NEW YORK
A police officer, a paramedic,
a rabbi, a nurse and a Boy Scout leader were among at least 70 people arrested
in the New York City area in recent weeks as part of a sweeping investigation
into the anonymous trading of child porn over the Internet.
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, which led a five-week investigation ending last week, planned to
announce Wednesday that it resulted in charges against at least 70 men and one
woman. Officials call it one of the largest local roundups ever of individual
consumers of child porn, and a stark reminder that they come from all segments
of society.
Consuming child porn "is
not something that is just done by unemployed drifters who live in their
parent's basement," said James Hayes, ICE's New York office. "If this
operation does anything, it puts the lie to the belief that the people who do
this are not productive members of society."
Advances in technology and
computer capacity have allowed child-porn collectors to more easily amass vast
troves of images and to exchange files with each other directly, authorities
say. The cyber dragnet resulted in the seizure of nearly 600 desktop and laptop
computers, tablets, smartphones and other devices containing a total of 175
terabytes of storage.
Agents are still examining the
devices to locate and catalog evidence — an arduous task that could result in
more arrests. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also will
use its analysts to review the images to see if it can identify children using
databases of known victims.
"We refer to each of these
images as a crime scene photo because that's exactly what they are," said
John Ryan, the organization's chief executive officer.
Authorities decided to launch
the operation after the arrest in January of a former police chief in suburban
Mount Pleasant, Brian Fanelli, who pleaded not guilty this week to federal
charges of knowingly receiving and distributing child pornography. Court papers
allege that Fanelli told investigators he began looking at child porn as
research before it grew into a "personal interest."
Authorities say some of the
defendants had access to young children, though there were no reports of abuse.
The Boy Scout leader also coached a youth baseball team. The rabbi
home-schooled his children and others. Another person had hidden cameras used
to secretly film his children's friends.
One defendant was already on
bail following his arrest last year on charges he used the Internet to direct
women to record sex acts with young children. Court papers allege he
"indicated the last video he had downloaded and viewed depicted a mother
sexually abusing her 3-
