On Thursday, May 28, 2009, as a result of a four month long investigation, the largest of its kind, Polk County Sheriff’s Office Computer Crimes detectives charged 45 suspects, based upon 50 search warrants and seizure of approximately 12,000 child pornographic images.
“These images are not just images of children without clothes,” said Sheriff Grady Judd. “These images are horrific displays of children being forced to expose their genitals, forced to perform sexual acts – images of children being raped.”
“Operation Child Shield” was designed to locate and arrest those who possess child sex abuse pornography where the victims are between the ages of birth and 12 years of age – and thereby reducing the demand for child sex abuse pornography creation, production, and distribution in Polk County.
Possession of Child Pornography is a 3nd degree felony. This charge may be enhanced to a 2nd degree felony if the person is in possession of 10 or more images of any form of child pornography and the content of at least one image contains: a child who was younger than the age of 5, sadomasochistic abuse involving a child, sexual battery involving a child, sexual bestiality involving a child, or a movie involving a child (regardless of length and regardless of whether the movie contains sound). Promotion of Child Pornography is a 2nd degree felony. This means that the person sent, transferred, gave, or distributed child pornography to another person.
Through the investigation, PCSO detectives identified suspects who possessed pornographic images of children. Those images were verified to be pornographic and probable cause was determined. Search warrants were obtained and executed. Additional forensic evidence was gathered from computers and computer media seized at the location.
Operation Child Shield Brief Facts
This investigation operated between February and May, 2009.
This child pornography operation focused on pre-pubescent child victims (between the ages of birth and 12 years-old).
45 men (including four juveniles aged 16, 17, 17, and 17) were arrested on Possession of Child Pornography and other charges.
Charges ranged from one count to fifty counts of possession of child pornography. Most of those arrested had many more child pornography images than were charged—actual charges were limited to 40 or 50 counts, more than enough to ensure effective prosecution.
Approximately 12,000 child pornography images (both pictures and videos) were discovered and seized.
Most discovered child porn videos are relatively short, between a few seconds and 10 minutes.
Confiscated videos range between a few seconds and 90 minutes in length.
Some videos have multiple child victims, but the majority involved a single child victim.
The role of the Internet
“The Internet is helping to create a growing market for and means to easily distribute these vile, pernicious and disgusting child sex abuse images. The Internet doesn’t ‘cause or induce’ men to view and download child pornography, it makes it very easy for them to do so,” said Sheriff Judd.
The Internet, for all its positive contribution to expanding information exchange and knowledge, has tremendously expanded the means for people to access; develop a curiosity, then an interest, and then an obsession for images that depict graphic child sex abuse and exploitation. Curiosity, interest, obsession, and desensitization can lead to current in-person sexually abusive contact between these pedophiles and children.
Supply and Demand
The laws of supply and demand are at work in the creation and distribution of child pornography.
“If there was not a ‘market demand’ to view, possess, buy, and exchange child sex abuse and exploitation images, then the producers would not create it, ruining the lives of thousands of children,” said Sheriff Judd.
Also, new child porn is created by those who become obsessed with viewing it and who then generate new victims through the creation of new child sex abuse images. According to experts associated with the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce Program (ICAC), there are believed to be over 9 million unique images of child sex abuse and exploitation that exist today exchanged over the Internet.
Real children are being victimized — their chance for a normal and healthy life destroyed—by pornographers because of their own deviant motivations and the drive to possess child porn by others. Those who view, possess, buy, and trade child pornography are complicit in the crime against the child depicted in the images.
How a pedophile is created
pe⋅do⋅phile /[pee-duh-fahyl] –noun Psychiatry. An adult who is sexually attracted to young children.
por⋅nog⋅ra⋅pher [pawr-nog-ruh-fer] –noun. A person who writes or sells pornography.
Child pornography = child sex abuse and exploitation.
We have found that virtually every one of these people have developed an addiction to adult pornography. Through this addiction, they download more and more sexually explicit and obscene material and eventually download images of child sex abuse. They then develop a curiosity, then an interest, then an obsession, and often desensitization to the graphic child sex abuse images.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, “40% of those arrested were ‘dual offenders,’ who sexually victimized children and possessed child pornography, with both crimes discovered in the same investigation. An additional 15% were dual offenders who attempted to sexually victimize children by soliciting undercover investigators who posed online as minors. Once these images are on the Internet, they are irretrievable and can continue to circulate forever. The child is revictimized as the images are viewed again and again.”
ICAC
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office is a member of the Florida Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, Task Force encompassing 17 counties and 26 agencies or affiliates, along with three Federal partners. Nation-wide there are 59 ICAC taskforces. There are three ICAC task forces in Florida.
A list of PCSO affiliates and partners appears below:
Affiliates
5th Judicial Circuit
10th Judicial Circuit
Avon Park Police Department
Bradenton Police Department
Citrus County Sheriff's Office
Clearwater Police Department
Desoto County Sheriff's Office
Florida Department of Law Enforcement - Computer Crimes
Hardee County Sheriff's Office
Highlands County Sheriff's Office
Kenneth City Police Department (Pinellas County)
Lake County Sheriff's Office
Largo Police Department
Manatee County Sheriff's Office
Mulberry Police Department
New Port Richey Police Department
Office of Attorney General - Orlando
Office of Attorney General - Tampa
Orange County Sheriff's Office
Osceola County Sheriff's Office
Pinellas County Sheriff's Office
Sarasota Police Department
Seminole County Sheriff's Office
Statewide Prosecutor's Office
Sumter County Sheriff's Department
Winter Springs Police Department
Federal Partners
Federal Bureau of Investigations
Immigration Customs Enforcement
US Postal Inspection Office
A chart of the suspects appears on this website as well, http://www.polksheriff.org/NewsRoom/News%20Releases/Pages/OperationChildShieldSuspectChart.aspx.