October 2010 Archives

Justice Paul Wooten of State Supreme Court in Manhattan presumably doesn't have children. He also apparently doesn't have any common sense because he recently ruled that:

Infants under the age of 4 are conclusively presumed incapable of negligence, Juliet Breitman, however, was over the age of 4 at the time of the subject incident. For infants above the age of 4, there is no bright-line rule.

Juliet was 4 years 9 months old when her tricycle when she struck an 87-year-old woman who was walking in front of the building.

Judge Wooten added that any “reasonably prudent child,” who presumably has been told to look both ways before crossing a street, should know that dashing out without looking is dangerous, with or without a parent there. The crucial factor is whether the parent encourages the risky behavior; if so, the child should not be held accountable."

In this case, however, there was nothing to indicate that Juliet’s mother “had any active role in the alleged incident, only that the mother was ‘supervising,’ a term that is too vague to hold meaning here,” he wrote. He concluded that there was no evidence of Juliet’s “lack of intelligence or maturity” or anything to “indicate that another child of similar age and capacity under the circumstances could not have reasonably appreciated the danger of riding a bicycle into an elderly woman.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. truly summed up this court's decision when he said "this is a court of law, young [child], not a court of justice."

An ongoing FoxNews.com investigation has revealed that Facebook is failing to prevent child predators from posting suggestive and potentially illegal photographs of children on its website.

The world's largest social network employs content filters that automatically scan for basic keywords commonly associated with child exploitive material. Those filters, if they are properly employed, should flag much of the offensive material found on the site, cybersecurity experts say.

But in a lengthy telephone interview on Oct. 6, FoxNews.com took two Facebook executives on a click-by-click tour of their own website, bringing them face-to-face with some of its vile contents and forcing them to admit that their efforts to block child predators were not working.

During a 90-minute phone interview with Facebook spokesman Simon Axten and the company's chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, the two executives were guided by FoxNews.com through the site’s seamy subculture - an encounter that left Sullivan sounding dumbfounded, unaware of and unable to explain the extremely graphic content on the site.

FoxNews.com found an entire underworld of widely recognized terms, code words and abbreviations on Facebook -- hundreds of pages with "pre-teen hardcore" and “Incest” in their titles, and many others that are unprintable. Both terms were found on Facebook's public, private, group and profile pages. Many of those pages purported to host video links to child pornography, and many had been active for months.

But the mass of pedophile content on the site would have been rooted out if Facebook were doing its job properly, said Hemanshu Nigam, co-chairman of President Obama's Online Safety Technology Working Group.

“The fact that Facebook missed the most basic terms in the terminology of child predators suggests that they’ve taken a checkbox approach instead of implementing real solutions to help real problems facing children online,” Nigam said.

“To not be focusing in on a word like 'pre-teen hardcore' or 'Incest' means you’re not stopping the problem proactively.”

Read the entire FoxNews.com exclusive report here.

Facebook has begun to remove pages that refer to the North American Man/Boy Love Association following a FoxNews.com exclusive report that revealed the nefarious pedophile advocacy group's presence on the popular social networking site.

Group pages that have been scrubbed from Facebook include:

• The Greensburg group of the North American Man Boy Love Association, whose page featured a photo of a young child;
  
  
• “N.A.M.B.L.A. (East Lansing Chapter), which had a photo of a child who appeared to be about 5 years old.
  
  
• “NAMBLA” in the “Organizations-Advocacy Organizations” category, which featured a photo of a man being kissed on the cheek by a small child. Its description read: “We are the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Our sole purpose is to push forward the concept that a consenting man (18+) and a consenting minor (-18) can have a sexual and loving relationship legally. Feel free to send your questions comments or constructive criticism to [redacted e-mail address]. Thank you for your time and support and remember keep fighting the good fight!”
  
  
• “N.A.M.B.L.A.,” which said it “advocates the legalization of sexual relations between adult male and under-aged boys" and that it has resolved to "end the oppression of men and boys who have freely chosen mutually consenting relationships," in spite of what it acknowledges is "the fact that such relationships are seen as child abuse where the minor is unable to give consent.”

Read more about this exclusive story at FoxNews.com!

Child Protective Services investigated more than three million cases of suspected child abuse in 2007, but a new study suggests that the investigations did little or nothing to improve the lives of those children.

