Virginia State Police Arrest Fugitive:
William Joe Mitchell, who I posted about here, has been arrested by Virginia State Police. 46-year-old Mitchell is accused of luring a 15-year-old Florida girl over MySpace to run away with him.
Mitchell was arrested Saturday morning at a Flying J Truck Stop in Winchester, Virginia.
It wasn’t that long ago that the Mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, chided craigslist for facilitating child prostitution. Of course, craigslist brushed it off. One of Ms. Frankin’s advisors even mentioned that Facebook and MySpace have been very forthcoming with the mayor’s office, even when not legally obligated to do so.
However, our favorite craigslist mouthpiece, Susan MacTavish Best, had this to say…
“Craigslist has an erotic services section on the site because our users asked us to create it in order to keep the personals section clear of erotic service ads. (Some folks when looking for a date do not want to have to look at ads for erotic services). Certainly, we … don’t want the site to be used for illegal activity. But we do believe that there should be a place for people to advertise legal escort services. We have over 30 million users a month. As we responded to the Mayor of Atlanta, we are always interested in hearing how we can make Craigslist better. Craigslist makes no money from erotic services because like most of the site, it is free to post there … “
Legal escort services? No such thing, my dear. They may pose as legal, but we all know what they’re fronts for. And again you say that you don’t want craigslist used for illegal activities, but you’re not doing anything to discourage it. So basically by moving the erotic services section out of the personals, you just swept it under the rug hoping nobody would notice.
What’s it going to take craigslist before you do something about this? Are you waiting for a toddler to get pimped out or worse?
Prosecutor jailed on child sex charges commits suicide:
You remember John David Roy Atchison, don’t you? In case you don’t, he was the federal prosecutor from Florida who went to Michigan to have sex with what he thought was a 5-year-old. It also turned out that Atchison had a diaper and urination fetish. Also, while he was in custody he tried to kill himself.
If you didn’t notice, I’m talking about him in the past tense. It seems that he was successful this time in ending his own life.
He hanged himself this morning at the federal prison in Milan, where he was taken after trying to commit suicide last month at Sanilac County Jail, authorities said.
Coward.
Thanks to Soobs for the link.
As hookers move from streets to Net, cops follow:
For those of you who think that prostitutes are safer on craigslist than they are on the streets, I present you this quote…
Some prostitutes believe they’re safer advertising on Web sites, but they’re not, said Julie, a former prostitute who asked that her last name not be used. When Julie began using the Internet for prostitution about two years ago, she tried to screen her customers, but responding to one led to her being raped and robbed, she said.
“People can tell you anything on the Internet and they do,” said Julie, who is 23 and became a prostitute at 17. “What better place to get a woman if you want to do something to her? I would meet these guys and no one else would see them. At least if I was on the street, other people would be around and see me get into a car or something.”
Not that craigslist cares. I think their mouthpiece has a macro button that just spits out the following…
“Craigslist is a user-moderated site, and our users flag off ads that they feel are inappropriate for the craigslist community,” Susan MacTavish Best said in a statement. “Users are really speedy about flagging off problematic ads, and we’ve found that to be the most efficient and fastest way to get such ads off the site.”
And again, I say that your normal craigslist users who use it as a citywide garage sale aren’t going into the erotic services section. And the people who are sure as hell aren’t going to flag any ads.
Dallas-Fort Worth area sex offenders using MySpace arrested:
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is bragging that 14 Texas sex offenders were caught violating parole by using MySpace. He says that part rather proudly.
Mr. Abbott called Web sites like MySpace a “lions’ den” for sexual predators who use them “literally looking for the person they can next victimize.”
I bet he said the next part really, really quiet.
Mr. Abbott said, however, that “there was no evidence” that the 14 people arrested last month had used MySpace to locate potential victims. Instead, all 14 were arrested after using the Internet, a violation of their parole.
While I’m happy, that 14 sex offenders are off the streets, Mr. Abbot falls into the same category as his contemporaries from Connecticut, North Carolina, and New York. Instead of demonizing sites like MySpace, how about doing something about the parents that allow their kids unfettered access to the internet. Oh, that’s right, because they’re the ones who vote. You wouldn’t want to piss them off, would you?
Details Surface In Child Porn Case Against Coach
Pictured at left is one James C. Hart. He’s a coach, a youth volunteer, and a champion powerlifter. Since I’m posting about him here, you know he’s not being profiled as a pillar of the community. He’s accused of making child porn. Apparently, he used MySpace to find some of his victims.
Hart allegedly used the website My Space.com to persuade girls as young as 14-years-old to take nude pictures of themselves and send them to him.
Using a screen name “J-C”, with a profile that said he was 18-years-old, investigators said Hart went so far as to tell the teens to write those initials on their bodies before taking the pictures.
