abuse."



• On November 6, 2007, a 61-year-old adjunct professor at the University of New Haven in Connecticut was arrested on federal charges of trying to entice a minor for sex. Irving Mittleman was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after the professor struck up an Internet chat with an undercover sheriff's detective. Mittleman, who apparently didn't know about US Attorney David Atchison who was caught in September in the same sting, thought he was talking with a mother offering her 5 and 3-year-old children for sex.



• Also on November 6, 2007, an employee of the National Children's Museum in Washington was arrested on child pornography charges, accused of sending about 80 explicit images to others including a NYC detective. Robert A. Singer, 49, of Falls Church, Virginia, was arrested at his home on charges that he sent pornographic images to what he thought was a 33-year-old mother and her 12-year-old daughter after Singer initiated contact in an AOL chat room called "Cuties." The images sent by Singer from his computer at the museum depicted sexual acts between minors and adults. Singer, communicating as "Badboy2," instructed the daughter to "just delete it when you are done" after sending two images depicting child pornography.



• In November 2007, forty-six people were arrested in the UK as part of an operation to dismantle a global paedophile network after an investigation into a website that sold tailor-made videos of children being abused. The Italian-based site sold files and DVDs to 2500 people around the world including teachers, swimming instructors, lawyers and IT executives. Authorities said the website sold more than 150 videos of girls aged 9 to 16 made mainly in his private studio in Ukraine. Europol said 23 children involved had been identified. Customers could order tailor-made videos in which children held a sign with their name. Some customers even attended the video shoots or to make their own private videos. The Ukrainian girls were promised modeling careers and paid €20 to €40 for the sexually explicit photo shoots.



• On November 12, 2007, a 79-year-old Roman Catholic nun pleaded no contest to two counts of indecent behavior with a child for alleged sexual encounters with two male students at a church convent and school where she was principal during the 1960s. The nun, Norma Giannini, allegedly had dozens of sexual encounters with with students including intercourse. One man said the nun told him in 1965, when he was 13, to open the buttons of her habit, but he was shaking so badly he could not do so. He said she then unbuttoned her clothing and had him touch her breasts. The first incident was followed by 60 to 80 others, including two involving sexual intercourse. Another man said he had sexual contact with the nun more than 100 times beginning when he was in seventh grade with at least one incident involving sexual intercourse.



• In late November 2007, Dallas authorities announced that they found child pornography among the possessions of a prosecutor who fatally shot himself last year when police arrived at his home as part a sting arranged by television's "Dateline NBC: To Catch A Predator." When they knocked on the door of his home last November, police planned to arrest Louis "Bill" Conradt Jr., 57, on a warrant accusing him of soliciting sex from a minor. They said Conradt, the former Kaufman County district attorney, had online sexual chats with an adult posing as a 13-year-old boy. The state investigation into Conradt's death found evidence of graphic online chats. Three laptops, a cell phone and several computer disks found in the home also "all contained pornographic material (and) some included child pornography."



• On November 28, 2007, Hartford, Connecticut investigators announced that a doctor who once faced child abuse allegations kept a staggeringly large collection of child pornography, found nearly a decade after his death, and that there were hundreds of victims. The owner of a West Hartford home formerly owned by Dr. George Reardon found the images -- 50,000 35mm slides and more than 100 8mm movie
  reels -- in a hidden storage space during a renovation project in May. Investigators said there is evidence linking the images to Reardon, who they said had a state-of-the-art photo lab in his house, and they are
  concerned that the pornography was shared with others. At least 10 victims contacted police who believe there may be hundreds of victims who ranged in age from about 6 to 15 when the pornography was made, mostly from the 1960s through the 1980s. Reardon, who was chief of endocrinology and practiced for more than 30 years at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, died in 1998. He resigned in 1993 amid accusations that he took advantage of youngsters in his care dating to when he was a medical student in the 1950s.



• On December 7, 2007, Bernie Ward, a popular San Francisco liberal radio talk show host and former Catholic priest, was indicted by a grand jury on two federal counts of possession and distribution of child pornography. The 56-year-old radio personality says he was doing research for a book. Ward reportedly sent some of the images to a woman in Oakdale, outside Modesto, who called police who then referred it to the FBI.



• On December 12, 2007, a former attorney for a prominent church in Greenwich, Connecticut was sentenced to six months of home confinement for destroying the ex-music director's laptop computer containing child pornography. The music director, Robert Tate, was convicted of possessing child
  pornography, but prosecutors and a judge disclosed that Tate had a long history of sexually abusing children. Tate brought child prostitutes from New York to the church and sexually abused children in New York City, the Philippines and Thailand. A federal judge sentenced attorney Philip Russell to six months of home confinement, a $25,000 fine and 240 hours of community service. Russell, who apologized in court, voluntarily agreed to have his law license suspended and will likely be disbarred. Russell's attorneys have said Russell's wife and daughter attended the church, which was very helpful to his wife when she was ill. He destroyed the evidence to avoid a church scandal.



• Finally, no Pedophile Roundup Year in Review would be complete without news of the R&B singer R. Kelly. On December 21, 2007, R. Kelly avoided having his bond revoked in a child pornography case, but a Chicago judge admonished him for missing a court hearing. Kelly, 40, pleaded not guilty to child pornography charges for allegedly videotaping sex acts with a young teenage girl in or before 2000. He missed his court appearance when his tour bus was delayed in Utah. The judge told Kelly, who travels by bus, that he would have to overcome his fear of flying so as to guarantee he would not miss any future court dates. The judge ordered Kelly to fly back to Chicago if his timely arrival for a court date was in question and Kelly agreed.

If you've made it this far just remember that none of these fine upstanding perpetrators would EVER consider adopting a child, either domestically or internationally. After all, if "guns don't kill people, people kill people," then truly "adoption doesn't harm children, pedophiles harm children." In the timeless words of NCFA president Thomas Atwood, during his CNN interview on Masha Allen's pedophile adoption, "think of the children, this is what it's all about."