UK - Facebook case: Sex offender is awarded £20,000 in damages

Original Article

02/20/2015

Damages of £20,000 have been awarded to a convicted sex offender who sued Facebook, the operator of a page called Keeping our Kids Safe from Predators 2.

Facebook Ireland Limited, hosted the page, operated by Joseph McCloskey.

The High Court in Belfast said the information published by Mr McCloskey "harmed the public interest, creating a risk of reoffending".

The plaintiff, CG, was convicted in 2007 of a number of sex offences.

He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and released on licence in 2012.

'Harassment'

CG brought an action seeking damages and an injunction on the basis that Facebook and Mr McCloskey misused private information, are in breach of Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the European Court of Human Rights, and are guilty of actionable negligence.

He also sued Facebook over separate postings by the father of one of his victims.

The judge found that Mr McCloskey was liable to CG for misuse of private information and for unlawful harassment.

The judge also made an injunction against Mr McCloskey preventing him from harassing, pestering, annoying or molesting CG whether by publishing, distributing, broadcasting or transmitting any information on Facebook or otherwise.

He also ordered Facebook to close the profile/page Keeping our Kids Safe from Predators 2.
- Well, if they closed it, a new page has popped up.  Not sure if it's ran by the same person or not though.

The judge awarded CG damages of £20,000.

This relates to £15,000 against Facebook and Mr McCloskey in respect of the postings by Mr McCloskey.

The judge also awarded £5,000 against Facebook over the postings by the father of one of CG's victims, who operated a separate page.

Lawyers for the sex offender who issued proceedings have predicted it could pave the way for compensation claims by many others who feel similarly aggrieved.

WA - Bothell detective (Dione Thompson) charged with sexual misconduct with minor

Dione Thompson

Original Article

02/04/2015

By Natalie Swaby

A Bothell police detective faces charges of sexual misconduct with a minor.

The Bothell Police Department confirms that recently Det. Dione Thompson was responsible for keeping the public informed of sex offender notifications. Before that she was assigned to the Bothell High School campus as a school resource officer.

During her time there, in 2010, a female student, age 17, says she was befriended by Thompson. They began to message each other on Facebook and eventually engaged in a sexual relationship with one of their encounters happening in a marked police car in a library parking lot, according to court documents.

The documents also said the student, who was dealing with turmoil in her personal life, even moved in with Thompson for a period of time.

Read the entire article

IRELAND - Facebook 'vigilante' (Joe McCloskey) accused of posting rapist's address

Joe McCloskey

Original Article

09/25/2014

A man who denies running a Facebook witch-hunt against paedophiles is to be asked to reveal whether he posted a rapist's exact address, the High Court heard today.

Counsel for Joe McCloskey confirmed he will seek to provide any un-redacted version of new evidence in a potential landmark civil action.

A judge also heard claims that the campaigner was hiding material that could aid the lawsuit brought against him by a convicted child molester.

Mr McCloskey and Facebook are being jointly sued for damages by the sex offender.

The man, who cannot be identified, is claiming misuse of private information, harassment and breaches of the data protection act.

Proceedings were launched after his photograph and details appeared last year on 'Keeping our kids safe from predators II', a Facebook page administrated by Mr McCloskey.

Rest of the story

IA - The people's voice is angry: Outcry over sex offender's release fires up social media — but when does the fire get out of control?

Original Article

08/08/2014

By Sarah Tisinger

MUSCATINE - When a 23-year-old Muscatine man convicted of lascivious acts with a child was released from prison after serving four years of a 15-year sentence, the People of Muscatine exploded.

The outrage began after a July 30 post that appeared on the People of Muscatine Facebook page began taking on a life of its own. The post by the page's administrator was asking about the release of _____ from prison. Howard was sentenced to prison in 2010 after being found guilty of sexually abusing his girlfriend's baby son.

It didn't take long before responses to the post included death threats, graphic descriptions of bodily mutilation, and even jokes about _____'s arrest. The anger wasn't directed entirely at _____. One post said that the child's mother should be "stomped." Another person, who posted a defense of _____, was the target of outrage: "I guess Jessica needs to have her baby molested by this [man] to feel different."

The original post, and others after it, generated several hundred comments, nearly 50,000 views, and attracted the attention of KWQC-TV, who reported on _____'s release under the headline, "Child sex offender released early from prison."

What got lost in the public's outcry was the fact that _____'s release wasn't really early. He was released exactly when the law allowed.

Rest of the story

FL - Seminole deputy (David Rodriguez) accused soliciting sex from teen girl on Facebook

David Rodriguez

Original Article

07/25/2014

By Desiree Stennett

A Seminole County deputy was arrested Thursday after investigators accused him of soliciting sex from a 17-year-old girl through a series of Facebook messages.

