Introduction
The viewing, possessing, producing, or transmitting of sexually pornographic material by a law enforcement officers is of two types—adult and child. Viewing adult pornography while on duty, either through electronic means on personal or departmental owned devices, or possessing adult pornographic material while on duty (magazines, photos, etc.) is typically not a crime. However, it is usually a violation of agency policies, procedures, and rules. Therefore, it is subject to administrative sanction, including dismissal. On the other hand, the possession of child pornography by any person is a criminal offense and subject to criminal and administrative penalties. Therefore, the production, possession, transmission, or viewing of child pornography by a law enforcement officer on or off duty is a serious crime.
The production of child pornography requires perpetrator victim contact and is a violent crime. On the other hand, viewing, possessing, and transporting already produced child pornography does not require victim–sex aggressor contact. Therefore, this heinous police sexual misconduct is not a violent crime. If fact, that is used as a not successful rationalization in many instances. The examples presented show that LEOs at all levels of government engage in the viewing, production, possession, and transportation of child pornography . Child pornography is charged and prosecuted by both state and federal agencies.
Federal Prosecution of Law Enforcement Officers
Anthony V. Mangione—Head, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for South Florida
“This case reveals the disturbing truth that child predators will go to great lengths to sexually exploit minors,” federal law enforcement officer Anthony Mangione said in a 2008 news release, after a Martin County [Florida] man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for using the Internet to entice a minor into sexual activity. “ICE is committed to identifying and arresting these individuals who seek to victimize children and help ensure that justice is served,” he added (Franceschina et al., September 28, 2011).
The lofty words were emblematic of the public position on “child predators” that shared pornographic images of children over the Internet expressed by Anthony Mangione , a secret child pornographer. Mangione hid his sexual perversion behind a mask of respectability. The 27-year veteran federal law enforcement officer (LEO ) was married and the father of three and since 2007 was the chief law enforcement officer for ICE in the South Florida region. As chief LEO for ICE , he supervised 450 agents in nine counties as they investigated drug smuggling, money laundering and financial crime, commercial fraud, national security, and cybercrimes that included the transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography as part of the federal government’s efforts for Project Safe Childhood . While he railed against child pornography in public, Mangione collected child pornography and transported it to other collectors.
According to a September 28, 2011, FBI Press Release, Mangione transported and received visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct from March 2010 to September 2010. He also possessed electronically stored messages that contained images of child pornography (FBI , September 28, 2011). Mangione allegedly used the Internet provider AOL to send and receive child pornography . That is what led to his exposure.
AOL’s sophisticated software to detect potential pornography flagged files being sent from Mangione’s email account and shut down the account while preserving the information. The retrieved pictures were sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children . From there, the files were forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement agency as outlined in Project Safe Children. Once the Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BSO ) and the FBI received the information, they executed search warrants on Mangione’s house and ICE office.
The searches of Mangione’s home computer revealed his AOL accounts were regularly used to send nude and pornographic pictures of children. In one instance, in September 2010, Mangione sent sexually explicit images of boys under 10 and one of a girl under 12 to an unidentified recipient. Later court documents revealed 150 child pornographic images on his laptop with some of the victims as young as three. He allegedly was part of Internet chat groups with other child pornography owners, sending pictures to a man in Delaware who reportedly had 700 child porn images.
At first, Mangione pleaded not guilty and delayed his trial while a defense expert examined the computer images. Then, he reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors and admitted using two different email handles to send 16 emails containing child pornography to a single email address. He was sentenced to 70 months in prison followed by an additional 20 years on supervised release.
FBI Special Agent Donald J. Sachtleben—Child Pornographer and Secret Deviant
Donald Sachtleben during his 25-year distinguished career with the FBI was a member of the FBI’s terrorist squad and a bomb expert. He served as the team leader at the bombings of the 1993 World Trades Center, the 1995 bombing of the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building, the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Kenya, and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. He coordinated the search and arrest of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. In 2008, Sachtleben retired as an FBI Special Agent and went to work as an FBI technician working as a bomb analysis and government contractor. Sachtleben was an admired patriotic federal agent, but his public persona had a dark and secret deviant side.
