A federal judge has sentenced Aaron Bruns, a former Fox News producer, to 10 years in prison for possessing child porn, according to the Associated Press.
As Minor Troubles readers will recall, Bruns, 29, had previously been convicted for child porn. In February, federal agents found photos and videos on Bruns computer depicting “children under the age of 10 being sexually abused by adult men and women.” In May, Bruns plead guilty to possession of child porn.
When Bruns was just a 19-year-old college student, he also pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography online, a crime for which he received three years probation. When police raided his University of Michigan dorm room, they found approximately 6,000 pornographic images of children.
The three children told police that they were so uncomfortable with their nanny that they locked themselves in a bathroom to avoid her. Aza Hrnjic, 22, a nanny in suburban Washington, D.C., is accused of showing porn to the kids and urging them to pose nude in front of a Web camera.
Hrnjic has been charged with child abuse and is being held on $350,000 bond, the Washington Post reported. The kids under her care were a 5-year-old boy and two girls ages 10 and 12. Hrnjic had been working at the home in Hyattsville, Md., for about a month and a half.
The kids told police that they refused to pose in front of the Web camera. Hrnjic allegedly had sexually explicit conversations with them and showed them porn from Web sites.
A former NPR editor who pleaded guilty to watching videos of children being raped will not have to spend any time in prison for the crime.
David Malakoff will have to register as a sex offender for 25 years, pay a fine of $500 and do 600 hours of community service. But he will not be required to do the six to eight years of prison time recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, according to the Washington Examiner.
In deciding against a prison sentence, the judge cited Malakoff’s abuse as a child. He’d been raped as a 9-year-old boy, and had looked at videos of child rape and sexual abuse for a period of five hours as a way to relive his own rape.
Before the judge’s decision, Malakoff, 46, apologized to the court: “I am ashamed. I am horrified. Most of all because I know their story. I have made their lives worse. I am so sorry,” Malakoff said. He said he will be haunted forever by the images of the children being raped, “their distant eyes, their blank faces.”
As Minor Troubles readers will recall, Malakoff worked as an editor and on-air correspondant for National Public Radio until June of 2008.
Teens have been charged with child porn, sent to jail and even forced to register as sex offenders for “sexting.” But now some Vermont lawmakers want to pass a bill that would give kids legal cover if they send X-rated photos and videos to each other.
Supporters are quick to say that they don’t condone sexting — they just don’t want the teens to be put in the same category as your run-of-the-mill child molester. “There’s no public interest in labeling them as sex offenders for engaging in a perverted, albeit new, form of courtship,” T.J. Donovan, a county prosecutor, told the Burlington Free Press.
The proposed law would make it legal for explicit photos to be consensually exchanged between those ages 13 to 18.
In Ohio, lawmakers also are considering legal protections for sexting teens. The bill proposes that incidents be charged as a misdemeanor so that teens are not labeled as felons and sex offenders. For adults, though, transmitting nude photos of minors would still be a felony.
A well-regarded children’s writer is being accused of liking children in ways that are illegal. Kevin Patrick Bath, 50, of Portland, Ore., who writes under the name K.P. Bath, was charged in U.S. District Court this week with one count each of distributing, transferring and receiving child pornography, and two counts of possessing child pornography. He entered pleas of not guilty to each count, the Oregonian reported.
Bath is the author of “The Secret of Castle Cant,” which was described by one reader on Amazon.com as “wonderfully witty and intelligent,” and “Escape from Castle Cant,” which one child on Amazon called “my favorite book ever.” The feds say Bath had been actively trading child pornography with individuals in Washington and Ohio. A forensic
examination of his computer and data storage revealed well over 100 video files and thousands of still images of child pornography, the Oregonian said. Many of the videos depicted children as young as four being sexually abused.
Bath’s web site, Kpbath.com, was immediately taken down. So was his author page at his publisher, Hachette. His next book, “Flip Side,” has been canceled. The writer had been a volunteer at a children’s library but is barred from any contact with children before his trial. “It definitely was a shock to the library staff who knew him,” Cindy
Gibbon of the Multnomah County Library told Fox 12. She stressed that he was never alone with children.
Phillip Alpert, 18, was mad at his girlfriend. So he sent out a naked photo of the 16-year-old to dozens of her friends and family members. Maybe he should have just dated her best friend instead.
Orlando police booked Phillip on a felony child porn charge. After the high school senior was convicted, he was required by state law to register as a sex offender. His attorney is now fighting to get the teen removed from the registry. Phillip says he is being excessively punished for a stupid, immature act. “You will find me on the registered sex offender list next to people who have raped children, molested kids, things like that,” Phillip told CNN.
How teens should be punished for “sexting” is controversial. Some police and prosecutors say that teens need to realize that sending nude photos isn’t a harmless joke — child molesters could get hold of the X-rated material.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against prosecutors who had threatened to file child porn charges against three teens featured in explicit photos. In March, a judge agreed to temporarily block the charges.
The 14-year-old girl apparently posted the X-rated photos because she wanted her boyfriend to see them, authorities said. It’s not clear whether he viewed the 30 photos, but a lot of other people certainly did.
The New Jersey girl, who has not been publicly named, was charged this week with possession and distribution of child porn. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children helped alert investigators, the Associated Press reported. “We consider this case a wake-up call to parents,” Passaic County Sheriff’s spokesman Bill Maer told the AP.
While teen “sexting” by cell phone has become more common, legal experts said this was the first such incident on a social networking site that resulted in criminal charges.
An Indiana teen secretly videotaped two other teens having sex and then sent the footage to other kids. Police began investigating after the embarassed girl in the video contacted authorities. The kid who made the video could face criminal charges, such as possession of child porn, WISH TV News reported.
The taping of the 15-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy having consensual sex occurred at a party on Saturday, according to a police report obtained by the Johnson County Daily Journal. By Monday, students at Indian Creek High School were viewing the video on their cell phones.
Other teen sexting incidents have been investigated by police nationwide, but nearly all have simply involved nude photos, not sex acts.
Patrick Connolly threatened to publicize personal info about the girls if they didn’t send him X-rated photos of themselves, authorities said. The Irish citizen, arrested in Atlanta on Friday, has allegedly hacked into the computers of teen girls around the world since 2005.
One girl who refused to send him explicit photos had the permanent files on her computer deleted, according to prosecutors. Another girl was told that he would hurt her sister. He showed up in Orlando to see another teen at her workplace. Recently, he created a Facebook profile and began contacting girls who had harassed years before.
Connolly has been charged with one count of computer hacking, but other charges are likely to follow, authorities told the Associated Press. A criminal complaint filed by federal officials names seven teen victims, six of whom lived in Florida. However, authorities say that Connolly likely had more victims worldwide.
Connolly was apparently ratted out by a former accomplice who similarly hacked into teens’ computers. Ivory Dickerson of North Carolina, who had up to 4,000 victims, was sentenced to 110 years in prison in 2007 on child porn charges. Last January, prosecutors began investigating Connolly, who formerly worked in Iraq for a Department of Defense contractor.
The western Indiana couple was charged with taping themselves performing sexual acts with four kids between the ages of two months and six years old, authorities said.
Stephen E. Quick, 31, and Samantha Light, 25, ran a babysitting service out of their home in Veedersburg, Ind. They were being held in jail on $100,000 bond, police announced on Friday. Officials began investigating after being alerted by the parents of a 3-year-old girl. The child told them that the couple had touched her inappropriately and photographed her at their home, the Associated Press reported.
During a search of the home, police seized computers, cameras, video equipment, pornographic material, sex toys used in the videos and drugs.