Feds: Sons in father's child porn (Pinckney, Michigan)

Investigations are increasingly revealing the existence of international networks of fathers who share child porn involving their own kids.

http://www.livingstondaily.com/article/20101230/NEWS01/12300307/Feds++Sons+in+father+s+child+porn

Feds: Sons in father's child porn
By Lisa Roose-Church • DAILY PRESS & ARGUS • December 30, 2010

A 52-year-old Pinckney man was arrested at his home Tuesday night on charges of child pornography after an investigation that originated in Australia.

The complaint alleges that the man knowingly possessed and produced visual depictions of his sons — ages 5, 8, and 9 — engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The complaint also alleges that the Pinckney man received and exchanged similar images involving the 11-year-old son of an Eulas, Texas, man who is facing the same charges as the Pinckney man.

The Pinckney man is in custody after his initial appearance Wednesday morning in federal court in U.S. District Court in Detroit. He is due back in court Monday for a detention hearing.

His children are in their mother's custody, according to Khaalid Walls, public information officer with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Daily Press & Argus is not identifying the two defendants because it will identify their children.

According to the criminal complaint, the Pinckney man admitted in Internet chats obtained by agents with the Department of Homeland Security that he sexually abused his children, ages 5, 8 and 9. Federal agents allege they found seven images of the man's children on the Texas man's data-storage device and/or computers and that "at least three of the images constitute child pornography."

The investigation began in November, when police in Queensland, Australia, intercepted an e-mail sent to a known sex offender, according to court documents. The e-mail contained "first-generation pornographic images" of children, ages 4 and 11, engaged in sexually explicit acts, court records stated.

First-generation images are those that are created or produced by abusers and then distributed throughout the Internet.

That e-mail led authorities to execute a search warrant in the United Kingdom, where they identified a couple who managed a Web site open to members identified as "open naturist," a term experts say is used to describe people who abuse children.

Authorities seized the couple's computers and discovered a "large number of chat logs" involving the "open naturists," including the Texas man, whom authorities said identified the Pinckney man as an individual aiding him in the production of child pornography.

Federal agents allege the Texas man admitted that he and the Pinckney man would pose their children so there was a "lascivious display" of the children's genitals through the Internet-based video chatting program Skype. The person watching the video display would take a snapshot of the computer screen and transmit it back to the other, the complaint alleges.

The Texas man also told agents that the Pinckney man "is routinely involved in sexually explicit conduct" with his three sons.

"All children have an absolute right to grow up free from the fear of sexual abuse and exploitation, and especially from those they trust," said Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Detroit. "Sadly, today's technology in the hands of a predator with access to children has put our children at greater risk than ever before."

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hot line at (866) DHS-2ICE or (866) 347-2423.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at (800) 843-5678 or www.cybertipline.com.