Investigators with the Illinois Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force—Project Safe Childhood , while searching the computers of a man in Roscoe, Illinois discovered child pornography being exchanged between the man and an IP address belonging to Donald Sachtleben in Carmel, Indiana. On May 11, 2012, FBI agents and officers with the Indiana State Police served a search warrant on Sachtleben to search his computers and residence for child pornography (Kno, May 11, 2012). They found 30 images and video files of child pornography featuring girls under the age of 12. Sachtleben allegedly traded these images and videos with others on the Internet. An FBI agent swore in an affidavit that Sachtleben sent 220 images of child pornography on one night in September 2010. He was charged with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography. As bad as Sachtleben’s legal problem were they became decidedly worse. Sachtleben was charged with leaking classified CIA information (West, July 112, 2014).
Sachtleben still worked for the FBI as a contractor and retained his top-secret security clearance. On May 7, 2012, four days before his arrest for child pornography , the AP published a story that US intelligence learned that Al-Quida’s Yemen branch had built a new, nearly undetectable bomb and had plans to put the bomb on a US-bound plane around the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death. The story attributed to unnamed government sources reported the FBI had the bomb in their possession. The story ignited a firestorm of criticism against leaking of classified national defense information and a frantic effort to identify the leak’s source.
A year later, the Justice Department informed AP that the government agency had secretly obtained two months of call records from 20 telephone lines used by AP reporters and editors in an attempt to discover the source of the leak. The Justice Department identified Sachtleben as the possible source and secured a search warrant for Sachtleben’s electronic devices. The federal government already had his cell phone, computer, and other electronic media devices in their possession as a result of the child pornography investigation. A search of these devices revealed him as the alleged source of the leak and in possession of classified information. Sachtleben was charged with leaking classified information and distributing child pornography .
Sachtleben entered into a plea agreement and received a sentence of three years, seven months on the national security charge and eight years, one month for child pornography —a sad ending to a long and distinguished public career.
Captain David Bourque—Granby, Connecticut Police Department—Child Pornographer—Largest Collection in Connecticut History
Captain David Bourque was with the 15-person Granby Police Department for only 18 months when he was arrested on federal child pornography charges. The arrest and forensic investigation of two laptops—one personal and one police department issued—two external hard drives, and a media card found approximately 22,282 images and 4084 videos of child pornography . The recovered images depicted the sexual abuse of prepubescent boys, including toddlers and infants. It was the largest collection of child pornography in Connecticut history (FBI , February 10, 2012). Bourque’s background gave no indication of his secret perversions.
Bourque was hired at Granby PD with the rank of captain after thirty years with the Suffield, Connecticut Police Department—a 15-person department. He was hired because of his known computer skills. The rigorous background check included a polygraph examination, psychological examination, computer arrest examination, and a lengthy interview. No “dings” were found in his background, and he was hired over four other candidates for the position. His arrest for child pornography shocked his friends and colleagues.
The investigation and arrest of Captain Bourque were conducted as a part of the DOJ’s Project Safe Childhood and Connecticut’s “Operation Constant Vigilance” aimed at protecting children from sexual exploitation. According to the FBI press release cited above, in March 2011, a Connecticut State Police trooper assigned to the Connecticut State Police Computer Crimes Unit logged into a publicly available Internet file-sharing program and downloaded images of child pornography . The State Police traced the IP address back to Bourque’s home address. Connecticut State Police (CSP) executed search warrants on Bourque’s office and residence.
Bourque met with CSP investigators and FBI agents and explained how he had encrypted the hard drives to conceal his child porn collection and provided them with passwords to access his accounts. He admitted using his law enforcement background to help hide his illegal activity. Specifically, he mentioned attending an FBI seminar on child pornography investigations and asking the presenters how they investigated chat rooms and pedophile Web sites. Bourque was placed on administrative leave and resigned from the police department.
In July 2011, Bourque pleaded guilty, admitting that from August 2010 to April 2011 he “received and exchanged visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct on my computer.” Before his sentencing, Bourque asked for a lenient sentence because he had post-traumatic stress disorder that impaired his judgment. The judge not impressed with his leniency plea and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Trooper Randy Quinn, South Carolina Highway Patrol—Child Pornographer—Operation Predator
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS ) and its investigative agency Homeland Security Investigative (HSI) conduct national and international efforts against the sexual exploitation of children. The HSI through its Child Exploitation Unit supports programs such as Operation Predator , a global initiative to identify, investigate, and charge child predators who: possess, trade and produce child pornography , travel overseas for sex with minors, and engage in sex trafficking of children (www.ice.gove/predator). The trooper was discovered in one of the routine investigations.
Immigration and Customs Agents (ICE ) were conducting online Internet investigations to identify individuals possessing and sharing child pornography when they discovered a computer sharing 49 files with names that indicated child pornography . The agents downloaded an IP address that led them to Trooper Quinn’s home address in South Carolina.