Household investigations for suspected child maltreatment by Child Protective Services may not be associated with improvements in common, modifiable risk factors including social support, family functioning, poverty and others, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Researchers evaluated a total of 595 children between the ages of 4 and 8 to determine if a CPS investigation for suspected child maltreatment is associated with subsequent improvements in household, caregiver and child risk factors. The authors used data from interviews conducted with the children's maternal caregiver first when the child was 4 years old and again at age 8.

Of the 595 children included in the study, 164 (27.6% ) had a CPS investigation occur between the first and second interviews. Those in the investigated group experienced an average of 2.2 CPS investigations (with a range between one and nine investigations) during the time of the study. The investigation occurred an average of 18.7 months prior to the interview conducted at 8 years. Additionally, the investigations "resulted in at least one substantiated finding of child maltreatment between the interviews at ages 4 and 8 years in 74 investigated subjects (45.1%)."

The authors also found that during the interview at age 4, households of children in the investigated group had lower family function and more poverty than households of non-investigated children. Maternal caregivers of investigated children were older, had less education and had more depressive symptoms than caregivers of children in the comparison group. Investigated children also were more likely to be white and to have had previous CPS investigation. Analysis of interviews conducted at age 8 found that a CPS investigation was associated with higher levels of poverty, maternal depressive symptoms and child behavior problems.

The findings "identified no significant difference in social support, family function, poverty, maternal education and child behavior problems associated with CPS investigation. Maternal depressive symptoms were worse in households with a CPS investigation compared with those without an investigation." Based on these findings, the authors conclude that this study "provides an important perspective on the association between a CPS investigation for suspected child maltreatment and subsequent household, caregiver and child risk. Our finding that CPS investigation is not associated with improvements in common, modifiable risk factors suggests that we may be missing an opportunity for secondary prevention."

The researchers were in some ways unsurprised by their findings. Even when services are offered, they usually take aim at immediate risks — substance abuse, for example, or domestic violence — not abiding problems like poverty or poor social support. Whatever interventions were offered apparently failed to reduce the risk for future child abuse.

In an editorial entitled Child Protective Services Has Outlived Its Usefulness, Dr. Abraham B. Bergman of the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center, Seattle, writes: "The concept of Child Protective Services (CPS) was idealistic when it first came into being in the early 1970s. Initially the task of identifying non-accidental trauma was relatively straightforward because it was the classic 'battered child' that was among most frequent diagnoses."

"Much has changed in the child welfare field over the past 40 years, notably the types of child maltreatment seen and the explosive growth of the foster care system," Dr. Bergman continues. "How has CPS responded to these changed responsibilities? Not well, according to this study by Campbell and colleagues in this issue of the Archives."

"This gloomy prognosis notwithstanding, the changed picture of child maltreatment in the United States demands, at the very least, that we begin a wide-ranging discussion and testing of alternative responses."

After his toilet seat cover and pet rock ventures failed, Long Island attorney Kevin Cohen turned to another get rich quick business - adoptions. Cohen is accused of stealing $323,750 from 12 families and trying to take money from another family through a scheme involving non-existent birth mothers, forged documents and the impersonation of a bank employee and a personal reference.

While Cohen was passionate about adoption, as an adoptee himself, "his true passion was money," said Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Andrew Garbarino who filed a 69 count indictment against the jailed former attorney.

Garbarino described the process by which he said Cohen strung along couples desperate to adopt a child.

"Every piece of information he offered to clients was a piece of bait," the prosecutor said.

Cohen would always find clients through referrals from friends or relatives, which, Garbarino said, gave him instant credibility. He told clients he only wanted "a modest fee" because he was planning to get out of adoption law, but he said he was putting money for birth mothers' health expenses in escrow accounts, according to Garbarino.

He forged test results and sonograms to lead clients along, working at the Roslyn Public Library to avoid having evidence on his computer hard drive, Garbarino said.

When Cohen passed along test results, the names of the non-existent birth mothers were redacted ostensibly because of privacy laws. As the supposed due date approached, Cohen would say the date had been pushed back and, finally, that the mother had backed out, the prosecutor said.

He would play on clients' emotions, for instance, telling a gay couple that the birth mother wanted gay parents for her child, the prosecutor said. Garbarino added that Cohen even resorted to impersonation, once posing as a bank employee and once as a reference for himself.

Sounds like Jeannene Smith and Families Thru International Adoption has some competition. Unlike Smith and her cohorts, Cohen is facing 15 years in prison.

A Kentucky audit discovered at least 12 instances of children living or being cared for in state-regulated homes where sex offenders lived. The report, released last week by the Kentucky state auditor, compared the addresses of registered sex offenders with those of foster homes; the residences of other children under state care; and homes that provide state-subsidized day care for low-income families.