David Rodriguez, a 28-year-old patrol deputy, recently received recognition from Seminole County Sheriff Don Eslinger for saving a man after a boating accident earlier this year.

Rodriguez now accused of using a computer to solicit sex from a child.

He and the girl both participated in martial arts tournaments. When they met, she was 6 and he was about 17. The two kept in touch over the years, his arrest report stated.

The girl told deputies that she and Rodriguez, who is married and has a newborn, started out with friendly text messages.

Eventually the two became Facebook friends and would send private messages back and forth.

After the girl's 17th birthday, the conversations became sexual, the report stated.

Rodriguez admitted to soliciting sex from the girl but said the two never actually met for sex.

"Rodriguez stated that he was going to keep trying to put off meeting with [the girl] for sex until she was 18 years old," the report stated. The detective "confronted Rodriguez that on several occasions that they arranged to meet for sex, it was [the girl] who had to cancel and Rodriguez did not respond."

The Facebook exchange was discovered because the girl's father saw the messages when she left her social-media profile open on a home computer.

The father did not confront his daughter because he was concerned she would not be cooperative.

When she was interviewed, the girl told officials she had a crush on Rodriguez for years and said when his child was born on July 9, she realized that Rodriguez was trying to take advantage of her.

She said she wanted the sexual conversations to stop but didn't know how to end the relationship.

The Seminole County Sheriff's Office is in the process of firing Rodriguez. He had been a patrol deputy since February 2010.

Rodriguez received a Life Saving Award in May from Eslinger. According to the Sheriff's Office, Rodriguez helped save a man who capsized his kayak.

According to investigators, Rodriguez admitted to the crime and turned himself into the Seminole County jail.

He was released late Thursday on $50,000 bail.

Let the Burden Fit the Crime: Extending Proportionality Review to Sex Offenders

Original Article (PDF)

03/2014

By Erin Miller

Draconian restrictions on the activities and privacy of convicted sex offenders are a new, and troublesome, trend. In 1994 and 2006, following a national dialogue about crimes against children sparked by several high-profile incidents, Congress passed two laws requiring states to register and regulate sex offenders residing within their borders. States and municipalities soon caught on, and deepened restrictions. In the last five years alone, local governments have forbidden sex offenders to live within 2,000 feet of schools; “be” within 500 feet of parks or movie theaters; enter public libraries; drive buses or taxis; photograph or film minors; and use social networking websites like Facebook. Others have required sex offenders to advertise their status on driver’s licenses or social networking profiles; wear GPS bracelets at their own expense; notify local police when present in any county within the state for longer than ten days; provide notice to all new neighbors within a roughly quarter-mile radius when they move; and pay up to $100 annually to maintain sex offender registries. These burdens typically last for a decade or for life, depending on the jurisdiction and the type of crime committed.

Read the entire story here

TN - Former alderman (Richard L. Smith) on probation for solicitation charges against a minor

Richard L. Smith

Original Article

This just goes to show you that the laws are only for specific people. If you are a politician, well known, or rich, then the laws don't apply to you!

03/28/2014

By Bailey Darrow

PUTNAM COUNTY - Former Monterey alderman Richard L. Smith appeared in criminal court Thursday, entering a plea of guilty to one count of solicitation of a minor and must now serve two years on the sex offender registry.

In October, Smith was arrested on a three-count grand jury indictment charging him with one count of solicitation of a minor and two counts of extortion after he reportedly made contact with a young girl on social media and by sending text messages to a cell phone he purchased for her.

By entering a best interest plea of guilty to only the one count of solicitation, a Class E felony, Smith will have to serve two years on probation and must register on the sex offender registry.

He will be allowed to continue living at his home on Volunteer Way in Monterey, even though it is less than 1,000 feet from a school or park, despite that registration status. He will also be allowed to continue living with his girlfriend and her minor child, court documents state.

Upon successful completion of the sentence, Smith will be removed from the sex offender registry and the offense will be fully expunged, according to court documents.

The indictments issued against Smith alleged that between Dec. 1, 2012, and Jan. 9, 2013, Smith “did unlawfully by means of electronic communication intentionally request, persuade, invite or attempt to induce a person who (he) knows or should know is less than 18 years of age” to engage in conduct that, if completed, would constitute a violation of the state’s statutory rape law.

The extortion indictments alleged that Smith told the girl that “he would expose information concerning their personal relationship to various parties to embarrass her unless she fulfilled promises that he said she made concerning their romantic, sexual, and personal relationship.”