On June 7, 2011, ICE agents executed a search warrant on Quinn’s residence and seized a laptop, desktop, and other disks with thousands of images of child pornography . They discovered that Quinn was a three-year veteran of the South Carolina Highway Patrol with previous experience as a Gaffney, South Carolina Police Department officer. Quinn was fired the same day. He was indicted on two alleged counts of child pornography —possession and distribution. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Richard Chandler—Kingsport, Tennessee Police Department—Child Pornographer—Operation Delego
Operation Delego was, at the time it was launched in 2009, the largest international investigation of a pedophile ring dedicated to the sexual abuse of children and the creation and distribution of child pornography (DOJ, August 3, 2011). Those arrested came from five continents and 15 countries. Seventy-two individuals were arrested worldwide, including 55 in the US One of those arrested, tried, and convicted was a Kingsport, Tennessee Police Officer Richard Chandler .
The targets of the massive operation were members of a pedophile ring operating through an invitation-only Internet site named Dreamboard . Dreamboard members allegedly traded graphic images and videos of adults molesting children of 12 years old and under, including infants, often violently. Dreamboard members allegedly created a massive private library of child sexual abuse. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the amount of child pornography swapped by participants was equivalent to 16,000 DVDs (Anonymous, August 3, 2011).
Membership in the pedophile ring was tightly controlled. Prospective members had to upload child pornography portraying children 12 years old or younger when applying for membership. When they became a member, they had to continually upload images of child sexual abuse or be expelled. The members were divided into groups based on their involvement in child sexual abuse and the supplied uploads of pictures documenting their sick perversions. Super VIP was the highest level of membership. These child molesters allegedly created new images of child pornography and shared the pictures with the five Dreamboard administrators. VIP rank was next, and the lowest level of membership was simply Members. Members allegedly moved up the ranks by producing child abuse images and providing a large number of images or uploading images never seen before. A particularly violent and sought after category of images were known as Super Hardcore. These images involved adults having violent sexual intercourse with “very young kids,” sometimes infants, who were obviously in distress and or crying. The members allegedly could view all the pornographic postings at their level and the levels below them.
Court documents indicated Chandler joined Dreamboard in 2010 while he was a police officer. He made 117 posts to the Dreamboard site, twice while he was on duty. The majority of the posts were children from 8 to 14 who posed or engaged in sexual acts with adults. At the time of his arrest, Chandler was at the VIP level of membership—the second-lowest level of membership. He was charged with (1) engaging in a child exploitation enterprise; (2) conspiring to advertise the distribution of child pornography ; and (3) conspiring to distribute child pornography . In April 2012, Chandler pleaded guilty to engaging in a child exploitation enterprise and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The other charges were dismissed.
NYPD Sergeant Alberto Randazzo—Child Molester and Child Pornographer
NYPD Sergeant Alberto Randazzo , a 15-year police veteran, worked out of the Midtown North Precinct of Manhattan . In February 2013, the NYPD Internal Affairs Unit was investigating complaints that Sgt. Randazzo allegedly had child pornography in his possession (Keshner, April 19, 2017). They executed search warrants on his computers and found a cache of illegal videos. There were twenty-three still images and videos depicting sex acts with children, some as young as 1 and 2 years old.
The discoveries of the pornographic videos led to allegations that Randazzo directed 11 different child porn videos. Some of the videos, dating back to 2010, showed a woman fondling newborn infants and engaging in oral sex on a boy and a girl. The NYPD sergeant was arrested and charged with the state crimes of using a child in a sexual performance, promoting the sexual performance by a child and possession of a sexual performance by a child. He was suspended without pay and jailed with a $40,000 bond (Chinese and Thomas, February 19, 2013).
Randazzo was out on bail when he was arrested a second time in February 2014 on federal charges of child pornography . Homeland Security Investigation agents accused him of downloading 30 video files depicting child pornography . Federal prosecutors took over the prosecution of his earlier crimes from the state crimes because his offenses involved interstate transactions. The woman in the videos with the infants was discovered to be in Colorado when they were made. Federal authorities indicted a 52-year-old Massachusetts grandmother for conspiring with Randazzo to produce pornographic videos while he was out on bail. She allegedly drugged an eight-year-old boy and sexually abused him while she chatted with Randazzo. The mother of the infants in the earlier videos is in jail and awaiting trial along with Randazzo.