The affidavit shows that the allegations against Hart stemmed from a mother’s discovery. The paperwork shows that she found sexually explicit images of her 16-year-old daughter on the home computer.
Hart was allegedly coercing the 16-year-old using MySpace.com to have her send more images. In a chat, the affidavit shows, Hart messaged the girl, saying, “Maybe I will just print the pics (another girl) sent me and pass them around town with your name on them.” The girl responded: “I don’t like it when people are so controllive.” Hart responded: “Look, I am not asking. I am telling you, send the pics now,” the affidavit shows. Sgt. Scott Christensen could not talk about Hart’s case, but said that in other Internet sex cases he investigates, it is common for predators to coerce children into sending more photographs.
It seems he had the prerequisite hidden camera too.
Police said that Hart would have the girls over to his duplex, where he would coach them and have them change their clothes in a dressing room where he hid the camera. “Parents need to be aware,” said Christensen. “They need to be involved. Unfortunately, our coaches aren’t some place like you drop your kids off for baby-sitting.”
There were three different girls videotaped in Hart’s basement, police said, and all three have been identified and notified.
Since he was using a bogus MySpace account, I could not locate it but…
Hart’s MySpace.com profile listed himself as an 18-year-old male. He had over 1,000 friends.
That’s one sick dude right there.
And from that picture, doesn’t he look like he should be looking for his red Swingline stapler?
Feds hit MySpace pimp suspect with child sex trafficking charge:
I’ve posted about Malvin Parker Jr. before. He’s the guy from California who was arrested for allegedly pimping out an underage girl he groomed on MySpace. Well, he just found himself in a whole new world of trouble. He’s now looking at 10 to life on federal charges of sex-trafficking children.
The federal government has an interest in the case because Parker allegedly enticed the victim, a 16-year-old runaway from Washington state, across state lines through MySpace, a social networking site. Federal law prohibits using “force, fraud or coercion” to get a minor across state or national boundaries to engage in a “commercial sex act.”
As the kids say these days…Oh snap!!!
Missing teen home after fleeing with sex offender she met on MySpace:
A 15-year-old Florida girl who was reported missing and given an Amber Alert this week is now safe at home. The girl ran off with 46-year-old William Joe Mitchell, whom she met on MySpace. The girl had thought that Mitchell was a lot younger than he was.
It turned out Mitchell is 46 and has been arrested 14 times on many charges, many of them violent, ranging from robbery to lewd and lascivious behavior, Judd said.
“This is what pedophiles and predators do best,” Judd said during a televised press conference. They use their charisma and charm to groom and lure children, he said.
“We are thankful he didn’t kill her,” Judd said of the man he refers to as “Billy Mitch.” “We are grateful to he took her to a populated area,” he said referring to the Wal-Mart.
Mitchell is still on the loose. I could not find a definitive MySpace for Mitchell.
Parents, do you need another one of these stories to get you to check up on your kids’ online habits?
Crackdown on S.J. prostitution turns to the Web:
This article from a Northern California newspaper has some pretty sobering statistics about craigslist prostitution.
Determining just how many prostitutes are operating on the Web is tricky. The erotic services section of Craigslist’s Stockton-area section has had nearly 5,115 posts since Aug. 13, many of them duplicates. Some have been posted by those who offer services for free.
For reference, there were 998 posts for furniture for sale by owner in that period.
The trend locally mirrors what’s happening in the nation’s largest cities. Craigslist erotic services postings totaled 97,243 in New York, 27,174 for Los Angeles and 7,435 for Chicago in a similar timeframe.
craigslist’s resident mouthpiece had the usual to say.
Craigslist relies on its users to report posts that are deemed inappropriate, wrote Susan MacTavish Best, a spokeswoman for the Web site, in an e-mail response to questions.
The Web site’s staff is not legally obligated to monitor the millions of posts it receives each month, but it does remove prohibited content – anything unlawful or pornographic, according to MacTavish Best.
Police occasionally come knocking about posts.
“We are contacted by law enforcement from time to time,” MacTavish Best wrote, “and Craigslist cooperates fully with the police and other authorities.”
Yet, they keep their erotic services section up and running and continue to facilitate in all forms of prostitution and possibly human trafficking.
Suspect in disappearance arrested:
Convicted sex offender and the last man seen with Donna Jou alive, John Steven Burgess, has been arrested yet again. For those of you who don’t know, Donna Jou met Burgess on craigslist and went on a date with him and that was the last time she was seen. He was last arrested for failing to report as a sex offender.
Now he’s been arrested for using a fake ID to steal DVDs from a Jacksonville, Florida Blockbuster.
Since Donna Jou has not been found, authorities are still unable to file charges against Burgess for Jou’s disappearance.