According to the indictments, he also told the girl “that he would expose information concerning their personal relationship to various parties to embarrass her unless she returned certain personal property,” to him.

The items Smith insisted the girl return include a ring, a necklace and a phone, according to the indictment.

Smith served on the Monterey board of mayor and aldermen for eight years. In 2010, he ran for mayor of Monterey, losing to then vice-mayor Jeff Hicks by only two votes. He also qualified in the race for mayor of the city in 2008, but ultimately withdrew his name from the ballot. In January 2012, he resigned from the city’s Planning Commission.

Most recently, Smith gained media attention as he campaigned for what he calls “Boomer’s Law” that would increase the possible punishment for aggravated assault in the state, following the death of his son in 2012.

Parents, Stop Panicking About Sexual Predators Online

Original Article

03/17/2014

By Hanna Rosin

In a recent New York Times profile, Danah Boyd was described by one of her colleagues at NYU as our first anthropologist “who comes from the tribe she’s studying,” meaning that the 36-year-old researcher is a digital native who grew up immersed in the same online culture as the teenagers she now studies. “Danah Boyd often dresses like her youthful subjects,” reads the caption on a photo of her wearing a fuzzy animal beanie and striped knee-highs, suggesting that Boyd is an emissary from a new and unexplored terrain. But what’s most surprising about this lucid excerpt from Boyd’s new book, It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, is how little the dynamics between teenagers and their parents seem to have changed, and also how much online life resembles dynamics in the real world.

In 2007, as she was reporting the book, Boyd traveled to a suburb in Texas and met Sabrina, the 14-year-old daughter of military parents. Eventually their conversation turned to Sabrina’s fears about going online, the subject of Boyd’s research:

She liked to read messages in online communities, but she did not post messages or talk to anyone in online forums because “any person could be a forty-year-old man waiting to come and rape me or something. I’m really meticulous about that, because I’ve heard basically my whole life, don’t talk to people you don’t know online, ’cause they’ll come kill you.” Sabrina has never personally known any victims of such crimes, but she told me that she had seen episodes of Law and Order in which terrible things happened to people who talked to strangers online.

Sabrina is an extreme example of what Boyd finds everywhere—teenagers, but mostly their parents, gripped by fears of sexual predators and pedophiles lurking on the Internet. These are fears that are difficult to back up with any crime statistics but which nonetheless govern parental rules about Internet use. How to explain these fears, if they have no basis in reality? The explanation comes from much deeper shifts in parenting culture, which have affected not only kids’ Internet use but the entire way their lives are structured these days. Sabrina can’t roam freely online, but she can’t roam freely anywhere. Boyd notices immediately when she arrives in the Texas suburb that there are no teenagers in any of the public spaces—the parks, the malls, or the playgrounds. Although Sabrina’s parents have served in war zones, they perceive their own suburb as a grave danger to their daughter and don’t really let her go anywhere alone.

The norms of American parenting have changed dramatically in one generation. As I describe in an Atlantic story that will be published later this week, actions that used to be considered paranoid in the 1970s—walking third-graders to schools, holding your child in your lap going down a slide—have now become markers of responsible parenting. Just as parents are terrified of online predators, they routinely tell their children not to talk to strangers, even though a child has about as little a chance of being abducted by strangers today as he or she did in the 1970s. Boyd quotes geographer Gill Valentine's research on “moral panics,” specifically the stranger danger that took hold of us in the 1980s. As a result of that panic, Boyd points out, public spaces—meaning playgrounds but also the Internet—became demonized as places where kids could get hurt and face all kinds of sexual danger.

The most interesting thing Boyd does in her excerpt is narrow down exactly who is at risk of sexual abuse, and it’s not your average protected suburbanite. Most kids know what they’re doing. Alarmists often quote a study from the Crimes Against Children Research Center claiming 1 in 5 children has been sexually solicited online. But that study also found only 4 percent of solicitations came from people known to be older than 25 and that in 75 percent of the incidents reported, the teenagers said they were not upset or afraid. The kids vulnerable to predators are the same ones who are vulnerable in the real world: the ones who get drawn in, who participate all too willingly because they are neglected, or come from abusive homes, or are drug addicts, or starved in some way for adult attention. But because they are not the perfect victims, we don’t pay enough attention and instead scramble to build a fortress around the Sabrinas of the world. And in the case of the truly vulnerable kids, as Boyd writes, “fear is not the solution. Empathy is.”

See Also:

• How we were fooled into thinking that sexual predators lurk everywhere

How we were fooled into thinking that sexual predators lurk everywhere

Original Article

This is a very long article but worth the read.