Randazzo and the two women faced mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison if convicted. In 2017, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison (Keshner, April 19, 2017). The HSI agents discovered 28 new pornographic videos after they traced them to an IP address associated with Randazzo. He and 70 other pedophiles , including two more police officers, were identified during Operation Caireen.
Operation Caireen Identifies Two New York Officers—Child Pornographers
Operation Caireen was the largest operation by Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) ever conducted in New York (ICE , May 5, 2014). From April 4 to May 15, 2014, HSI special agents, NYPD detectives, and other law enforcement partners surreptitiously infiltrated peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to identify individuals in the New York City metropolitan area engaged in child pornography . The operation identified 150 distinct Internet addresses involved in the trading of sexually explicit images of children. NYPD Sgt. Randazza’s Internet address was one of those identified. The law enforcement investigators identified files using words traditionally associated with child pornography and connected to those IP addresses and browsed the files shared at that address. Then, they obtained search warrants and seized the computers and electronic devices at the addresses and made an arrest.
Seventy-one subjects were arrested, and nearly 87 search warrants were executed, resulting in the seizure of 600 computing devices—desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and thumb drives. Several of those arrested held positions of public trust such as police officers. Two New York police officers, Chief Brian Fanelli of the Mount Pleasant Police Department and NYPD Officer Yong Wu , were arrested.
Chief of Police Brian Fanelli—Town of Mount Pleasant, New York—Operation Caireen
The Town of Mount Pleasant, NY is located in Westchester County approximately thirty miles north of New York City . Brian Fanelli had been with the Mount Pleasant Police Department (MPPD), 39-person department, since 1981 and their Chief of Police since October 2013, one month before he became a target of Operation Caireen . The suburban community and his family and friends reacted in utter disbelief when the new chief, who taught sex abuse awareness classes to children, was arrested and charged with downloading child pornography on January 23, 2014. Chief Fanelli told the investigators that he began viewing child pornography a year before his arrest as part of the research for his sex awareness classes and then started downloading it for his personal interest (Remizowski and Brown, January 24, 2014).
One hundred and twenty pornographic files were found on two computers in Fanelli’s home. The files contained photos and videos of girls, some as young as seven years old. The children were engaged in sex acts with adults and other children. He shared those files with others, including undercover federal agents. While he was engaging in this behavior, Chief Fanelli was a volunteer catechism teacher at a Catholic school and spoke to hundreds of children at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish School about the dangers of sexual abuse. He was immediately prohibited from the school after his arrest.
The disgraced former police chief pled guilty to one count of possession of child pornography . The charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, but Fanelli was sentenced to 18 months in prison. His sentence also included five years of supervised release.
NYPD Officer—Yong Wu—Child Pornographer—Operation Caireen
Investigators discovered that NYPD Officer Yong Wu had downloaded at least sixty files of “investigative interest.” The first video clip examined was five minutes long and showed an underage girl performing a sex act on herself. A short time later, Yong Wu allegedly downloaded another clip of a 13-year-old girl having sex with an adult man. When his home was raided, law enforcement agents found five more video clips on his desktop showing girls as young as 8-year-old having sex with adult men. The NYPD officer was arrested for seven counts of promoting a sexual performance of a child and possession of a sexual performance by a child and is awaiting trial.
Waltham, Massachusetts Police Officer Paul Charles Manganelli—Child Pornographer—Project Safe Childhood
In 2013, the Queensland, Australia police arrested a man for distributing child pornography and identified email accounts of suspected child pornographers around the world. One hundred and eleven of those accounts were based in the United States. One of those identified was a 20-year veteran of the Waltham, Massachusetts Police Department, Paul Manganelli , known as the “millionaire cop” for winning a 1 million dollar lottery in 2011.
US federal authorities discovered Manganelli used his Yahoo email address to send and receive child pornography from his home to individuals outside of Massachusetts (DOJ, March 26, 2013). Those individuals included suspected pornographers in Australia and Britain. The search of his computers revealed he traded child pornography via email from December 2011 through March 2013 and had more than 850 images and 40 videos containing child pornography . He claimed he was researching to identify online sex predators. His department countered by pointing out he had never been assigned to conduct such investigations, and he had never reported a child pornographer. He later admitted that he lied.
In May of 2014, Manganelli entered into a plea agreement with the federal authorities. He pleaded guilty to one charge of possession of child pornography and the government dropped the charge of receipt of child pornography . He was sentenced to five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. He will register as a sex offender when he is released from prison.