The addresses of registered sex offenders were compared through an electronic data match to the addresses of homes and facilities that provide care and out-of-home placements for children, resulting in matches for 30 different homes. Follow-up reviews of the matched addresses confirmed that sex offenders resided in 12 of the 30 homes. For the remaining 18 matches, the review indicated that either the sex offender did not live at the address or that the residency status of the offender could not be determined.

The findings break down as follows:

Twelve registered sex offenders were confirmed to be living in state regulated homes that provide care and placement services for children. Of these, registered sex offenders were found living in seven relative caregiver homes within the Kinship Care Program; registered sex offenders were confirmed to be living in two foster homes; and registered sex offenders were confirmed to be living in three registered child care homes.

These findings are nothing new. In 1977, the Chicago Tribune published a groundbreaking series of articles on child exploitation which led to the first legal regulation of child pornography later that year. Among the Tribune's findings over 30 years ago were the following:

In New Orleans, a group of adult perverts established a Boy Scout troop in 1974 for the purpose of using boys ranging from 11 to 15 years old for homosexual purposes. Nineteen men were charged with multiple counts of crimes against nature. Among them were two Boston area millionaires and a California millionaire alleged to have flown to New Orleans to have sex with the boys. Police Investigation of the case extended into 34 states.

An Episcopal priest in Tennessee, the Rev. Claudius I. [Bud] Vermilye Jr., was charged with taking in runaway and neglected children at his Boys Farm and encouraging them to engage In homosexual orgies which he secretly filmed. He was also charged with allowing adult "sponsors" to sexually abuse the boys.

Pornographers in at least five states-Michigan, New Jersey, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Florida-used or attempted to use federal, state and county funds to establish foster homes and child care camps for their operations, and some used foster children in pornographic movies. In at least one instance, pornographers obtained a federal income tax exemption for a "church" later identified as a front for their operations.

It should come as no surprise that what was happening 30 years ago is happening many times over today given cheap and ubiquitous technology and the ability of like-minded individuals to surreptitiously conspire on places like Facebook and MySpace.

Five years ago, when we began investigating Masha Allen's adoption by a 45 year old single man, the international adoption industry berated us with a chorus of improbabilities; the made to order adoption of a blond hair blue eyed orphan by a child molester was not only unprecedented, but far beyond their standard of care to even conceptualize. It was not only an anomaly, it was inconceivable.

An even cursory review of Neil's excellent Pound Pup Legacy website reveals dozens if not hundreds of similar cases in both international and domestic adoption and child welfare.

As we reported here over two years ago, "consider that fact that renowned naturist leader Toni Egbert was the sister of ROTIA's executive director when Mancuso adopted, the prevalence of Russian and Ukrainian children in naturist videos (click at your own risk), and the accepted practice of supplying nude pre-adoption videos of East European children, and the question becomes why WOULDN'T pedophiles adopt?"

The fact, which was apparently forgotten by Kentucky's child welfare agency (whose initial response to the audit was deficient), is that for decades pedophiles and their enablers have, are and will attempt and succeed in adopting children and exploiting the innocent (sometimes at taxpayer expense and subsidy). No imagination is required to envision that reality. Agencies, lawmakers and judges need to keep this in mind when developing public policy and holding wrongdoers accountable.

According to FOXNews.com

The world’s largest pro-pedophilia advocacy group uses Facebook to connect with its members throughout the world; to find and exchange photos of children; to hone its members' predatory behavior; and to identify, target and reel in child victims.

Facebook says it has a strict policy against the posting of content that supports groups engaged in child exploitation, yet a simple, five-second search on Facebook, conducted on Sept. 23, yielded dozens of pages devoted to the infamous North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Many of those pages featured numerous photos of unnamed boys, some of whom appeared to be too young for kindergarten.

The same day, FoxNews.com found hundreds of links to NAMBLA’s website on Facebook, which has more than half a billion users worldwide. And posts on known pedophile blogs and chat rooms show an organized effort by pedophiles to use the social networking site to prey on children.

James Marsh, an attorney who represents victims of child sexual exploitation, says Facebook must do more than just what is required by law.

“Facebook has a moral and public duty to monitor and stop this activity on their site. Hiding behind legal technicalities is not enough to be a good corporate citizen in the digital age,” Marsh said. “Facebook needs to put children ahead of profits and do what Congress and the American people expect -- protect our kids from criminals like NAMBLA.”

For more on this breaking story visit FOXNews.com