Creating a moral panic about social media didn’t protect teens—it left them vulnerable

This article is taken from It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, written by danah boyd, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, and published by Yale University Press.

(PDF) Fred and Aaron, white fifteen-year-old friends living in suburban Texas, are avid gamers. When we first met in 2007, their mothers were present. I asked about their participation on social network sites, and they explained that they didn’t use those sites but loved sites like Runescape, a fantasy game with customizable avatars. Their mothers nodded, acknowledging their familiarity with Runescape before interrupting their children’s narrative to express how unsafe social network sites were. Something about Fred and Aaron’s gritted nod in response left me wondering how these teens really felt about MySpace and Facebook—sites that were all the rage with their peer group at the time. Later, almost immediately after I sat with the boys alone to talk with them in-depth, they offered a different story.

Aaron explained that he was active on MySpace but that his mother didn’t know. Since many of his friends were using Facebook, he would have liked to create an account there, too, but his mother had an account on Facebook for work and he feared she would accidentally stumble onto his profile. Out of deference to his mother, Fred had yet to create an account on either site, but he was struggling to decide whether to keep abiding by his mother’s restrictions going forward. Fred told me that his parents forbade him from Facebook and MySpace after seeing “all the stuff on the news.” He said that his parents were afraid that “if I get on it, I’ll be assaulted.” Aaron chimed in to sarcastically remark, “He’ll meet in real life with a lonely forty-year-old man.” They both laughed at this idea.

Neither Fred nor Aaron believed that joining MySpace would make them vulnerable to sexual predators, but they were still concerned about upsetting their mothers. Both felt that their mothers’ fears were ill founded, but they also acknowledged that this fear was coming from a genuine place of concern. Although their demeanor was lighthearted, their discussion of their mothers’ fears was solemn: they worried that their mothers worried.

Read the rest of the story

See Also:

• Parents, Stop Panicking About Sexual Predators Online

FL - Pasco County eighth grader faces child porn charge

Original Article (Video available)

02/19/2014

By Chris Trenkmann

14-year-old posted nude photos on Facebook

NEW PORT RICHEY - A Pasco County eighth grader faces a felony child pornography charge after deputies say he posted nude pictures of a 13-year-old girl on Facebook.

Deputies said the 14-year old boy had been exchanging pictures on the app Kik but became angry when the girl stopped sending explicit photos.

"I can't imagine how horrified that mother was to look on Facebook and see a picture of her daughter masturbating," said Det. William Lindsey.

The girl, meanwhile, told investigators she never expected to see those photos made public.

"She's devastated," Lindsey said. "This was a guy she thought she was in a relationship with and that she had no idea that this was going to take place."

Detectives said the boy posted the photos to Facebook after she refused to send him more nude photos.

ABC Action News spoke with the suspect's mother, who said this was a case of two kids arguing and that it shouldn't have escalated into adult felony charges. She also said the girl is partly to blame for sending the nude photos in the first place.

Pasco County Sheriff's Chris Nocco said this is an example of why parents need to be careful when allowing their kids to have portable devices like tablets and cellphones. In this case, Kik doesn't require a phone line for members to text each other photos and videos. And because Kik is a foreign-owned website, it can be difficult to track or investigate criminal activity like child porn.

Deputies said parents need to pay close attention to these apps and monitor what their kids are sending and receiving because predators often use them as a place to contact minors.

"They find them. They send them sexually explicit photos. They solicit children for photographs," Lindsey said. "It becomes a problem because parents don't even realize what they're children are seeing."

FL - Florida lawmakes hope to tighten loopholes in sex offender laws

Rep. Dane Eagle

Original Article

02/17/2014

By Marisa Kendall

Florida lawmakers have agreed to make reforming sex offense laws a priority this legislative session, a move spearheaded in part by a Cape Coral representative.
- What else is new? They do this every single year.

Rep. Dane Eagle, R-Cape Coral, jumped on board after a Sun Sentinel investigation suggested the state mishandled hundreds of sex offense cases and allowed convicted offenders to find new victims.

“I’m passionate about it,” Eagle said, “and I’m glad others are taking notice.”

House and Senate panels passed a handful of correlating bills last week that would keep sex offenders behind bars longer, require them to provide more personal information after they are released, notify victims when they are released, and eliminate a loophole that could allow sex offenders to leave prison without serving a period of community supervision. The legislative session begins March 4.

HB 7021, one of two bills sponsored by Eagle, would make it easier to detain sex offenders under Florida’s Jimmy Ryce law. The 1999 law requires the state to evaluate violent sex offenders to determine if they are still a threat to society after completing their prison terms. If they are deemed a threat, the offenders can be confined indefinitely in a treatment program.