McHenry County, Illinois Sheriff’s Department—Sgt. Gregory M. Pyle—Child Molester (Incest) and Child Pornographer
While Pyle lived a seemingly law-abiding life as a police officer, he was a horrible person who did despicable things. (US District Judge Frederick Kapala quoted in Marrazzo, September 17, 2014)
The words of Judge Kapala came during the sentencing of former McHenry County, Illinois Deputy Sheriff for the repeated sexual abuse of a child related to him from 2006 to 2010—incest. The alleged sexual abuse began when the victim was 8 years old and was videotaped and shared with other child molesters online. The effects on the young victim were devastating. His mother testified her son is angry and depressed and has been hospitalized twice for suicide thoughts.
Pyle’s secret life came to an end when federal investigators searched a home in downstate Illinois as part of a child pornography sharing investigation. The subject at the residence told them he traded child pornography with a person using names Scouts_Out_888 and Trucid012. The investigators traced the usernames to Pyle, a ten-year veteran of the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department. Pyle was a law enforcement officer with specialized training in computer forensics and had once been the sheriff’s department’s lead investigator for child pornography as a member of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Once, they identified Pyle the investigators soon identified his young victim.
The boy told investigators Pyle had repeatedly sexually abused him from the time he was eight until he was 10. The abuse allegedly took place at Pyle’s home and on trips to a hotel in Wisconsin. One or more of the sexual assaults in Wisconsin were filmed and shared online. Pyle pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual abuse of a child, crossing a state line to engage in a sexual act with a child under the age of 12, and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Richmond City, Virginia Sheriff’s Office Deputy Robert A. Thompson—Child Pornographer
A Richmond, Virginia police officer assigned to the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force was conducting an undercover investigation of peer-to-peer networks exchanging child pornography when he identified Deputy Thompson, a ten-year veteran deputy sheriff as a possible suspect. Thompson was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography and possession with intent to distribute. He was fired after an investigation by the sheriff’s office and prosecuted by the Virginia Attorney General’s Office. Thompson pleaded guilty to eight counts of child pornography possession and was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison (Times-Dispatch Staff, September 22, 2011).
Combined State/Federal Prosecutions
US Drug Enforcement Administration—Administrative Agent—Scott Whitcomb—Child Molester and Child Pornographer
Scott Whitcomb was a DEA administrative agent, not involved in criminal investigations, from 2007 to his arrest on December 22, 2010. During his law enforcement career, Agent Whitcomb had been a US Air Marshal and a prison guard. During his service as a DEA Agent, Whitcomb allegedly coerced three young boys into sexually explicit acts and recorded them. His secret was first discovered by an officer from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD ) conducting an online investigation into P2P—peer-to-peer —file sharing of child pornography (FBI , December 23, 2010). The MPD officer identified suspicious activity connected to a particular IP address and downloaded an explicit video depicting child pornography and viewed two other child pornography videos.
The MPD officer shared his information with the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO ), and they conducted a state search warrant at Whitcomb’s residence. The SCSO officers seized a desktop and laptop computer and performed a forensic examination of the seized computers. The investigators positively identified a 15-year-old boy involved in the pornographic videos. Whitcomb was arrested and charged with four state charges.
After Whitcomb’s arrest, investigators learned the 15-year-old boy had a younger 12-year-old brother. The investigation revealed Whitcomb had allegedly “groomed” both boys and engaged in numerous sexual acts with them over the past three years. The process of “grooming ” common among child molesters involved eroding their defenses and revulsion by repeatedly showing them pornographic videos and magazines and giving them Xbox games to play (Walsh, July 28, 2011). Whitcomb “groomed” the parents also by convincing them his association with their children was safe because his long law enforcement career demonstrated he was “someone who could be trusted.”
The identification of multiple victims led to FBI agents contacting the county authorities to ask for federal complaints against Whitcomb. On December 22, 2010, federal charges were placed against Whitcomb. He was arrested and appeared in US District Court on December 23, 2010, charged with possession and distribution of child pornography and ordered held for trial without bond. In July 2011, Whitcomb pleaded guilty and admitted he made pornographic videos of three boys between 2007 and 2010 and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Louisiana State Trooper Jay Sandifer—Child Molester and Child Pornographer
Another case where state charges led to federal prosecution is the bizarre case of Trooper Jay Sandifer (Anonymous, March 11, 2012). Sandifer, a 15-year veteran, was indicted in May 2010 on three state charges of indecent behavior with a juvenile. According to newspaper accounts, the investigation that led to his arrest began when a hospital called and reported a child a doctor examined and observed the possible signs of sexual conduct attributed to a state trooper. Then a woman in LaSalle Parish complained that Trooper Jay Sandifer had engaged in inappropriate behavior with her five-year-old girl during an overnight stay. He allegedly took a bath with the girl and slept nude with her. The investigation uncovered evidence Sandifer engaged in sexual contact from 1998 to his arrest in 2010 with three girls ages 5–13. He also had an alleged sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female. This juvenile babysat for Sandifer and had sexual intercourse with him up to five times.
