At 4 years old, little Baby J should have been out building sand castles at the beach or visiting the local playground. Instead, she spent much of her most formative years as the repeated victim of sexual torture. Worst of all, she was victimized at the hands of a supposed loved one � her father. To make an already tragic story more horrifying, her father memorialized each encounter by videotape and traded these videos online like baseball cards to other pedophiles.
Source APP.com At 4 years old, little Baby J should have been out building sand castles at the beach or visiting the local playground. Instead, she spent much of her most formative years as the repeated victim of sexual torture. Worst of all, she was victimized at the hands of a supposed loved one — her father. To make an already tragic story more horrifying, her father memorialized each encounter by videotape and traded these videos online like baseball cards to other pedophiles. It was this very sobering story that the State Police and FBI shared when they testified before the Assembly Law and Public Safety Committee in March to highlight the increasing prevalence of online sex crimes and the difficulty they face when investigating such heinous offenses. Underneath this story lies a startling truth in New Jersey — our law enforcement agencies do not always receive the tools and resources they need to keep New Jersey children safe when it comes to online sex crimes. What we do know is that every year the number of complaints regarding online sexual crimes against children increases at unprecedented rates. The State Police indicate that they receive between 350 and 400 sex crime reports each year from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. However, due to a technical and unintended oversight in current law, they are capable of investigating only a fraction of these crimes. The State Police are handicapped by their inability to acquire an offender's IP (Internet Protocol) address expeditiously. This information allows the State Police to trace the sexually explicit images to an account holder and a specific location. However, to obtain the IP address of a predator, the State Police must navigate through a bureaucratic quagmire by filing a Communications Information Order, which must be reviewed and approved by their immediate supervisor, a deputy attorney general and a presiding judge as well as file a request for a subpoena from the county Prosecutor's Office. This cumbersome process causes significant delays — often exceeding 40 days — during which time pertinent IP address records are erased by the local service providers, who are only capable of maintaining these logging records for 25 to 30 days. Consequently, the loss of this information stifles any attempt to investigate the matter further. I have sponsored Assembly Bill 3786, which would remedy this oversight to allow the State Police to acquire an offender's IP address as part of the requested subpoena through the Prosecutor's Office within 10 days. It would streamline the information-gathering process by eliminating the need to obtain the lengthy and complicated Communications Information Order. New Jersey has been behind the learning curve in this area. Most other states have already adopted measures similar to the one I am proposing. Additionally, and perhaps most important, there is one more concern with respect to our current state law: It prohibits the FBI from sharing critical information with the State Police. For instance, if the FBI obtains information that involves an online sex crime in New Jersey using the expeditious federal subpoena process, court rulings prevent them from sharing this material with the State Police. Instead, the State Police are required to initiate their own investigation and request additional Communications Information Orders and subpoenas. By having to restart this investigation, time is lost and the probability of an arrest, let alone conviction, is minimal. By passing A-3786, it will allow immediate communication between these two agencies. For those who feel that their quiet town is immune to these online sexual predators, consider the recent arrest of an Edison man who was caught by undercover officers in an online chat room initiating sexual dialogue with what he thought was a 15-year-old girl. According to the Passaic County Prosecutor's Office, the man was charged with endangering the welfare of a minor. The fact that this potential predator was arrested is comforting; however, one should not be lulled into a false sense of security. According to the FBI, the average molester commits numerous sexual offenses prior to being apprehended for the first time. Failure to enact A-3786 immediately could result in an increase in preventable online sex crimes against children in New Jersey. It may be too late to save Baby J from enduring this physical and emotional pain. However, her story should serve as a cautionary tale about the importance of providing our law enforcement officials with the necessary tools to investigate and apprehend these reprehensible individuals. On a more positive note, I am happy to report that Baby J's father has been sentenced to 30 years in prison on charges of child molestation. He will not be allowed to earn good time credits and will be forced to serve all 30 years.
Watch Right Internet Crimes Against Children Syndicated News Feed
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Law enforcement must be armed to capture online sex predators
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