Almost 600 offenders evaluated since 1999 were released and later convicted of another sex crime, according to the Sun Sentinel investigation published last year.

“We should at least be able to do our best to keep those kind of people behind bars and under watch,” Eagle said.

Now the decision to commit a sex offender under Jimmy Ryce hinges on a unanimous vote by a Department of Children and Families panel (Isn't that a conflict of interest?), which can range from two to five people. If Eagle’s bill passes, one vote in favor would be enough to commit an offender. And if every member of the DCF panel votes no, the state attorney’s office could override the panel and commit the offender.
- So basically they are going to just start committing everybody?

But Roger Gunder, a Fort Myers sexologist who has worked with sex offenders and victims of sexual abuse, thinks it should be harder, not easier, to imprison someone indefinitely.

“I have never been in favor of locking people up for what you think they might do,” he said, “which is exactly what the Jimmy Ryce act does.”

Eagle’s second sex offender bill, HB 7025, would require sex offenders to disclose more personal information when they are released from prison. The bill updates the current statute, requiring sex offenders to register information including their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

HB 7027 would impose 50-year minimum mandatory sentences for dangerous sexual offenders, eliminate the statute of limitations for sex offenses committed on victims younger than 16, and authorize arrests without warrants in cases of unlawful exposure of sexual organs.

An extended prison sentence would be appropriate for a small percentage of the state’s most violence sex offenders, Gunder said. But most sex offenders need more treatment, not more time in prison.

Gunder said media coverage, such as the Sun Sentinel report, gives the public a distorted view of the recidivism rates of sex offenders. Research shows sex offenders re-offend less often than other types of criminals, he said.

House and Senate leaders, in a show of bipartisanship, have agreed to move forward with the proposed sex offender bills. Eagle is in favor of all of them. He said:

“I’ve already supported them with my votes.”

TX - Sheriff's jailer (Rolan Ray Mata) arrested on online solicitation of a minor charges

Rolan Ray Mata

Original Article

02/07/2014

McALLEN - A man set to begin work as a county detention officer lost his job and faces felony charges after police said Friday that he used social media to solicit underage girls for sex.

On Friday, Rolan Ray Mata went before a McAllen municipal judge who formally charged him with one count of online solicitation of a minor and set his bond at $75,000 before sending him to the Hidalgo County Jail.

Detectives arrested Mata, 24, Thursday afternoon as part of an ongoing investigation into online child predators, said Lt. Joel Morales, a department spokesman.

Using social media websites, undercover officers posed as a 14-year-old girl who interacted with Mata and was solicited to have sex with him, Morales said.

Mata told McAllen police investigators that he worked at the Hidalgo County jail as a detention officer, but Sheriff Lupe Treviño said that he was not yet an employee.

Mata had been offered a job as a detention officer and was scheduled to begin working on Monday. But upon being notified of his arrest, Treviño rescinded the offer.

MN - Deal may be near in case of ex-cop (Bradley Schnickel) accused of soliciting girls

Bradley Schnickel

Original Article

02/07/2014

By Sarah Horner

A settlement may be coming in the case against a former Minneapolis police officer accused of soliciting young girls on the Internet for sex.

After meeting Friday in Anoka County District Court, both Bradley Schnickel's defense attorney and the prosecution said the two sides are close to reaching a resolution.

They will meet in a settlement hearing Monday, the same day the trial against the 33-year-old father of two was set to begin.

"We are working it out... We're getting close," said Fred Bruno, Schnickel's attorney. "This will most likely be resolved Monday."

Schnickel faces more than 21 criminal counts alleging criminal sexual misconduct, lewd exhibition, furnishing alcohol to a minor and other accusations.

Using various aliases, Schnickel is accused of logging on to Facebook and other social networking sites and engaging in sexually charged conversations with more than a dozen young girls. In some cases, he exchanged naked pictures with the minors. In a couple instances, he allegedly met them in person and had sex.

The youngest alleged victim was 11. Several others were 12 to 14.

None of the conduct took place while Schnickel was working as a cop.

The Minneapolis patrol officer since 2008 received a medal of commendation for his work in 2011. He was placed on "home assignment" last January after the allegations surfaced.

He was fired the following month.

Monday's hearing comes just over three months since he pleaded guilty in Hennepin County Court to two counts of Internet solicitation of children for similar crimes.

Schnickel was sentenced to a year at the Hennepin County Adult Corrections Facility in Plymouth and mandated to undergo therapy.

He is already enrolled in a sex offender treatment program at Alpha Human Services in Minneapolis.

Schnickel's hearing Monday will take place at 2 p.m.