Following his indictment on the state charges, an examination of Sandifer’s work and personal computers found 90 images of child pornography . The photos showed the genitalia of girls’ ages 10–12 with some engaged in sexual contact with adult males. Sandifer allegedly found the child porn Web sites with Internet searches.
State authorities anticipating a lengthy federal prison sentence and sparing the young victims having to appear in court agreed to allow federal authorities to take over the case and try Sandifer in federal court on the child pornography counts. Sandifer pleaded guilty to one count of receipt of child pornography and received a sentence of nine years in prison.
Pennsville Township, New Jersey Officer Robert Waterman—Child Molester and Pornographer
Pennsville Township, New Jersey, is a small community with a police department of 22 sworn members. In March 2010, Officer Robert Waterman , a four-year veteran, was suspended from the force for possessing child pornography . Waterman at the time of his suspension was the Pennsville Middle School District’s School Resource Officer (SRO ) and taught the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) to middle and elementary schools. These duties involved contact with minor and young children and made his child pornography allegations more serious and disturbing.
The FBI notified Waterman he was being investigated for an allegation of child pornography . Waterman admitted in court that following the FBI interview, he went home and retrieved a hard drive from his garage and drove to the police station and broke the hard drive into small pieces and threw them away (FBI , September 6, 2013). He pleaded guilty to obstructing a child pornography investigation and was sentenced to 15 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Police Child Pornography in the UK
2002 Operation Ore—UK “Pay for View Child Pornography.”
In 2002, the FBI conducted a worldwide operation against “pay-per-view” child pornography sites worldwide. The global operation identified 7000 users in Britain. The British effort against those 7000 users was known as Operation Ore and resulted in the arrest of 1300 suspected pedophiles. Fifty of those arrested were police officers (Burrell, December 12, 2002). The Chief Constable at the National Crime Squad was quoted in the newspaper that they were not hiding that police officers were involved. He added that eight of the police officers had been charged, and the rest were given bail pending further investigation.
2017–2018 Incidents Reported on Police Oracle
A 14-year Sussex Police Constable was dismissed for sharing pornographic images with fellow officers while on duty (Hickey, February 20, 2017). He even shared them with his female supervisor—sexual harassment . A Metropolitan Police officer assigned to the Kingston borough pleaded guilty to downloading 65,000 indecent images of children. The child pornography was found in search of his home. He was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment that was suspended for two years (Weinfass, March 28, 2017). A Met officer who was based in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection admitted to possessing 1700 pornographic images, including graphic images of children (Hutber, November 20, 2017). Police officers from the Online Child Exploitation Team arrested a West Midlands police officer for making indecent images of children as young as two (Press Association, December 15, 2017). A Police Constable with the Roads and Transport Police was arrested for making inappropriate online messages with a 15-year-old girl. A search of his residence after the arrest found five images of child pornography on his computer (Hutber, January 12, 2018). A Met officer was arrested on suspicion of making, uploading, and distributing pornographic images of children. He was convicted of making pornographic photographs of children (Garrod, February 27, 2018). A West Midlands police officer pleaded guilty to making five pornographic images of a child and two counts of distributing pornographic photos of a child (Hudson, August 16, 2018).
Conclusion
This pattern of LEO sexual misconduct —the viewing, possessing, distribution, and production of child pornography —like the pattern of child sexual molesters can occur on or off duty. Child sexual molesters are violent criminals and would fit in the earlier definitions of Police Sexual Violence (PSV) ; however, only the production of child pornography requires victim contact. However, they like all the patterns in our taxonomy fit into the PSM Causal Equation—Inclination + Opportunity + Real of Perceived Risk = Police Sexual Misconduct. We see in the Illustrative Examples presented the anonymity of the Internet and other social media outlets are often not as secure as some would believe. The last example from the United States of a School Resource Officer —SRO-brings us to the last pattern in the PSM Taxonomy.